In this episode of From the Vault, we explore the historic election of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1970 and the forces that conspired to overthrow his socialist government in 1973, by studying three main historical components of this period in Chile’s history, through recordings preserved by Pacifica Radio Archives.

First, we examine the years leading up to the election of Salvador Allende as president, framed by the tremendous social movement of workers, students, activists, artist, professionals, politicians, and intellectuals that resulted in Allende’s rise to national leadership. We hear from anonymous Chilean workers as they describe conditions in the factories before the Allende presidency; author Antonio Skármeta, whose novel Ardiente Paciencia inspired the 1994 Academy Award-winning movie Il Postino speak on the political climate of Chile in the 1960’s; and Joan Jara, widow of legendary folk singer Victor Jara – Chile’s version of Bob Dylan – speak about her husband’s leftist music and how it helped keep the Allende election movement inspired.

The second historical component we study is the Allende presidency itself, from 1970 to 1973. Starting with the changes in working conditions resulting from Allende’s ambitious agenda to reduce unemployment and increase workers wages, we listen to a worker describe the how conditions had changed under the new socialist leader. At the close of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s visit to Chile just a year into Allende’s rule, the president’s farewell speech to Castro reminded his supporters that he was willing to die to complete what he called the people’s mandate. Fidel Castro’s visit had a galvanizing effect on the anti-Allende opposition, and a year later we hear Allende voice his concerns of a coup d’état to the United Nations Assembly. Finally, the first lady of Chile, Hortensia Bussi de Allende recalls the terrifying events surrounding the coup of September 11, 1973, in an interview recorded on December 1st, 1973 by KPFK’s Victor Vasquez.

Finally, we hear how the September 11th, 1973 coup affected people in Chile and around the world. As international condemnation grew surrounding the coup, certain Chilean exiles were speaking to the possibility of U.S. complicity in the overthrow, and those sympathetic to the Allende government remaining within Chile were branded as terrorists by the ruling junta: union leader, artists, professors, and shantytown dwellers alike were subject to human rights abuses, torture, and disappearances. For perspective, Salvador Allende’s personal physician Dr. Jose Quiroga, a witness to Allende’s death during the coup, speaks on those circumstances with From the Vault guest host Gabriel San Roman in a recent interview; and we play cuts from the legendary Chilean music group Inti-Illimani – which had been touring Europe when Allende was overthrown and denied re-entry to Chile until 1988, when they were warmly welcomed back after 14 years of exile in Italy.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

In this episode of From the Vault, we explore how May Day celebrations manifest themselves in different ways here at home and around the world, using historic audio from Pacifica Radio Archives.

We begin with excerpts from an original Pacifica Radio Archives series called Club Evolution. We compiled archive material which captures the essence of May Day as it evolved from the commemoration of the struggles of the Labor Movement to include the fight for peace, equality, and justice. Author and activist Sabina Virgo weaves together these common threads in this inaugural program called May Day and the American Labor Movement.

Next, we look at how May Day is celebrated around the world as Pacifica correspondents Daniel Singer, Alan Snitow, and others report from Mexico City, Italy, Mozambique and Angola, in a program called May Day 1977.

Finally, while May Day celebrations in the United States are relatively tame compared to other parts of the world, WBAI producer Bruce Soloway, armed with a tape recorder and a New York City Police Department-issued press badge, reports on an especially confrontational May Day demonstration in 1971 from Washington D.C.

From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

This week on From the Vault, we listen to a number of recordings in the matter of Richard M. Nixon, thirty-seventh president of the United States. Before we get to Pacifica’s rendering of the Nixon Oval Office tapes, featuring Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, and “Mama” Cass Elliot, let’s step back to 1968, the year Nixon was elected into the White House. It was during their August 5-8th party convention that the Republicans formally announced Nixon as their candidate, and later in the month the turmoil of the 1968 DNC in Chicago took place. In our examination of the DNC a few From the Vault episodes back, we heard the powerful sounds of the streets, the theater of ideas, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale speaking in Lincoln park, Poet Allen Ginsberg getting tear-gassed, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and the crowds. Pacifica listeners were witness to the events outside the convention hall with an immediacy the television viewers missed.

So this brings us to our first selection of ‘Nixon’ audio from the Pacifica Radio Archives vault: The Pro-Nixon Rally, Madison Square Garden, New York City, October 31st, 1968. What Pacifica listeners heard –that the television audience did not hear– were the instructions to the delegates as if they were extras on a movie set. As you listen to the warm up speaker, realize that these were never meant to be heard by the viewers. Then, hear television icon Jackie Gleason whole-heartedly throw his support behind Richard M. Nixon in his run for President - a widely-broadcast act, perhaps signaling the dawn of a new era of political persuasion in the United States.

After Nixon won the election in November of 1968, the world continued to spin out of control. Pacifica programmers Neal Conan and Paul Fisher produced a report that brought the experience of the insiders and outsiders to the listeners, featured in our next From the Vault segment, and taken from a The Half Time Show, a program recorded outside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on December 9, 1969 as Nixon received the National Football Hall of Fame Gold Medal.

Finally, moving forward to 1974, and the Watergate scandal, we listen to dramatized reading of the Nixon Tapes, featuring the talent of Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, and “Mama” Cass Elliot - introduced by the 1974 Program Director for KPFK Los Angeles.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

As the Pacifica Radio Archives presents its 1968 Revolution Rewind series, we have listened to critical events from 40 years ago and the voices of the key figures during that time. This week we listen to two visionary thinkers, both writers of the future who have guided humanity by daring us to exercise our imagination - Ray Bradbury and Gene Roddenberry - as they address the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention held at the Hotel Claremont in Berkeley California.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

This week on From the Vault, we will listen to more from our 1968 Revolution Rewind Preservation and Access Initiative and the volatile confrontations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As the stage is set and the nation looks toward the Democrats convening in Denver and the Republicans gathering in St. Paul, the activist, police, politicians, organizers, and journalists here and abroad are taking note of the relevance of the DNC events of 1968. This week, the New York Times reported on the Denver police bracing for the convention protesters and the judge who faced the ACLU and a coalition of protest groups led by “Recreate 68″ seeking a ruling on easing the strict security provisions. The Black Star News ran a new interview with Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale about 1968 an the ensuing Chicago 8 trial. And the Pacifica Radio Archives is getting noticed, too.

Columnist Christopher Batement wrote in his piece, “Reliving the 1968 Democratic National Convention” highlighting the preservation project that allowed him to hear the “remarkable immediacy” in which Pacifica brought the events to the listener. Although you may have heard excerpts of this program on Pacifica Radio as recently as a few weeks ago, here we present it for the first time in many years in its entirety. Introducing the award-winning documentary, A Night in Chicago is Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

This week, From the Vault continues with Part 2 of a special conventions documentary…

“This documentary sets a new high water mark for the preservation of informative insights. Like Pacifica’s history, it shines on the front line of freedom.”
~Molefi Kete Asante - Author of Erasing Racism and The Survival of the American Nation

The various political parties of the American political system are rallying this summer to officially announce their nominee for President of the United States. This week on From the Vault, we present Part Two of an award-winning 2004 documentary A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance, produced by the Pacifica Radio Archives, that explores the history of the national political party conventions, and the mission dynamics that set Pacifica Radio’s coverage apart from mainstream media — coverage that remains today an inspiration for independent, progressive journalists everywhere.

Listening to A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance, you will travel from the formal speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, to the battles inside and outside the Chicago 1968 convention and the radical sounds of Rage Against the Machine in the streets of Los Angeles in 2000. Every historic recording is quintessential Pacifica; highlights are drawn from both Republican and Democratic conventions over the years, as well as the Mississippi Freedom Party convention in the 60’s, the Shadow Convention of 2000, and the 2004 Boston Social Forum. This special production showcases Pacifica Radio’s innovative reporting at its most daring.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

“This documentary sets a new high water mark for the preservation of informative insights. Like Pacifica’s history, it shines on the front line of freedom.”
~Molefi Kete Asante - Author of Erasing Racism and The Survival of the American Nation

The various political parties of the American political system are rallying this summer to officially announce their nominee for President of the United States. This week on From the Vault, we present Part One of an award-winning 2004 documentary A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance, produced by the Pacifica Radio Archives, that explores the history of the national political party conventions, and the mission dynamics that set Pacifica Radio’s coverage apart from mainstream media — coverage that remains today an inspiration for independent, progressive journalists everywhere.

Listening to A Passel of Pomp and a Circus of Circumstance, you will travel from the formal speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, to the battles inside and outside the Chicago 1968 convention and the radical sounds of Rage Against the Machine in the streets of Los Angeles in 2000. Every historic recording is quintessential Pacifica; highlights are drawn from both Republican and Democratic conventions over the years, as well as the Mississippi Freedom Party convention in the 60’s, and the Shadow Convention of 2000. This special production showcases Pacifica Radio’s innovative reporting at its most daring.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
~Jim Morrison (1943-1971)

This week we’ll get a little better acquainted with the short life of rock star, poet, and icon Jim Morrison with the help of a beautiful radio documentary called Artist in Hell, produced by Clare Spark in 1971. Of course, it would be easy to focus on Morrison’s wild antics and excess, as that kind of behavior always leaves a high water mark on someone’s life for the ages to see, but instead, we’ll hear his closest friends describe the life of a tortured genius, a man with not nearly enough names for all of the colors he wished to paint. The Doors band members Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek speak candidly about their close friend, as do producer Paul Rothchild; while David Birnie, Digby Deal, Harvey Purr and others read from Morrison’s poetry and his Lord’s Notes On Vision.

In the second half of From the Vault, we’ll hear The Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek speaking at The Midnight Special Bookstore in Santa Monica on September 12, 1998. Manzarek speaks on The Doors and Morrison, reading selections of Morrison’s poetry, and sharing his insights and recollections on the transformation of four normal guys who met in Venice, hung out on the beach, and became one of the most legendary rock-n-roll bands the genre has yet seen.

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

This week on From the Vault, we celebrate the 90th birthday (July 18th) of Nelson Mandela by paying tribute to three prominent South African leaders.

Rhodesia came into existence as a colonial slave state, established during the halcyon days of the British Raj. A quick glance at a modern world map, however, attests that the powerful colony would eventually assert the right of self-rule… that from the belly of Rhodesia, the independent nation of South Africa would be born.

National independence, however, is not synonymous with freedom. Was it possible that the oppressed could set a new standard for freedom-fighters the world over? In the face of modern technological warfare, could they succeed? And if so, how without the gutters of Johannesburg running red with blood?

Stephen Biko, a soon-to-be martyred activist, Desmond Tutu- a catholic priest from a township parish, and Nelson Mandela, and imprisoned social activist, would inform history of a new process of emancipation. Together they would prevail upon the state and the world to recognize humanism as the true basis for national sovereignty, and demonstrate a method whereby, for the first time in history, the slaves would free their masters.

This week, From the Vault explores the stories of three heroic South African leaders, woven together by the songs of Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba, and the recollections of Pacifica’s own Eva Georgia and Bridgette Ramasodi, women who grew up in South Africa under Apartheid.

From the Vault brings you the inspiring story of South Africa’s struggle for freedom and social justice - South Africa: A Lesson of Freedom

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.

“The day I graduated from high scool I was asked what I wanted to be and I said a clown… I was saying a great truth because I think there is a lot of the clown in me… to laugh at yourself is a great thing.”
~Henry Miller (1891-1980)

Henry Miller is best known for his novels Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, as well his controversial reputation for writing about sexual experiences in explicit detail. But perhaps few would ever consider this great American author’s creativity to be rooted in humor… recently remastered recordings from deep within our vault may change that perception.

Here at Pacifica Radio Archives, we are fortunate to have numerous documentaries on Henry Miller, each with extensive interviews with and recordings of Miller speaking with friends and reading from his work. What emerges from this historic audio is a surprising portrait of an incredibly funny man with living in the company great friends, abound with tales of adventure and wild drunken nights. In the episode of From the Vault, we’ll get to Henry Miller on a very personal level through intimate conversations with the author himself.

In the second half of From the Vault, we turn to an interview with Henry Miller conducted in 1956 by Ben Grauer. The interview covers everything from Miller’s happiest memories to why he admired French prostitutes so much. Throughout the interview, we’ll also hear excerpts from a variety of Miller’s works. This is Henry Miller as true as can be!

From the Vault is proudly presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.

LISTEN to this episode.

Click here to purchase a copy of this program or learn more about and purchase copies of the historic archival recordings used within this episode. To purchase a CD copy of this program by phone, please call Pacifica Radio Archives at 800.735.0230 x 262.

Click here to send an email to From the Vault.