Skip to main content
Nighttime view of the US Capitol building with a time-lapse of cars speeding by below

Government & Politics

Filter by

Select Topics

Select Air Date

to

Select Segment Types

Segment Types

4,327 Segments

Sort:

Newest

17:10

Remembering Boston Legend James Michael Curley

Writer Jack Beatty has written a biography of four-time Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, called "The Rascal King." Curley, an Irish-Catholic, is a Massachusetts legend, having run in 32 elections, serving as governor, congressman, and mayor. While Curley could be dismissed as an old-fashioned machine politician, Beatty portrays him as a forerunner of the modern entrepreneurial politician.

Interview
46:00

Conservative Columnist William Safire Admits He Might Vote for a Democrat

Safire writes a Pulitzer Prize winning op-ed column for The New York Times. He has a new book called "The First Dissident," which applies the lessons of the biblical Job to modern politics. Before writing columns, Safire worked for the Eisenhower campaign and wrote speeches for the Nixon administration. He tells Terry about his frustrations with President Bush.

Interview
22:31

Anna Quindlen Writes a "Citizen's Column" to Cover the Election

Quindlen has been a reporter since the age of 18, and is a syndicated Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times. Some of her recent columns have dealt with the double standards applied to the wives of Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, the rumor alleging that Clinton tried to renounce his citizenship, and the expectations that could accompany a new president.

Interview
21:49

Civil Liberties Lawyer Alan Dershowitz on His Controversial Career

Dershowitz is one of America's most famous attorneys. He has defended Claus Von Bulow, Mike Tyson, Leona Helmsely, and many other well-known figures. Dershowitz has a reputation for being controversial and out-spoken. He refuses to align himself on the right or the left, but considers himself a civil libertarian. He has written a new book, "Contrary to Popular Opinion," which examines the most difficult legal, political and moral problems of our era.

Interview
21:58

Fighting AIDS Discrimination in Health Insurance Coverage

Lawyers Suzanne Goldberg and Mark Huvard. Both are contesting a recent federal court ruling which allows employers to slash insurance coverage for AIDS patients. Representatives of the American Medical Association, the Association of Retired Persons, and the American Bar Association have all written letters to the U.S. Solicitor General, stating that the ruling was wrong. The original plaintiff in the case has already died from AIDS complications.

23:06

Circumventing the FDA, Martin Delaney Sought AIDS Treatments from Other Countries

In 1980, AIDS activist and former Jesuit seminarian Martin Delaney was suffering from life-threatening hepatitis. He treated it with drugs then unapproved in the U.S. In 1985, Delaney founded Project Inform--which gathers information and facilitates access to AIDS treatments. Delaney has helped bring Compound Q, an unapproved AIDS drug, out of China. His life and work are discussed extensively in Jonathon Kwitny's controversial new book, "Acceptable Risks."

Interview
46:02

Revisiting the Cuban Missile Crisis

Head of the National Security Archive Tom Blanton helped research "The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962," scheduled for release today, thirty years after the incident. In the book, newly released documents and top-secret files reveal how close the U.S. came to a nuclear entanglement. In 1987, the National Security Archive filed suit against the U.S. government for failing to produce the documents they requested. Since then, there has been more compliance with the archive, especially since the Russian government has agreed to allow the U.S. to release the Kennedy-Krushchev letters.

Interview
22:48

How the U.S. Relies on Foreign Markets for National Security

New York Times correspondent Martin Tolchin and his wife Susan wrote "Selling Our Security." It examines the ways U.S. political leaders, especially during the Reagan-Bush years, have pursued laissez-faire policies to the extent that most of America's valuable technological secrets have been sold to other countries.

Interview
23:01

American Aid to Iraq Before the Start of the War

Reporter Douglas Franz of the Los Angeles Times. He and reporter Mark Waas first broke the story that the Bush Administration continued to guarantee loans and to export military equipment to Iraq in late 1989 even though intelligence reports warned that Baghdad was developing a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles. The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating an alleged cover-up by the C.I.A. and the Justice Department related to a loan to Saddam Hussein of five billion dollars in the years before the war, some of which was used to finance Iraq's arms program.

Interview
22:15

Historian Stephanie Coontz on the Myths of Family Values

Coontz has just written the book, "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap." She uses historical evidence to dismantle the myths about so-called "family values." She says that many of the family problems prevelent today have always been around, and that the survival of the family depends on recognizing and dealing with diversity.

Interview
16:52

Critiquing the Discourse on Race in the Presidential Election

Political science professor and author Ron Walters has advised the Congressional Black Caucus and been a consultant to Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns. He is the author of "Black Presidential Politics in America," which offers a history of and strategic approach for blacks breaking into presidential politics.

Interview
14:24

The Controversy Over English Only Legislation

Author James Crawford has spent many years investigating the English Only movement. His most recent book is "Hold Your Tongue: Bilingualism and the Politics of English Only." It explores the underlying racism of an English Language Amendment. He has also edited "Language Loyalties," a comprehensive collection of the major issues and policies surrounding the bilingualism debate.

Interview
22:05

Without a Target, the CIA's Power Declines

Journalist Mark Perry is the Author of "Four Stars: The Joint Chiefs of Staff." His most recent book is "Eclipse: The Last Days of the C.I.A:" It examines the power struggle that took place after William Casey died, and after the fall of the Soviet Union. He also dispells the notion that the C.I.A. is still a highly effective and powerful organization.

Interview
16:26

Derrick Bell on the "Permanence of Racism"

Bell is a writer and professor who made the headlines in 1990 when he refused to return to Harvard Law School after an extended leave of absence. Bell, then the only tenured African American law professor, cited "reasons of conscious" for leaving--he was protesting the school's decision not to hire a woman of color. In 1959 he quit his job in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice rather than give up his membership in the NAACP. In 1977 Bell wrote "And We are Not Saved," a collection of parables about race and class.

Interview
15:32

Reviewing the Arts Censors of the Year

The ACLU recently announced its Arts Censors of the Year, a list that includes acting NEA chair Anne-Imelda Radice, Rev. Donald Wildmon, Oliver North, feminist Catherine MacKinnon, and the Duval County, Florida Public School District. We talk with Marjorie Heins, the director of the ACLU's Arts Censorship Project, about what earned the aforementioned this dubious distinction.

Interview
23:18

Terry Tempest Williams on Surviving Nuclear Testing and Breast Cancer

Williams is a a writer and naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History. Born a Utah Mormon, Williams has written several books about the environment and the West, such as "Coyote's Canyon" and "Earthly Messengers." Her most recent book, "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place," concerns her mother's unsuccessful battle with cancer and the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge by the rising Great Salt Lake waters.

22:37

Writer Walter Kirn on His Abortion-Themed Novel

Kirn was raised a Mormon on a Minnesota farm, and has been an editor for "Vanity Fair" and "Spy" magazines. His first collection of stories, "My Hard Bargain," was published two years ago. His most recent book, "She Needed Me," is about religion and redemption.

Interview
16:58

The "Forgotten" Working Poor in the United States

Professor of Political Science John Schwarz of the University of Arizona has just co-written a new book called "The Forgotten Americans: Thirty Million Working Poor in the Land of Opportunity." The authors challenge conventional wisdom: they found that the working poor are neither uneducated nor unskilled, that they encompass all age, ethnic, and racial groups in the U.S.; and that the situation can't necessarily be blamed on declines in domestic manufacturing or decreases in industrial productivity.

Interview

All Subtopics

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue