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This is Polly Moore. Today is September 1919 69. This is interview number um 61 Mr Richard Lytle Archivist for Modern Library, the administrator for the oral history project. We're on take 26 side two. The meter reading is now 328 time is um 350. Well, do just

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to make sure this will be. All right. Could I get you to repeat your uh name and address and your normal conversation to, hey Richard Lebel 1903, Portsmouth Houston. All right, Dick. Uh just to reiterate for the record. Uh Some of the things uh I was

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mentioning before we began the recording. Uh We're interested in your attitudes and uh outlooks prep this whole episode. And maybe we can get at that by uh having you uh recall your interpretation uh of uh the importance to rise of Kenneth pitcher's resignation. Well, I think

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I ought to preface this just very briefly by saying that I graduated from Rice in 1959 and left and came back in August of 1968 to be archivist. And so that was August and this thing occurred in, in February uh in some ways. Well, I had

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very little contact with the university between the time I left and the time I came back so that I was just beginning to pick up again on, in real really close interests uh with what was going on in the university so that I didn't have that

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good an idea of what Pitzer had been really personally to look at. Uh But when I graduated, I think my attitude toward rice when I was an undergraduate is kind of important in my evaluation of the rest of this. Uh I didn't like rice. I thought

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it was a miserable place to go to school. And I thought I always felt that I guess I, I articulated it better now than I did then. I, I it seemed like to me it was a very narrow place in the sense that it was isolated.

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It was looking at it now. It seemed more like a, a prep school in the 19 twenties than the university in a lot of aspects. And it looked like to me that Pitzer had done a tremendous amount. Just this was just atmosphere bringing in new people,

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cracking the ice, get there. Some of the old guard was still around. A lot of them were breaking the ice uh and getting rice to move. And so, although I didn't have a detailed notion or idea of what Pitzer had done, I still felt like it's

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one of the reasons I came back. I wouldn't have come back to the old. Right. It's one of the reasons I came back I had hopes that the place had really changed. Uh And it has, it has a lot of new people, a lot of new

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blood. It isn't like it used to be. When you say a sense of isolation. Do you mean a sense of isolation from the national scene or from the local scene or from uh the intellectual scene or uh uh really, it's the sense that rice, well, if

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there was virtual isolation until the recent money squeeze rice didn't have to go to the community for anything, it was self supporting, then come off the endowment. So you always had the feeling that that rice and people at rice didn't give a damn about uh the

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rest of the world or the state of Texas or anything else. Total isolation. I guess I would uh well, for instance, I came back and they had a rice television show which had been going on for several years. But it was almost inconceivable to me that

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rice would bother to interpret itself to community. That never would have happened when I was here. But that's an example of what I mean by isolated. Do you think you got a good education, undergraduate education at R or, or how would you characterize that? I think

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that uh it was technically a good education in the sense that I was required to meet standards, which probably would, wouldn't have been required. I mean, and certainly in any other institution in Texas and probably in a few in the country, uh, it took me several

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years of work in graduate work afterwards to where I, to get to the point where I enjoyed learning that I didn't get it all right. It felt like it's sort of a condemnation right there. Yeah. Oh, it's a very serious condemnation. I have a very low

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opinion of my experience. Four years at rise, what were some of the things in the learning environment at rise that you objected to? I guess number one was I, of course, part of this might be my fault, but I was, it was very difficult for me

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to get in contact with the faculty. It has changed a good deal in that respect, I think. But uh for it was advertised as a small school with a good faculty student ratio when you got here. Uh And you, you just as well have been at

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the University of Texas in a crowd of 300 people. And in fact, you often work around 300 people in introductory courses. Uh professors who cut one of them, particularly in advanced history course, cut 40% of the class, never sick a day in the library. That same

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day nobody cared whether he came to class or not, never made his office hours. That was one of my major two major professors in history and it was tolerated. It was, you know, just not as tolerated. He was the worst, but there were others, uh, and

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so on. I just felt like, well, the library was here and, and, and standards were required to get in and standards, there were standards required to stay in. Had I been gone somewhere else? I might have gotten away with a good deal, more intellectual laziness than

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I did here. But when I came out, I really, well, as I say, a couple of years after a couple of years of graduate work, I began to get the point to the point where I could enjoy pursuing something intellectually. It never even occurred to me

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at rice that this was the object of education, never never occur to me. Part of it's a result of their orientation to technical work, I think engineering and so on. I think I also want to bring up in the, in this context of, of my experience

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at price of what knowledge I had of Doctor Masterson when I was a student here. Personally, I had relatively little knowledge of him. When I was a student. I knew graduate students that taught under him. I never took a course from him. Uh but he knew

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me to say hello and he was always very friendly. I had a personally a fairly good impression of him as far as within the structure of what you expected of a professor at Rice. At least I didn't expect a professor to do very much of anything

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for me or be very concerned with me. So, within this limitation, I thought Bill Masterson pretty well. Uh Some of these graduate students didn't like him much that he was much too rigorous in, in the classroom, much too dogmatic. Uh Didn't there were never, there were

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never anything, there was never anything like a discussion section in those days. But, but if you attempted to feed back ideas or about feedback, but, uh, have any considerable degree of questioning and so on, he didn't like it straight answers on exams. Well, that's what his

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graduate students told me. I didn't have any experience with it myself. My experience with, with doctor Masterson occurred after I graduated from 19, between 1960 63. He employed me twice as a graduate student and I worked quite a few hours with him w, um, editing his

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book on William Blunt. Might even spell that for the transcriber blo un T. Mhm. I found him a very agreeable, pleasant person to work for. He, he was, he required you to, to do a good deal of work. But on the other hand, it was, if

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you did what you were supposed to, he was a perfectly reasonable employee employer. I never had any problem. And he always, it surprised me at first that I came back to rice and anybody would care what my graduate school experience had been and he seemed to.

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So, so I, but at the same time, all sorts of people had opinions of him and with regard to, well, the God squad, which I guess has been defined in this project. Often enough, the, the, the Masterson informers, supposedly he would go around, he would have

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an inform. That was, those were all rumors that I heard when I was an undergraduate. So I heard a lot of bad things. I experienced nothing but pretty good things from me. What would be your, uh es story? And, uh, what would be your uh evaluation

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of, uh, of his book on William Blount? Well, the one I worked on was a document was a document. It looks perfectly good. Document, book of documents. It's, uh, doesn't that sort of, that sort of thing, doesn't give much opportunity for any kind of synthetic approach

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to history or anything like that. He was painstaking, careful, good sound. The second rate scholar, I guess if you want to put it that way in terms of achievement, I mean, what he did was perfectly good. But, yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, do you want me to

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go on with, with, with my little, I've got a little, I've got an outline which may destroy the spontaneity. I don't know. But otherwise I don't, I can't think of what I want to include. But so I, I, when I heard of Doctor Masterson's appointment, my

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first reaction was that I was disappointed that someone of greater stature hadn't been selected because it was my opinion that some that what the institution needed at this particular point was somebody to help number one, build up the faculty and scholars on the faculty. And number

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two to cross the people if necessary to do the go the rest of the way in eliminating the old rice. And this specifically means eliminating the influence of certain people on this campus. Um So is this gonna be closed for who are you like to see

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Jim Sims? Uh Alan Chapman uh name register? Yeah. OK. That's, that occurs to me maybe on inaccurate just to pick them off the top of my head. Those are the ones that occur to me right at the moment. Um Try also when I heard a Masterson's

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appointment, uh as I say, I had some misgivings that rice might be going back to the old Institute days and I was greatly disappointed in the way in which the board had done it. Uh I had thought as many other people had thought that they were

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conferring with the student and faculty committee on selection and for a while at various points in the controversy, I ascribe to the conspiracy theory that is that the board conspired with Bill Masterson to make this appointment behind everybody else's back so that they could go back

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to the old rice and so on. I'm not convinced of that anymore. Really? I don't really know. How did you first get the news of the uh uh who contacted you about the, uh the news of the appointment? Frank Vander told me about it uh, early

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in the day. In what way did he convey this information to you? Well, he was overjoyed and he obviously thought that I would be and I, well, all in all after I, I put aside these two disappointments, all in all, I didn't think it was gonna

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be a disaster for rice. And personally, I could look forward somewhat to, to Masterson's appointment and I wrote him a letter. Congratulations when he, when I heard about that, when did you discover that uh the committee had not been uh later in the much, later in

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the afternoon? Do you remember who you talked to? I don't reme I remember talking to Barry Kaplan about it, but I don't recall when it was some time in the, in the course of the thing. I was wondering if any of them brought around the petition

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to show you. No, no, I didn't see the petition. You didn't see it until. No, I didn't go to the meeting. You mean the, the faculty meeting? No, I'm not eligible to go to the faculty meeting. I'm not a faculty member. Right. Well, it isn't important

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to follow the events. I did. I did go to most of the things that, that occurred. That is the meeting of the students in the gymnasium and the March and so on and so forth. I was there. I would, I was in the March myself because

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I, at that point, uh, was very disappointed with the way in which the board had made the appointment at this. Uh, but however, at that point, I was not necessarily anti Masterson at all. I had misgivings because of all these things I'd heard. I'd begun to

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hear more things from people whom I, from whom I thought I had to take it seriously, things that he things that things that he'd done and things that were checkable and you could ask somebody else who was there when it happened and sure enough, they had

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the same story and so on. So I began, began to have some misgivings to think that some and some of the things that I'd heard when I was a student were probably true. But at the, at that point, I really wasn't anti Masterson. The turning point

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for me was Masterson's appear, appearance at Levitt Hall confrontations with his students. Well, we were, that was, he was over, we went over, we came up from the uh gymnasium and Masterson was in the Cohen House. Uh We waited outside a good deal, a good while

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passed for the time he was supposed to have finished the news conference. There was not any promise that he was going to appear. No people were talking, people were talking about, they were saying, and there were certain recognizable people who uh were anti Masterson already who

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had emerged most notably will Will Dowen Pops to my mind right away and in a different way, completely different way, John R. Uh well, he was, he was more anti uh procedure and will down was more outspokenly anti master. And so uh a uh Alan Grove

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of course too was very noticeably there. What kind of points was Dowen making, for instance, uh during this uh this sort of interim period before Masterson came out and addressed the students. His main point was that Bill Masterson would never back down on the appointment that

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was part and parcel of the Masterson personality that he was appointed by the board and by golly, he was going to be president. So what was ahead of the student? What was the implication he was trying to get across? Well, the implication he was trying to

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get across, it seemed to me was my, it was a more radical action was gonna be required probably on the part of the faculty. In other words, his target at this time was the board and not Masterson was to get the board to rescind rather than

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get Masterson to resign. I'm not certain, I think, well, I know, I think probably pressure on Masterson and the board, but his point was certainly not just Bill Masterson walking out and seeing a whole lot of people that wouldn't stop him. It would, I, I'm not

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really clear on whether he thought that it should be the board or Masterson that were pressured, but he was saying this sort of thing with the, you know, this certainly won't impress Phil Masterson and a lot of other people, some of the people were standing around

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John o'neill from fine arts, for instance, who apparently was very neutral saying, oh, no, the man certainly couldn't ignore all this. And then out came Bill Masterson and after some preparatory remarks, somebody asked him um how he interpreted the march and everything and he looked at

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all the people standing out there and he said, I see no sign of resistance to my appointment. What, how do you count for that statement? Well, I think it, I count for it but well, no, I should say what he could very well have said was

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I don't understand how to interpret. I don't know how to interpret this sign of resistance to my appointment. If he'd said that it would have been credible to me. He didn't know whether it was himself personally or whether it was against the way in which he

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was appointed. And there, of course, if you accept the conspiracy theory, then he was just, he, he conspired with the board to be appointed contrary to the opinion of people on the selection committee. In which case, it was insincere if you take the other point of

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view and the one I'm inclined to take was that he probably, uh, was dismayed, somewhat dismayed at the way the board had appointed him. And he was in general, in genuine confusion. At that point, it looked like to me, it was genuinely confused, but, uh, you

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know, even given that his reaction, uh, certainly reinforced in my mind, all the things that had been said and that I had suspected for some time about his authoritarian character and so on and so forth that the board has the legal power to appoint me. I

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have been appointed. Therefore, were you close enough to him at that meeting to, uh, to notice how he was taking this personally, uh to, you know, to observe his physical reaction since you'd known him before to work closely with? Yes, I thought, uh I thought he

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was upset about it very much upset about it. That wasn't the face or expression of a man who was pulling off a cold conspiracy or a planned day or something. He, uh, which he was going to shun resistance aside. Have you ever seen messers under stress

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before? No, not really. Have you ever seen, have you ever seen any man under attack by? Oh, sure. Yeah, it seemed, you know, similar to what you would expect of a person who he was genuinely shocked by some of the things that were said, uh, four

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letter words in particular eight. You, no, no looking at this, uh just one more question before we leave this, looking back on the situation. Do you think you had a right to expect, uh, that Masterson would be more cool in that, uh, situation? Have people that

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you've seen under men that you've seen under stress or under attack. Um, if they have what it takes, uh, should they be able to pull off something like this? Well, I don't know that that's really the question in my mind. II, I wouldn't, uh, uh, I

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don't hold his reaction as such in the situation against him. I think that it, that it revealed what he, his true character really. And that is that there's a lot to be said about the fact that Bill Masterson is essentially an authoritarian old school type person

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who, you know, if he could pull off being appointed president in the face of fantastic opposition and I don't see why anybody would want to know the circumstances, but then that isn't his point of view. Uh, he got flustered but I think he, he probably would

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have done essentially the same thing if he hadn't. Uh, he was the, the point is the, the, I think part of the, the point of making for me at any rate of making the point that he was not, uh, that he was flustered that he was

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concerned about it was that it, it tends to undermine the conspiracy idea that it was all Planned Day and that he knew what he was doing and communicated with the board and they were going ahead with it anyway and they knew this in advance and it

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was all planned out. That's the importance of the reaction to me doesn't necessarily prove it, but that's, it indicates an indicator. Um, I do, you know that he was off his poise. Yes. Yes. Very definitely. He was off his poise. But you know that it's so,

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at the same time, I don't, I, I don't think that what he said was uncharacteristic of him. It was uncharacteristic some in some of the ways that he reacted, but he probably would have done essentially the same thing. Had it been a, a clear case of,

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of, of not care, however, he simply wouldn't have appeared at all. Uh which for his case as it turned out would have been better if he had not appeared at all. Do you feel a lot of um a lot of opinions were changed? Uh especially among

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the students as a result of his? Oh, I think so. And I, I mentioned John o'neill when Masterson walked away and I, I assume, I don't know anything about John's uh involvement in this. If any, I had the impression from talking to him, he was neutral,

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didn't really know Masterson didn't know anything about it. He was, he was shocked that the man had not taken it seriously that he didn't have an, any kind of respect for what he saw going on around him. Did you hear anyone suggest at the time that,

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um, that all of the votes that have been taken? Uh, well, of course, that wouldn't be true of the second faculty vote. But, uh, the votes that had been taken could be interpreted as dis disenchantment with the procedure, but not necessarily with the selection. And that

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maybe when he got that statement he had in mind that, uh, he, he knew that they were upset about the board's action, but he didn't see any evidence of being upset about him. Well, that's what I intended to say a minute ago when I said, what

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I thought he could have said was that he was, he didn't know how to interpret the resistance, but he said, I, you know, see no significant sign of resistance to me that might have been what he meant. But after it was challenged a couple of times

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and he came back with dogmatic answers. Uh 11 was driven to the notion that he, that he was in fact flying in the face of the evidence, he saw it but said, you know what he, what, what the impression he gave was that, you know, I

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don't give a damn about this sign of resistance. The important thing about my appointment is that the board of directors has the legal authority to appoint me. And that's what he said. So it could be that to begin with. That's what he meant. He, it's very

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unfortunate if that's what he meant because he should have, if he made it clear, it would have been appeared more reasonable to a lot of people. But of course, Matheson wasn't a free agent at that time. He couldn't what they were demanding of him. He couldn't

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really do. I think a lot of people missed that point. They said, you know, resubmit yourself your name for consideration. let us discuss it, talk it over with a committee. In other words, uh, sort of a limbo type thing. Well, he wasn't privileged to do that

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either. Uh He either had to go ahead and be president of Rice or had to resign completely. And if he, and if he resigned completely, it was pretty, uh, pretty good guess that the board wouldn't have put his name up for reappointment again. I would think.

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So, what some people were asking to do really wasn't realistic. You know, let us hash over your uh requirements and so on your, your uh qualifications for the job and go through the selection process or that demand was made Lovett Hall and he really couldn't do

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it. There was no time to make a decision that no, it was no time to make a decision in that dimension, but he wasn't a free agent. A lot of people assumed that all he had to do was uh decide this. Well, he didn't, the board

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offered him the job they didn't offer him the job with the, yeah, person with the uh power for him to decide how he wanted to take it or just resubmit it to anybody. But there again, you see, there were a lot of people who believed that

00:23:36.319 - 00:23:55.849

it was a conspiracy. So from their point of view that their demand was just, you know, the board and Masterson were one on this matter and, and I don't really, I don't really believe that they anyway, I to, to round out a little bit more about

00:23:55.949 - 00:24:16.219

the rest of the, the episode. Uh, but on a day or so afterwards, after the college meetings and so on, I've come to the conclusion that Bill Masterson would, his appointment appointment would be bad for everyone concerned. And I voted against his appointment under any circumstances

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in the straw vote and wrote Mr Masterson personally, uh, telling that I thought they were very serious obstacles uh to his success as President of Rice. And the situation was very grave and that I personally disapproved very greatly of the way in which he'd been appointed.

00:24:32.030 - 00:24:49.500

Uh I didn't go into anything about no, his character and so forth. And I think that was called for and all in the letter, personal letter to him. I don't really know, but I do know that by that time, uh, I'm pretty darn certain, whatever the

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original merits of the case were that he was bad for rice if he to attempt to ram his appointment on through. So that's about the end of it unless as far as my reminiscences on it or recollections of it, unless you have some other, I do

00:25:05.709 - 00:25:18.459

have a few questions. First of all, did, uh, did he ever answer your letter? Uh, his wife, uh, wrote me and said that, uh, she appreciated it. She was writing for him since he had a lot of personal mail to answer. Uh, and that they had

00:25:18.469 - 00:25:36.739

received this kind of advice from other persons and that they appreciated my taking the time to write them. Looking back on it on the basis of what of the people you've talked to, uh, since what, what, uh, is your impression of, uh, of the real factor

00:25:36.750 - 00:25:55.569

that caused, uh, Masterson to resign? Well, I just have to totally guess at it. I don't have any way of knowing at all. This isn't based this, I think that the vote did it myself. But I don't really know, I don't even know that the vote

00:25:55.579 - 00:26:10.920

was presented to him at such a time and the, the decision was made, not the vote, the vote backed up by people that he respected on campus that told him that things were really bad and that it would be very, very sad indeed if he came

00:26:10.930 - 00:26:29.650

down and tried to take up his duties here, probably the people that he knew like Street Fulton going to Chattanooga to talk to him, that sort of thing backed up by a whole lot of much lesser acquaintances like myself. Um, he remembered and we were a

00:26:29.660 - 00:26:43.790

cordial relationship and so on. He incidentally he came by the archives once, not too long before he was appointed and went out of his way, began to come in and see how he was doing and so on and so forth. So, I mean, we had, you

00:26:43.800 - 00:26:59.109

know, very minor acquaintance but still a lot of people I think were giving him this kind of feedback on the situation here. I suspect that's what did it and the vote might have confirmed it in figures. I'm not, I'm not sure the vote was ever given

00:26:59.119 - 00:27:18.670

to him. At least I haven't run across any hard evidence that it was. But of course, the, the, um, there was an estimate in the chronicle, it was pretty close. So I'm sure he was aware of that, uh, after the, uh, press conference, uh, Saturday, Saturday

00:27:18.680 - 00:27:37.500

at noon. Were you engaged in any conversations, uh, or any meetings of any sort, uh, on this issue, either Saturday afternoon or evening? No, Saturday afternoon was the evening that, uh, he met with the students. It was no Sunday was the day after when the reports

00:27:37.510 - 00:27:55.640

came back to the colleges. That was my first. You hadn't been in touch with the situation. Noon Saturday until noon, Sunday, except to walk around the campus and just talk with people. I did some of that but from your pulse taking, walking around the campus, uh,

00:27:55.650 - 00:28:13.910

what, uh, did, did you sense any change of mood? Uh, I, oh, very definitely. And from anti procedure to anti master it was changing at that time because I, I tend to look at the Lovett Hall incident as being that, which changed it, but that was

00:28:13.920 - 00:28:29.310

more of what happened to me. It might not have, it seemed to me it was happening to other people, but I really don't know for certain also, um more and more tales about masters and astro atrocity stories we're going around by this time were these atrocity

00:28:29.319 - 00:28:48.260

stories pretty well documented with the facts, figures uh or were they really the kind of smear stuff you might expect in a, in an election campaign or any, any situation where emotional fervor is very high? Well, most of them bore the characteristic of, you know, the

00:28:48.270 - 00:29:04.729

person that told it was the person who had been injured, but there were enough of them and they weren't all told by somebody who heard so and so and such and such. It was this happened to me at such and such a time. What were some

00:29:04.739 - 00:29:22.380

of the things going around at that time? Well, uh on his uh basically to the to the effect that he was underhanded and devious as an administrator. A couple of uh stories that occurred to me, one in which the librarian was called by the secretary of

00:29:22.390 - 00:29:43.800

the Dean uh of Dean Masterson's office. This was back, early sixties, I guess, um invited to a luncheon at which a candidate for a librarian was to be presented. Uh He had not heard anything about it, his job being replaced in his job and Dean Masterson

00:29:43.810 - 00:30:04.270

was disappointed with him for some reason. So had uh brought in a candidate uh to be interviewed for the job. And this was his, as the story went, was introduced as his, this is sort of his way of administration. If I understand that story correctly, you're

00:30:04.280 - 00:30:23.410

saying that that the current librarian was called by Dean Masterson to have lunch with a candidate that Masterson was interviewing because he who in the library didn't know anything about it didn't know he's gonna be replaced. No, uh uh Masterson and the and, and uh hard

00:30:23.420 - 00:30:41.209

and Craig were maybe it's subsequent to that, but probably prior to that too, from the story quite open enemies and, and hard and Craig was one of the main leaders in his own way. Uh I think more or less through the A aup is my understanding

00:30:41.369 - 00:31:00.380

uh against the Masterson. Yes. Um It's hard to account for administrative core like that, isn't it? Yes, that's the sort of thing that I, I say I heard enough of these from people that I thought were telling the truth that even though this wasn't my experience,

00:31:00.589 - 00:31:14.140

I had to begin to take this sort of thing. Seriously. Uh, so my opinion of the man changed in the course of the, of the thing too. Were there any other things that you thought were documented? Well enough that you should enter the record? Well, there's

00:31:14.150 - 00:31:25.800

some things that as archivist I really can't talk about, but when all the records are open, I think they're gonna be some, I process records of the minutes of the pres of the records of the president's office. Uh I think, uh for the period that Masterson

00:31:25.810 - 00:31:41.900

was deemed, uh I think that there's no need for my, for me to comment on. They'll be in available uh in a few years for researchers for parallel instances. And I think that uh mass they, they'll go a long way toward a, to uh documenting the

00:31:41.910 - 00:32:11.239

way Masterson administered things. They will, they will document in detail. A feud with the English department and pitcher's reaction to it. Uh Will Doen has told me some things about his encounters with Masterson, see if I can recall any others. Uh The present library told me

00:32:12.219 - 00:32:28.550

that, uh and this wasn't just him. I've heard this from a couple of other people too that Masterson felt that the library could just, if you could, if you have X number of books processed this year, you can put in two X next year uh and

00:32:28.560 - 00:32:55.479

not increase the library staff in his comment that, you know, librarians don't are on piecework Ok. Ok. Who is? Richard o'keefe. He was dismayed at the thought that Phil Masterson was coming back. So, were there any other stories that, uh, oh, there were, I can't, uh,

00:32:55.489 - 00:33:19.599

there were some circulating again about the way in which Masterson when he was, uh, um, in Hanson College use students to spy on professors. Which department do you associate with this at the English department again? Was, uh, you know, towards me at odds with any other

00:33:19.609 - 00:33:34.739

department besides uh well, history, I guess in English, well, I wasn't aware of his being at odds with the history department. He certainly had his enemies in the history department. But uh with the English department, it's my impression it came to the point of, of opposing

00:33:34.750 - 00:33:47.339

the whole philosophy of the department and the way it taught me what it wanted to do in English class. Of course, I'm not very clear on what it was, but it just seemed to me that all the comments I've heard that he took exception with so

00:33:47.349 - 00:34:03.040

many things that it virtually amounted to as Dean of Humanity is being opposed to the what the English Department was trying to do. I got the impression that he wanted less social criticism and things like that put into English courses and more textual analysis, uh et

00:34:03.050 - 00:34:27.509

cetera, et cetera. What you know, what a good English department of a 19 twenties uh prep school should be and so on and you can imagine how things like that set with Alan Grove and his spiritual predecessors. Well, on Sunday, um the uh student leaders had

00:34:27.519 - 00:34:43.158

put out a, um, press release uh saying that they found Mattsson unacceptable. And what was your impression of that? Uh How do you think the episode was moving then as a result of that? Do you think it had an effect or? Well, that was more or

00:34:43.168 - 00:34:58.360

less the conclusion I've come to by that time. So I sort of agreed with it. Uh, I really don't know whether it had that much of an impact or not. I doubt that it did. As far as Masterson himself is concerned, the real power relationships here

00:34:58.370 - 00:35:14.580

that determined whether or not the guy was gonna come or not. Did you have lunch that day at one of the colleges where the statement was read or? No, I think I went to the faculty club that day and red there, there was meetings on campus

00:35:14.590 - 00:35:27.750

then Sunday afternoon. Did you have occasion to go to any of them? I think sds had an open meeting. No, I didn't. I went to the college meeting Sunday evening. Which college did you go to? Hanson? Does anything stand out in your mind, uh, at that

00:35:27.760 - 00:35:46.379

meeting? Did they get a pre special? Right. Well, I guess the thing I thought about more than anything else was that, uh, this is the first time I'd ever seen any sense of community at rice. And I also had the thought in the back of my

00:35:46.389 - 00:36:07.530

mind that it was a sense of community built on a passing moment and probably on, on a not a sense of community built on a uh the wrong sort of foundation and probably would pass and observations this year or anything, mount to anything that's true. But

00:36:07.540 - 00:36:21.080

at that point, uh you began to see you, you felt like faculty and students at least were really concerned about the kind of place they were in and what kind of education people were getting here. And the thing went a lot further than just the master's

00:36:21.090 - 00:36:37.870

in business. What kinds of things were discussed that uh that touched on this or was it more just an at just more of an atmosphere, I think, clause of students for their faculty members and so on, it very definitely was a the socio sociologist or somebody

00:36:37.879 - 00:36:57.850

with people like that will have to analyze this. But there was very definitely a change in ok, the relationships or the feelings between students and faculty drawn much closer together on this thing. To some extent, student, faculty were using the students, I think, but I don't

00:36:57.860 - 00:37:13.830

by and large, I think it was genuine um reaction on the part of the fact that the students went along with them, using them in the sense of uh of health. Well, uh the more uproar they could create the more uh that's, that's no that's a

00:37:13.840 - 00:37:31.020

little bit stronger than I want. Um, well, I don't say that that there was manipulation but there certainly was, would be an interest in a faculty member who wanted to stop Bill Masters at any cost. If it, if it's demonstrated that the whole student body as

00:37:31.030 - 00:37:45.159

well as a large section of the faculty or a large section of the student body, as opposed to it, it obviously would be in his interest. And I think there was some of that, there was definitely the whole thing was faculty led student follow. I think

00:37:45.899 - 00:37:59.399

there's not too much question about that in my mind. Do you think students uh had very little uh fixed opinion, uh fixed ideas about Masterson prior to uh prior to the fact time the stories got started going around, you know, and in prior, but of course,

00:37:59.409 - 00:38:19.669

the, the, uh the student leadership's opinion wasn't formed merely on stories. They had personal confrontation with Mason and we don't know just exactly what went on but their remnant, their, and uh interviews will tell us about that. Of course, but they certainly, unless you would wanted

00:38:19.679 - 00:38:35.060

to assume that they're hopelessly biased. And I don't think so. Uh they probably went into it with a fairly open mind and came out with a completely closed mind against Masterson. And that led the students a lot too. And then there was the whole student money

00:38:35.929 - 00:38:50.939

opinion. Were there any speakers at, uh at Hanson that night who especially impressed you, uh, Ed Norbeck with a, impress me but not, well, I was impressed but I didn't agree with the argument at all. I didn't think it was a very strong one to the

00:38:50.949 - 00:39:05.770

effect that it doesn't matter who's president, uh, that the, that the organization will go on. It seemed like he, I recall he suggested that some sort of animal could be named president of the university and it would be all right. I don't agree with that at

00:39:05.780 - 00:39:29.260

all. Uh He didn't attempt to answer in favor or, or to defend Bill Masterson, as I recall, although he stated that he personally had a high opinion of him, but he didn't go, go on beyond that. Um John Adams, is that right? John Adams from the

00:39:29.270 - 00:39:50.310

geology department? Is that Adams Adams? Is that his first name? John John, ok, John Adams made a rather bitter attack, not attack. Well, a bad, rather bitter comment. That was my impression. Of course, this is all on tape anyway. So that's my impression was my impression

00:39:50.320 - 00:40:09.889

at the time. From what? From looking at it as well as listening to it that uh he was uh much involved in it and very much anti Masterson. What uh what effect did his talk have on the students? Did you recall that, that, that's one thing

00:40:09.899 - 00:40:24.409

that will not be on tape, for instance. Uh How did, how did he come up? Well, I think it went off with him pretty well. I think by that time they were feeding on any anti Masterson sentiment they could find and not in a particularly rational

00:40:24.419 - 00:40:44.090

manner. Were they making any kind of discrimination in their selection? Were there any other speakers that, uh, that were eloquent and impressive or? Well, I heard Gruber would have been except he was, his voice was completely gone. So he talked for a little while and the

00:40:44.100 - 00:41:03.260

students in his college people obviously think a lot of him. Those are the only ones that I recall off hand. Then the, uh, the vote, I guess was on Monday. Was there anything special going on on campus on Monday that you were aware of? No, the

00:41:03.270 - 00:41:18.770

I, I have to throw in one more observation, uh, for whatever it's worth. I went over to the President's office, I guess it was Monday morning on something else completely. And, uh, there were some wires going in. They had the, they were doing some construction and

00:41:18.860 - 00:41:30.899

they had heaters in there running in all these wires. And I came in, I said, well, these wires, it looks like to me this rig place is gonna burn down. Assistant. The secretary said loudly enough and there were several people there who were not from rice

00:41:30.909 - 00:41:48.000

at all loudly enough. Well, if it burns down Bill Masterson won't get it. Now. That seemed to me to be a fairly significant bit of documentation of the attitude, uh, in Dean Gordon's office now, I have no firsthand knowledge whatsoever of Dean Gordon's position on the

00:41:48.010 - 00:42:09.610

thing. But I can't imagine, uh, a secretary saying something out loud like that without the slightest bit of caring about who heard it, if the prevailing attitude in that office were not anti masters by that time. Oh, that's a pretty open statement. Uh, were you aware

00:42:09.620 - 00:42:21.600

of how the vote was going? Did you, uh, talk to many people or did it look like it was gonna be pretty overwhelming? It seemed to be that. But, you know, you assume that you heard from the people who were anti at that point because you

00:42:22.290 - 00:42:39.219

sort of like Wallace voters, some of them bragged about it, but not many. If you were gonna vote for Masterson, you didn't, you wouldn't have said much about it. Probably. Were you surprised about the figures that the, that the chronicle published? I don't even recall the

00:42:39.229 - 00:42:56.370

figure something 90% of the students or something like that a little for the 86 or so. No, I wasn't surprised by it because by that time the, the ar the, the vote was, you know, under the circumstances and given all things. Do you think that he,

00:42:56.379 - 00:43:09.979

he, he, his appointment? I don't remember exactly how it's worded but in any case, vote against Masterson becoming President of Rice. And this included a whole lot of people who didn't know him at all. Hadn't made a judgment on his character or anything else at that

00:43:09.989 - 00:43:21.639

point, they could just see the thing. I mean, the whole parts of the faculty said they were gonna leave and some of them really looked like they meant it and it was going to tear the whole university apart then. I mean, that's, I didn't even have

00:43:21.649 - 00:43:36.610

to think about it as to which way I voted because I was so decided by that time that whatever my final analysis of Masterson or appointment procedures or anything else were that by that time, the only thing acceptable was for Masterson to resign. And that's for

00:43:36.620 - 00:43:52.530

that reason. I don't think that the, the vote is indicative of anti Masterson feeling. Even in the university, there were a lot of people in my boat, I think actually, well, actually the under the present circumstances would tend to garner uh the greatest number of uh

00:43:52.540 - 00:44:19.530

of negative modes. I'd like to ask you a couple of hypothetical questions. Uh Do you know of anybody on canvas uh who might have serious aspirations for the office? Dean Gordon? That'd be my guess. That's the only one that I think of. II, I conclude that

00:44:19.540 - 00:44:36.830

from, from a couple of things. One again, I have no inside knowledge. One is, is the way in which he assumed direction of the campus executive committee before uh Frank Vandever was appointed when other members of the committee, apparently from rumor, didn't think the rumors I

00:44:36.840 - 00:44:49.899

had were pretty good, pretty close to the base. Uh, didn't think that it was all that clear that he was supposed to be exactly what chief executive officer meant. He began to assume things also this summer when Frank Vander was out of town, he did some

00:44:49.909 - 00:45:07.929

things, uh, that looked to me to be far beyond any kind of power that a temporary appointment, temporary head of the university, third or fourth in line or something. Uh Frank Vander, then the chancellor and then I don't know how they decided after that, whether it

00:45:07.939 - 00:45:22.830

was Gordon or defazio. But in any case, we got, we got all sorts of far reaching things like a memo from Dean Gordon saying that any employees who terminated were not to be refilled. Uh that sort of thing is really pretty drastic and uh I just

00:45:22.840 - 00:45:43.260

have the feeling that all along that he has aspirations toward the presidency and that he tends to accumulate as much power as he can. Have you ever uh heard that Braton uh was uh a popular candidate among uh any particular group? I hadn't heard anything about

00:45:43.270 - 00:46:02.250

it. It doesn't surprise me particularly. I could see where he would be. Well, do you have any summary comments on this whole thing as far as its uh effect on rise in the, in the long run? Well, of course, I can talk about it in the

00:46:02.260 - 00:46:18.189

middle run right now. It's, it has had serious effects on, uh, they say on the funding, I don't know about that but on the relationships with, within the university and people within the university, we, we, there have been all sorts of rifts. You have all, you

00:46:18.199 - 00:46:32.270

have complications on almost anything you wanna do. It's pretty, it's gotten past the point now where people wanna know which side you were on, that was something to begin with. But it's still to the point where there are these divisions, people who aren't speaking to each

00:46:32.280 - 00:46:51.580

other and uh people who have gotten ideas about you because you did so and so over such and such a place. Uh and this has made things much more difficult in the university than they would have been otherwise more difficult. It's, it's different, it's a different

00:46:51.590 - 00:47:07.870

type of difficulty than existed before Masterson was appointed when we had the campus executive committee and we had a lot of chaos and some look, some things that people said were power grabs on by members of the, of the committee, but nothing like this where people

00:47:07.879 - 00:47:28.429

who have been friends and for at least speaking acquaintances now don't talk to each other and that sort of thing is still going on. And uh I'd say uh a failure of faith throughout the whole. Can you give me the address? Thank you. OK. Can I

00:47:28.520 - 00:47:54.030

be f well, I expect you would find that between the and the hip department and back then I did get purely suspect. Uh There are serious tensions is your uh impression of uh one that would lead you to expect that, that he might withhold goodies from,

00:47:54.250 - 00:48:18.149

from the department or AAA faculty member who behave uh strongly in theme or side. I don't have any personal experience base an answer to that on this one. There are people who say that. That's so, but I don't know whether it is or not. People who

00:48:18.159 - 00:48:35.080

say that Matre R, I mean that uh a fan of her reacts in that sort of way. But then these are usually the people who tend to be on the anti Masterson side of the fence. Anyway. So has this incident in any way affected your decision

00:48:35.090 - 00:48:54.800

to leave us? Well, the incident uh hasn't as, as such, I guess, but something revealed by the incident, hasn't we, we're gonna go on to a second phase of this thing today or some other time to document the project. No. Well, it seems, well, I, I

00:48:54.810 - 00:49:11.820

could say that the incident and, and my experience as archivist going on in the incident uh has convinced me that uh they, the old guard could rise and the, and these are the people in power now uh a closed view of the university. They don't, they

00:49:11.830 - 00:49:30.120

aren't at all interested uh in creating the kind of records and opening the kind of records to research that would permit the university to be a study to get to get any, anything that, that might possibly damage rice uh is to be uh covered up if

00:49:30.129 - 00:49:48.770

possible. Certainly not open for study, certainly not made a subject of study, if it could possibly have any kind of ramification. Uh This is suppressed to be sup suppressed any projects like this, this project in particular, in a university shall not introspect, right? Uh We as,

00:49:48.919 - 00:50:06.489

as historians, we're gonna, we, we of course sit around at cocktail parties, knocking businessmen because they won't let us in to see their records and talk about the, the businessman uh having guilt feelings about his work and therefore covers everything up and history is bunk and

00:50:06.500 - 00:50:31.570

all that kind of stuff turns out that here it rise at any rate. Uh We don't uh people, there are large, there are quite a number of people I assume who won't, won't uh permit or who wish to prevent study uh of the university in any

00:50:31.580 - 00:50:45.540

kind of objective way. It's just partly this project. I mean, other things happen at the same time, some of which were part and parcel of the same thing. Uh For instance, uh Dean Gordon's always went into absolute hysteria when some members of the sds came into

00:50:45.550 - 00:51:02.649

this office and asked her to see some records which I requested that they be permitted to see. This university does not permit people to see uh what would be in most places uh open finan uh things relating to financial statements and so on. You know, even

00:51:02.659 - 00:51:26.729

after a reasonable year or two can't even hear nothing about it. Nothing really. Oh, that's an example. More than an example. Yeah. P for a week to clear a request to send a man, a copy of the report from one Harry Scott who was director of

00:51:26.739 - 00:51:53.669

the physical education Department in 1929. And we won't be good that there won't be any ramification letting these records down. You know, I might have to see our weapon. Yeah, they came from became people but the outright, they got that kind of quick when they were

00:51:53.679 - 00:52:13.280

out the light something else again. So the project, you know, went further to and, and I in documentation of that. Well, the second part, either of the interview or I'll dictate it some other time of the uh experiences in setting up the project. Some of the

00:52:13.290 - 00:52:25.100

problems we came across some of the things that have happened to me as a result of the project which I think are worth documenting, not just to see what happened to the archivist of Ice, but also to try to, to, to as an explanation of probably

00:52:25.110 - 00:52:38.510

some of the shortcoming, maybe to go to the project people we didn't get to interview and so on. Not the least of our problems was the fact that we would have been started about 4 to 6 weeks earlier. Had it not been for some of this

00:52:38.520 - 00:52:54.959

reaction. Yeah. Well, I see some advantage and uh and maybe the two of us doing this uh in on the second phase but uh we'll see if we can get to that. Ok. Anything else for me? I think that's it. Ok. Thank you for your time.

00:52:57.129 - 00:53:21.239

Hey, this is Poly Moore. Today is September 26th, 1969. Uh We're at the research center in Fron Library. Yeah, time is um 1110 and this is an additional interview with uh Richard Lytle private administrator um Dick. Uh the purpose of this interview, as I understand it

00:53:21.250 - 00:53:39.959

is for you to record some of uh your experiences with the project and uh to mention any uh uh achievements or shortcomings that uh you see that we've we've experienced. So uh why don't we just uh OK, I think, I think that a good deal of

00:53:39.969 - 00:53:54.020

the information about the project, its methodology and the way it was set up in the history of it will be apparent from the files of the archives which will reflect our proposals, the re uh revisions of proposals and so on. But I think there are other

00:53:54.030 - 00:54:14.560

things that need to be stated for the record, for the benefit of any researchers that use the material. Do you wanna check it? OK. To begin with, I, I'll have to claim credit for having conceived the idea uh as the crisis developed, I began to get

00:54:14.570 - 00:54:27.790

some ideas of how important. It was for the history of rice and for the history of American education since the crisis has passed. I, in some respects, I don't think it's quite as important as I thought it was at the time. But in any case, it

00:54:27.800 - 00:54:50.580

certainly was well worth uh, preserving materials relating uh to the crisis. And we started out by collecting ephemeral documents that sometimes get lost in, in this sort of thing. And then I thought of oral history, but I had no idea where to fund fund the project

00:54:50.590 - 00:55:06.929

and we had no money for it and I certainly couldn't have done it myself. Charles Garside and Harold Hyman in the history department, both encouraged me in this project in oral history, uh documentation of the master in crisis. And Harold came up with the idea of

00:55:06.939 - 00:55:24.949

where to fund it. And he suggested the Center for Research in Social change and economic development. I wrote a proposal and Harold rewrote the proposal together. We worked it up. So we both did the proposal for the project. I have some misgivings about the appropriateness of

00:55:24.959 - 00:55:40.739

the project for the, for that, for the Center for Research. Actually, I think it's intended for research, not acquisition of uh da data, but, uh, they accepted the proposal and we were very happy about it. Uh, again, I think this will be reflect, reflected in the

00:55:40.750 - 00:55:58.149

records, but I'll also emphasize it. We set up the project in a way in a manner which would give uh, those who wish to be interviewed as much confidence as possible that their privacy would be respected. Uh At no point in the project has Harold, uh,

00:55:58.159 - 00:56:15.409

have Harold or Joe Cooper or Frank Van or, or I looked at the transcripts or been involved in any of the transcription, uh, or interviewing and we think that's essential for the project. I'm glad of it because I can talk to people around the university about

00:56:15.419 - 00:56:33.909

the master's in crisis if they want to, without ever worrying about whether I'm going to violate somebody's confidence or not. We submitted the project on the fifth of March and in about five days, uh we had verbal notice of approval uh from Ed Norbeck and then

00:56:33.919 - 00:57:01.370

a very serious, a very curious series of events uh began to develop delays were imposed and apparently the person responsible for this was carry cro uh we had direct conversations between, well, Harold Hyman and Mr Cr I had conversations about it uh from the feedback that

00:57:01.379 - 00:57:16.000

I've gotten since then at the time. And since then, this project has been discussed at all levels of administration in the university, including the board of directors. At one point when I thought we'd sent a notice to the board of directors as, as the board um

00:57:16.790 - 00:57:38.300

to invite them to participate, I was assured that everyone would know what I was talking about. When I mentioned the, the uh project they'd already debated it. R there is no question that, that the members of the campus executive committee, Dean Gordon, Dean Diazo and James

00:57:38.310 - 00:57:56.580

Sims uh were opposed to the project. They were, they discussed it and, and so was Robert Bunger, the assistant to the president. The opposition to the project was mostly that it could cause trouble and anything that could cause trouble should be avoided. At this point, we

00:57:56.590 - 00:58:15.439

could antagonize people further by trying to interview them on a sensitive topic. I got very little questioning in the way of the scholarly value of the project. Nobody that I talked to w was concerned with that so much. They, it was just a simple matter. The

00:58:15.449 - 00:58:32.780

potential problems that could arise from the university from the project were such that it shouldn't be pursued. And the project I think would have been stalled completely, had not Frank Vander been appointed president, but within a week or so after he was appointed acting president, uh

00:58:32.790 - 00:58:52.629

the project was approved, I attribute this in large measure to the fact that Mr Vandever is on the uh oral history project for the Lyndon Johnson archives and probably would have felt rather inconsistent on his part to have blocked the project uh to preserve the privacy

00:58:52.639 - 00:59:13.010

of the institution when he uh is on it professionally committed uh to as much openness uh study by historians and others is uh is consistent with the privacy of the individual I'd like I could summarize the opposition to, to some extent this is surmise on my

00:59:13.020 - 00:59:27.870

part. But I could, I would su summarize it as a closed view of the university, uh, uh, a view of, uh, uh, Bryce as a, well, I like to call it or think of it as a sort of a, an interest group or a club rather

00:59:27.879 - 00:59:44.129

than an institution, major institutions in society which should be open about itself. Uh And I've had uh this impression in any number of areas other than the oral history project. I don't think this is a special case. It was a, an extreme case because they thought

00:59:44.139 - 01:00:08.199

that the, the people who were opposed to it thought that uh the the consequences could be serious. But there, but this is consistent with their attitude toward use of university records and so on. It's also my opinion that a good deal of negative uh attitude toward

01:00:08.209 - 01:00:24.340

the project was generated uh by people talking, I haven't any concrete instances of this. I can that I know happened, I can be specific about someone who's opposed to it and knows everyone in the university and didn't hesitate to talk to a couple of people that

01:00:24.350 - 01:00:43.850

I do know. And that was Pender Turnbull uh about in some way achieving uh on some areas. Anyway, identification of the project with the Anti Masterson point of view. It was, I've had some feedback to the extent that the project. Anti Masterson and perhaps this, uh,

01:00:44.110 - 01:00:59.830

explains. I don't know if it does or not, but it ought to be entered in the record that we had more problems getting people from the Masterson point of view to participate than from openly anti master. Would you agree with that, Polly? That's very true. And,

01:00:59.840 - 01:01:19.850

uh, the, uh, see you file folder on, uh, unsuccessful, uh, requests for interviews will certainly reveal exactly who these people are. I don't know that I can't claim that a person has an obligation to participate in the project. I, I've never have taken that attack in,

01:01:19.860 - 01:01:35.449

in, in contacting people. I've urged them to do so to, to participate. Um But it seems to me that for the, for the benefit of people who are gonna use the, the collection of records and oral history interviews that we've assembled here, that we have to

01:01:35.459 - 01:01:54.679

document the fact that we certainly attempted to make uh as wide a coverage as possible. And to some degree, we feel we have failed in this, that we have not gotten certain people, particularly Mr Castaneda. Mr Masterson himself. Uh Mr Mcenany, Mr Higginbotham, is there anyone

01:01:54.689 - 01:02:07.739

else? I mean, I this is documented elsewhere anyway, but uh this is a, this is a failing of the project, but it isn't our fault in so far as we were able to do anything about it. I think that as I said before, it had some

01:02:07.750 - 01:02:20.590

bearing, these people were ready for us in Higginbotham's instance, in particular, he said he would go ahead with it and then a few weeks later, uh, vehemently, uh, rejected any participation in the project. And here we are four days before the end of the term of

01:02:20.600 - 01:02:40.449

the project, we actually haven't gotten that number yet. I don't know, I can't say that he's, uh, refused. I, but, uh, that perhaps is some, uh, some degree of inertia, uh, on the part of Harold Hyman with inertia isn't quite a accurate because he's so busy,

01:02:41.189 - 01:02:57.489

combined publication research and head of the history department. But, uh, we haven't, uh, done some of the contacting. We should, I think another thing that needs to be read into the record which doesn't really occur. So, uh, is what happened on our attempt to approach the

01:02:57.500 - 01:03:12.239

board of directors, members of the, of the trustees, I should say Board of Governors. Uh, originally, we were just going to write them a letter. Is that right? We just, just after we, we wrote masters and we wrote the students, we wrote the faculty, all that

01:03:12.250 - 01:03:31.040

document. We were going to write a letter. We have the draft in the file. Uh, Harold Hyman contacted Mr Cron and this was at a time when Mr Vander was out of town for the summer. And Mr Cr I said that Mr Vander had just recently

01:03:31.050 - 01:03:45.350

issued a statement to the effect that no board member could be approached directly by a member of the faculty or staff on any matter. And this was a regulation, I think that was intended, I'm sure it was intended to prevent imposition upon the time of the

01:03:45.360 - 01:04:01.139

board of directors that when all this controversy was going on, I took the position that our project didn't apply because if the administration either endorsed or failed to endorse our project, uh, that would be in either case, the wrong tact to take, uh, that it shouldn't

01:04:01.149 - 01:04:19.810

be cleared to the front office because, uh, it had nothing to do with administrative approval and it was clearly not the intention of this regulation. Harold Hyman didn't take that point of view and delays and so on and so forth and have occurred. And the result

01:04:19.820 - 01:04:37.189

has been that we will not interview one single member of the board. That's the most, no, it never did. And, and it's most unfortunate and it's a serious, uh, shortcoming of the project. But here again, I, and, and at this point, I might appear paranoid, but

01:04:37.199 - 01:04:51.159

I think it's, I plug it right back to the fact that the man that held it up is the man who tried to hold the whole project up. And c and certainly, uh, here again, they're concerned about the, what members of the board are gonna think

01:04:51.169 - 01:05:09.540

and so on adverse reactions. Uh, there was one thing I neglected to mention at the beginning of this little talk that I've got outlined your comments. Uh I think the delay in, in setting the project up put us so close to the end of the first

01:05:09.550 - 01:05:23.419

semester or the end of the second semester that we had to interview students as fast as possible. And we interviewed only students because we, I assume that they would for the most part be gone at the end of the semester. Some of them sit, the seniors

01:05:23.429 - 01:05:42.840

gone for good and all of them gone until September. And so Polly had to interview all students to begin with to jam them in. And I think that's a limitation. I think that would have been better to have started out and gotten yeah, broader view of

01:05:42.850 - 01:06:12.000

the whole affair to begin with rather than just a student point of view, we had no choice but if we wanted to get students, well, I think that's uh all I wanna say about the project. I, I, all of it is contributed with the point for

01:06:12.010 - 01:06:31.030

the, for the purpose of assisting those who use the documentation after it's opened in another five years. Some of it is clearly surmised on my part uh as to attitudes and so on. But I think it's, I think it's worth reading into the record for what

01:06:31.040 - 01:06:50.199

it is. Do you have any suggestions where to go from here? Well, the only thing that I might um add for the benefit of uh future researchers is uh some of the ideas uh of interviewing which uh changed somewhat as I got uh uh more experience

01:06:50.209 - 01:07:13.780

in this particular interviewing uh method. Uh My previous interviewing experience had been uh uh employment interviewing uh that is applicant interviewing, appraisal, interviewing uh employee evaluation, disciplinary termination interviews, things of that sort. Uh I was familiar with wide literature and interviewing uh including uh um all

01:07:13.790 - 01:07:39.729

the techniques used in um in psychological interviewing, psychotherapy. But um when I got involved in this, uh I uh became familiar oh after the first couple of weeks with uh a bibliography uh uh social science interviewing and the one the most helpful uh study on interviewing

01:07:39.739 - 01:07:56.830

for this particular project is one developed by uh Robert K Merton and uh some of his associates. Uh The book is entitled a focused interview and applies particularly to this kind of uh of interviewing situation. It might not apply to uh memoir interviewing quite so much.

01:07:57.159 - 01:08:18.060

But um I found it very helpful that uh they established definite criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of an interview. Uh The interview should um show the greatest uh range uh of response among the respondents. Uh He calls it an unstructured interview in this respect that um

01:08:18.180 - 01:08:33.069

the questions are open end questions. You don't give the interviewee uh rigid alternatives from which to choose. Uh You try to keep all of your questioning as open as possible so that they can select from the whole stimulus field, what it was that they themselves reacted

01:08:33.080 - 01:08:49.629

to. Um So I, I became familiar with this uh with this technique uh after a month or so, once I began to apply it to this, well, it uh I think uh we got better interviews as a result. Would you say your earlier interviews were more

01:08:49.640 - 01:09:08.470

structured than no, they weren't actually structured in the beginning because uh uh but there was a lot more rambling around the student interviews. Uh We're um we're focused in that we, we talk generally about the same topics. I asked them what their uh uh aspirations were

01:09:08.479 - 01:09:25.950

arise, how they viewed Kenneth Pitzer, uh uh what it meant to them when he resigned. The uh response of the students has an, an amazing cohesiveness which suggests that they were responding to the same stimuli in the same way. Uh And this, this suggests a uh

01:09:25.959 - 01:09:45.600

a fairly narrow source of influence uh or perspective and whether this is is true uh to researchers who go back and cover this whole thing. And I'm not sure, but this is one of my superficial impressions from having lived through it. And it's not necessarily true

01:09:45.609 - 01:10:04.250

that the interviewer uh does uh especially in the oral history interviewer. Uh It's not necessarily true that the interviewer uh uh does have the best perspective because it is an experience they're living through that, that they're subject to new information coming in just as, as were

01:10:04.259 - 01:10:23.720

the people who participated in the episode itself. So that uh as far as interviewing technique, I think that uh if there was any change in technique, it was primarily because of the influence of, of Merton, the um he calls it the focused interview simply because uh

01:10:24.080 - 01:10:43.970

it's most useful where you're talking to a great number of people who participate in one episode. What event. So I think that it's very adaptable to this kind of oral history uh interviewing. I'm not sure that it would be if you were doing say a memoir

01:10:43.979 - 01:11:02.310

instead, apart from that, I uh I don't think I have anything to add to your comments. Um I certainly agree that uh without the testimony of the, any of the trustees that there's just a large gap in the record. On the other hand, if you compare

01:11:02.319 - 01:11:19.899

it with what the record would have contained in the absence of this uh oral history project, then there's, there's no question that what uh this is, is a contribution. One of my impressions as a result of this uh whole study is that this uh these recordings

01:11:19.910 - 01:11:44.680

uh could be of interest to social scientists in different fields. I think social psychologists might be interested in it. Uh If they were investigating in a microcosmic uh uh event uh areas of leadership um influence uh communication theory, a number of these things. I, I think

01:11:44.689 - 01:12:04.350

that these, this is a very fruitful uh archive collection from the point of view of studies such as this. So I think sociologists, social psychologists, uh certainly people in education uh who might be interested in studying uh a rather impressive variant of the student movement in

01:12:04.359 - 01:12:19.839

America in the late sixties. But this would be a good thing to look into. You said something before we started about your technique of handling interviews, where you gonna go on and talk about that in a minute. I mean, the fact that you didn't pursue contradictions

01:12:19.850 - 01:12:38.020

that you saw and the effect of using kid gloves and handling interviewees. I think that needs to comment. Well, fine. I uh um I think that one of the restrictions that we might run into in oral history and I'm wondering if this is the experience of

01:12:38.029 - 01:12:54.319

uh of people say in the presidential oral history uh projects. And that is that you do have to handle your uh your respondents with uh with kid flows because they, they do have to sign the material over to you. Uh They, they can, of course, after

01:12:54.330 - 01:13:10.899

the university is, has expended all these funds for interviewing time and transcription. They could conceivably refuse to give it to you that this has happened in other, in other projects and uh to prevent anything of this sort. Um One of uh one of my whole approaches

01:13:10.910 - 01:13:31.339

has been in, in every interview to look at the uh at the world. Uh Exactly the way the interviewee does uh w while we're in the interview uh environment. And um so thi this has resulted in some ex expressions of sympathy and understanding uh perhaps that

01:13:31.350 - 01:13:53.850

may have encouraged them to uh elaborate on uh uh whatever it was they were talking about. But um it's always been my judgment at the time that uh it was, it was appropriate to do. Uh I think that we, we have gotten candid uh candid interviews.

01:13:54.979 - 01:14:14.600

I think people have told us what uh what they were able to tell us uh with relatively few exceptions, as in any oral history uh uh project, uh You can expect that they are gonna preserve their, uh their dignity and they're gonna preserve their, their image.

01:14:15.040 - 01:14:34.330

But uh I have never felt free for instance to, uh to do uh a real interrogation of, you know, once or twice. I've had occasion to say, well, now, future historic or future researchers may uh wonder about um uh this versus that. Uh Do you have

01:14:34.339 - 01:14:55.930

any comment about it? But uh as far as really digging in and saying, uh uh what did you really have in mind when you said such and such? Uh and how did they react to it? I think that um a cross examination type of uh interrogation

01:14:57.720 - 01:15:15.930

that would be appropriate to uh in investigatory project as opposed to an information uh gathering project might have some use in, in oral history. But I, I don't know just how far you can go with this without, uh, antagonizing your, your, whenever you leave. So, this

01:15:15.939 - 01:15:49.729

I think is just one of the hazards of the oral history. Well, I'm through, are you through? It's been a pleasure. Today is September 29 1969. The time is, uh, 1035. We're at research center at F library, the Z Oral History interview number 67.