SEASON'S GREETINGS!

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EIGHT DECADES OF CAMPUS JOURNALISM

         Student Journalism 

 at

 New York University

1894-1970

By Richard D. Carreño

I

LATE IN AUGUST 1968, The New York Times reported that John F. Hatchett, New York University’s Black student center head, had made remarks construed as antisemitic. The ensuing controversy over the interpretation of Hatchett’s views threw the University into turmoil. Many Black students, some of whom had nominated Hatchett as director of the Martin Luther King Student Center, resented "outside"—and even, it was contended—racially-motivated second-guessing of their choice. The Times, in an editorial, had furthermore suggested that Hatchett should consider resigning, or be removed.

Tempers were already emotionally charged. In Chicago, the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey, an apologist for the Vietnam War, over peace candidate Eugene McCarthy as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate. In a Los Angeles hotel kitchen a month earlier, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was murdered. A few months before, Martin Luther King had been killed in Memphis. That spring, at Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, radical students went on strike, effectively closing the university. Police intervention assured the strike's bloody end.

With the University’s autumn semester soon underway, many students at NYU’s Washington Square campus sensed that a strike of their own was in the wind—largely powered by anger and frustration bred by the Vietnam War. A galvanizing catalyst for protest had become the swirling hostility surrounding John F. Hatchett.

***

The Washington Square Journal had reported the student strike at Columbia. Two reporters had covered, earlier in August, the Democratic National Convention—and subsequent rioting—in Chicago. For now, at NYU, the possible spill-over from the Hatchett Affair had become the story.

In mid-September 1968, as the new semester began, the Washington Square Journal went missing in an official listing of student-run publications at the Greenwich Village campus, in the then-current, new edition of "On the Square," the campus’ activities directory. "On the Square" editors knew, unlike the 17,000 returning undergraduate and graduate students that fall, that the Journal was riven by internal strife over editorial direction and management that might prevent publication for the first time in its thirteen-year history. Out of caution, “On the Square” spiked the Journal entry.

***

THE PAPER’S WOES began in the spring. Co-editors-in-chief Andrew Cagen (later, in the fall, a reporter for The Record in Hackensack, New Jersey) and Richard Prince (later a reporter for The Washington Post), had planned to upgrade the tabloid's twice-weekly publication to three times a week. This latter schedule had been the rule until 1963. Despite some misgivings by the business staff, reporters and editors largely greeted the proposed change with enthusiasm. The Managing Board agreed the increased frequency would revitalize the paper. But Cagen and Prince also argued that the revised schedule would not be financially feasible. For one thing, they said, the paper's printers, All-Set Printers in Chelsea, would not print the Journal within the paper's current, or anticipated fall budget.

Moreover, they added, the paper's editorial freedom could be compromised if the University continued to underwrite the paper's operating budget and staff stipends. Financial independence, a model at other university papers, was recommended. Some editors stressed potential Administration censorship. Others noted a growing rift between the paper’s editorial and business-advertising divisions.

"The business staff was always appointing Phi Eps to new positions on its staff," Prince remembered. "They tended to be—they were—more conservative, and they didn't go along with the paper's semi-New Left editorial policy."

Highlighting the estrangement was the prospective endorsement in the 1968 presidential contest. Editorial had supported Kennedy. Shortly before his assassination, Barry Newman, The Times' NYU correspondent reported the Journal’s endorsement of Kennedy. The business staff—despite its depiction as "conservative"—endorsed former Wisconsin Senator Eugene McCarthy, an anti-Vietnam War candidate viewed to be even to the left of Kennedy. Outraged by the published Kennedy endorsement, the business staff (including future editor-in-chief Madeline Weisberger) wrote to The Times "correcting" Newman's endorsement story.

Their letter to the editor was ignored. Friction between the two staffs heated up. Prince complained that the sports and business staffs operated like "fiefdoms." "The editor-in-chief [was] really only the editor of the news columns," he said. Joining editors Cagen and Prince in their critique were Nancy McKeon, another former editor-in-chief, and the Journal's executive editor, Robert Oppedisano, who had been elected incoming editor-in-chief.

Their solution was expanded publication frequency. The plan was risky, given the paper’s known budget constraints. Still, the editors believed that it would be almost certain that the Administration would fund any forthcoming shortfall. They also knew that their expansion plan would meet with resistance from Business Manager Louis Capozzi, a fiscal watchdog who believed that the paper should publish within budget.

As for potential censorship, that point theoretically was correct. The University, as Journal's publisher, could attempt to influence the paper. This had never been done, and there was no reason, nor, evidence, to believe that the liberal-minded Administration of President James M. Hester would so going forward. In the 1967-1968 school year, the only "intimidation" had been a few letters from Dr. Harold B. Whiteman, Jr., the mild-mannered assistant chancellor for student affairs, requesting that the paper revise its policy of freely printing vulgarities. The letters were dismissed. Moreover, the Journal's faculty advisor, M.L. “Mike” Stein, the journalism department's chairman, had little interaction with daily activities.

Finally, plans for the Journal’s expanded frequency were scrapped. Cagen, Prince, and Oppedisano had an unstated agenda in mind. "So we decided to form a new paper," Prince recalled.

We also hoped to take several reporters and associate board members with us, which we did. We wondered at first what would happen to Journal. But after a while, it didn't really matter what happened because, we felt, we would have the superior paper. We would be aggressive in getting ads, while Journal was lethargic. We had all the experienced editors, while Journal's would be new.

Monet?

Nah! France, September 2024

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CURRIER AND IVES?

Nah! Rambles, Fabyan, Connecticut (1990)

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Je Me Souvien

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DEPARTMENT OF RETIRED PASSPORTS

HERE AND THERE

Mendacious • Delusional • Egomaniacal • Socio-pathic • Paranoid • Dimwitted • Flatulent

And, Now. Please Welcome...

Mr. Transactional

By Justin T. Carreño

As great as it would be to have the first woman and black woman

President, we should not vote for a candidate based on their identity,

rather it should be based on who is best qualified. The following 

spells out some of the things going on with the

candidates.

If people support Trump, they are making so many negotiations --

everyone else lies and only Trump tells the truth. The reality is he's

had three wives and has cheated on every one of them, including with a

porn star he paid hush money to keep quiet about cheating with her.

His first wife had to have a gag order to have the divorce finalized,

and when she broke the gag order she said she was physically and

sexually assaulted by Trump. Additionally, he's been found twice

liable for defamation and sexual assault in civil court, and bragged

about sexually assaulting women. If a man can't be faithful to his

wife, how is supposed to be faithful to the country?

People who support Trump have to say those things aren't deal

breakers for me. In his business practices, he's filed bankruptcy

multiple times. He was found to have racist business practices back

into the 90s, so this wasn't political. He had fraudulent Trump

University, and has been convicted of multiple felony counts for

fraud. He is banned from operating charities in New York because he

VERMEER OR....

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TRUMP'S GREATEST HITS. JUSTIN T. CARREÑO SPELLS THEM OUT

I agree with some of what Trump says—improving transportation and energy infrastructure, improving the number and quality of jobs for all, improving the lives of the poor and working class, and focusing on homeland defense. Does he have a policy in place on how to pursue these things? Probably not. 

Even if he's able to make these things real, it doesn't change the fact that he's tactless, professionally and cognitively immature, inarticulate, undiplomatic, narcissistic, delusional, is willing to exploit Americans' fear and problems for his own profit, doesn't understand or know how to conduct international affairs and foreign policy, contradictory, lies, anti-intellectual, has financial and personal conflicts of interest that can influence national decision-making, ignorant on how government operates, indecisive, values ego over truth, has compromised ethics, values profit over morals, lacks ideology, is unable and unwilling to plan, think, and strategize before making decisions, focuses on non-issues, believes in torture and plundering, and does not accept, address, and defend civil rights, environmental, and social injustice issues….

There’s more…. A person we all watched mock a disabled reporter, a person who said he can grab women without asking, a person who made fun of a stutter, a person who mocked an assassination attempt of a person getting bludgeoned with a hammer, a person who lied about a rigged and stolen election, a person who encouraged an insurrection, a person who has been convicted of sexual assault, a person who has leaked national secrets, a person who openly disregards the Constitution, a person who mocks war veterans, a person who talks like a five-year old, a person who exploits the ignorant and weak, a person who has been convicted on thirty-four counts of defrauding the US and conspiracy against the rights of citizens. 

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RAVES! FOR THE INVENTIVE LIFE: WRITING IS "FUN," "MARVELLOUS," HAS "SENSE OF HUMOUR," "NICE TURN OF PHRASE"

Reviewed by Mark Steadman

The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden: Archaeologist, Poet, Scholar, Spy
by Richard Carreño
Camino Books, Inc.
September 2024, Hardcover, 280 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1680980608

The new book by Richard Carreño, a biography of George H. Mcfadden, charts his journey from Princeton to Cyprus and his untimely death at sea. Born into wealth in Philadelphia, and after graduating from Princeton his obsession with archeology leads him to set sail for Cyprus where he went to dig at the acropolis of Kourion under the aegis of his alma mater. Living in what is now the Kourion Archeological Museum George wrote, translated and studied history. His idiosyncrasy can be summed up in his mantra: “Where the purpose of a rule in any instance does not seem to apply. I have ignored the rule.”

A touch platitudinous, but for some reason a phrase that Carreño feels bears repeating from time to time throughout the book, but so begins the story of George H McFadden III.

The writing Is marvellously indulgent. He has a penchant for French terms like “chacun a son gout” and “bonhomie” as well as pleasingly old-fashioned phrases such as “kith and kin”, “betwixt and between” and “home and hearth”. He also has the fun tendency of juxtaposing slang with Latin or antiquated phrases as in the following: “Wartime bed-hopping in Alexandria was time-honoured – but only spoken of in sotto voce tones.”

Or: “Rainey attempted bonhomie and collegiality. But his efforts mostly filled, often just shorts of puffery.”

The story bounces along, as McFadden does, through Europe on his archeological quests, with the odd Italian, French or Latin phrase thrown in here and there. He writes with a sense of humour as well. Comedy is about surprises, so said the late, great Norm Macdonald and Carreño has a good feel for misdirection as in these Bill Bryson-esque passages:

“While Fales, Cox, Last, and others, onsite at Kourion, tackled their tasks, oblivious to Raineys and Madeira’s plans for empire-building elsewhere, McFadden took time to slack off.”

“The director knew that McFadden lacked the swag of academic rank.”

AN EXCERPT: THE INVENTIVE LIFE OF GEORGE H. McFADDEN

FEAR AND LOATHING:

AN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST'S MYSTERIOUS LOCAL DEATH 

In a new book about American archaeologist George H. McFadden, author Richard Carreño explores McFadden’s the life in Episkopi, Cyprus as a famed digger at Kourion and, later, his still largely unexplained death at sea in 1953. Carreño, a writer from the United States, explores McFadden’s many faceted life as an accomplished archaeologist, a World War II American spy in Cyprus, a poet, and scholar and the intrigue that led to his possibly nefarious death in The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden: Archaeologist, Poet, Scholar, Spy, soon to be published by Camino Books, Philadelphia, USA. The book will be available in major local bookshops, where English-language books are available. 

An excerpt, adapted from the book, follows: 

GEORGE H. McFADDEN was the scion of one of the twentieth century’s richest and most prominent Philadelphia families. His abbreviated life, cut short by drowning when he was nearly forty-six years old, was crammed with adventure, scholarship, and service to country. He was a reluctant cotton broker; an accomplished poet; a scholar of ancient Greece and Rome; a student of German literature; a translator of ancient Greek texts; an operative for the US wartime spy service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS); and for many years an archaeologist with the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. He was a devotée of Greek national life—an unabashed philhellene—and a founder and financier of Penn’s extensive archaeological project at Kourion in southwest Cyprus. 

Despite a life salted with daring, enterprise, and intrigue—the stuff of high drama—McFadden bore a weight of inescapable melancholy. He was estranged from his parents. His siblings were remote. He never married. Personal relationships were founded more by association than friendship. They were often marred by conflict; seldom, to his chagrin, by mutual respect. He was close to only a few. He closeted his homosexuality, knowing its disclosure would have resulted in professional and social ruin. 

McFadden died in 1953, in a sailing mishap off the southern coast of Cyprus, not far from Penn’s pioneering—and McFadden’s beloved—excavation of Kourion, a celebrated site in Greek and Roman history. How he met his end has never been fully resolved; his death being the subject of lingering controversy. Though few remember the circumstances of his ambiguous demise, details remain decades later shrouded in suspicion and mystery. Some to this day believe McFadden was murdered by a British spy. Despite McFadden’s infectious brio and often capricious derring-do, Cyprus by the time of his death had soured for him, becoming “an island of bitter lemons.” 

GEORGE McFADDEN WAS not a professional archaeologist, the kind of classically trained academic usually deployed to faraway lands by learned institutions. He found his scholarly strength in English literature, always earning high marks at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. His career as a digger—and master amateur of archaeology—came later. 

McFadden’s life was circumscribed by geographical boundaries he imposed upon himself. Cyprus, while not his native land, became his homeland. He was cocooned in a drama shrunk to a cast of few players. Intersecting his world at work and at war were less than a dozen principals. His life drama contained moments of farce, with real-life players never far from departing from one slamming door, entering another, or figuring in bit scenes as “noises off.” 

McFadden's inner world was conflicted. His homosexuality was an open secret, possibility contributing to bouts of moodiness and depression. McFadden found himself in the depths of that fissure.

In a new book (Camino Books/2024) about American archaeologist George H. McFadden, author Richard Carreño explores McFadden’s the life in Episkopi, Cyprus as a famed digger at Kourion and, later, his still largely unexplained death at sea in 1953. Carreño, a writer from the United States, explores McFadden’s many faceted life as an accomplished archeologist, a World War II American spy in Cyprus, a poet, and scholar and the intrigue that led to his possibly nefarious death in The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden: Archaeologist, Poet, Scholar, Spy, soon to be published by Camino Books, Philadelphia, USA. The book will be available in major local bookshops, where English-language books are available.

An excerpt, adapted from the book, follows:

Searching Hemingway and Fitzgerald Ghosts... Last Week in Paris...

Harry's New York Bar

Sir Winston Churchill Pub

... They were there. But they weren't on speaking terms.

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GET SET. GET READY. TWO DAYS TO GO....

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PENN TRIPLE HEADER: GRADUATES AND ITS ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

PENN GAZETTE ALUMNI NOTES SEPTEMBER 2024

2004

Richard Carreño GEd’04, an art critic and former lecturer of American literature and English composition at several universities, is the author of a new book about the life and death of Penn Museum archaeologist George H. McFadden III. According to the press materials, The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden: Archaeologist, Poet, Scholar, Spy “explores how a scion of one of the twentieth century’s richest and most prominent American families, uniquely lived his life, while it also questions how he might have died.” In 1953, McFadden “died suddenly in a sailing mishap off the coast of Cyprus. Twelve days later, his body washed up on the Mediterranean shore after a journey of one hundred kilometers. When his remains were discovered, there were abrasion marks around McFadden’s wrists, and questions about both his life and death have lingered.”

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AND COUNTING....

AND COUNTING....

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NEW! MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW ON THE INVENTIVE LIFE OF GEORGE H. McFADDEN

The Biography/Memoir Shelf

The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden
Richard Carreno
Camino Books, Inc.
https://www.caminobooks.com
9781680980608, $35.00, Hardcover

https://www.amazon.com/Inventive-Life-George-McFadden-Archaeologist/dp/1680980602

"The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden", is Richard Carreno's latest foray into biographical history, and whose value lies in Carreno's ability to present contrasts in intellectual drive, psychological melancholy and isolation, closet homosexuality, and life contributions in such a manner that invites attention and inspection by audiences immersed in life stories and intellectual pursuits alike... not just Pennsylvanians or art students.

George H. McFadden stood out from the proper Philadelphian in many ways. His different relationships and personas in disparate cultural groups, his shifting approach to "finding ancient things" that led him to sailing and travel experiences (and, ultimately, to a mysterious death), and his literary prowess all come to light in a revealing examination of a Renaissance Man whose intellectual pursuits were anything but ordinary. From his draw to Cyprus (his adopted homeland) to his amateur archaeological pursuits, participation in war, and often-clever political maneuvers to find ways out of socially challenging situations, McFadden's life is narrated with the dual atmosphere of intellectual examination and adventure story:

For a man of forty-one, the timing smacked of desperation. His aspiration was equally disquieting. His twenty-year career in Cyprus had been shadowed by war and mired in his own complacency and vainglory. His way out modeled the successful career arcs of Daniel and Young -- as eminent archaeologists and museum curators. McFadden was a formidable applicant. He was fluent in French, German, and in modern Greek. He had a learned reading ability in Latin and ancient Greek. His work as a Penn Museum "research fellow" at Kourion, as a Navy veteran, and as the author of entries to professional and academic publications (not to mention his translation of the Iliad) were additional pluses. The result reveals a life worthy of discourse and discovery, and is very highly recommended for libraries interested in riveting tales of lives vividly and powerfully lived.

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THANK YOU JOSEPH! I'M THINKING OF YOU TOO!

30 PERCENT OFF $30.00 RETAIL

$3.50 DOMESTIC SHIPPING

CONTACT PHILABOOKS@YAHOO.COM

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TEN

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THE CRITICS LOVE "THE INVENTIVE LIFE OF GEORGE H. McFADDEN" (CAMINO BOOKS) PUBLICATION DATE: SEPTEMBER 10 Contact: WritersClearinghouse@yahoo.com

BIOGRAPHY, BOOK REVIEWS

A review of The Inventive Life of George H. McFadden by Richard Carreño

August 2, 2024

Reviewed by Mark Steadman

The Inventive Life of
George H. McFadden: Archaeologist, Poet, Scholar, Spy
by Richard Carreño
Camino Books, Inc.
September 2024, Hardcover, 280 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1680980608

The new book by Richard Carreño, a biography of George H. McFadden, charts his journey from Princeton to Cyprus and his untimely death at sea. Born into wealth in Philadelphia, and after graduating from Princeton his obsession with archeology leads him to set sail for Cyprus where he went to dig at the acropolis of Kourion under the aegis of his alma mater. Living in what is now the Kourion Archeological Museum George wrote, translated and studied history. His idiosyncrasy can be summed up in his mantra: “Where the purpose of a rule in any instance does not seem to apply. I have ignored the rule.”

A touch platitudinous, but for some reason a phrase that Carreño feels bears repeating from time to time throughout the book, but so begins the story of George H McFadden III.

The writing Is marvellously indulgent. He has a penchant for French terms like “chacun a son gout” and “bonhomie” as well as pleasingly old-fashioned phrases such as “kith and kin”, “betwixt and between” and “home and hearth”. He also has the fun tendency of juxtaposing slang with Latin or antiquated phrases as in the following: “Wartime bed-hopping in Alexandria was time-honoured – but only spoken of in sotto voce tones.”

Or: “Rainey attempted bonhomie and collegiality. But his efforts mostly filled, often just shorts of puffery.”

The story bounces along, as McFadden does, through Europe on his archeological quests, with the odd Italian, French or Latin phrase thrown in here and there. He writes with a sense of humour as well. Comedy is about surprises, so said the late, great Norm Macdonald and Carreño has a good feel for misdirection as in these Bill Bryson-esque passages:

“While Fales, Cox, Last, and others, onsite at Kourion, tackled their tasks, oblivious to Rainey's and Madeira’s plans for empire-building elsewhere, McFadden took time to slack off.”

“The director knew that McFadden lacked the swag of academic rank.”

The only real issue with the book is that the subject is quite a boring one. George McFadden was an archeologist who pioneered American archeology in Cyprus, unfortunately however he never discovered, say, a dinosaur or the city of Atlantis. If the book crescendoes at any point, therefore,
it would be his death. Carreño tries to make a fist out of drawing some controversy out of that, apparently some of his obituaries spelt his name wrong, but there’s not much by the way of drama.

One slight bit on intrigue is the fact that McFadden is gay, as Carreño puts it: “His sexual preferences dogged him in a prejudicial America where racism, nativism and homophobia often prevailed.” Carreño phrases his. But again none of this homophobia ever really manifests itself in an interesting way. He isn’t sent to prison like Oscar Wilde or poisoned to death Alan Turing. Again the book never really takes off.

The author also has a love of factoids, or questionable facts that sound cool (my favourite). We learn that “the Cold War” is a phrase potentially coined by George Orwell, the “iron curtain” was probably coined by Churchill. Other than that there are some nice turns of phrase “Always Cary Grant in a world of Gary Coopers.” But the book has a lot more style than substance.

About the reviewer: Mark Steadman writes book reviews and articles freelance. Before taking up writing he studied philosophy at Kings college London before working as a teacher. He now writes full-time

AND MORE....

This biography by Richard Carreño traces the short, compelling life of George H. McFadden (1907–1953). The story begins with his awkward early years as the closeted gay scion of one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest and most prominent families. It continues to Cyprus, where he reinvented himself as an archaeologist with the University of Pennsylvania’s excavations of ancient Greek and Roman treasures. McFadden created a new life there replete with a gracious villa and yacht as a respected figure in the local community. When World War II broke out, he moved from Germany to France, Greece, and finally to Egypt, where he faced down the Nazi war machine as an American spy. He volunteered his yacht for government service, ferrying assets in secret across the Mediterranean. McFadden also found time in his abbreviated, multi-faceted life for work as a poet and Classical scholar, creating his own translation of Homer’s Iliad. A mysterious sailing accident in Cyprus brought McFadden’s life to an untimely end at age 45—with the future of the Kourion dig in doubt, and his exploits as a spy unknown. For the first time, The Inventive Life of George McFadden brings the exciting details of his story to light.