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Carl Bernstein, author and famed journalist of the Watergate era, speaks with Don Swaim about Bernstein's book, Loyalties: A Son's Memoirs. Bernstein set out to write a book detailing his parents' troubles during the McCarthy era. He saw this as his way of telling a large historical event through a small story.
During this time, Bernstein’s parents were summoned to the U. S. Congressional House Un-American Activities Committee. Bernstein says his parents were set up by Harry Truman's staff to secure Truman's reelection under the ruse of patriotic loyalty. Bernstein reveals this deception in what Time magazine called "an investigative memoir."
Using the Freedom of Information Act, Bernstein turned up 2,500 pages of information on him and his family collected through physical surveillance conducted by the FBI for thirty years. The family was followed to Bernstein’s bar mitzvah and notes were taken as Bernstein left for his first date.
Instead of demonstrating his parents were traitors of the United States, the documentation showed his parents did three things in political lives: they fought for desegregation, opposed fascism and fought for the rights of union members and for the right to organize.
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