Riegel interview

[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]
Riegel: ... let you have his paper. You know him, don’t you?
Warren: No, but I’m sure Frank can get me in touch with him. Bill Buchanan.
Riegel: Yes. He was a professor of politics. He is now emeritus.
Warren: I want to jump back eleven years, because you mentioned something a while
ago that I was intrigued by. You said that you and Dr. Gaines arrived on campus at the
same time. Obviously I know very little about Dr. Gaines. He’s way before I ever came
around here, but his name sure does keep coming up. Tell me something about Francis
Pendleton Gaines. What are your impressions of him?
Riegel: Well, this is when I should remember my release [form], I guess. Well, this is
not thought out and organized in advance like statements should be—well, not should
be, but discreet to do. Gaines has been much criticized as being kind of a hypocrite and
a professional praiser of Robert E. Lee and a fundraiser, somewhat lacking in integrity
and so on. I found this to be untrue. I admired Gaines, realizing, of course, that he was
an expert actor, performer. He was the best. He was from the school of Southern Baptist
ministers, and he was eloquent, a real orator, and he could move people.

         I remember one night going out with him on a speech tour of the county where
he spoke to a couple of Ruritan Clubs, and in the [unclear] of his talk on Lee or some
subject at Kerr’s Creek, he began to weep a little, had tears in his eyes. Well, he gave the
same speech about an hour or two later on the other side of the county, and I was with
him, and he got to the same point and he then began to weep a little while delivering
this thing. I thought this was amazing. He was a real—what kind of actor do you call it?
Method actor? He threw himself into it and believed these things.

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         Well, underneath this, so I recognized a certain amount of showmanship in this,
but he was fundamentally a very decent man, very fair, I thought. He was also a little—
well, he was always cooperative with me and sympathetic and never tried to embarrass
me, and I was under attack once or twice from right-wing conservatives, and he came to
my defense. I was never aware that he ever did anything really mean or ugly or
unprincipled to anybody on the faculty. He would listen to criticism of his faculty, but
he’d always find a way of taking care of it without doing any harm to the members of
the faculty.

         As a good example—I don’t remember the circumstances—but somebody in the
School of Commerce was bitterly denounced by a prominent alumnus because
reportedly this faculty member had advocated in class a 100 percent death tax, which
confiscated the fortunes, and, of course, the wealth of the affluent alumni. Well, I don’t
know what Gaines did about this, except that the poor guy, you remember they called
him—
Jane Riegel: That was [unclear].
Riegel: Yes, that was [unclear]. I think he did leave.
Jane Riegel: He did leave [unclear].
Riegel: Yes, under pleasant circumstances. There was nothing mean about the
treatment he got. I think Gaines treated him quite well.

         Well, what else can I say about—oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. Once in a
while when he had to say something about some project in which I was interested and
had some little special information, he would ask me to write a draft for him to rewrite
and put into his speeches. I discovered that I was writing in his style, this foreign
oratorical style, the big round words came flowing out. This is awful. That is what I
mean about being infectious. It’s easy to fall into that.
Warren: Would he have liked bicenquinquagenary?
Riegel: I think so, yes.

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Jane Riegel: [unclear]
Riegel: Yes, he was very popular.
Warren: I’ve read a couple of his speeches and they’re beautiful. They’re very quotable.
They’re very eloquent, they really are. Was he naturally that way? Was that his
personality or was it when he got up to give a speech?
Riegel: Well, I think he was brought up in the Southern Baptist Church tradition. His
father may have been a Southern Baptist minister. They are good orators, most of them,
I’m told. In fact, many of the black Baptist ministers follow the same pattern. You know
how eloquent some of them are.

         Gaines was a professor of literature, wasn’t he? I think that was before he
became president.
Jane Riegel: While he was here, he taught the Bible as Literature
Riegel: Yes, yes.
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Riegel: The things he had to do as part of his job, like being nice to very rich elderly
ladies and so on, would incite some satirical comment, you know, among the more
cynical members of the faculty, but he never actually stole any money or anything like
that. He was very nice to them, and they should have been friendly toward Gaines,
because he was so good to them.
Warren: Who were these dear old ladies? I keep hearing references to these women.
Riegel: Well, Mrs. duPont was one, but there were others even more important to the
university, and I don’t remember their names.
Warren: Why were these women so enamored with an all-male university?
Riegel: Well, partly because of Gaines. He was very courtly and very gallant to them,
I’m sure flattered them a good deal.
Jane Riegel: Maybe it’s the Lee connection.
Riegel: Yes, I’m sure it did.

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Warren: Connection to General Lee?
Riegel: Well, he was so unimpeachably correct and nice, genteel. You can’t do better
than a college president of a school and college for the sons of affluent southern
families. That’s the height of correctness. [Laughter] No danger, no threats involved in
that.

         One of Gaines’ favorite stories was that when he went out to see one of our rich
alumni in Chicago, they’d have dinner and then go to the billiars room [phonetic], and
this man would always say, "Don’t mind, Dr., if you walk ahead of me. I carry my
wallet in my back pocket and I’ve had experience with college presidents." He liked to
tell that story.

         Another of his favorite stories, one of his graduates married a very sweet girl,
but they broke up and got a divorce, and Gaines would say, "Yes, they were
incompatible. He didn’t have enough income and she wasn’t patable." And this was a
sure-fired joke that everybody would laugh at in student assembly.

         But I’m beginning to wander like an old man. What else?
Warren: It’s great wandering. You mentioned that there was a bit of conflict from your
political persuasion and the persuasions of some of the other people at Washington and
Lee. I’m intrigued by that idea, because you and I probably come from the same
direction, and I’m trying to make my way in this very conservative environment. How
did you do it? How did you last that long and be comfortable in such a conservative
environment?
Riegel: Well, I had a feeling that I was considerably more liberal, if I may use that
word, than most members of the faculty, although I may be wrong about that. There
were a lot of them that sort of sub rosa they were covert liberals and didn’t admit it. But
I had the impression that I was relatively left on the faculty. But I never talked politics. I
never used the classroom to propagandize or to advocate anything. I was always very
careful to give both sides of every subject. I would expose my students to the most

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radical ideas, but it was always radical on both sides, radically left and radically right. I
never had any complaint, really. Do you recall any, Jane?
Jane Riegel: No.
Riegel: Except once I was criticized. The Glass [phonetic] family got criticism from the
publisher of the national paper, whose name I’ve forgotten, very well known at the
time.
Jane Riegel: The Glass family?
Riegel: Yes, the Glass family when they were on the committee for the Lee School of
the SNPA. This publisher complained about me, and I’ve forgotten what it was, but I
think it had something to do with the American Newspaper Guild. I think I had said
something either favorable about the Guild or at least not condemning it. It was the
labor union through the publishers, and the Nashville publisher was pretty upset, and
he wrote to Carter—no, not Carter. Who was the Glass I dealt with? Tom’s father. Well,
anyway, he described me in one passage as "like a bird dirtying its own nest." Glass
and the president just laughed about it, paid no attention to it. But that’s the nearest
thing to an overt political issue I can recall for my entire career here.
Warren: How about the student body itself? Did you find them conservative?
Riegel: Oh, yes, yes.
Warren: Why do you think that is? Why do you think Washington and Lee attracts?
Riegel: They come from affluent conservative families, most of them, and it’s always
been a rabid Republican place, I think. [Laughter] I don’t talk politics with these
members of the faculty. No, the other thing is, I don’t say so with any pride, it’s sort of
craven, but I’ve avoided politics and religion during our whole time here. Do you
remember any discussion of this at all?
Jane Riegel: No, no, I don’t.
Riegel: I am not very churchly, either. In fact, I never go. [Laughter] But I never
mention religion; it never comes up. I guess that’s the answer to your question. There

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has been no problem. Gaines, I think, was curious about my religion, and I remember
an interview with him when I first got here and he was asking me about various things,
my views on this and that. I could see him getting more and more nervous and more
and more agitated, and I thought, "What’s he going to ask next? About sex?" No. It
was about religion. He said, "Professor, you aren’t actively opposed to religion, are
you?" I said, "Oh, no. In fact, if you are interested, I am a baptized member of the
Presbyterian Church, and I have at home a diploma with twelve gold seals, each
indicating a year of perfect attendance at Sunday school." [Laughter] Well, Gaines
looked greatly relieved, smiled, and changed the subject. And that was that. But that
was true.
Warren: I put in twelve years of Catholic school, so I know exactly what you’re talking
about. [Laughter]

         What about these rabid Republican students in 1970? I understand things got a
little different here in 1970.
Riegel: We weren’t much involved, really. I don’t recall very much about it. We
personally were FDR’s New Dealers in our politics.
Jane Riegel: What year did you say?
Warren: 1970. I’m leaping around, aren’t I?
Riegel: Well, let’s see. But in that tradition, liberal and Democrat. We didn’t get
involved in any political fights. Did we work for anything?
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Riegel: I did some publicity for—
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Riegel: I was on the Democratic county committees for a short time.
Warren: When the students closed down the university, were you involved in that at
all?

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Riegel: Well, not directly, because my students were very nice to me. I remember it
vividly because I marched in an anti-Vietnam parade. Was that during the war? Yes, I
guess it was.
Warren: Yes.
Riegel: And Betty Munger was marching with us. We were about the only ones that I
recall. We started at the courthouse and went to the campus, and I felt very brave and
expected to have a shouting mob out there on the side, but nobody was there. Nobody
paid any attention.

         Many of these radical students were good friends of mine. They left me alone. I
tried to find out about that, if they had me labeled as a "red" or something, but that
didn’t seem to be it. I remember asking Aunt Bertha—what was her name?
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Riegel: [unclear], a perky little girl that worked on the campus for a while, and
[unclear] humorously calls her his Aunt Bertha. But anyway, I said, "I don’t understand
why these radical students, the hippies, the laid-back ones, why they treat me with
respect and are nice to me."

         And she said, "Well, you aren’t a prick."
         [Laughter] And I said, "That’s very nice, but why am I not?" And I never could
find out, because I didn’t smoke marijuana. I tried it once but didn’t like it. [Laughter]
Jane Riegel: Didn’t inhale. [Laughter]
Riegel: Didn’t inhale.
Jane Riegel: I recall that era. They did have a lot to do with the so-called hippies.
Riegel: That’s right, yes. I had quite a circle of friends among these radical students.
Warren: Tell me about the idea of forming friendships with the students. Did you
socialize with students?
Jane Riegel: No, not very much.

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Riegel: No, not intimately. We didn’t go out on drinking parties with them or anything
like that.
Jane Riegel: I remember we had this one group out here. Eli Fishpaw was one, wasn’t
he.
Warren: John McCleod?
Jane Riegel: Peter O’Shaughnessy.
Riegel: O’Shaughnessy. Do these names mean anything?
Warren: Yes, yes. Was it John McCleod?
Jane Riegel: Yes, John McCleod was here and his wife—
Warren: Winifred Holt.
Jane Riegel: Winifred.
Riegel: Did you know them?
Warren: Yes, very well. I went to their wedding.
Riegel: Their wedding?
Warren: Yes.
Riegel: So did we.
Warren: Then we’ve met before. Out by the river.
Riegel: What do you know. We were there watching the priest from West Virginia with
the scapular or whatever you call it around his neck. Are they divorced now?
Warren: I heard they got back together.
Jane Riegel: They did. They’re in California.
Warren: I heard that. I don’t know the current status, but I heard they got back
together.
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Warren: That name is very familiar to me, but I don’t remember why.
Jane Riegel: Because she was there.
Warren: I can’t picture her, but the name is very familiar. Did she work in—

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Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Riegel: Yes. I don’t know what outfit she was in.
Warren: Did she work in the press office with Bob Keefe?
Jane Riegel: She might have.
Warren: I bet that’s how I knew her.
Jane Riegel: That may be [unclear].
Warren: So you did socialize with students.
Riegel: Yes, but it was very limited.
Jane Riegel: Very limited, yes.
Riegel: Not really free and open sort of thing. I think we looked too formidable to
them.
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Warren: Generation gap.
Jane Riegel: Generation gap.
Riegel: I had the feeling that they treated us with respect, not especially with affection.
They felt that we had liberal views, I think, and liked that.
Jane Riegel: Not like the usual faculty member. [Laughter]
Warren: I have some very specific questions that Frank would like to hear you talk
about. He wants to know about your involvement in the evolution of the Southern
Intercollegiate Press Association and about the conferences that used to be here.
Riegel: Well, we really should show and name some of this stuff, I think. Well, when I
became head of the department, I inherited the Southern Intercollegiate Press
Association, which had been formed about the same time as the school, as the
department, in the mid 1920s. There had been some state associations of school editors,
these were editors of newspapers, magazines, and yearbooks primarily. And then there
was the Columbia Press Association, which covered the country, and then there was a
national one.

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         Ellard or somebody got the idea of having one for the southern schools, and it
worked very well. There were 75 delegates to the convention the first year I had it, 1934,
I guess, and the last year I had it, we had 1,800 delegates. It seemed to be a very viable,
active, interested organization. It was done with our left hand. We didn’t spend much
time and effort on it. It more or less ran itself, but we did arrange a big conference every
year, with the critics of the publications and all that, and we had a big program of
speakers, which was good diversion for our students, and it gave me a chance to bring
in outside speakers.
Warren: What kind of speakers?
Riegel: Oh, newspapermen. We had everybody there. Who were some of them?
Reston. Who wasn’t there? We always had a cartoonist every year, the man who did
"L’il Abner" and "Mandrake the Magician." Who’s the guy from Connecticut? Hal
Foster.
Jane Riegel: Yes. "Prince Valiant."
Warren: How did you get these people?
Riegel: M______ was here and Mrs. Ogden Reid [publisher of the New York Harold
Tribune], and Margaret Bourke-White. I’d invite them. I knew most of them from other
contacts. Well, then I left as head of the department, and my successors gave it away
immediately, first to the University of Georgia and then to University of South
Carolina, and there it is now and thriving, doing even better now.
Warren: Who were the delegates?
Riegel: They were editors of these publications, and writers, staff members of
secondary-school publications, public schools and private schools, and their faculty
advisors.
Warren: I attended the Columbia all through my high school career and I can
remember it being a very important part of my life every year.
Riegel: Yes.

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Jane Riegel: This was particularly attractive to the girls who came, because they got to
see all those Washington and Lee boys, and the journalism students were helpers.
Riegel: Would you mind showing Mame those two we brought down? I have quite a
few reports on the conventions.
Warren: I’d like to look at those. Let me ask you the other question that Frank had. He
wanted to know about the Alfred I. duPont Award for Broadcast. [Jane leaves room to
get material.]

         Was it all girls who came?
Riegel: No, no, boys and girls.
Warren: Was this an annual event?
Riegel: Yes, yes, it was a convention here. It began in the fall and later was in the
spring.
Warren: Where would all these kids stay?
Riegel: We got everybody into—we took advantage of every room we could find, and
sometimes they had to go a distance away, like Natural Bridge.
Jane Riegel: There weren’t as many hotels then. You had Hope Laughlin doing
housing for them in private homes. [Tape recorder turned off.]
Warren: I think you were involved in the founding of the radio station, WLUR.
Riegel: Yes.
Warren: What happened there? How did that come to be?
Riegel: We just decided that Washington and Lee should have a radio station.
Jane Riegel: Radio was the thing.
Warren: When was this? About what year was that? I found the date. ’67, was it, ’68?
Jane Riegel: No, before that.
Warren: I just found a reference to it, so I do have the date.
Jane Riegel: It was way before that.

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Riegel: The origins of it go back to right after the war when various people and I talked
about starting a radio operation here, which everybody was doing. I mean, that was the
thing, the new means of communication. Particularly influential was an alumnus by the
name of Nunn, whose family owned a radio station in Lexington, Kentucky, and he
gave me all the help and encouragement possible. He sent us our first tape recorder, a
rather elaborate one, which was actually our first radio station. We used it to originate
programs which went out over WREL.

         Then there was a period in which we had a radio editorial room in Payne Hall,
and the boys would walk their copy down to WREL downtown office in the bank
building in Lexington, and then later we began to take it out. The boys went out to the
station to give the program, and then we got a telephone loop in and we sent it out
from Payne Hall by telephone to the radio station. And so on, one development after
another, until finally I said, "We have to have a station," and the administration was
very much in favor of this, or at least didn’t oppose it. I can’t remember any
enthusiasm, as a matter of fact. They had no objection, so I proceeded.

         It happened that I had a good friend on the FCC [Federal Communications
Commission] by the name of Rosel Hyde, a commissioner. He was a Mormon from
Utah. He gave me a lot of help, and we got all the clearances and got the license. We
had a commissioner down here to give the address at the opening of the station. That’s
probably in one of these books somewhere. There’s a portfolio over there on the radio
station.
Warren: Why did you think this was important? What did the radio station do for the
students?
Riegel: Well, of course, we had a major interest in familiarizing our students with the
medium and learning all about it, including the use of it. Then it had a subsidiary, I
would call it, value to me, a primary value to the students, as an outlet for their talents

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and interest to programming. One of my students in those early days is still on WLUR,
Doug Harwood. Do you know him?
Warren: Very well.
Riegel: I think he began his radio work in his student days, and he’s still doing the
Third Ear program.
Warren: I thought his Anti-Headache Machine was absolutely brilliant. I used to love
listening to that.
Jane Riegel: I think it’s still on.
Warren: Yes, but I’m out in the country now.
Jane Riegel: We’ve never heard it.
Riegel: So we got all the clearances and raised the antenna on the roof of Reid Hall. I
think it’s been moved since then. I think it’s somewhere else.
Warren: It’s on top of Reid Hall.
Jane Riegel: [unclear].
Riegel: Well, my first book of instructions on station operation is in there somewhere,
too.
Warren: You have rather illustrious alumni who have gone through your program.
Riegel: Yes, and some illustrious who didn’t go through the program.
Warren: Was Roger Mudd one of your people?
Riegel: No, he wasn’t a major. He was a major in history, I think. I think I had Roger in
class. I’m not sure about that. I know one of the sensitive subjects in my life is Tom
Wolfe, who is supposed to be one of my students, and he was in my class, he says, and
everybody says, and I have no recollection at all. In fact, I looked him up in the
registrar’s office one time to be sure that this was true, if he was here. I used to get
telephone calls when he became famous, from people. I remember some newspaperman
in Baltimore calling me up and he wanted some funny stories about Tom Wolfe as a

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student, and I said, "Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember Tom Wolfe as a student, and
I certainly don’t know any funny stories."
Warren: That’s a pretty funny story, that you don’t remember him. [Laughter]
Riegel: Yes. Well, anything else?
Warren: I think I’ve gotten plenty of good stuff for today, and if I may, after Frank and
I listen to this, I expect it’s going to bring up more questions, and I may give you a call
back and see if I can come back again sometime.
Riegel: That was a pretty wretched performance, wasn’t it?
Warren: It was just terrible, Tom. I’m really appalled. I’m terribly disappointed. Will
you disappoint me again sometime?
Riegel: [Laughter] Yes.
Warren: Let’s take a look at some of these scrapbooks and albums that you have here.
I’ll turn the machine off now and set you free from this microphone. Thank you very
much.
Riegel: Well, I hope it wasn’t too bad.
Warren: It wasn’t too bad.
[End of interview]

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