Good Night and Good Luck - A Commentary on Our Times

George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck, Winter Garden Theatre

Once upon a time in America, the television news was brought to us by a group of respected journalists who we trusted to report the truth. We held these men (back then, they were mostly men) in high esteem, reporters such as Charles Collingswood, Eric Sevareid, Bill Downs, Howard K. Smith, Daniel Schorr, and most especially, Walter Cronkite. Acclaimed for their intelligence and mastery of the English language, they would later be described as “Murrow’s Boys” because their mentor, and the person responsible for their careers, was Edward R. Murrow, the most celebrated journalist of all. Murrow had provided live radio broadcasts from Europe during the Second World War and achieved legendary status with his eyewitness accounts of the London Blitz and, later, the American war campaign.

By the 1950s, Murrow, who frequently ended his dispatches with the phrase “good night and good luck,” had transitioned to television and hosted See It Now, a 30-minute news segment that focused on important and sometimes controversial issues. In October 1953, See It Now produced a segment on Air Force Reserve Lieutenant Milo Radulovich, who was discharged from the Air Force as a security risk because he maintained a "close and continuing relationship" with his father and sister, whom the Air Force contended held “communist sympathies.”

The Air Force did not allege that Lieutenant Radulovich himself was a Communist or possessed “communist sympathies.” In fact, they acknowledged that Radulovich was a loyal American. But Radulovich’s father, a Yugoslav immigrant, subscribed to several Serbian newspapers to stay current on events in his former homeland. One of the papers was associated with the American Slav Congress, which the U.S. Government had once included on a list of Communist front organizations (this same list also included such organizations as the American Jewish Labor Council, American Women for Peace, Washington Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights, and the George Washington Carver School, just to name a few). As for Radulovich’s sister, Margaret, all that could be discerned was that she supported liberal causes, although she described herself as “apolitical.” But whatever evidence the Air Force had against these individuals was never publicly disclosed or shared with Radulovich or his attorney.

The Air Force said it would reinstate Radulovich if he renounced his family. He refused, and instead demanded an Air Force hearing so he could learn of the evidence against him and have an opportunity to defend himself. At the hearing before the review board, an Air Force attorney waved in the air a manila envelope, contending it proved the case against Radulovich. But whatever the envelope contained was never revealed, and no one was permitted to see its contents, including Radulovich and his attorney. Radulovich was stripped of his commission without ever learning the evidence against him.

When the Radulovich case came to the attention of Murrow and his team at See It Now, they sent a reporter and assistant producer to Dexter, Michigan, to interview Radulovich and his family members on camera. The filmed interviews showed each of them to be credible, law-abiding Americans of intelligence and reason. The See It Now team also interviewed Radulovich’s attorney, who stated, “In my 32 years of practicing ... I have never witnessed such a farce and travesty upon justice as this thing has developed into."

When the program aired on October 20, 1953, many viewers of the program began to question the unfair tactics employed by the government to accuse employees of being security risks based on seemingly flimsy and undisclosed evidence. During the episode, Murrow indicated that his team had offered the Air Force an opportunity to reveal whatever evidence may have been contained in the manila envelope. “Was it hearsay, rumor, gossip, slander, or hard, ascertainable facts that could be backed by credible witnesses?” Murrow asked. “We do not know.” Was it simply guilt by association? On that, Murrow added, “We believe the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, even though that iniquity be proved, and in this case it was not.” One month after the broadcast, the Air Force reinstated Radulovich, although by then his reputation had been forever tainted.

Last week, Andrea and I had the privilege of attending the Broadway production of Good Night and Good Luck at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, in which George Clooney plays the role of Edward R. Murrow in the play he co-wrote with Grant Heslov. The play depicts how Murrow, his co-producer, Fred Friendly, and their staff of reporters, writers, and assistant producers examined and investigated the Radulovich case and, later, the abusive Cold War tactics employed by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. It is a reminder of how important ethical and truthful journalism is to a free and vibrant democracy, and of how easily those freedoms can be betrayed by government officials with no dedication to fairness and due process.

Good Night and Good Luck portrays Murrow and Friendly resisting the warnings and pushback from William S. Paley, President of CBS, who worried about losing the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) as a sponsor and inviting the wrath of McCarthy and the government’s Cold War era suspicions. It effectively presents their struggle to insist on journalistic fairness in the face of outright lies and personal attacks by government officials. When Paley argues to Murrow in advance of the Rudalovich episode that their job is to report the news, not comment on it, and that See It Now must tread carefully and remain balanced, Murrow replies, “I simply cannot accept there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.”

In the play (and the 2005 movie by the same name), Murrow comes across as a model of journalistic integrity. Though he was rightly skeptical of the Air Force’s case against Radulovich, which appeared to be based on innuendo and suspicion rather than credible evidence, he merely outlined the known facts and highlighted the lack of evidence. Regarding the accuracy of the Air Force’s charges, he said simply, “We do not know.” Indeed, it was the government’s lack of transparency and denial of due process that should concern all Americans.

Following the Radulovich episode, Murrow and Friendly came into the crosshairs of Senator McCarthy. When a McCarthy aide hinted that the committee was investigating Murrow and his team, Friendly assembled the See It Now staff and said that if anyone in the room had any associations, past or present, that would hurt the program, it was imperative that they spoke up. One staffer offered to resign because his ex-wife had attended some Communist Party meetings before they were married, before he even knew her. Murrow interjected that this very thing was the problem with McCarthy. "The terror is right here in this room,” Murrow said. “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices." He then added, “If none of us ever read a book that was ‘dangerous,’ had a friend who was ‘different,’ or joined an organization that advocated ‘change,’ we would all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.” 

Instead of capitulating, See It Now devoted a program focused on McCarthy’s excesses. The program aired on March 9, 1954. To avoid injecting himself or his opinions into the episode, Murrow let the viewers judge McCarthy by his own words from recordings and transcripts of speeches and congressional hearings. In one film clip, McCarthy falsely accused the American Civil Liberties Union of being a front for the Communist Party. In fact, as Murrow pointed out, no government or congressional agency had ever included the ACLU on its lists of alleged subversive organizations; it was an organization devoted to defending the Bill of Rights that had received letters of commendation from Presidents Eisenhower and Truman and General MacArthur. Numerous other clips and recordings showed McCarthy asserting unsubstantiated claims and falsehoods against people and organizations without proof or evidence, and without allowing the accused individuals an opportunity to defend themselves and their reputations.

The program highlighted the importance of informational and journalistic integrity over baseless fears of treason and disloyalty that defined McCarthy’s Red Scare tactics. Using McCarthy’s own words against him allowed Murrow to deftly interrogate the veracity of the senator’s words and accusations. At the end of the program, Murrow provided some needed perspective: 

No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that Congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating. But the line between investigation and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind between the internal and the external threat of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. 

Murrow made sure to provide McCarthy with an opportunity to respond and rebut any aspect of the program he felt was unfair or untrue. At the start of the broadcast, Murrow had announced that if the senator believes the program “does violence” to his words he will be provided an opportunity to come on the program and defend himself. When McCarthy subsequently demanded a rebuttal, he was given an entire segment to respond. Once again, McCarthy’s own words—he spoke for the entire 30-minute episode—did him more harm than good. McCarthy’s filmed response was so full of lies and false accusations, including his claim that Murrow had been on the Soviet payroll for decades, that it allowed Murrow in the next episode to provide a point-by-point rebuttal in a classic, just the facts manner. Murrow also noted that the senator had “made no reference to any statements of fact we made.” Not long after, the United States Senate voted to censure McCarthy, leading to his rapid political fall.

A scene from Good Night and Good Luck
(Photo credit: Emilio Madrid)

The play effectively follows Murrow’s example; instead of an actor portraying McCarthy, he appears only through actual film clips of his own words, leaving no room for directorial editorializing or the taking of artistic liberties. Although its focus primarily is on responsible journalism (Murrow’s remarks at the end of the play address his concern that the entertainment value of television was replacing serious news content), it is also an important reminder that freedom and liberty are not permanently guaranteed, and that our democracy is fragile and must be protected.

Good Night and Good Luck is an important play, as relevant and necessary today as any time in history. It is a compelling indictment on the abuse and misuse of government power. It lays bare the threat of authoritarianism, which flows directly from irresponsible accusations that someone is “disloyal” or a “security risk” or has “Communist” or “terrorist” sympathies based on undisclosed or unexamined evidence. And as we have too often observed in history, these threats are heightened by the dehumanization of immigrants and those perceived as “others.”

Watching the play in person, and for everyone in the theatre that afternoon, it was readily apparent that this was not simply a recreation of a segment of American history during the Cold War or an interesting but distant dramatization of past events. Every day for the past four months we have seen stories of legal residents being abducted and deported without due process, immigrants convicted of no crime being sent to a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador where inmates are never seen or heard from again. We have seen university students being detained and deported for exercising protected First Amendment rights, accused of being “terrorists” and security risks based solely on their participation in lawful, non-violent protests or for writing critical editorials in a student newspaper. And we have seen law firms denied security clearances and government contracts because they dared represent clients who opposed the administration or hired the president’s perceived enemies.

All these events bear an uncanny resemblance to the Air Force’s treatment of Milo Radulovich and of the McCarthy hearings that accused hundreds of government employees of colluding with the Communist Party, often without disclosing the evidence, if any existed, in support of the charges. Accusations based on “secret” evidence with the accused provided no opportunity to challenge or rebut the alleged associations. These were the transgressions of McCarthyism and of Red Scare tactics abused during the Cold War, when hearsay, rumor, and innuendo were used to accuse people of being disloyal, or of associating with Communists or harboring sympathetic thoughts to Communist ideas.

Such transgressions are repeated every day in this administration. Except now the administration uses words such as “terrorism,” “antisemitism,” “invasion” and "treason" against students, elite universities, immigrants, and perceived political enemies to accuse its targets of endangering the nation. For example, after admitting in court that it had mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego García, an employed Maryland resident married to a U.S. citizen, to El Salvador, and after being ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to facilitate his return to the United States, the administration insisted, without evidence, that Abrego Garcia is a gang member, a drug dealer, a "terrorist," and a human trafficker. And despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump has publicly insisted Abrego Garcia will never return to the United States.

The Trump administration has publicly and repeatedly branded the 238 Venezuelan immigrants whisked away to El Salvador as “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters” and “the worst of the worst.” But as Pro Publica and the Texas Tribune recently reported, the administration knew the vast majority had no criminal record and that “only 32 of the deportees had been convicted” of mostly “nonviolent offenses, such as retail theft or traffic violations.” Of course, immigrants who have committed crimes can be prosecuted and deported, but it must be done in accordance with our laws and constitution. And as an attorney for the ACLU has noted, “it does not mean they can be subjected to a potentially lifetime sentence in a foreign gulag.”

The administration has repeatedly disparaged Columbia University student Mohammed Khalil, claiming without evidence that he is “antisemitic” (Khalil has publicly condemned antisemitism and talked of alliance with his “Jewish brothers and sisters”) and sympathetic to terrorists (he has publicly criticized Hamas), to justify attempts to deport him and take him from his wife and newborn baby. Khalil’s crime was in exercising free speech and participating in non-violent pro-Palestinian protests on his university’s campus. As Philip Bump of The Washington Post writes, although “no evidence has emerged of any college student, native-born or immigrant, offering material support to Hamas,” the administration has instead suggested that Khalil’s activities were “aligned with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Similarly, the Secretary of Education has falsely accused Harvard University of fostering a “pro-terrorist” environment, and over one million foreign students who attend American universities are worried and concerned about whether they will be allowed to complete their studies in the United States or have their visas unilaterally revoked.

Murrow warned in the March 1954 episode that, as Americans, we must “not walk in fear, one of another” nor be “driven by fear into an age of unreason.” He said that “if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine,” we will remember that we are descended from leaders who did not fear “to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.” This is what freedom and liberty are made of. We ignore and neglect it at our peril. He ended the program with these words:

We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. ... We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear. He merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Good night, and good luck.

A Plea for the Humanities

The humanities help nurture connections within and between diverse societies, offering pathways for constructive engagement. Learning about and respecting outlooks different from our own is crucial to our survival in the twenty-first century, moving us away from tensions created by ignorance and fear toward informed, sympathetic conversation between cultures. That does not mean forsaking our own identities and loyalties, but it does involve developing the capacity to see beyond them. – Richard Godbeer, Professor of History, University of Kansas

On June 4, 2009, President Obama gave a speech at Cairo University that sought to promote understanding and ease tensions between the United States and the Muslim world. Although it had been nearly eight years since a group of violent Islamic extremists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, the country remained at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and divided about how to respond to threats of terrorism and religious-inspired violence at home and abroad.

Obama had come to Cairo “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.” Increased understanding between Islam and the West was essential for peace. “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences,” Obama said, “we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity.” Obama correctly noted that Islam was replete with teachings that promoted peace and condemned violence, and that most people of the Islamic faith opposed terrorism and had nothing to do with the violence inflicted on 9/11. 

The Cairo speech served educational and diplomatic objectives and was grounded in Obama’s knowledge and understanding of history, religion, and culture. Aided by his education and personal life experiences, he crafted a speech designed to lower tensions and provide historical perspective. Rooted in the humanities, the speech sought to counter the widening rift between Islam and the United States. 

As the previous eight years had demonstrated, a fundamental misunderstanding and aversion to a comprehensive understanding of historic, religious, and cultural dynamics led to a gross miscalculation in the War in Iraq and our response to the war on terror. It also contributed to Islamophobia, discrimination, and prejudice against Muslims within the United States. Obama’s speech, which incorporated his humanities-based education, exemplified how a broad understanding of history and religion, and experience with diverse cultures, leads to a deeper appreciation for differing perspectives and to better communication and judgment. 

America at its best is a nation that supports excellence, learns from history, promotes understanding between people of different religious and racial backgrounds, and engages other nations and cultures with appropriate humility. It is why an educational system founded on the humanities is so important to a free and vibrant democracy, and to American public life.

It is also why I find the Trump administration’s full-scale war on the humanities, the arts, and higher education in American life deeply troubling. Through a series of executive orders and other actions, Trump intends to disband the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), restrict the independence of the Smithsonian Institution, and defund libraries, museums, universities, public radio and television stations, and arts education in communities throughout the United States. Trump’s attacks on these institutions include censoring historical content on federal government and public museum websites, removing books on racial equity and gender identity from military academy libraries, eliminating public support for the arts in diverse communities, and canceling billions of dollars in funding for research at the nation’s top universities. He wishes to fund only causes he considers “patriotic” or that present a glorified perspective of American history and culture.

The administration has cited a variety of reasons for its actions, but rather than propose modest and evidence-based reforms designed to address a particular concern, Trump acts and talks as if he wishes to burn these esteemed institutions to the ground. I believe his actions will cause irreparable harm to the nation that even his supporters will come to regret. But rather than provide a detailed critique of why many of Trump’s executive orders are unconstitutional or grossly misguided, I wish only to explain why public support for the humanities is essential to an informed citizenry, and a free and vibrant democracy. 

The humanities include the academic study of philosophy, history, religion, languages, and the arts, and encompasses literature, poetry, writing, theater, music, and the visual arts. Aristotle believed that a study of the humanities was essential to excellence, and to perfecting of the self. Along with the sciences, the humanities formed the foundation for higher education. Without them our educational system would be nothing more than a series of vocational and professional schools in strict service to the economy. While such skills-based learning is important and necessary, the humanities are essential to a liberal education, with “liberal” in this usage derived from the Latin word liber, meaning “free.” The term itself recognizes that knowledge is liberating and explains why slave owners in early America deprived their enslaved subjects of books and education.

It is true that humanities education sometimes gets a bad rap. Critics contend the humanities provide “soft” knowledge with little utilitarian value in a competitive economy. In the movie Liberal Arts, a young college student asks the film’s protagonist, Jesse Fisher, what he majored in when he attended the same college ten years earlier. “English, with a minor in history,” replies Jesse, “just to make sure I was fully unemployable.” It is a common sentiment. When my father learned I was taking a course my sophomore year on Native American Literature, he cynically asked, “What kind of a job will that get you?” The course itself may not have added anything to my resume, but it is one of the few courses that I remember well to this day, for it helped me to better understand Native American culture and history and made me a better and more informed person. 

And while some might argue that having the time to spend on such pursuits reflects a life of privilege and too much leisure time, I counter that it was my humanities-based liberal arts education that developed my skills in speaking and writing, the art of persuasion, and critical thinking, all skills I needed as a lawyer and that are skills desperately needed in today’s world. 

In Man’s Search for Meaning, the Holocaust survivor, psychologist, and philosopher Viktor Frankl wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” It is this search for meaning that most explains my interest in the humanities. As the years pass and I become older, the more fully I comprehend how important history and religion, philosophy and literature, art and music, and exposure to diverse cultures, languages, and traditions are to a fully engaged and exalted life. Good literature and the arts enrich our lives, help us better understand and empathize with others, leads to genuine human interactions, and guides us in our human quest for truth and understanding. 

It is why the power of an enjoyable book is so liberating, and why the joy of reading uplifts and enhances our lives. Marilynne Robinson, who wrote a defense of the humanities for The New York Review of Books, contends that an informative book “has a suggestive power far beyond its subject, a potency the affected mind itself might take years to realize.” She once talked with “a cab driver who had spent years in prison. He said he had no idea that the world was something he could be interested in. And then he read a book.” 

According to the 17th Century French Catholic philosopher Blaise Pascal, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Humanities and the arts contribute to the development of well-rounded human beings with an ethical core and a moral compass, something desperately lacking in the world today judging from the current crop of world leaders.

But why should we publicly fund the humanities? How one answers that question may depend on what sort of society and country one desires. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville perceived education and the humanities as rays of sunlight that spread democracy and enlightenment over the western world: 

From the moment when the exercise of intelligence had become a source of strength and wealth, each . . .  new area of knowledge, each fresh idea had to be viewed as a seed of power placed within people’s grasp. Poetry, eloquence, memory, the beauty of wit, the fires of imagination, the depth of thought, all these gifts which heaven shares out by chance turned to the advantage of democracy and, even when they belonged to the enemies of democracy, they still promoted its cause by highlighting the natural grandeur of man. Its victories spread, therefore, alongside those of civilization and education. Literature was an arsenal open to all, where the weak and the poor could always find arms.

Tocqueville believed that advancements in knowledge enhanced the general welfare of the community and promoted excellence. In an increasingly complex and evolving world, private means alone are inadequate. It is why public support for the humanities and the arts are historically important to a free and democratic society. Without public support, humanities and the arts would benefit only the privileged and affluent. The availability of public funds extends their reach to poor and rural communities, and thus benefits all of society. This is why grants from the NEH and NEA are so important, and why funding cuts to higher education restrict the aid available for lower income students.

Our nation’s founders, although flawed individuals, were highly educated and widely read men. These traits enabled them to inspire a national movement and draft the American ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. It is why the freedom of expression, and of the press, and the free exercise of religious belief and practice were so cherished and embedded into the nation’s founding documents. And it is why the courts have traditionally outlawed efforts to censor news reports or ban books, things free societies that value unfettered thought and creativity simply do not allow.

This is why the current attacks on our educational system and hostility to the humanities are so troubling. In free societies, governments do not dictate what universities can and cannot teach, and do not prohibit courses that express new theories and methods of study simply because they open new avenues of thinking about race and gender. Free societies do not whitewash history, suppress unorthodox religious expressions, or outlaw differing academic notions of gender identity or racial equity.

The United States remains a grand experiment. Tocqueville discernibly uplifted the humanities as essential to a free society, for they nurture and enrich a nation founded upon the right to pursue happiness. Concepts of beauty, eloquence, depth of thought, should belong to all of us. Our universities are among the best in the world because they are based on the concept of liberal education, designed to teach excellence, and enrich the whole person, and because we have supported them with needed funding while protecting their independence and autonomy.

Why should we support the humanities? Because core skills in the humanities help us develop skills in critical thinking, deep research, reading and comprehension, critical analysis, and problem-solving. Because without support for the humanities, education, and the arts, we are a less free, less democratic, less informed, and less vibrant democracy. Without the humanities, our lives are less fulfilled, and our world is a darker place.