THIS I BELIEVE:
(What I have learned as a witness to history)

Since graduating Dartmouth College in 1948 I have been writing directing and producing television programs and films, dramas and documentaries, in the United States, Europe, Mexico and South America.

I have also written scripts for BBC, U.S. State Department Information Agency, Navy, Air Force, and Army War College. I also wrote biographical films and speeches for senatorial and presidential political campaigns.

I have been privileged to know, admire and learn from men and women who during my lifetime made America. I think of these "Makers of America" as heroic. Of fine character. Unimpeachable integrity. Many of them unknown, preferring anonymity to the vulgar celebrity that dominates today's culture. And looking back over the years, certain significant "learning experiences" come to mind that have made me what I am today.

I have learned and believe there are certain laws that have not been annulled or repealed...Honor to family...Loyalty to friends...Respect for Law....Love of country.

And that reason and morality, in the long run, will prevail, and that the use of force without diplomacy is doomed to failure.

I believe we can alleviate human suffering injustice and discrimination when we elect leaders determined to meet these challenges.

My childhood during the "Great Depression" confirmed this.


I saw proud men going from door to door asking to wash windows, take out the garbage, shake down furnaces for a bowl of soup or a loaf of bread for their families. I learned compassion. "There but for the Grace of God go I".

At thirteen I saw the Dirigible "Von Hindenburg" circling Brooklyn before exploding in Lakehurst, N.J. and I got the message conveyed by the Swastikas painted on the Dirigible's side. No ocean is wide enough to protect all who fled makers of Pogroms.


In 1938 I saw newsreel photos of "Krystalnacht", "The Night of The Broken Glass", when German Synagogues were torched and my father told me "It can't happen here".

I was also outraged by seeing the German American Bund, the Silver Shirts, and the Christian Front preaching hatred on the Brooklyn streets when I walked to school every day.

In 1939 I followed the exciting drama of FDR and Churchill opposing Hitler, with the outcome, Good versus Evil very much in doubt.

For years everyone I knew had Hitler on the brain. He was our Frankenstein.

In 1939 I watched my father fill out Visa applications for friends and relatives trying to flee Germany. Life saving documents denied by our State Department's Breckinridge Long who stated: "We already have enough Jews here".

In 1940 I listened to Edward R. Murrow's "This is London" broadcasts reporting the "Blitz": adding to the horror evoked by Life magazine pictures of devastated Warsaw and Rotterdam.

In June 1940 I saw neighbors walking the streets of Brooklyn dazed, sobbing over news photos of German soldiers marching under the Arc de Triumph the day France capitulated. That day in all of Europe, only England remained free.

In 1941 I heard on the radio, the anti-semitic Father Coughlin, and my childhood hero Charles Lindberg describe "The Wave of The Future". The inevitable triumph of Hitler's "New Order" they said America must accept and do business with.

In 1942 I went off to war with twenty classmates. Eleven did not return. My brother also died of his wartime injuries. I learned the high cost of freedom. Every death a family catastrophe that I recall when I read the daily Iraq "Body Count" in the New York Times.

In 1945, thanks to the G.I. Bill I returned to College with two memorable classmates, one Johnny Sirignano, blinded in France, graduated Dartmouth and Saint John's Law School,
and despite his handicap, became Federal District Attorney of New York. The other, our class Valedictorian, handsome Bob MacLeod, a B-17 pilot who survived facial burn disfigurement requiring years of corrective surgery. Two inspiring and unforgettable miracles of courage who taught me the true meaning of heroism and the importance of getting the most out of life despite horrific circumstances.

In 1948 I visited another classmate, bedridden at the Veterans Hospital on Kingsbridge Road, in the Bronx, and discovered that while I got the G.I. Bill other veterans, covered with bed sores, couldn't get their urine bags changed regularly.

In 1949, at a Screen Writer's Guild meeting in Hollywood to vote on support for ten Blacklisted screenwriters, I watched John Ford, a conservative, patriotic, anti-communist Irish-American
risk his future career defending the freedom of men whose ideas he detested. I learned that night that fear is contagious. That in a room filled with cowards worried about their jobs, one voice can make a difference, can summon terrified citizens to fight for everyone's freedom of speech.

In 1950 I went to Haiti to research and write "Marbial Valley", a documentary about a poverty-stricken country where children were sold into slavery to escape starvation. Here I learned about the power of the Church and a light-skinned wealthy Elite refusing to alleviate the suffering of illiterate Blacks unable to survive on a land exhausted by years of Colonial exploitation.

In 1951 I watched General Douglas MacArthur's triumphant return from Korea with a ticker-tape parade down New York's Fifth avenue for a national hero who had been fired by President Truman for insubordination. His "No substitute for victory" speech was cheered by both houses of Congress who welcomed him as our next President.

Then in 1952, at the Republican Convention, I saw MacArthur's great dream collapse in humiliation when he received only one nominating vote. That day I learned that our nation's ability to reject dangerous demagogues was alive and well in the U.S.A.


In 1952 I watched Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and Senator Flanders of Vermont, both Republicans, with an assist from lawyer Joseph Welch, end Senator McCarthy's reign of terror. Three paranoid years during which even President Eisenhower was intimidated.

In 1952 I wrote "Meet Clifford Case", the campaign biography film for his successful run for the United States Senate. Republican Clifford Case was a dream candidate with bi-partisan support. A Minister's son endorsed by Labor Unions, with the promise of being a great President,
he abandoned politics after the unendurable slander of his dysfunctional sister who confessed to J.Edgar Hoover that she was once a communist. I learned that in the politics of personal destruction, bad men drive good men out of government.

In 1955, a year when Rosa Parks refused to move to the rear of the bus, and Emmet Till was murdered for whistling at a white woman, I was chased and shot at and almost killed in Pascagoula, Missippi. In that state, at that time, lynching, murder and torture were considered vital safeguards of white supremacy. TV camera crews were therefor unwelcome.

In 1956, covering the Adlai Stevenson campaign, I learned a great mind, eloquent rhetoric and political ideas unable to reflect what voters were thinking and feeling can be defeated by those chanting "I like Ike ".


In 1960 and 1961 I wrote "The Next Step" a TV Documentary dramatizing the elimination of Polio by Dr. Albert Sabin's more effective oral vaccine. By heroic determination he overcame the powerful vested interest of the "March of Dimes" fund-raisers who financed and promoted Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine that occasionally crippled children. Sabin's story is one of a dedicated scientist of unimpeachable integrity refusing to accept defeat by politically promoted inferior science.

In the nightmare spring of 1968 the ghettos of Newark,Washington, Detroit and Los Angeles and 97 other cities were aflame in response to the death of Martin Luther King. Eight weeks later Robert Kennedy was shot. It seemed hatred and violence was as American as apple pie.

In 1977 I wrote "Task Force 77" a TV documentary about our Navy operating off the coast of Vietnam. Admiral Ralph W. Cousins, the brilliant and handsome Task Force Commander, invited me to dinner aboard his flagship where he expressed his dismay about our nation's indifference to the fate of the POW's in Hanoi. With tears in his eyes he shared with me the book of biographies he compiled on the POW's that once were under his command. It was as if he assumed personal responsibility for their fate. A very human demonstration of responsible command leadership that valued the lives of all who served. An attitude that appears absent in today's hi-tech Army where warfare can be a remote video game and soldiers are "Boots on the ground" fighting to control "Battle Space".

On Sunday May 2nd, 1971 I watched 14000 District of Columbia Police, Army and National Guardsmen sweep into West Potomac Park to evict 5000 Peace Marchers. For the next four days, 13400 American citizens were held in Preventive Detention, drenched in their cells with fire hoses, compelled to sleep on concrete floors, without blankets or operable toilets. They were denied medical attention, food and water. "We'll worry about the Constitution later" said Deputy Attorney General Kleindienst. President Nixon personally congratulated Police Chief Jerry Wilson while Life Magazine praised him for "his decisive demonstration of Law and Order".

In 1972 I wrote and directed "Muhammud Ali, Truth Victorious", a TV film about an incorruptible young man giving up his World Championship title, aborting his career by refusing to be drafted. He rejected the National Guard's invitation to assist recruiting by exhibition boxing as an alternative to going to Vietnam. He thought that would be dishonest.

And the greatest lesson of all, while working in Prague, Moscow and Bejing I learned what it is to live where no one can feel safe in the presence of a neighbor, where children get medals for informing on their parents. Witnessing nations living in fear, passively accepting rule by privileged cliques of irresponsible criminals, gave me a greater appreciation of the freedom we take for granted, the liberties we are sometimes too willing to sacrifice for national security.

Benjamin Franklin's once reminded us... "they who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty or security".