CIA Reading Room cia-rdp90-00552r000100890038-4: HENRY STEELE COMMAGER PUTS US CHARACTER UNDER MICROSCOPE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890038-4 THE BOSTON GLOBE 16 November 1982 Henry Steele Commager puts US character under microscope AMHERST - "We are going toques' tion the meaning of equality." said Prof. Henry Steele Commager tilting backward in his chair which, like oth- ers surrounding the table, had its Am- herst College emblem worn nearly i1- legible by the rub of so many backs. "Not in all areas, for that would be too much to cover," he continued, begin- ning-to rock back and forth., ,. * * * * * During the 50 years he has. been teaching and writing. Commager has published more books and articles than he can keep track of. Thousands of peo- pie learned American history from vol- umes he coauthored with Allan Nevins and from "The Growth of the American Republic," a standard college text he wrote with Samuel Eliot Morison in 1931. In fact, many students remember assigned readings in Commager and Nevins or Morison and Commager to the extent that the authors' names re- placed the title of the text. The decades accumulated beneath his high brow and untamed white mane have not dampened his enthusi- asm for knowing all of the history and every quirk in the character of this country - the United States of America is a microchip inside Commager's head - nor have they tarnished his commit- ment to reminding us constantly of our moral obligations. He is, as he said of Theodore Parker in a biography writ- ten in 1947. "a moral agitator." And, as he also wrote of Parker. it call be said of him. "His scholarship [is] prodi- gious: it [is] even esoteric: but it [is] nev- er private." During the mid-1950s he went to Washington as an academic leader pro- testing the activities of Sen. Joseph Mc- Carthy, he has gone there to "expostu- late." as he puts it, about the paranoia of America's fear of the Soviet Union. By Nancy Frazier Special to The Globe he spoke out against US involvement in pn advertising and corruption Vietnam. He has been called upon to serve on presidential commissions and in his seminars, his lectures and his frequently before legislative commit- conversation, Commager winds anec= tees dotally through, , centuries. but his sense Commager has received many ,il of morality and conscience becomes awards and honors, including the Gold sharpest when he speaks of the failures Medal for History from the National during our own era. He sees television, Academy of Arts and ~ Letters. He has and newspapers. as the strongest influ- honorary degrees from more than 44 ences in contemporary life and comes colleges and universities here and down hard on advertising therein. "Be- abroad, and has lectured all over the it cause advertising is misleading," he world, including Israel, Latin America, said. "It is fundamentally dishonest. Japan, and most of the countries in