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SUSSKIND IN STUDIO ALONE INTRODUCES EPISODE TOPIC:
David Susskind
Good evening and welcome. My name is David Susskind. Tonight we're going to talk about the beautiful people and radical chic, usually beautiful people are confined to the society pages of newspapers. But because they're now so fascinated with such groups as the Black Panthers, the Indians, the grape workers and the Young Lords, they've now become the subject of beautiful people have scathing editorials in newspapers, and they've been featured very prominently in the news columns of the national magazines. Tonight, you're going to meet detractors and supporters of radical chic and the beautiful people in one minute.

INTERVIEW BEGINS:
David Susskind
Okay, now for beautiful people in radical chic. I want you to meet our guests first, Richard Feigen. He is a well known art dealer in New York, and he was a guest at the now famous Leonard Bernstein party for the Black Panthers. In response to adverse publicity, Mr. Feigen wrote an angry letter to Time Magazine, defending the purposes of the party. Next noted writer and critic Marya Mannes has for many years dealt with the foibles of American culture. Her latest novel title they was made into a successful television special. John Fairchild is president of Fairchild publications, and he is the boss of Women's Wear Daily, which Time Magazine describes as the terror tabloid of the fashion world. One should also add that it is absolutely required reading for the beautiful people. Known for his strong and caustic opinions on just about every subject, John Simon, is drama critic for New York Magazine, and film reviewer for the new leader. Charlotte Curtis is woman's editor of the New York Times and was one of the first to observe and write about the current phenomenon. Radical chic. Her perceptive article on the Leonard Bernstein party for the Black Panthers resulted in an angry editorial in her newspaper and national coverage. Wyatt Cooper has worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. He's contributed articles to Esquire he was most recently editor of status magazine, Mr. Cooper is married to Gloria Vanderbilt. I tried to find a definition of radical chic, and that's not easy. And the best that I could get was something described by Tom Wolfe himself. He says that publicity has been the traditional shortcut for New York social partners on their way to society. And nowadays, there's no publicity, like social conscience publicity, especially if it is black and beautiful. What would you say to that?

Wyatt Cooper
Well, one thing I would say about the term radical Sheikh in the first place, he invented it, and therefore it means whatever he means by it's like beautiful people, it doesn't mean anything except whatever the person means, who says it? Because there is no meaning. I mean, whatever whatever cause he happens to consider radical than is, is radical.

David Susskind
Is there something extraordinary and new about the idea of rich, famous celebrated people, giving parties for causes like the Black Panthers?

Charlotte Curtis
I think this is the point. It's historic in this country starting at the time of the revolution, including the Mexican War in 1910, the Civil War, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, all these kinds of things have drawn parties, by rich people for concerns causes

David Susskind
Charlotte, I read your article in The New York Times when you attended the Leonard Bernstein party. There's a lot of tongue in cheek. I mean, you thought you were watching something rather observed.

Wyatt Cooper
I wish that Charlotte had said that in her in her article, and I think it would have put it in a marvelous perspective.

Charlotte Curtis
Before we before we get to that, couldn't we just say here a minute, a question about radical chic. After all, what is so radical about being for the American Indian, I don't know anybody anywhere in this country who is against the American Indian, and the American Indian was considered one of these great radical chic

David Susskind
Was it radical and maybe preposterous for chic people like it used to be for the Black Panthers.

Charlotte Curtis
Well, I don't know that that it's chic or radical. I mean, the Panthers are radical, but I don't know that it's particularly chic to be in support of them. that's a matter of opinion.

David Susskind
As you stood among Wyatt Cooper, Richard Feigen

Wyatt Cooper
I wasn't there actually and not because I was against it, but because I'm just not as good as citizen as I really should have been, and I wasn't there

David Susskind
Otto Preminger. All the lovely ones. Did you wrote a caustic article, your article was sort of wisecracking and

Charlotte Curtis
Well, I think that has to be in the eyes of the beholder. I don't think it was caustic. I think it was a recitation of what happened. Essentially, this started out to be a party, which would discuss and raise money for the civil rights and of these people, the Black Panthers. It was held in a Park Avenue apartment, which at the time was considered unusual, although this sort of thing historically has gone on forever. In the end, it ended by having a contract Between Leonard Bernstein and the Black Panther that I recorded. Some people found this very fascinating and nothing the slightest bit radical about it. Other people found it to be distasteful. And again, I say this is in the eye of the beholder. My piece was an effort to record exactly what happened. And I would turn to either Dick Feigen, or Marya Mannes, both of whom were at that party for their comments. If you're going to talk about my article, they have a right as guests at that party to say whether it was fair or not

Charlotte Curtis
one last thing, and I'll proceed on some few days after your article, your editorial column described the party as elegant slumming, would you agree with that just

Charlotte Curtis
now, I disagreed violently with the editorial that The New York Times had, I think it was unfair, I think it was based exclusively on my story without checking further without any of those people having been there. As matter of fact, I might say that all the commentary in the New York Post and The Daily News everywhere in the country was based on my story, there was no other story reporting that party

David Susskind
Richard Feigen you were there. And you were recorded in the article as having said, Who do you have to know, to give a party for the Black Panthers? Did you say that?

Richard Feigen
I probably said something like that Tom Wolfe has a facility for picking up a phrase and reiterating it three or four times and taking it out of context where in the phrase itself might not be wrong. And I was interested at that point. In doing something for these people, in the sense that they had been denied bail, if they had, and they have been denied due process of law. They have been held in jail for a long time, they had not apparently been guaranteed the rights which the United States theoretically guarantees its citizens. I didn't have much time. So and I was way in the back of the room, and I had to kind of ask who you talk to, in case one wanted to help the group?

David Susskind
Did you want to?

Richard Feigen
I wanted to talk about it. And I did later on talk about it. This is not me. Nor did it mean for anyone, they're necessarily in a spousal of the Panther philosophy, I think that anyone is entitled to due process of law in this country,

David Susskind
did you find out how to give a party for the black panthers

Richard Feigen
I wasn't interested in so much and getting a party as I wasn't, somehow I can't write out a check. Not a man who has the means to write out a check for 10 or $15,000, or whatever it requires or $100,000 bail, which each one required to get out of jail, or whatever it is. So my only way of offering potential help, after a discussion of the problems involved, was to perhaps have a fundraising event if in fact, after discussion, I decided that was going to be done. Now I decided ultimately not to do it. And then my reasons were very personally

David Susskind
because the New York Times might give coverage to it

Richard Feigen
Not at all, because I think that the fact that Charlotte was invited means that they don't expect to be covered on the front page, they expect to be covered on the woman's page. And I think that this is perhaps a naivete. I think that the problem here, David is one of motive. I think that the whole thing we're talking about really here is Why were those people there. I think that this article by Wolf implies that everyone was there to be chic.

Wyatt Cooper
I mean, he didn't leave anybody out everybody, you know.

Richard Feigen
And so here's this this white suit of Spiro Agnew of Park Avenue, preying on everybody who's at all well known. He says that everybody implies

David Susskind
Yeah, but don't you document some of his applications you wanted to give? You want it to be of help? You thought the best way you could be of help was to give a party a fundraiser.

Richard Feigen
I wanted to find out what was going on

David Susskind
You chose not to subsequently not because the cause that was elucidated that night seemed to be less valid, but because it was socially now unpopular.

Charlotte Curtis
no, no, no, this. You're not even saying the way if if Mr. Feigen will just forgive me a minute, because I remember his walking in and what happened that night, he had another engagement to go to he was heavily involved in a political campaign, he had five minutes literally to walk in and out and make an appearance. Because of this time element. He raised his hand fast, which did interrupt the party at that particular point, you could raise hands, but was raised the question quickly saying, I don't have time to talk about it now. But could somebody tell me the answers to two or three questions fast, and then he had literally to catch a car and go somewhere else very quickly. So that the implication was never that he was going to have a party, but that he was going to figure out where he could get in touch with someone the next day when he had time to follow through. There was never a question at that party of his having a party.

Richard Feigen
Right. Now. Wait a minute, this this. I know I come from Chicago, so I know what it's like to be in Z or whatever that state is. Now Whatever the Panther philosophy is, this happened. And they were at the apogee of their political leverage if they wanted to exercise it. So Goldberg, who's now running for governor of the state of New York, became chairman of a committee to investigate and guarantee their rights under the Constitution in this country. They were at the apogee of their political leverage. And at that moment this party was held. It was a great gap between this party in January, early January 1970, and this wolf article, five months later, now, we went there willing to listen, I went through it, I wanted to hear I didn't want to admit it's what I wanted to talk the next day, but I wanted someone who could talk to me who had the facts to call me and let's have a talk about this. And if in fact, you're denied your rights, let's have a discussion about it. I didn't, I shouldn't have raised my hand. I should have said Who is it to somebody and called up the next day, but I didn't I was rash. Okay.

David Susskind
Did you know that Tom Wolfe was coming. Charlotte Curtis was coming

Richard Feigen
I didn't know anybody was there. I didn't see Charlotte and certainly not Tom Wolfe. If he were there, I would expect the thing to be satirize. I don't think the man has any convictions. I don't think he cares. I think he just is a sort of a person who preys on the so called beautiful people. I'm not beautiful. I'm not radical, I'm not chic. I'm not anything I was there to listen to a problem, a political problem that existed at that time and to hear make my own mind up. Now, it turns out that about a week later, that come out comes out in the paper, a whole bunch of other material about the Panthers whether or not it's true, being trained by the El Fatah, in actual combat against Israeli farmers in in the west bank of the Jordan, so I am only human I, when they call me about the party, I said, Look, do me a favor, they're still guaranteed their rights under the Constitution. This doesn't change it at all. But it changes my order of priorities. Because I've been to Israel, and I know these, these these people, I've seen it and anybody that shooting Israeli farmers is my enemy. Now, that doesn't mean that they're still entitled to be kept in jail for 11 months and have $100,000 bail or anything else. But I have other things that I have to do. And I only have that much time and not all that much money. And that is the reason I didn't have didn't go on with the so called party only because not because they still weren't entitled to it. But my order priorities have changed.

David Susskind
Okay, we'll come back after this brief announcement.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

David Susskind
Yes, Marya, what do you think about all this?

Marya Mannes
Well, I went to the Bernstein party, because I was curious. Because I want to hear about the Panthers. I wanted to meet one. And I want to see how the Bernstein's lived. I'm a curious creature

David Susskind
How do they live?

Marya Mannes
I must say lavishly. And I have no question about the purity of their motives. But I left that party extremely uncomfortable and convinced that this kind of mixture is a form of social perversion. Social, not sexual. Well, I think in two in two ways, I think that it is a form of, of mutual exploitation, and also exhibitionism. High visibility of fashionable causes. However, just and obviously, there was a lot to be said about the Pantone cause, but not only do the beautiful people in aggregate, first me I am not happy among the chic and never have been out to having been editor of Vogue for three years in the 30s that finished me and I'm sorry Mr. Fairchild, but my pants are a revolutionary act against the MIDI, which you have tried to cram down our throats come back to radical shake. See, I get in trouble with this. No, come back for I really did seriously with the first place the Panther who spoke great big, splendid, bushy man made out as if the parents were solely concerned in and giving breakfast to children and other worthy causes and not not to be afraid of them. There were two lovely ladies in dashikis who said not to be afraid. And there were an awful lot of terribly famous people, some of whom I knew and some of them I didn't milling around having excellent drinks and hors d'oeuvre, as I say I left alone, are convinced that it's possible to be radical and chic. I mean, the Panthers have style, but not to be chic and radical. The Fundamental To me this honesty of this whole setup is that the Panthers would like to make a world in which the beautiful people simply could not exist. And it is self delusion on the part of the beautiful people who as I say individually, contain our art can be marvelous self delusion to think that this is anything but exploitation.

David Susskind
What say you Wyatt Cooper?

Wyatt Cooper
Well, I was so interested in but miss Mannes has to say, because I always find what she has to say marvelous. I mean, I think there's that it's valid what she says. But but but but but and I'm not for the Black Panthers particularly. And and

David Susskind
are you for the Young Lords?

Wyatt Cooper
No, no, that I but again, I think it's because because I, I just don't look into it enough. I mean, I know certain things that I'm for like Urban League, you know, old, the old middle class ones. And what beautiful rich people give part. I think people in that beautiful rich people should not be excluded from any political activity. I think that if they're home, you know, I mean, if you live there, it doesn't occur to you that people are going to come in and say, Oh, look what the Drapes cost. And, you know, I wonder if they inherited that. I mean, it's absurd. Where you live is where you live? I mean, it's like your name, you don't, you don't think that it's going to be this person is going to be very uncomfortable. I, you know, I find that what about a thought? But I think people who decide, well, look, I think the thing that the Bernstein's did was not say we endorse the Black Panthers. They said, Come and hear their case. And and according to all the reports, Leonard Bernstein had long dialogues. And so I think that anybody who tries to bridge the gaps between groups in America today is contributing a great service. Because we are we are becoming so polarized, rich against poor, young against old race against race, and anybody who tries to bridge those gaps, whether it's, it's talking to the Young Lords. I mean, after all, there are a lot of Black Panthers in this country today. And if we're not,

David Susskind
we can't seem to get a statistical total from anybody.

John Simon
Let me ask you, Mr. Cooper, do you think it would have been strategically sound for Louie the 16th living in the splendor of Versailles or the three ladies castle to invite the poor, old soggy lots the the shoeless and trouserless peasantry of France to come to his house and discuss the possible ways of avoiding the French Revolution

Wyatt Cooper
I think that if he had had the wisdom to do that, he might have learnt quite a few things. It might indeed have saved his head.

John Simon
The only trouble is that

Wyatt Cooper
I'm sure there is something you see, the thing is, there is something basically ridiculous about it. That's the problem. But if we're going to go through lives, our lives afraid of being ridiculous, we're never going to do anything. That it's it's very ridiculous that people who are very rich are concerned about poor people say, why should they care? You know, I mean, they've made it. But when they read additional country, that liberal reforms are brought about by rich people, Franklin Roosevelt, who was a rich fop goes into the White House, and suddenly he's with the people and everybody's talking about, he's a betrayer of his class.

John Simon
But did he do it by giving parties.

Wyatt Cooper
Well, the parties, let's say, holding meetings,

John Simon
There is a big difference between holding meetingsholding parties? Meetings do not have canapes meetings do not do fancy high ball

Wyatt Cooper
Do you think this meeting would have had more validity if there had not been canapes.

John Simon
I think a great deal. It would have had even more validity if it hadn't had Miss Curtis

Charlotte Curtis
But then you are saying you can do it with popcorn but you can't do it with caviar

John Simon
I think there is something shocking about inviting a times or any other newspaper social columnist to cover something that is supposed to be a serious political discussion.

Wyatt Cooper
Why?

John Simon
Because it means that you're out to get social publicity on the women's page, it means that you're in it for the for the glamour for the

Wyatt Cooper
But Mr Simon, I don't think you have ever made any effort to raise money. wait, but the only way you're ever able to raise money for people is to get publicity for that cause. There are very few newspapers you can get publicity in. So there's the time

Wyatt Cooper
Mr. Fairchild would like to

John Fairchild
Wyatt I'd like to just put things in perspective. I think that Charlotte was invited to the party as the guest of the Bernstein's and she wrote probably one of the she has a professional journalists, she does a superb job. And this is the job of a newspaper writer, whether it society or not, I think Tom Wolf's piece, I wasn't at the party. So I'm not qualified to say I'm just a reader. He did a superb job of reporting what happened and what went on and that is strictly the job of Charlotte Curtis, Tom Wolfe and me and I, what the thing I want to question is, why is it when people in New York, the beautiful people give parties, why is it that they want the press there if they want to be private?

David Susskind
Because they don't want to be private. They want publicity

Richard Feigen
John, but everybody there didn't want publicity. A lot of people there did not know any of these people were there. And secondly, I don't think that Wolfe is a good journalist because he would distorted the whole tenor of we wrote a funny, it's like a gossip column. You know, he wrote about people that people want to read about four to eight by Taylor bourgeois Des Moines, Iowa. He wrote something about

John Fairchild
But how do you know you weren't you didn't stay at the party.

Richard Feigen
Most of the people, there were nice. Lawyer ladies from the Upper West Side of New York, there were a handful of people you've ever heard of. They're the only ones he ever mentioned. Were the people you've heard of. He didn't mention the complexion. A good reporter says this is the sort of percentages you have here. He implied the whole thing was beautiful. The whole thing was chic. The whole thing was radical. The whole thing was canapes. I didn't even see a canape.

John Fairchild
I think he wrote a piece that everybody read do this by real selling.

Richard Feigen
This is exactly Spiro Agnew is doing. He's going all over giving everybody what they want to hear dividing the country in half, instead of allowing people if they and this country has a funny kind of Howdy Doody, Tao, tendency to pull together, you know, and the radical and anarchical elements have a tendency to pull themselves away and push the liberals and the other people towards the center so the country can survive. Tom Wolfe writes a piece and all over the country. Everybody's picking it up thinking that everybody who's ever heard of in New York City, is is radical is chic is having rolled up canapes and everything else.

John Fairchild
I think that's an exaggeration,

Richard Feigen
no, that's what this article says. Now the tenor and the fact is, this man would not appear on this show. He has, he would not appear on any television show. He will not talk to anyone because he wrote his funny thing. And that's that now the point is, what everybody what they want to hear all those people out there, they want to hear about this subject, which is a gossipy subject.

David Susskind
Richard I saw him on television he was on

Richard Feigen
all by himself on the david cross show, he won't go out with anybody else. Get that guy here. He won't come he won't come you

David Susskind
No, he says he doesn't want to meet those people.

Richard Feigen
He doesn't want to meet anybody

Wyatt Cooper
writing an accurate account, like patently on the face of it absurd. And you don't have to have been there to know that because if you read a piece in which he said that Leonard Bernstein's eyes shine with success and money. Now how does he know his that Leonard Bernstein's eyes are not shining with brotherly love for God's sake? Maybe they're shining with the with with with intellect, maybe they're shining with happiness.

David Susskind
Let's let's talk about the idea of party giving for the causes such as the Black Panthers. That's that's the pivot of this

John Fairchild
Why not talk aboutabout conservative chic

David Susskind
Well I don't know. Is there any conservative chic John

John Fairchild
Sure with charity balls the biggest bore of the year

Wyatt Cooper
People give parties in Southampton for Buckley. And nobody seems there are no

Marya Mannes
There are no disimilar elements in conservative chic. They are all that way together.

David Susskind
Now you went to another radical chic party, where the Andrew Stein was raising money for the Indians. And again

Charlotte Curtis
As I say, That's so terribly radical. It just scares me to death those Indians and all that

David Susskind
No what I mean. You were merciless in that piece. I mean, you

Charlotte Curtis
that is in the eyes of the beholder. Now, if any of the rest of these people read this piece, David, I demand after you're saying merciless, that you asked their opinion

John Simon
I think therein lies Miss Curtis's sinister skill, that she writes pieces that have absolutely no position whatsoever, thank you, but they have overtones, they have little soup souls of this or that. So at somebody coming to it from one end of the spectrum can see them as being entirely of his coloration. And somebody else coming from the opposite end can see them as being entirely of his coloration.

John Fairchild
She's a good journalist then.

John Simon
Now, a wolf, whose style I don't particularly admire, at least has this to be to the commend him that he makes his position about the thing completely clear. And whether he is right or wrong. I think there's something a little more honest about that.

Charlotte Curtis
Well, now wait, I have to defend that on these grounds that the job of a reporter David is to tell you as clearly as coldly as objectively and as dispassionately as possible, is I have managed as Mr. Simon says, to make to make it so innocuous that you cannot tell whether I'm on the left or on the right then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.

David Susskind
I thought you found the whole thing ridiculous. I thought in both cases, you thought that you were witnessing something quite ridiculous.

Charlotte Curtis
That story does I have ever written says that anything has is ridiculous.

John Fairchild
Charlotte did the story write itself

Charlotte Curtis
No, no, obviously. in the sense it does all those stories, right themselves

John Fairchild
you could send anybody goes to a room or goes to any party and you pick up snatches of conversation and write it it all comes out as being rather ridiculous no matter what the subject is because parties tend to be that way.

Charlotte Curtis
Well, we could also make a thesis that parties generally are ridiculous whether they are so called Radical chic or just plain old an ordinary charity ball.

John Simon
That's right but you will They're merely as a reporter. I wonder What in God's name is a reporter doing covering such a thing? I don't think it's worthy of reporters attention.

Charlotte Curtis
Oh, well, now that I would I would disagree with you. That is a terribly important social event for Panthers to be entertained by the Bernstein's on park avenue

John Simon
and you say social do you mean socially, political sense or social in the party sense of the word?

Charlotte Curtis
I mean, social in the sociological sense, which is the way we usually usually use the term on the society page of the Times

David Susskind
Surely it should be covered Panthers at the elegant home of the Bernstein set that's to be covered.

John Simon
Well, I wonder, I wonder why later.

David Susskind
Not in the New Leader But in the New York Times,

Charlotte Curtis
well, it also should be covered in the new leader, I would suggest to and for very good reason. And I noticed that Mr. Buckley did, in fact covered afterwards. I mean, he made comment in a column, because it should be noted by the right and the left and the so called middle

David Susskind
I'm sure Mr. Buckley couldn't resist. I'll be right back one minute delay.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

David Susskind
John, John Fairchild asked a question he asked the Tom Wolfe piece is accurate. You were there? Is it accurate?

Charlotte Curtis
I think Tom Wolfe piece generally is accurate. I would say in this instance, that it is. As as Richard Feigen pointed out heavily slanted with repetition to the point that it is distorted. I mean, there are distortions within the piece. But if you take it fact, by fact, it is accurate. It's the point of view overall. After all, I don't know how many words it is, but something like 20,000, maybe not 20,000 words worth of things happen at all four of the so called Radical chic parties, and then going into the hors d'oeuvres, for example, such great length is factually accurate. They had every kind of order, Tom Wolfe says they have but I don't think that that your over the tones above all are accurate.

David Susskind
You can report the facts

Charlotte Curtis
nor the motivation. I don't like the scribes motivation. Also, I'd like to know how he can decide whose motivation is what, without asking them. I mean, we'd never do that in a newspaper, because you can't say what somebody thinks, unless he thinks it out loud.

Wyatt Cooper
I mean, how can you say that every person in the room was suddenly thrilled by the sight of, of the terror of a black man coming in? I mean, it's it's when you

Charlotte Curtis
You can't say things like that, just as you said earlier about shining eyes. You can't say why you can say the eyes shine, but you cannot say why.

David Susskind
Did any of you go to parties to raise money for the Chicago seven?

Richard Feigen
I did.

David Susskind
You did. Why did you do that?

Richard Feigen
I did that because first of all, I was present at the convention in Chicago, which the activities were questioned that I come from Chicago I know about Mayor Daley. I wanted to hear about the trial and what was going on. I know the judge for 25 years, who sat at that trial, and who wrote a chapter of American judicial history there. And I wanted to hear David. I think I gave some money their defense. Yes, because I think a constitutional question was involved. David here, I think a law there's a law, which I think is constitutionally questionable. Isn't that I believe that Jerry Rubin or Abbie Hoffman have pure motives or that everybody at that trial is the same, because they were all very different. I mean, Bobby Seale is different from Tom Hayden, who's different from Delinger, who's different from how often it was different from Rubin. And yet, everybody there is under a great big umbrella. And I think that it's important to listen. Now. That's the whole thing about this, this event at at Bernstein's you know, we want to hear to listen, I don't think that anything can be any harm can be done by listening to the other side of the question. I don't think it means a philosophical marriage. There are certain elements in the past and what for instance, Eldridge Cleaver has written that I happen to agree with there is a good deal in the rhetoric that has followed these writings, which I disagree with. But I don't think that it is terribly destructive, to try to engage in a dialogue with people who have been historically deprived of certain rights in this country. And I think that, that it's unfortunate that the Chicago is seven, so called Chicago, seven other representatives who must defend what I consider to be an important constitutional right, because I think certain of them are incapable of it. I think they're too interested in their own public relations. I don't think that Abbie Hoffman really cares about the constitutionality of that law of crossing state borders to ferment, unrest or whatever it is, I was out there. police chased my children off the street now, but they could say why were they there? They had a right to be there

John Fairchild
with a Bernstein's interested in their public relations when I gave this party.

Richard Feigen
That may be true, but I was there and I wasn't interested in public relations and maybe somebody else

Wyatt Cooper
Let me tell you something About the Bernstein's in public relations because Leonard Bernstein Now the whole point of Tom Wolf's article is not about what happened, but that all of this did happen. He doesn't even say he's against the Black Panthers. He says that everything that happened happened because all these people were seeking some kind of social status and some kind of social position that they hadn't had before. Now, I would like to tell him how

David Susskind
No I don't think he says that he says they came to the implication is they came to be with each other to see and be seen. And and that was it was mad, and because a certain kind of publicity accrues from such

John Fairchild
And some people wanted to see the apartment,

Wyatt Cooper
and all the the Marya Mannes

David Susskind
Marya wasn't alone.

Wyatt Cooper
I would just like to say that Leonard Bernstein has been for 30 years at the top of his profession, you cannot improve upon Leonard Bernstein, social position. And as for Felicia, whom I know very well, there is nobody that I can think of who is less socially ambitious, or status seeking than fully sugar instant, she is a very concerned citizen. She is a very decent person, devoted mother. And

David Susskind
I think it deals with the motives of the people who came

Wyatt Cooper
well, you know, when you describe how she'd had her hair fixed, just right, and all that

Charlotte Curtis
and the way she, he describes the way she chose her dress and necklace. And actually, if you check back with Mrs. Bernstein, you will find that she has a long devoted history to civil rights and always has that that goes back to World War Two, she is not a Johnny come lately. As a matter of fact, she when she invited me, I don't believe she thought that that would be the kind of story that resulted. And number one, I don't think she thought that there would be a confrontation with a panther and her husband, it was her party, it was not his party. In fact, at the time, there was really some question as to whether he would have been there or not,

David Susskind
is the dialogue between Mr. Bernstein and the Black Panther accurate that the Black Panthers said, if we don't get our share of the pie, we'll have to seize the means of production in this country. Yeah, he says I dig you. You're right. Right on.

Marya Mannes
Yeah. He did say that. I was standing right next time.

David Susskind
So seizing the means of production would be to seize the capitalist system. Right? And to that he said, bravo.

Marya Mannes
or some such thing right on. It was extremely mod talk, which worried me because I admire this man extravagantly, and it was inching lower and lower and this game of footsie with the Panthers, and I wish they hadn't, but aside from from personalities, I wish we'd get to the basic thing of the value of giving a party in order to bridge these terrible gaps or any parties, which do contain absolute opposites and station and in thinking and cultivation and whatever you want to call it. Mr. Feigen said a lot of people went to the party to listen the worst place on earth to listen is at a party. The worst. Nevermind it was not a meeting it was a party and there were far too many people for any constructive interrelationship any dialogue, might I feel it marvelous when people have wealth, money, position, job, beauty, whatever they were blessed with? Try and establish personal contact with an end give voice to the people who have none. I would much rather see them adopt a Franciscan garb and go into the barrios or the slums and do it there, then have them to their homes because I think it isn't entirely false equation. And I don't see that it's going to open up any dialogues I doubt very much whether if the Panthers would gather together and raid the Upper East Side, they would say don't let's touch the Bernstein's that good people. I just I'm afraid I'm I'm profoundly cynical about this kind of contact and not at all cynical about the man to man, woman to woman. His effort to come to talk

David Susskind
John you cover all of these in your Women's Wear Daily,

John Fairchild
David may I ask, we didn't cover this party I wish we had I would I would love to have seen it. What I want to ask you do you think they gave the party in the YMCA it would have been more of a normal course and have about 1000 people and then really have a con connotation where everybody could ask questions, it would have been better.

Marya Mannes
I'm just saying the opposite. There should have been far fewer people so that they could really hammer out this whole question of defense how much money was needed and who to contact directly for it. The first place the Bernstein party were two rooms half of the time, there was no no room in place where the Panthers and their lawyers were talking. So you couldn't possibly hear them from the other room. There's a party noise, which is in itself a muffler of thought. And I just don't think this is the way To stop the, the polarization in fact, I personally think it intensifies, it

David Susskind
It evidentally isn't working because these parties are infinite, and the polarization is escalating.

John Fairchild
I think the minute you give a party and you have an attractive apartment, and you're one of the beautiful people, you're suspect, and I think you're a sitting duck for,

Wyatt Cooper
I think that anytime that you're sitting down and tried to do anything that's very constructive, that you become a sitting duck. If you're one of the beautiful people,

David Susskind
why is it very constructed? The whole world was giving a panther party constructed?

Wyatt Cooper
Well, it's an effort to bridge the gap between the people who are Black Panthers, and those who are not. if these if, you know, I mean, a lot of people feel that they have not been, and given the legal rights they're entitled to and that's what this party was about.

John Simon
All these people at the party know one another, they're members of the same set

Charlotte Curtis
No they don't. There were 90 people there, 10 of whom knew each other. the other 80 people had never laid eyes on each other before.

John Simon
Well, how were they invited on what

Charlotte Curtis
The Bernstein's put the list together. And mostly it was,

John Simon
they were able to put the list together, then they must have known who these people were

Charlotte Curtis
with assistance from several people like people from civil liberties

John Simon
there is a little thing called the telephone, Ms Curtis, and people can dial and they can call up these people and say, Look, my husband and I have talked to some of these black panthers. And we found out that the problem is such and such they need so and so many dollars to get out on bail, would you like to contribute and then it is done quietly in a person.

Charlotte Curtis
I'm not arguing that this isn't what should happen. What I am saying is that if people want to have parties, I can see no reason why not to to the extent that they do, bridge a gap that would not necessarily be bridged otherwise

John Simon
Well I can see every reason for you to have parties because you'd be out of a job.

Charlotte Curtis
I write about the recession, too.

John Fairchild
Don't you think people basically like parties?

David Susskind
There's no coming back in one minute.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES:

David Susskind
Is it possible that people go to such parties, parties for the Young Lords parties for the Chicago seven parties for the Panthers, for personal aggrandizement? In other words, to be seen with the right people? And or to help your business? Does it hurt your business, you're an art dealer

Richard Feigen
David it hurts my business, and I don't care. The fact is, I don't go to parties. These are, in my opinion, chances to learn something. Number two, they're not all the same, because I happen to think the Young Lords are not the same as the Panthers and the Panthers are not the same as the Chicago seven. And this is the same thing that J Edgar Hoover was talking about when he castigated or named a number of the people on the floor of a Senate congressional subqueries Senate subcommittee the people who were at this party who were listed obviously they're blacklisted because they attended this thing and attempt to try to learn something now they're on somebody's list Hoover's down there with their names on a list. Gail Lumet Jerry dujon All these people simply because they went to this thing. Now why? I wonder

David Susskind
how does it hurt business? You said it hurt business

Richard Feigen
David look, the establishment in Chicago was down on me because I had a show called Richard J. Daly because I you know, you do these things.

David Susskind
establishment in New York,

Richard Feigen
New York, New York. No, that doesn't help business David doesn't sell any paintings which is theoretically my hope my business but the fact is

David Susskind
have you sold any paintings me the people you've met at these parties

Richard Feigen
No, I certainly have not and and I probably have not sold some to people who might have come in had I not been listed in these articles and things like this. The fact is, I think that the country needs talking and we need a certain amount of binding together and I think we have to listen and I think that the the problem with articles like this and a term like radical chic which has become very current, you know, is that number one, why simply because someone is a success, like Bernstein is a successful musician, a gifted one. Why should he be denied his naivete is the party was a mistake. He made a mistake. Why should we not be permitted to make a mistake as human beings why should we not be permitted the opportunity to learn

Wyatt Cooper
Wrong and sets out to make a name for himself by shooting at his betters. That's why

David Susskind
Tom Wolfe had quite a name before this article.

John Fairchild
Charlotte was at the party

Wyatt Cooper
But Charlotte did not assassinate

John Fairchild
Charlotte said the article is accurate. So he's not a viper. He does not he may say that.

Richard Feigen
She said that was not inaccurate in that it makes accurate quotations but the art of the party was not about hors d'oeuvres

John Fairchild
The hors d'oeuvres were there so

Richard Feigen
That distorts it. He makes an hors d'oeuvres, It's a catering article.

David Susskind
The Article is not about canapes. I promise you

Richard Feigen
Why did he reproduce the canape in technicolor and everything is in black and white. Look technicolor of the canapes why?

David Susskind
It's about a foolish pack of celebrities assembled.

Richard Feigen
They're not celebrities. There were 10 celebrities. Why didn't he mention that his friends were there? There he omitted the people he wanted to spare. He didn't mention nthem. And he didn't mention several people were mutual friends of ours. We're not we're there. We have omitted deliberately to spare them because he was writing

David Susskind
Richard hasThis experience taught you any lesson

Richard Feigen
Of course it has. It has taught us all lessons. But why in the hell Shouldn't we be permitted to learn lessons? You are permitted to talk? You know, the hate mail you get from this day, but you didn't get it? We got

David Susskind
No, I wasn't there. Why should I get hate mail?

Richard Feigen
We got hate mail. When our ears open. names were people were fingerprinted. They were mentioned on the floor that by Hoover and people like this, they're on the list because of Wolfe writing this article

John Fairchild
But don't you like hate mail?

Richard Feigen
No I don't. I'm worried about the country. I'm not worried They want to shake me but I'm worried about the country

Marya Mannes
Good god, it's difficult. Oh, no point is the word. The term radical chic, I think has a real injustice. Because it is not chic to have a party for liberals. The shake the in thing is, is for extremism. And this is very odd among people who like those who give these parties are on the whole very balanced and moderate and intelligent people. But it is dulled to give parties for instance who would give a party for the NAACP.

Charlotte Curtis
Oh, but they did this summer in the Hamptons and raised quite a bit of money. And I also want to know what is radical about Indians, women's liberation, and the Mexican workers. And when you tell me what's radical about those people

Wyatt Cooper
these are the things that Tom Wolfe talks about

John Fairchild
the women's liberation is quite radical

Charlotte Curtis
Some very radical, but this party was Betty Friedan which is now which is not radical,

David Susskind
John

John Simon
but aren't you overlooking the fact that what makes the thing radical is not necessarily what the cause of the Indian is? What makes it radical is that on the one hand, you have these very rich, very fat cats living off the fat of the land, and gloating about it. And on the other hand, you have these poor, starving people showing up they're looking totally out of place looking ridiculous because their costumes are not made by the same fashionable tailors that curtains are not Jacqueline Lawson, and so on. And the the juxtaposition of these two totally different and social elements is what gives the event a surreal a what wolf calls nostalgie de la boo, which I'm not sure is the right term here. But anyway, it kind of free saw kind of,

Richard Feigen
were you there, you know, they were chic. How do you know they were fat, I know they were cat was there, a little ladies in black dresses from the Upper West Side are concerned about civil rights, and

John Simon
You are an art dealer, therefore you know that in the work of art, the two things, there's the content, and there's the form, if it is a perfectly successful work of art, the content and the form, merge and are not even to be thought of separately from each other. If somebody says to you, I paid nudes, you're not going to put him into your gallery, because you approve of the content new, you will put him in your gallery because you like the form in which the content new is presented. In the same way, whenever this party was trying to achieve was a content, it may have been a good content or a bad content. But it's the form in which it is presented. It is bringing these people who live in miserable, rat infested ghettos into circumstances that are absolutely opulent, that are rolling in money, and they are not going to get the message of fraternity from these good foolish liberals who are willing to give them some money, the message they're going to get they've got things which they don't deserve to have, which I deserve just as much as they and which I've been deprived of. And by God, I'm going to have the same servants have the same curtains and the same apartment and the same cleanliness and my children will be waited up on and so and that is the logical reaction for those people and it's the right reaction. And I don't dispute the right of those Panthers to have that reaction. They would be inhuman if they didn't have that there. But what is inhuman is to put these people into a situation where they're already quite justified hatreds, and they're quite justified sense of inequality is heightened to the nth degree so that what's bound to result from this is the undoing of the very people who are giving this party it's like giving a party with dynamite on their everybody's chair just waiting for the thing to explode.

Richard Feigen
First of all, you are being very patronizing

David Susskind
no no we'll come right back? I have to pause I hate to pause but it's American capitalism at work. We'll be right Back

INTERVIEW CONCLUDES:
David Susskind
you wanted to reply

Richard Feigen
I think that was a very eloquent and witty exposition of a very racist position. And I think it's really very patronizing. I really do I think that you sell these people short, I think you think they're stupid, they're not. They know where they are and why they're there and who the people are and what they're there for, and so on. I think that the more important thing is the fact that you imply that everybody that went there understood in advance exactly what the media was going to be in what it was all about. I had never before in my life set foot in the Bernstein's apartment, I didn't know whether they had antiques or modern furniture, or d'oeuvres or anything else. You imply that in advance all these people who were castigated for ulterior motives? And you impugn the motives of everybody who went there, so does, so does Wolfe

David Susskind
Why do you see the same people go to all the parties

Richard Feigen
because they care, David, and for God's sake, if these people are unprivileged to care, simply because they happen to have a few dollars or wear nice clothes and

David Susskind
Do they care? Or is it associated?

Richard Feigen
Why do you want Why do you want to deny them the chance of caring

David Susskind
I want to hear about their motives?

Richard Feigen
I wonder if they imagine the possibility that they're here? I'm not saying all of them as a class care. There's some that don't care. There's some that want publicity, and some that really care. But what this article and what John Simon is saying is, none of them care. They all are there for publicity. They're all there to be chic. They're all there to be written up. I don't think that Charlotte realized that after she read her wrote her article, which is much better reporting than this thing is and then the New York Times picked it up and wrote this article, this this this editorial, which really caused all the damage and gave this thing the right to exist. I think that Charlotte felt can try it because I think she understood the damage that this kind of class castigation can do you know that there have been benefits that have been held after this party for things like the free southern election fund. And people like Channing Phillips and Julian Bond and so on, who have been denied any kind of funding, people are afraid to come because they're afraid to get written about this has caused tremendous damage. Why should people be castigated as a class and castrated from any possibility of doing any social good simply because they happen to have to have the privilege rather than

David Susskind
Why do the beautiful people always take remote causes like the Panthers

Richard Feigen
they don't? They Do David. They do all kinds of things. They only write about this because it's gossipy.

Charlotte Curtis
You've gotta let me say something. This is what I do for a living. They take heart. They take cancer. They talk about

David Susskind
social causes, social causes. So those No, no, those are medical problems.

Charlotte Curtis
They also take up medical problems that are very common, they also gave party from McCarthy They are givin parties right now for candidates,

David Susskind
Are these parties the new ritual, the new thing to do

Charlotte Curtis
No, they are as old as American history, David,

Wyatt Cooper
McCarthy announced fro president and had not yet won in New Hampshire, it was a radical thing, right? Because it was not respectable. We were asked to give a reception for McCarthy, we worked my wife and I worked with the McCarthy committee and drew up a list of 200 people we thought could be influential for McCarthy, we called people in asked him to come, a lot of people were very scared to come, it was not respectable then then he winced a few weeks later in New Hampshire, after our party, and people are calling me and saying, Oh, I'm sorry, I missed the senator two hours, because you know, suddenly it was respectable. So, so radical causes can become respectable, and I wouldn't, but I want to say,

Marya Mannes
sorry, I wouldn't call McCarthy a radicalcause,

Wyatt Cooper
well, no, he was It was when he when he was considered a very radical cause, and and friends of mine would not come. But after he won in New Hampshire it was alright

Charlotte Curtis
Don't we have to say then, that the only real radical cause in this, by the definition of this group now would be the Panthers, the Young Lords and the Chicago seven, perhaps that still is only three groups, for which we have had one or two parties in New York City and one in Chicago that we all know about here. And every day, there are parties for these causes, and all these other things all the time,

David Susskind
which which makes a mockery of the cause frequently, I think

Charlotte Curtis
it's raising the money.

Wyatt Cooper
Now I work on the board of directors of a school called Wiltwyck which Mrs. Roosevelt founded, and it's in the business of rescuing boys who no other institution will take. They need a lot of money. We have board meetings, and we say we've got to get $100,000 from somewhere. Now it's all very well for him to sit there and say you call up your friends. For my friends is sick of getting three letters a year from me about please give some money to Wilwyck. Now we have to get money. I don't if we can give a party, and there is some social climber who wants to come to our house, and they will contribute to that cause, buddy, I'm glad to do it.

John Fairchild
Wyatt you like to give parties?

Wyatt Cooper
I don't do you know that we give about two parties a year we don't like but I think basically like we get pies, I'll tell you something that happens, because it's very relevant here. Because it's the same thing that happens to the Bernstein's. Now there are certain people, the Bernstein's must get 10 requests for everyone that we get. But people approach us and say, if you will come to our party, which is held out there, we can sell a lot of tickets. And it's very hard to keep saying no, we get requests every day. And so do people like the Bernstein's? And so do people like the burdens? And and so do people like the Paley's and you if you have any social conscience you feel you have to do something

Marya Mannes
that I still think I got perfectly right. But I don't think it's in the same category as making the revolution a house pet. People like the Panthers and the Young Lords, whatever they say that justice or injustice concerning them is doing. It is as I have it on a note here before you talking about Louis the 16th. I said really equivalent to Louis the 16th, inviting Robespierre to dinner, of course, there wouldn't have been a correspondent from Lamont there, if there was a little bond, or television. And here again, we come to the business of of exposure and exhibition. And I am all for all of these things if this element. Both of of catalystic difference. And of exhibition, we're not there. This is the thing that offends me fundamentally.

John Fairchild
But you'd never know whether these people are for what reason they're doing these things. And it's very unfair as reporters or writers to question whether people are, are really doing this out of the kindness of their heart, or they're doing it for their own public image. And I know many times when we go to these things that we have to write about them. You do question the motives of people. But on the other hand, as as a reporter, as Charlotte was, or as Tom Wolfe who I will defend. They were at the party, they wrote it as they saw it. And that's their privilege,

Marya Mannes
right. But I don't think one is questioning motives as much as perception, it's quite a different thing. I think the motives were in most are in most cases absolutely pure and good. I think the intelligence or the sophistication, the political sophistication, is is deeply wanting

David Susskind
Can I ask you something, have you ever kind of played at the results of that evening, and this way, you didn't raise enough money ever that night or subsequently to get any more of those people out on bail? Number two, you will totally abandon your previous interest in the Black Panther cause no more parties for them. No more fundraising for them

Charlotte Curtis
That's not so David, no, David, that that

David Susskind
He should have known at a time

Richard Feigen
You keep using you. Well, that's me. Dick Feigen. That's why I have not abandoned the problem that was confronted at that particular event. I still believe that they are entitled to their civil rights. I have my own priorities in my own amount of time. And it happens that I asked for a clarification of their posture in foreign affairs, are they solely concerned with the problem of a deprived minority in the United States? Are they concerned with adventures abroad

David Susskind
Domestically, they're concerned with stockpiling weapons for them.

Richard Feigen
I asked for a clarification of their posture of foreign policy if in fact, they had a foreign policy.

David Susskind
Did they do that ahead of time?

Richard Feigen
No, sir, that came out after this event. Not before. And there was no such things in the press. And I don't accept everything in the press as being true anyway, and I read this thing and I said, Please clarify this for me. I'm only human to say that I want to know whether in fact this is true or it is not taking it at face value that it's true what I read, but I'd like to know if in fact they are concerned with problems abroad. I feel our country has enough problems abroad. Let's say that we ought to start worrying about our own problems here.

David Susskind
Would it be fair to say that the beautiful people at that evening in that you know, your acquaintanceship have washed their hands to the Black Panthers? I don't know because sometimes take a dim view know the intermingle

Richard Feigen
beautiful people are and I don't even know if they're beautiful

David Susskind
The guestlist at your last party are the beautiful people I'm talking about, okay, you're a party giver

Richard Feigen
I'm not a party giver. I don't know what it was. Is it a party or was it a political fundraising thing? And when I consider the country politically in trouble

David Susskind
About six months ago, so I don't know that guestlist is the beautiful people

Richard Feigen
But that I wasn't there doing the same thing that the Bernstein's apparently we're trying to do here everything has its own purpose. See, what I'm trying to do is eliminate these class actions David and sort of saying all things are parties and all parties are the following and all people are beautiful or all people are ugly or whatever it is or they're poor. They're rich. I mean, the fact is, some things are party sometimes, in fact, I suppose we have a party for people to enjoy themselves. This I understood when I saw this car that came was a thing to have a dialogue. It wasn't supposed to be a party, maybe it was one and I didn't know about it. The fact is that by calling all these things, the Young Lords are a whole lot of things. They are concerned with problems in New York City. Now. They do get into a certain kind of Marxist Leninist, Leninist rhetoric, and I have had long arguments with them on this, I don't have to agree with it. The fact is that they do not carry drugs

David Susskind
Why don't you just write a check and send it to the panther defense. Well, why do you have to go?

Richard Feigen
David I wanted to hear I don't want to simply I'd first of all, maybe I don't can't write a check big enough to make any difference to them. And secondly, I don't know that I want to I want to hear Don't you see it, there's a thing about having a discourse and not simply writing checks and doing I wrote a few checks in the years gone by simply because I read Cleaver, what he wrote, I wrote a $50 check simply as a as a, you know, saying I there's a lot there's a lot you say that I agree with, but since that time is a lot of rhetoric and a lot of this foreign stuff that I don't agree with. You don't have to agree with everything, everybody 100%

David Susskind
Excuse me, we have to pause coming right back

END REEL