Ethel Payne: Interview #5

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[Begin Tape 1, Side A]

Currie: Can you believe it? Number five!

Payne: Yes.

Currie: Last time, we left off with the civil rights movement, and really got you into the sixties. I'd like to talk a little more about what was happening to you personally and with reporters in general in that decade. For example, where did you live in Washington during that time?

Payne: I lived in so many different places in Washington. What was the year you're referring to now?

Currie: The decade between 1955 and 1965, generally, the civil rights decade.

Payne: Yes. I was probably living on R Street, Northwest. I had a very small apartment. It was almost a cracker box. Yes, that was where I was living—1619 R Street, Northwest. I was going back and forth to Alabama, so it really didn't matter too much to me. I hadn't really gotten into my collection business, so to speak, so a house was just a place to put your head down.

Currie: During that time, I know earlier you said you had no social life at all.

Payne: Not much. Very little. Very little.

Currie: Even in this period?

Payne: Yes, because, you see, I had so much responsibility. Just to keep up with it required so much energy. The nearest thing to social life was if you went looking for a particular story angle and it involved some social activity. Then, naturally, you became involved in that way, but I never really had it on my own. Once in a great while, I liked to invite people in for dinner or brunch or something like that, but that was rarely. I liked to cook, and at the time I thought I was a pretty good cook. So once in a while, I would relax by inviting people in.

Currie: Who were your friends at that time?

Payne: Mostly people in the media, my fellow colleagues, and a few other friends who sort of looked after me, kind of mothered me a great deal.

Currie: Who at that time would you consider one of your better friends?

Payne: Oh, I had a great friend named—she passed away, but her name was Arabella Denniston. She worked for the National Council of Negro Women. She was much older

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you were trying so hard. I think the people who were leading the movement sometimes got carried away with the sudden exposure to the larger media, you know, TV, radio, the print media and everything, and it kind of diverted their real deep interest in black newspapers. Sometimes I felt there was a little contempt there, and that used to make me very angry. So sometimes what I would do is to get other black reporters, and I'd say, "Well, let's make a head-on confrontation about this." And we did. I just organized them to make formal protests about it. Then, of course, what it did was stir some guilt complexes about it: "You're neglecting your roots, you know."

Currie: Guilt can be a wonderful thing.

Payne: Yes. So that's the way we'd have to do it. It was unfortunate, but it happened. So you just had to confront it. Basically, I don't like to be really rude. I don't like to be really ugly. But sometimes it required that. I was reminded of it yesterday, when I went over to register for the Congressional Black Caucus, and as soon as I hit the lobby, people began coming up to me and greeting me, kissing me, and all the rest of it, you know. In a way, I guess, maybe I'm sort of an icon. But at any rate, great deference was being paid to me, you know. Everything was ready for me, you know, and "We want you to be sure that you're comfortable, and we're going to have a table for you." Then somebody said, "Alfreda Madison, she was here earlier, she was raising hell." Alfreda Madison is a woman who taught school for years, and she's from Richmond, Virginia. She retired on a pension, and then she got into newspapering, but I don't think—you know, it's sort of a hobby with her. But she faithfully covers Capitol Hill now, and she goes to the White House. She has White House press credentials and everything. I think she enjoys it, but it really isn't a hardcore thing with her, like it was with me. But Alfreda is known as a hell-raiser. [Laughter.] She has some real tiny, tiny papers, but she is quick to register offense if she thinks she's being ignored. I can understand, because I came from the same thing, too.

Currie: So today you're lionized.

Payne: Yes. [Laughter.]

Currie: But that's not always how it's been.

Payne: That's not always how it's been, you know, so I just smiled indulgently. I said, "Well, yes, she has to fight for her rights just like anybody else." [Laughter.]

Currie: Let me ask you, too. You had three presidents during that time. Was there change in the way that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson treated the press?

Payne: Kennedy had so many friends in the press. Oh, Lord have mercy! The press was just as enamored with John F. Kennedy as the public was, you know. He was a glamorous, charming man, and he was disarming. He had a way with it. The press treated him very gently, I think, overall. With Lyndon Johnson, it was different. Lyndon Johnson was crude, he was raw stuff, he was clever. And I think the press was on the alert, because they knew that he was wily. So therefore, there used to be a contest between LBJ and the White House and the press corps, and you could kind of feel that pull, because he knew the ways of Washington better than anybody. He had a very capable press secretary, George Reedy, but at the same time, the press was always lying in wait for him, you know. And Vietnam, when that came along, that provided the perfect vehicle for them to really savage him.

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So sometimes people think that you're standoffish, you know, that you're—what shall I say?—that you're almost snobbish. But sometimes it's a defense mechanism. They don't realize that. You don't want to be exposed to hurt, so you just go your way. And you sort of build yourself up so that—[laughter]—once I was told that I was one of the most formidable persons they'd ever met. It was almost like when they approach you, it's like approaching a holy place or something. And that really, really—I had to sit down and examine myself and say, "Do I really come off like that?" But it's just something that you have to struggle with all the time.

Currie: I remember, early on, I asked if I could call you Ethel, and I kept calling you Miss Payne.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: Somehow it just seems that you should be called Miss Payne. It's not that I don't feel comfortable, but you do have a presence.

Payne: Yes, I guess so. Well, I guess it's so because I've struggled so hard to maintain a certain amount of respect, to garner a certain amount of respect. So I guess that it does come off that way.

Currie: It's not a negative thing with me.

Payne: No, no. Sometimes I've been told, "People just stand in awe of you." For one thing, I am unique in a certain way, particularly among blacks. I have had so many unusual experiences for anybody, you know, I mean all of the assignments and all the places that I've been to, and all the writings that I have done, and the fact that I have swung between two kinds of media, the print media on one hand, and electronic on the other, with "Spectrum." "Spectrum" placed me in a very, very unique position.

Currie: I want to talk about that. I want to get to it chronologically.

Payne: Yes. People were just, you know, just projected me almost into the—what do you call it?

Currie: The stratosphere?

Payne: The stratosphere. Yes, really! Because it was something that was unheard of.

Currie: For a black woman.

Payne: For a black woman to be in a position to voice her opinions on a network and have it by radio and television, and have it go into homes. [Laughter.] Henry Kissinger said, when he wanted somebody to go with him on his trip to Africa, he said, "Why don't we ask that woman that wakes me up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning, giving me hell?" [Laughter.]

Currie: Meaning you?

Payne: Yes! [Laughter.]

Currie: "Spectrum" was rotated so it would be heard at all hours?

Payne: At all hours!

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Payne: No, no. Besides, there was such a close connection there, because the man who was the vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Louis Martin—remember?

Currie: Oh, yes!

Payne: He was the man who originally brought me into the newspaper business anyway. He was the deputy vice chairman. But he was a political animal all the way, very much so, and as shrewd a strategist as there ever was. He was so close to Lyndon Johnson, because he understood Lyndon Johnson, and he knew Lyndon Johnson's ways. And sometimes he always imitated Lyndon Johnson in his way of speaking, because he was a master. He was one of those political operatives who was a king-maker in many ways. In fact, he influenced an enormous amount of appointments during the Johnson Administration, black and white.

Currie: And what did you do for him?

Payne: No, my assignment was with the vice chairperson, who was Margaret Price.

Currie: Okay. So you worked for the vice chair, and he was the deputy.

Payne: Yes. So we concentrated on women's issues.

Currie: Oh, I see.

Payne: Sometimes I traveled and made speeches and talked to black women. I did a great deal of that. I drafted press releases, I drafted stories to go out, all geared toward mobilizing the black vote. And it was exciting, and it was a productive period.

Currie: During the time you were doing that, you were also filing stories?

Payne: Yes. [Laughter.] Yes, I guess I had an advantage. Probably, as I say again, maybe it was not quite fair, but it sure did provide me with a lot of sources. Oh, I had to be careful. I couldn't go counter to the party and what it was trying to do, but it was a natural source of news. And if I didn't do it, I could leak it. Shall we say leak? Leak it to other people who would pick it up and provide them with good news sources.

Currie: Of course, there are a number of journalists today who don't even think that journalists should be in government service at all.

Payne: At all! Yes.

Currie: Let alone file stories and working for a political administration.

Payne: But you know, the black press didn't have all the luxuries that the majority press had. We didn't have expense accounts, big expense accounts like they did, and sometimes we had to do the things to help us survive. It was a survival thing.

Currie: Do you think if you had had the money—I mean, how do you feel?

Payne: I probably wouldn't have done it. Probably would not have done it. By nature, I would have thought that it wasn't the right thing to do. But like I say, to

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So I left to go to Vietnam. I think it was on Christmas Day, 1966 that I landed in Saigon.

Currie: Did you go by Army transport?

Payne: No, I went by commercial plane.

Currie: By yourself?

Payne: Yes. The commercial planes were getting in and out of Saigon at that time, so I left. As soon as the plane door opened—well, first, as I was looking down, I just saw the rice paddies and the green, the brilliant green. It was like a sea of emeralds. I looked down, and I thought, oh, what a beautiful sight it was. But as the plane landed and I heard the sounds of bombardment and artillery, I knew I was in a war. I had a sudden sinking feeling. I thought to myself, "What a damn fool you are." [Laughter.]

But anyway, I got off the plane. It was Tan Son Nhut Airport. Immediately, I was met by some military personnel, and they escorted me to—I think it was the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon. But I was told immediately I was to get ready to go with a group that was going to see Bob Hope and hear Bob Hope, who had come in to entertain the troops. The first two persons I met were John Steinbeck and his wife. He had a son who was stationed in Vietnam. I think he was a communications person. He had come over to visit, as well as to get some stories about the war. Well, he got into a car, a flag officer car, because he was such an important person. But his wife stayed with us, and we had a raggedy bus that we got on.

Currie: Was that for the press?

Payne: Yes. So we drove 20 miles outside of Saigon to the place where Bob Hope was entertaining the troops. Mrs. Steinbeck was a very pleasant person, a small woman. She was his second wife—second or third wife; I'm not sure. But at any rate, when we got there, what I saw was a sight. It looked like just a sea of men in uniform, and the worst of it were the stretchers, with the wounded on them, some of them lying on their stomachs, because they had been so badly wounded. Row after row of stretchers and nurses and all. It was such a sad feeling that came over me. Is this what it is like? Is this war? Does it have to be?

Well, Bob Hope and his troupe, he really had brought a lot of hope and cheer to them, and he was a wonderful person. I think Bob Hope, if nothing else, what he did for the troops in war, I think he's just a legendary person. I remember he came out on stage, and he had a golf club. [Laughter.] He said, "I thought I'd bring my fungus back to its breeding ground." Of course, that got a lot of cheers. Phyllis Diller was there. Oh, when she came out, she had on purple boots, red hair, dyed, ridiculous-looking, like Medusa locks, and a wild green outfit, you know. Of course, they just hooted and screamed, you know, when they saw her.

While Bob Hope was performing, suddenly, you know, overhead there were military planes flying over the place, but all of a sudden, there was an American Airlines—or TWA; I'm not sure—but it was a commercial plane, and it went overhead. It had sort of a—what do you call it?—a mass reaction, because as I described it, 20,000 eyes looked upward and said, "Going home, boy, that's where I'd like to go." It was just a chorus of that, when they saw this commercial plane. I wrote a piece about it, the reaction that occurred at that interlude. It interrupted the whole show for the time

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Currie: We can always go back and put them in. That's a little bit of research we can do. I wouldn't worry about it right now.

Payne: Okay.

Currie: We can find that out with no problem.

Payne: I think the Pentagon was very anxious for me to get some favorable stories. You know, the only way you could get around was through Army transportation or Air Force. So I got an assortment of assignments, and I think I flew in every type of transportation that the Army and Air Force had. I got to know C-47s and the low-bellied planes, the cargo planes, the helicopters, jeeps, lorries, whatever. The only thing I didn't get into was a tank. [Laughter.]

But I remember my first helicopter assignment. They said they were taking me on a defoliation assignment. Well, defoliation meant cutting down the leaves in the forests, the trees, the denseness of it. And I saw this orange haze. [Tape interruption.] Excuse me.

Currie: You were on a defoliation trip, and you saw the orange haze.

Payne: And I saw this orange haze, and I wondered about it, but I didn't realize at the time that it was Agent Orange they were spraying. That came later; the knowledge came later. I guess what I saw later was probably the result of that defoliation process, as they called it, because we went to a village and stepped into a crude hospital that they'd set up for wounded civilians. Of course, they called this something that had happened in an encounter with the Viet Cong, and they blamed the Viet Cong for it. But this woman was actually dying, this peasant woman. I can't even describe it. You knew instantly that she was dying. She was lying on this cot. I remember this bubbling foam just came out of her mouth. I said, "Now, I can't faint, because I'm not over here to do that, you know. I have to be tough." But just to see this as a direct result of the war, you know, that was my real first encounter with what war is all about.

I went, next, I think, to the 12th Air Force, where the units were stationed at Cam Ranh Bay. That was not Cam Ranh Bay. Well, it was where the 12th—I can reconstruct this later—where the 12th Air Force was based. And there I saw some black officers, and they invited me to their tent to talk with them. They were going on flying missions, of course. I got to know them. You know, it was a welcome meeting, to talk about their experiences and everything. They didn't criticize the war directly, but they did talk about the problems that this created as black persons fighting against people of color. But they said, "We are military people, and we have a job to do, and that's what we have to do."

But I got the feeling that it was not pleasant to them to go out on bombing missions or strafing missions, to bomb people that, as they said, they were kind of a kindred to, you know. Well, of course, always there was a great urge to do a better than average job, because the common thread that I felt, that I gathered, was here was, years later, black servicemen were trying to prove themselves as soldiers, as personnel. Because the stigma had been left over from World War I and II that blacks couldn't do certain things because they weren't capable, or else they were cowardly. And it took me back to the Korean conflict, when Thurgood Marshall came over to investigate the extraordinary amount of what we called drumhead court-martials, where

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underground hideaways. They even had hospitals underground. They were so trained that they could come up from behind. For instance, if you had—I was trying to think of it—conventional warfare. Yes. Conventional warfare. They were so trained that they could hide under water, breathe through reeds, and then come up behind a deployment of troops, and attack them from the rear. So, you see, it was almost a no-win situation.

Another thing that bothered me greatly was to see the waste of material. The beach in Saigon was just littered with jeeps, with materials of all kinds, just strewn there, rusting and rotting on the beach. War always produces its complement of procurers, and so those that they couldn't gather up and sell on the black market, they were just lying there wasted.

The streets of Saigon were so—Saigon was just bursting at the seams, because it had drawn people from the countryside. Whereas it was once a beautiful city that the French had built of 800,000 people, at the time of the war, maybe there were 3 million or more people in Saigon. And people slept on the streets. The streets were the toilet, and you just had to weave through that. And the black market flourished. I tell you, you could buy anything you wanted on the street, American materials, penicillin. You could buy penicillin on the street. You could buy radios, American-made radios. Almost everything that was ever made in America, it had been sent over there and was on the streets, on the black market.

[End Tape 1, Side B; Begin Tape 2, Side A]

Currie: It sounds like Vietnam left a vivid impression on your mind.

Payne: It did, yes.

Currie: What did you learn as a journalist? What were the things that you think you learned?

Payne: I've always regretted to this day that I didn't do what I felt was an adequate job in reporting on the immorality of the war.

Currie: Was there anything that you did learn that you think helped you later on?

Payne: Oh, yes, it had its beneficial side. Of course, I could appreciate better what war means and how fruitless it is. I think I could understand what peace was really about, because wars do not settle conflicts. They just don't. They only have a cessation, perhaps, of hostilities for some time, but then we're right back at it again. Any time you really look at it, you can find 50 different conflicts going on in the world. There's never a universal peace.

Currie: You did cover another war, the Nigerian Civil War.

Payne: Yes. That was a civil conflict.

Currie: Was that different than Vietnam?

Payne: Yes, it was different, let's say, because it was a regional thing, and it would be a tribal thing—differences. But there were great stakes, there were high stakes involved in the Nigerian conflict.

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Currie: Did you have an instinct?

Payne: I had an instinct that something was wrong. So Lillian was interested in it. She was writing about it. She knew the Nigerian ambassador, so she invited me to go and visit the Nigerian ambassador. And what he told me, he said there was just a blackout on the federal side to tell its story. He said it was just a deliberate effort to close out news about the larger story that he felt, and he just felt they just weren't getting a break. So then he asked if we would go over. He thought that somebody should go over. So I thought about it, and then I took it up with the people back home, and decided I should go.

So Lillian and I left, and we went to—we did not go into the eastern region. It was extremely dangerous, because the Nigerian Air Force was bombing, strafing the airports there. We went to Lagos first, and we went to meet a man who was in charge. His name was—gee! But at any rate, he was the commander. I was just so impressed with him, because I felt that this man was so sincere, and he was so—Gowon. General Gowon. I felt that this man really had—he was a military man, you know. Most of these African countries are run by military, anyway, but I thought this man stood out, because he definitely made a comparison of this to the efforts of the Civil War in the United States. He said that, "This is about nationhood. This is about preserving the country, the whole war." So he welcomed us, he said, "Because you're one of the few foreign journalists who comes with a positive attitude."

And I remember that also at the time, among the correspondents who were there, Winston Churchill III, the son of Winston Churchill, Jr., and he was arrogant. Oh, he was so arrogant, so brash. He came over with a fixed idea, and it was almost like it was British colonialism reasserting itself. He would just argue with me. Well, he was obnoxious in many ways.

At any rate, so Lillian and I decided that what we would do was to concentrate on the federal side. So we went to Ibadan, and we went to several places. We went down in the eastern region close to the border of the fighting; we could hear the sounds of fighting and so forth. But our purpose was to see, you know, and talk with the people, and to concentrate on the refugees. So that was our angle.

We met an extraordinary character there, I think one of the most fascinating persons I've ever met. His name was Benjamin Adekunle.

Currie: Why was he so fascinating?

Payne: He was called the "Black Scorpion." He was a small man, but he was noted as a fighter, a brilliant fighter. He would be almost like a Patton. Adekunle, he was just a soldier to the core. He had all kinds of marks and scars on him from hand-to-hand fighting and all that sort of thing. And they had put him in charge of coordinating the troops. You talk about General Patton and that notorious incident where he was slapping a soldier? Well, I saw Ben Adekunle just literally savage an individual for being drunk. He slapped him. Oh, but he demanded and he got results. When the traffic, which was notorious there, coming from the airport, blocked the road so that the tankers that were lying in the harbor couldn't get the oil unloaded and reloaded, what he did was, he rounded up all the armored vehicles, and he closed off the roads. He just closed off everything for three days, and in three days' time, he unlocked that harbor and got things so that the ships could move in and out again. A fantastic character!

Currie: Did you write about him?

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Currie: You didn't have much time to gain that, though.

Payne: No.

Currie: I guess that's a problem you've always had, because you've covered such divergent—

Payne: Yes.

Currie: Because you haven't had a beat, like a lot of reporters have.

Payne: One special beat.

Currie: A special beat.

Payne: No. No, no, no. Mine was very diversified. [Laughter.] I guess that's what makes my life so extraordinary. I've covered so many different things with different angles.

Currie: Did you always approach it with, "I have to learn as much as I can about the subject I cover"?

Payne: Yes, I'm always humble about going into a new situation. I always go with saying, "Well, you've got to learn." I never tried to carry with me a know-it-all situation or attitude. I try to make my attitude fit in with the particular circumstance.

Currie: Maybe we could talk about this. I was reading in Essence magazine that in 1974, they reported that you were living in Chicago. I'm looking at your vitae here. I guess at that point, you changed from Washington correspondent to associate editor of the Defender.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: Why did you move back to Chicago?

Payne: John Sengstacke.

Currie: Again! Why did he want you back in Chicago?

Payne: Well, the Chicago operation wasn't going too well, according to him, and he wanted to bring me in, to put me in charge of it. He also, frankly speaking, maybe there was a little jealousy and envy on the part of him and the Chicago paper. Because you remember now, I'm into "Spectrum" now.

Currie: Okay. So "Spectrum" and Chicago happened all at the same time?

Payne: No. I started with "Spectrum" in 1972.

Currie: Right. Okay.

Payne: But, see, gradually, I was really getting, shall we say, famous for my "Spectrum" thing. And he felt maybe that it was taking up too much of my time away from

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Payne: She was there. In fact, we were the only two women. So everybody was astonished that here I had been invited to go to China, you know, among the very first wave of people, of journalists, who were admitted to the country. So that was a big scoop. That made a whole lot of news, and CBS was delighted. They wanted to know if I couldn't broadcast from there. They tried every way they could to get permission for me to broadcast from China.

Currie: Did they ever get it?

Payne: No. I did do a wrap-up piece from Hong Kong, but never really got into—

Currie: Why do you think you were chosen?

Payne: I had been doing "Spectrum," and I had, you know, gained a reputation then. I think the Chinese knew it.

Currie: It's interesting, you and Susan Sontag.

Payne: Well, Sontag, you know, well, she's considered one of the intellectuals of the whole literary scene. There's a connection. Her father and her mother had been in China, not as missionaries, but associated with some business connection there. And she liked to say that she was conceived while they were in China, because her mother became pregnant. They came home, and she was born in the United States. She says she was conceived in China.

Currie: Maybe she was. Well, maybe we should go back, then. This is important. We should talk a little bit about how you got the job at "Spectrum," because you were the first black woman to be a commentator on a major network, is that right?

Payne: That's right.

Currie: How did you get the job on "Spectrum"?

Payne: By accident. No, by happenstance. Mildred Roxborough, a friend whom I knew at the NAACP (she worked in New York), was talking one day with Morrie Robinson, who was a producer for "Spectrum." "Spectrum" was a new program that had been conceived more or less as a public service thing. It wasn't a revenue-producing thing. But people were saying, "Why can't we have more public service?" CBS was at its pinnacle of power. "Why can't we have some opposing viewpoints?" So Morrie Robinson and some others came up with this idea of having a program called "Spectrum," in which they would present varying viewpoints. The idea went over well. The people at Black Rock* thought, "Well, maybe this is it. to give us a public posture."

So among the first group that they had to join—well, they tried to bring in people from the right, the left, and the center. And they had to think about women, too. So Shana Alexander, who, I think, worked for Life magazine, she was very well known, so they brought her on. Shana got very involved with some other things, and she wanted to take a break. Well, they needed another woman. One day, Mildred happened to be talking with Morrie Robinson, who was the producer. I think they were having lunch. And he mentioned the fact that he felt that maybe they ought to have a black woman, and she said, "I've got just the right person for you."

He said, "Who is that?"

______________________ * Black Rock is the name of the building in New York City where CBS corporate management offices are located.

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another headpiece. Oh, I didn't have time to change, so I just was in that dress the whole time. When I got to Brussels, they said, "We'll find the luggage and send it on to New York."

When I got to New York, I stepped off the plane, there was Morrie Robinson waiting for me. [Laughter.] He looked at me and gasped, because here I was coming through in this costume. It was very colorful, very colorful. Anyway, he took me to lunch; he rushed me to lunch.

Currie: Do you remember where he took you to lunch?

Payne: Some restaurant on West 57th Street, near the studios. We talked, and he told me that he was delighted with my voice, and he wanted me to start immediately. He told me a little bit about what "Spectrum" was like, and what they would expect and everything.

Currie: What would they expect from you?

Payne: They would expect some commentaries that would be maybe two-and-a-half minute commentaries, that would be on current topics, current issues. I could speak freely. They wanted free-wheeling commentary, pithy ones. Of course, he asked me a lot about my views, and then he had read my résumé, and he decided that I had some points of view that they would like. So he said, "You're free to say anything you want; just nothing libelous, you know."

So I told him yes. He wanted me to stay in New York and do a couple of pieces ahead of time. He wanted me to do three a week. So I stayed in New York. They put me up at a hotel. I prepared two pieces. First, I gave a little—I think the first one I did was on Zaire itself, something about Africa negritude. Negritude—it's a phrase that was coined by two people who were involved in the movement many years before, and one of them later became president of Senegal. Basically, it's a philosophy of exploring your inner self and your inner roots, and coming to be comfortable, so that you have a sense of pride and a sense of projection of that particular kind of ethnic identity.

Currie: So you were advocating this.

Payne: Yes. I was just talking about what I was finding, what I felt I was finding in the emergence of African countries. So I did that piece. Then I think I did a humorous piece, which they really delighted in, about my lost luggage and all the rest of that. So they were delighted with those two pieces.

Currie: How much were they going to pay you?

Payne: I think they started—it was to be $125 or $150 for each segment, and then it went up a little bit.

Currie: You did three a week.

Payne: Three a week. So that was pretty good.

Currie: Did that compare well to what you were making?

Payne: It sure added to it! [Laughter.] It sure added to it, yes.

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Payne: Oh, yes.

Currie: One was Murray Kempton.

Payne: Murray Kempton.

Currie: Did you talk to those people?

Payne: Yes. I had known Murray Kempton from some of the civil rights days in the South. I never met Phyllis Schlafly personally, but occasionally I would talk with her by phone, and we would exchange notes, you know.

Currie: What did you think of all these people?

Payne: I knew she was a rabid conservative! I think she's solely responsible for killing the women's rights movement, the ERA. Yes. And why she was so determined and so hardfast on that, you know, I really just didn't know, but she was a smooth talker. She had a way with words, and she could sound so convincing, you know. But she was dead set on it. I never understood, because she's Catholic, she's from East Alton, Illinois. Her husband is a lawyer there. She had seven or eight children. I never quite understood why she was so dead set against the feminist movement, because she was such a strong woman in her own right, you know.

Currie: What did you think of her personally, from your conversations with her?

Payne: She could be charming, but her philosophy, I just thought was horrible. You know, her ideology, I thought it was horrible. I remember one time I wrote her a little note, and she had come out with this diatribe against ERA. So I just kidded her. I said, "Phyllis, when was the last time you were in the kitchen?" [Laughter.]

Currie: Did she ever answer?

Payne: Yes, she answered me. She said, "Well, thankfully, I have a full-time housekeeper." [Laughter.] That's what she said.

Currie: So you started "Spectrum" in 1972, but then you moved back to Chicago in 1973.

Payne: See, "Spectrum" went on for six years.

Currie: You were in Washington, you started "Spectrum." That, of course, gave you tremendous exposure.

Payne: That's right.

Currie: That is something you didn't have just reporting for the Chicago Defender. John Sengstacke wanted you to move back.

Payne: Yes, to take over the operation at the Defender. He gave me the grand title of associate editor. I moved back reluctantly, really, I did, because by this time, I had become a Washington animal, you know. I mean, I was just so geared toward Washington and Washington ways. It never left me. I didn't do well at all in Chicago. People welcomed me, and I got into organizing again, but I was just like a fish out of water. Local things just were not my style, not my tea bag. I could

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Currie: You went with Henry Kissinger, you went so many places! We can include this in the record, all the places you went. But you stayed on in Chicago for how long?

Payne: I think until 1978.

Currie: So you were there a good while.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: I noticed in an Essence magazine in 1974, it said you were living in Chicago, but you wanted to retire in a few years.

Payne: Yes. At the time, I thought maybe I would, and just do some international travel and writing.

Currie: How come you never did?

Payne: Too many things beckoning me.

Currie: So how did the final break with the Chicago Defender come about?

Payne: It came in a very personal confrontation with John Sengstacke, in which he charged that I had no interest in the paper, and therefore, he was just reducing my salary to a minimum.

Oh, I know. I had been asked by USIA to join a selection board. The selection board was one that reviewed the performances of career people, and on the basis of their recommendations, these people would be moved up. These people wanted promotions. It's a very exacting assignment, and it required that you be in Washington, because that's where the records were. It's a very confidential thing. So you couldn't be marching around with people's vitaes or anything else; you had to stay in one place. So they paid for you to come to Washington and participate in this. Then it took about three months to do that. So I think that when I accepted that, that's when he became—so he just curtly told me we could no longer be associated. So it was a break, a distinct break.

Currie: After three decades.

Payne: Yes. Well, yes.

Currie: The fifties.

Payne: The fifties, yes, '53 to '78. That's 25 years, isn't it?

Currie: Yes. Looking back on it, what did you like most about working for the Chicago Defender?

Payne: I always loved my experience. I always give credit to it as my start, and I always give the credit to John Sengstacke for what he did to launch me, even though, I guess, he regretted it later. But I gave him credit for having that much vision. He's a very complex man personally. He's a brooder. But he had more vision than any of the other black publishers that I knew, and so I remember that with fondness to this day. Whenever I see him, we have a very cordial relationship, although he fired

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avoid was libelous things. But other than that, we had an enormous amount of freedom.

Currie: Would you have liked to continue with "Spectrum"?

Payne: I wish I could do it today. [Tape interruption.]

Currie: Would you have liked to have stayed on with "Spectrum"?

Payne: Yes. The reason why I say that is because I considered it to have been one of the rare opportunities to really do a public service, with free-wheeling opinions. It was an outlet whereby you could express your views. I think those were probably the most enjoyable years of my whole career.

Currie: Really?

Payne: Yes, because I felt that, again, here I could get over a point of view to the public that had not been expressed, as a black person particularly. Now, if you ever go through some of my "Spectrum" pieces, you'll note that I didn't always dwell on black subjects.

Currie: There is one that is quoted all over the place about streaking.

Payne: A humorous pieces, yes.

Currie: People seem to focus in on that. What were some of the other subjects that you talked about?

Payne: The war, labor topics, foreign policy, Congress and its responsibility. I had carte blanche about the subjects that I could talk about.

Currie: What was the thing that you least enjoyed about doing the "Spectrum" series?

Payne: There wasn't anything least. [Laughter.] I enjoyed the whole thing.

Currie: Good money, good working conditions?

Payne: Yes. Most of all, the freedom to speak my mind. That was the most enjoyable part.

Currie: It all ended in 1978 because Morrie Robinson died.

Payne: Well, Morrie Robinson died in 1978, and then the new crew of persons that came in, they didn't have the same outlook at he did, so they just—and as a matter of fact, I don't think "Spectrum" is even going on now. I don't think it is.

Currie: Did you ever try to do any other broadcasting?

Payne: Oh, yes, WBBM in Chicago asked me to come in.

Currie: And you did a similar thing?

Payne: I did a similar—it was called Matters of Opinion.