Talking Back: To Presidents, Dictators, And Assorted Scoundrels - Rilegato

Mitchell, Andrea

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0670034037 ISBN 13: 9780670034031

Casa editrice: Viking Pr, 2005

Riassunto

A chief foreign correspondent for NBC describes her first posting abroad after the murder of her predecessor, her work as a White House correspondent from the presidency of Jimmy Carter to the present, her marriage to Alan Greenspan, and more. 175,000 first printing.

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L'autore:

Andrea Mitchell has been chief foreign correspondent for NBC since 1994, reporting for broadcasts such as NBC Nightly News, Today, and Meet the Press. Previously she was NBCÂ’s chief White House correspondent and has reported on presidential politics since 1972.

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Chapter 1
Copyboy

Iím not sure how I got to be so pushy. In the beginning, and even now, I wanted to emulate Miss Virginia Clair and be a lady and an ace reporter at the same time. Itís a balancing act Iím still sorting out after nearly four decades in the business. Though Iím viewed by many of my colleagues (and my subjects) as aggressive, I see myself rather differently, as shy, trying to overcome a basic reserve and bookishness.

My mother, a first-generation American who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, used to worry that I was too tough when questioning political figures. As a younger woman she had a fear of authority, and she couldnít figure out where Iíd developed such a ìfresh mouth,î as she put it. But Iíd always been something of a rebel, getting into trouble talking back to teachers at school or cracking jokes in class. Maybe it has something to do with being the middle child of three, eager to carve out my niche and attract attention in my own way.

My parents provided an example of lives lived with a deep sense of purpose and a strong code of behavior. To them, and to most of their generation, nothing was as important as the work ethic. We were not just encouraged to perform; we were expected to outdistance all of our peers. If we came home with a score of ninety-five on a test, our father would ask, only half-jokingly, what happened to the other five points? Perfectionism was a family disease. Iím certain that my parents are responsible for the seriousness with which I tackled my new profession, even as a fledgling reporter. It was not a great leap from their lessons of social responsibility to my unquestioning belief as a young adult that journalism was a mission.

We were supposed to be adversaries of those in power, wardens against abuses and conflicts of interest. Both of my parents came from tightly knit Jewish families. A big part of their life was building and supporting community organizations, as well as sustaining the synagogue. In particular, my father came from a long line of scholarly, observant Jews, and took the traditions very seriously. From an early age, we were taught that we had a moral and religious obligation to give back to society.

My father built a business, manufacturing furniture and housewares, and ran it for forty years. After he finally sold it to new owners, they asked him to stay on, which he did; his attempts to leave always elicited eager offers of a more accomodating schedule, until he was past eighty. My mother worked just as hard, first as a homemaker and volunteer, then as a school administrator. She organized visits to nursing homes for our Girl Scout troop and spent years playing the piano at a school for children with developmental disabilities. Teaming up with a friend who was a former Rockette, my mother knew, intuitively, that music and dance would be good therapy. And although she began on the womenís auxiliary of the local symphony orchestra, before long she was the president of the orchestraís board. When she had a goal in mind, nothing could stop her.

My family was always interested in politics. Even before we moved to the suburbs, my mother took my older sister and me to watch major eventsólike the first televised inaugural when Harry Truman was sworn in as president in 1949óon a television set in a store window near our apartment in the Bronx. Once we had our own television, I recall our parents watching the Army-McCarthy hearings, and being outraged by Joe McCarthy. As kids, we traded i like ike and all the way with adlai buttons in elementary school. And by the time I was in high school, John F. Kennedy was debating Richard Nixon, Martin Luther King, Jr., was marching for civil rights, and the dinner-table conversations with my older sister and younger brother were dominated by arguments over the Vietnam War.

We all went to a public high school that was a hotbed of political activity. A stone building, it was beautifully situated on twin lakes that were perfect for ice-skating excursions with our father during the winter. But the bucolic atmosphere barely masked the temper of the times. The local NAACP organized groups to demonstrate at Woolworthís lunch counter, part of a national protest. A few more daring students became Freedom Riders down south. The entire school mourned the death of Mickey Schwerner, one of the three civil rights workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, whose mother was our popular biology teacher. According to testimony in the 1967 trial of eighteen suspects, Mickey, twenty-four when he died, was known to the Klansmen as Goatee or Jew Boy. Four decades later, a seventy-nine-year-old preacher was finally indicted for the murders.

But even more than politics or public service, my adolescence was dominated by music. My mother, a fine pianist, gave boundless time and energy to foster our musical educations. Tirelessly, she juggled a complicated after-school schedule and ferried me to violin and piano lessons, choir practice, All-County Orchestra, and eventually, rehearsals for the Philharmonic Symphony of Westchester, a community symphony. My sister, Susan, played the piano, string bass, and bassoon; my brother, Arthur, played the cello. We had two pianos in our home, in order to play duets. Often, we fell asleep listening to our mother downstairs, playing Chopin nocturnes or Beethovenís Moonlight Sonata. The school system also made music education easily accessible. I was in first grade when a teacher first put a violin in my hands. Practicing was a joy, not a chore. I could close my bedroom door, shut out the rest of the family, and transport myself into a self-created world of beautiful sound. A junior high school teacher took us to the Metropolitan Opera, exposing me to rehearsals of La BohËme and Lohengrin. School choirs gave me my first chance to sing Christmas carols and, later, more advanced liturgical music.

I loved all types of music and listened to everything, even if it meant sneaking a radio under the bedcovers to hear jazz when my parents thought I was asleep. Because I lived so close to New York City, a favorite high school date was a trip to Greenwich Village to a jazz club. Being underage, I borrowed an ID from my older sister to get in. On Christmas Eve, her boyfriend Lewis Greensteinólater to become my brother-in- lawótook us to Alexander Schneiderís chamber music concerts at Carnegie Hall.

Having a sister so close in ageóonly two years olderówas critical to shaping the person I have become. When we were four and six years old, she protected me from street bullies and taught me to read. As I became an awkward adolescent, she overlooked my sillier obsessionsólike the fantasy that I could become a cheerleaderóand concentrated on the serious stuff, like helping me prepare for college. This early love of teaching persisted, leading her to a career as a college professor in two widely different fields: British and African literature. Of course, being so close in age, we also fought as children, but our fatherís refrainóìYou two will be each otherís best friends when you are grown upîóhas proven true. And Iíve often thought it was my special bond with my sister that helped me to develop strong friendships with other women, both in and out of work, for the rest of my life.

My siblings were less outgoing than I. In our family, I was the drama queen and classroom cutup. For two summers, my parents sent me to music school at the Aspen Music Festival, even though I was technically too young to qualify for the program. For a while, I thought I might even attend music school, like Juilliard or the Curtis Institute, rather than a liberal arts college. But soon I got beyond the stage where I could coast on whatever talent I had as something of a prodigy. In the world of professional music, I was not going to stand out.

So when I entered college, it was to study liberal arts. At the University of Pennsylvania, I studied English literature. My family and professors fully expected that I would go on to graduate school at Cambridge, England, where I had been accepted at one of the womenís colleges, but I was determined to do something very different. Itís difficult to recall what fueled my restlessness, but my parents had raised three very independent children. My sister and her husband went to Kenya as Peace Corps volunteers in 1966, when being in the Peace Corps was still considered very adventurous. My younger brother and his wife homesteaded in a remote section of northwest Canada, building a log house and running a general store in a small mining town.

My travel lust was satisfied more vicariously. I fell in love with broadcasting, with telling stories about other peopleís exploits. At first, I combined my love for English literature with educational radio by importing BBC programs on Chaucer and other writers for our campus radio station. When I proposed exploring further adaptations as part of graduate study in England, a faculty committee at Penn judging fellowship proposals dismissed the idea. Though I was groping toward the kind of programming produced successfully years later on Masterpiece Theatre, one of the committee members found the notion ìvulgar.î She and her husband, also a professor at Penn, were proud of not even owning a television. So instead of going to graduate school, I decided to take a stab at this vulgar profession.

Four years earlier, I had been introduced to broadcasting by accident. As a freshman at Penn, during a meeting on the top floor of Houston Hall, the student activity building, I heard music and wandered down the corridor to discover the studios of the universityís fifty thousand-watt noncommercial radio station, WXPN. The format was almost entirely classical music, mixed with what we called folk music (some hillbilly, a lot of blues) on Saturday night, and jazz after midnight. They told me they could use help programming music, and before long I was hooked. I loved choosing the music, timing the cuts, balancing the selections. And more than anything, I loved performing on the ...

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Viking Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0670034037
• ISBN 13: 9780670034031
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 414