The hole created by the events Sept. 11, 2001, found its origin in the politics of hatred. The polarity of “us and them” has never been a simple and predictable division. The first lecture of the fall 2002 Tate lecture series will address the black, the white and the gray of international relations in a moderated panel titled “The Politics of Hatred.”
David Gergen, editor-at-large of U.S. News & World Report, Tom Friedman, Pulitzer
Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times and Bernard Shaw, Emmy Award-winning former principal anchor for CNN, will participate in the 2002-03 Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series at SMU.
All three will participate in The Turner Construction Student Forum in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Theater from 4:30-5:15 p.m. today.
The actual panel discussion, the Linda and Mitch Hart Lecture of the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series, will begin at 8 p.m. tonight in the newly renovated McFarlin Auditorium.
David R. Gergen, commentator, editor, teacher, best-selling author and adviser to presidents currently serves as editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report and as a regular analyst on ABC’s “Nightline”. He is the moderator of “World @ Large,” the PBS discussion program. Last year he published a book, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton. He has served in the White House as an adviser to four Presidents: Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He is an honor graduate of Yale University and a graduate of Harvard Law School. He holds nine honorary degrees and is a member of the D.C. bar. In addition, he served in the U.S. Navy. Gergen frequently lectures in the United States and overseas.
A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Tom Friedman began writing for The New York Times in 1981. In 1995 he became The Times’ foreign affairs columnist on the Op-Ed page. He is the author of two books, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999) and From Beirut to Jerusalem, which won the 1988 National Book Award. His writing stems from decades as a Middle Eastern correspondent. His tenure there involved living and working in Beirut and Jerusalem through civil war in Lebanon and the relentless conflict of religious, political and nationalist factions. Though he seeks the complete story, his work often draws both praise and contempt from all sides.
Bernard Shaw’s award-winning career as a journalist began when was a sergeant in the Marine Corps, stationed in Hawaii. There he met Walter Cronkite and asked for advice. Radio work there led to a job with CBS.
Shaw helped cover Watergate for CBS before moving to ABC, covering stories such as the mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana. In 1980, Shaw left network television to become a part of television history with Ted Turner’s 24-hour cable news experiment, the Cable News Network (CNN). Shaw led the way as CNN steadily drew more viewers through the following two decades. He moderated the 1988 presidential debate between Vice President George Bush and Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis.
In 1989, Shaw was in Beijing when trouble in Tiananmen Square erupted between pro-Democracy protesters and the Chinese government.
On the night of the first attack on Baghdad in the Persian Gulf War, Shaw reported from the ninth floor of a downtown Baghdad hotel as bombs rained down.
A question-and-answer session for students from SMU and area high schools will follow the panel discussion and still photography will be allowed during the Forum.
Students wanting to attend the evening lecture should bring their SMU IDs to the basement of McFarlin Auditorium beginning at 7:15 p.m. Photography using available light will be permitted only during the first 15 minutes of the evening lecture. Videotaping will not be permitted.
Vice President Dick Cheney, two-time Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier, and best-selling author John Irving are among other speakers scheduled for the 21st season of the Willis M. Tate Lecture Series.
