Hollywood Bowl. Back in the USSR.
3rd June, 1985 One of the perks of journalism, particularly in overseas Bureaus, was the opportunity to pick your stories and rub shoulders with history and the past. I was on assignment with Ray Martin and David Brill for Australian Broadcasting and we were on the road with Eugene McCarthy on the way to the Hollywood Bowl in LA. As well as a skilled and idealistic politician, McCarthy was a published poet and we’d already filmed him in his Washington DC office as part of a profile. Eugene McCarthy ran for president as peace candidate in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War. Many years later I wrote in my diary: “CBS reports on the CIA and army disinformation campaign during Vietnam War. Seems General Westmoreland continuously underestimated allied troop casualties by as much as one-half to give President Johnson the feeling that America was winning the war. How many thousands were killed because of this?”. I remember that hot afternoon at the Hollywood Bowl...