Distance education 101!
Conrad Black addresses McGill students via prison phone
Graeme Hamilton, National Post
Published: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Graeme Hamilton, National Post
Published: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Former U.S. president Richard Nixon and Conrad Black in an undated photo
MONTREAL • Conrad Black has published a thousand-page biography of Richard Nixon, but as he spoke to students at McGill University on Wednesday, he had all of 15 minutes to convey his thoughts on the former U.S. president. Anything longer, and the warden would have cut the call.
The rapid-fire lecture, delivered over the phone from within the walls of a Florida prison, touched on the late Mr. Nixon's Quaker upbringing, his views on race, the Vietnam War, the Watergate break-in and his years out of office. Through it all, the 20 undergraduates sat rapt, leaning forward to hear their guest lecturer's voice coming through a BlackBerry speaker phone.
McGill lecturer Adam Daifallah, who helped research Lord Black's Nixon book, arranged the call as a surprise to students in his political science course on the Conservative Movement in North America. They submitted questions without knowing who would be answering. "You are the first people to hear his voice in more than two years, because he's in prison," Mr. Daifallah said after the call.
Lord Black, who founded the National Post and was chairman and chief executive office of Hollinger International, is serving 6½ years for fraud and obstruction of justice. The U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal of his fraud convictions last month.
Lord Black never referred to his own incarceration, but twice during the call, he had to pause as a recorded woman's voice announced: "This call is from a federal prison."
His sole topic was Mr. Nixon, another man who rose to great heights but was felled by scandal.
"I put it to all of you that he had the most successful four-year term as president of anyone in the history of the country, except Lincoln and Roosevelt's first and third terms," he said. "You have to know just what condition the country was in when he came into office. [President Lyndon Johnson] couldn't go anywhere without demonstrations. There were assassinations, skyjackings, riots everywhere - antiwar riots, race riots - and Nixon got them out of Vietnam, opened relations with China, signed the greatest arms-control agreement in history, improved relations with Russia, started the peace process in the Middle East, ended the draft, reduced the crime rate, founded the Environmental Protection Agency, founded hundreds of national parks ...
"It was a tremendously effective administration, and it is an extreme irony that it came to such an unhappy end on such a silly basis."
The "silly basis" was the 1972 Watergate burglary, in which operatives linked to Mr. Nixon's re-election campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
"When examined, Watergate is not a serious scandal," Lord Black told the students. "Now, there are all sorts of distasteful things that went on, but the only allegation against Nixon that holds any water at all is this question of whether he directed Republican Party funds to, in effect, alter testimony by the people who broke into the Watergate. There is some evidence that that may have happened, but it's not all that clear that he was doing that." At best, he said, it was "a terribly thin thread on which to remove a president from office," but that is what would have happened had Mr. Nixon not resigned in 1974.
"And really, the rest of it is rubbish," he continued. "The conduct of other presidents is not incomparably better than Nixon's conduct."
Tom Velk, a professor of economics and head of McGill's North American Studies program, nodded his head as he listened to the defence of Mr. Nixon. Afterwards, he drew a parallel between the former media baron and the disgraced president.
"I think it's perfectly balanced, in some sense, that here's Conrad Black, who was put in jail by his enemies, and he doesn't really belong there," Mr. Velk said. "He didn't behave completely properly, but on the other hand he certainly doesn't deserve what has happened to him. And I think it's similar for Nixon."
He acknowledged that it is unusual for a university to invite a prisoner to lecture. "I'm sure we'll get attacked for it, and to hell with them," he said. "Freedom of speech is something I understand we still enjoy in this country. Conrad Black is a very serious mind. He wrote a very serious book about Nixon, and I see no harm in asking him the rather scholarly, academic questions that these students posed to him."
Lord Black ended his address with reflections on the Nixon he got to know toward the end of his life: A courteous man with a good sense of humour who "got up every day to confound his enemies."
Time was up, and Lord Black, who is teaching fellow inmates American history and English, said he had to get to his next group of students. "They are, from all I can see, in much more need of it than you people there," he said. "Thank you all for attending."
The McGill students applauded.
The rapid-fire lecture, delivered over the phone from within the walls of a Florida prison, touched on the late Mr. Nixon's Quaker upbringing, his views on race, the Vietnam War, the Watergate break-in and his years out of office. Through it all, the 20 undergraduates sat rapt, leaning forward to hear their guest lecturer's voice coming through a BlackBerry speaker phone.
McGill lecturer Adam Daifallah, who helped research Lord Black's Nixon book, arranged the call as a surprise to students in his political science course on the Conservative Movement in North America. They submitted questions without knowing who would be answering. "You are the first people to hear his voice in more than two years, because he's in prison," Mr. Daifallah said after the call.
Lord Black, who founded the National Post and was chairman and chief executive office of Hollinger International, is serving 6½ years for fraud and obstruction of justice. The U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal of his fraud convictions last month.
Lord Black never referred to his own incarceration, but twice during the call, he had to pause as a recorded woman's voice announced: "This call is from a federal prison."
His sole topic was Mr. Nixon, another man who rose to great heights but was felled by scandal.
"I put it to all of you that he had the most successful four-year term as president of anyone in the history of the country, except Lincoln and Roosevelt's first and third terms," he said. "You have to know just what condition the country was in when he came into office. [President Lyndon Johnson] couldn't go anywhere without demonstrations. There were assassinations, skyjackings, riots everywhere - antiwar riots, race riots - and Nixon got them out of Vietnam, opened relations with China, signed the greatest arms-control agreement in history, improved relations with Russia, started the peace process in the Middle East, ended the draft, reduced the crime rate, founded the Environmental Protection Agency, founded hundreds of national parks ...
"It was a tremendously effective administration, and it is an extreme irony that it came to such an unhappy end on such a silly basis."
The "silly basis" was the 1972 Watergate burglary, in which operatives linked to Mr. Nixon's re-election campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
"When examined, Watergate is not a serious scandal," Lord Black told the students. "Now, there are all sorts of distasteful things that went on, but the only allegation against Nixon that holds any water at all is this question of whether he directed Republican Party funds to, in effect, alter testimony by the people who broke into the Watergate. There is some evidence that that may have happened, but it's not all that clear that he was doing that." At best, he said, it was "a terribly thin thread on which to remove a president from office," but that is what would have happened had Mr. Nixon not resigned in 1974.
"And really, the rest of it is rubbish," he continued. "The conduct of other presidents is not incomparably better than Nixon's conduct."
Tom Velk, a professor of economics and head of McGill's North American Studies program, nodded his head as he listened to the defence of Mr. Nixon. Afterwards, he drew a parallel between the former media baron and the disgraced president.
"I think it's perfectly balanced, in some sense, that here's Conrad Black, who was put in jail by his enemies, and he doesn't really belong there," Mr. Velk said. "He didn't behave completely properly, but on the other hand he certainly doesn't deserve what has happened to him. And I think it's similar for Nixon."
He acknowledged that it is unusual for a university to invite a prisoner to lecture. "I'm sure we'll get attacked for it, and to hell with them," he said. "Freedom of speech is something I understand we still enjoy in this country. Conrad Black is a very serious mind. He wrote a very serious book about Nixon, and I see no harm in asking him the rather scholarly, academic questions that these students posed to him."
Lord Black ended his address with reflections on the Nixon he got to know toward the end of his life: A courteous man with a good sense of humour who "got up every day to confound his enemies."
Time was up, and Lord Black, who is teaching fellow inmates American history and English, said he had to get to his next group of students. "They are, from all I can see, in much more need of it than you people there," he said. "Thank you all for attending."
The McGill students applauded.
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 6:28 AM
1 Comments:
As fascinating as I find the views of a convicted felon on a pardoned felon, I think this class should make some time for the opinions of other guests of the American penal system. Timothy McVeigh and Theodore Kaczynski - both of whom have experienced American politics at the business end - may have some equally compelling thoughts to offer for consideration by the best and the brigtest at McGill.
. . . and , of course, for extra credit, the lads could go on to study the political views of such underrated luminaries as Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. . . .
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