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11/06/2008 2:00 am

Life

Tom Brokaw on Marriage, Drugs and His Favorite People

Julia Reed sits down with Tom Brokaw to discuss his new book Boom! and more. Here is part two of their interview

JULIA: There is, obviously, a lot of discussion about the women’s movement in the book. You speak very touchingly of how you and Meredith were kept in the dark by her male doctor about her own medical condition when she was pregnant with your first child. We have clearly come a long way from those bad old days, but Wall Street Journal columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz, for example, talks very passionately about what she sees as the excesses and mistakes of the women’s movement. Do you agree that there were some excesses and downsides of the movement all these years later, and, if so, what are they? 

TOM: Sure, but that’s true in any movement. My patience was always tried by women who would put gender above all else, whatever the circumstances or consequences. But the far greater result of the women’s movement is that we’re a much richer, more productive, more just society as a result of the movement.

JULIA: You told me that Sarah Palin is a direct result of the ’60s and the raised consciousness of that era. But her placement on the ticket has made so many feminists — particularly those active in the ’60s, many of whom, like Gloria Steinem, are in your book — go completely ballistic. Any ironies here?

TOM: Of course there are ironies. But I’ll leave it to the combatants to sort them out.

JULIA: More than a couple of people in the book said they were lucky to have made it through the ’60s alive, referring, primarily, to the drug culture. You did not succumb to its excesses, but unlike our 42nd president you did admit you smoked the odd joint — and inhaled! What are your “drugs” of choice these days?

TOM: Good red wine, ice cold vodka and ibuprofen for my aching joints.

JULIA: Every election, we talk about how nasty campaigning has gotten, how much more bitter the tone is. You’ve been watching this for a long time. Do you really think it has gotten worse?

TOM: No, it is unfortunately a cancer we have to learn to endure. I do think the blogosphere expands the reach much more quickly.

JULIA: There is much talk in the book about the Vietnam War and the political idealism of the ’60s. We are again in the middle of an unpopular war and there is at least one candidate who portrays himself as an idealist, who even held the ’60s-sounding job of community organizer. And he’s running against a product, in just about the rawest sense, of the Vietnam War. Do you feel that this election, more than others in recent years, is being waged in at least a partial shadow of the ’60s?

TOM: I think this election will help determine what part of the ’60s we embrace and what part we leave behind.

JULIA: You have so many fascinating people in the book — from James Taylor and Joan Didion to Dick Gregory and Dick Cheney, and far too many others to name. Do you have favorites?

TOM: I was particularly taken with the journeys of James Webb, Stewart Brand, Judith Rodin and Cleveland Sellers. The arc of their lives from the ’60s to now is endlessly fascinating.

To read part one of Julia Reed’s interview with Tom Brokaw, click here.