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The Finding Aid for the Bruce Herschensohn Papers
0006
0006
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Title: Bruce Herschensohn papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0006
Contributing Institution:
Pepperdine University. Special Collections and University Archives.
Physical Description:
58.45 linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1949-2010
Abstract: Bruce Herschensohn is a prolific writer and filmmaker involved in domestic and foreign politics, known for his documentaries
and political commentaries. The collection includes items collected and created by him as an independent filmmaker, a Director
at the United States Information Agency (USIA), a member of staff at the White House for Presidents Nixon and Reagan, and
a political commentator for the KABC television and radio stations. Materials include correspondence, photographs, notes,
films, audio recordings, and other items. Collection materials currently date from 1949 to 1986 (including books through 2010).
Creator:
Herschensohn, Bruce, 1932-
Advance notice required for access.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder. The recordings of
KABC commentaries are for reference only; permission to reproduce any part of them must be obtained from KABC-TV.
[Series/Item# or item name], Bruce Herschensohn papers, Collection no. 0006, Special Collections and University Archives,
University Libraries, Pepperdine University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition note
The collection was given to Pepperdine University in mutiple gifts beginning in November 2008 by Bruce Herschensohn. Not all
series have been acquired yet.
Bruce Herschensohn (full name Stanley Bruce Herschensohn) was born September 10, 1932 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Herbert
Lawrence Herschensohn and Ida Esther (Erlichman) Herschensohn. His family moved to California in 1940. His early jobs included
work as a box-boy at Ralphs Grocery and as a messenger at RKO Radio Pictures. After serving in the U.S. Air Force as a medic
from 1951 to 1952, he returned to RKO to work in the art department, and also started his own motion picture company in 1955.
His next job took him to San Diego for 1955 to 1956 to work for Convair, an American aircraft, rocket, and spacecraft manufacturer.
He often wrote, directed, edited, and scored his own creations, such as his first film,
Beverly Hills Woman (including lip-synched opera music). Herschensohn was very interested in space and rockets – his first successful rocket
film,
Supersonic Wedge, was created by his personal firm. Other space films followed, including
Friendship 7, about John Glenn’s famous first space flight to orbit the Earth and including footage of cities around the world that Glenn
passed over.
From 1968 to 1972, he was appointed to the United States Information Agency (USIA) as the Director of Motion Pictures and
Television. Herschensohn created multiple feature-length documentaries for the USIA before and during his time as Director,
including
John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums. Herschensohn was picked as a member of the board of trustees for the American Film Institute in 1967. During his tenure as
Director, the USIA received numerous awards for film and television productions, including an Oscar for Best Documentary,
Short Subject in 1970 from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for the film
Czechoslovakia 1968, about the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was part of the United States Delegation to the 16th International Film Festival
(1968) in Karlovy Vary, in what is now the Czech Republic, and part of the delegation sent to the 1969 Moscow Film Festival.
In 1969, Herschensohn was selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men in the Federal Government. He received the second
highest civilian award, the Distinguished Service Medal, the day he left the USIA in March, 1972. He resigned following an
interview, during which he criticized Senator William Fulbright’s views on propaganda as "very simplistic, very naïve, and
stupid." He was chosen as a consultant to the 1972 Republican National Convention and subsequently served as a Staff Assistant
(1972-1973) and Deputy Special Assistant to the President of the United States (for President Richard Nixon, 1973-1974).
Herschenson did freelance film work between 1974 and 1978. From 1978 to 1992, he was a political commentator on KABC television
and radio stations, giving morning radio commentaries and frequently debating with Senator John Tunney. Herschenson's father
taped many of the commentaries between 1978 and 1983; these items have been digitized. He left his job at the White House
when President Nixon resigned, but he was appointed a member of the Reagan Transition Team in 1980. In 1986, he tried running
in the California primary election for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, but was defeated. He tried again in 1992
and was voted the California Republican nominee to the U.S. Senate, but he was narrowly defeated in the general election by
Barbara Boxer.
A world traveler, Herschensohn taught "The U.S. Image Abroad" at the University of Maryland, occupied the Nixon Chair at Whittier
College teaching "U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policies," and worked with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (a Russian writer who helped
raise global awareness of the gulag system) in Zurich, Switzerland and Cavendish, Vermont. Solzhenitsyn agreed to work with
Herschensohn (apparently impressed by Herschensohn’s comments about Senator Fulbright), and they worked on
The Tanks Know the Truth together. He was Chairman of the University Board of Pepperdine in Malibu, California, where he also received an Honorary
Doctor of Law degree. From 1993 to 2001 he was Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute and, in 1996, a Fellow at the
John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University. He taught at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy
from 1998 to 2006, and is currently a Senior Fellow at Pepperdine. Herschensohn is also an Associate Fellow of the Nixon Foundation
and serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Individual Freedom.
In addition to writing, producing, editing, and scoring many of his own films, Herschensohn has written a fair number of books
and publications, which include, but are not limited to:
- The Gods of Antenna (1976)
- Lost Trumpets: A Conservative's Map to America's Destiny (1994)
- Hong Kong at the Handover (1999) (editor)
- Across the Taiwan Strait: Democracy: The Bridge Between Mainland China and Taiwan (2002) (editor)
- Passport: A Novel of The Cold War (2003)
- Taiwan: The Threatened Democracy (2006)
- Above Empyrean: A Novel of the Final Days of the War on Islamic Terrorism (2008)
- An American Amnesia: How the U.S. Congress Forced the Surrenders of South Vietnam and Cambodia (2010)
- Obama’s Globe: A President’s Abandonment of U.S. Allies Around the World (2012)
Information for Herschensohn's biography was taken from materials in the collection, conversations with Susan Naulty, newspaper
articles, and the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy website (http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/academics/faculty/default.htm?faculty=stanley_b_herschensohn).
The collection currently contains materials from Bruce Herschenson's personal and professional life between 1949 and 1986,
and books through 2010. Materials will continue to be deposited until the collection is complete.
The collection includes items collected and created by Bruce Herschensohn during his decades as a filmmaker, politician, writer,
speaker, and composer; and in his personal and professional life while working for the USIA, as the Director of Motion Pictures
and Television, for the White House in Assistant positions, and as a political commentator for KABC. Materials include correspondence,
photographs, programs, invitations, film reels, DVDs, manuscripts and other items related to the development of his films,
musical compositions, drawings, newspaper clippings, and audio tapes.
Materials are arranged in the following groups:
- Early Years Independent Filmmaker, 1953-1967
- Independent Filmmaker -- Missile/Space Films
- United States Information Agency (USIA) Films
- Director of Motion Pictures and Television, USIA
- The White House Years
- Special Files, Author
- Correspondence
- Article/Speech Files (including related correspondence)
- Projects
- Books
- Audiovisual Materials
Some films are held in off-site film storage. For a list of these titles, please email specialcollections@pepperdine.edu.
Bruce Herschensohn Collection in the Pepperdine Digital Collections (http://pepperdine.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15093coll1).
The collection has been processed by Susan Naulty in stages, and sent to the University Archives when complete. Not all series
have been sent to the University Archives, which explains current gaps in the series numbering. The finding aid was written
by Jamie Henricks in August, 2012.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
American Film Institute.
Friendship 7 (Spacecraft).
Fulbright, J. William (James William), 1905-1995
General Dynamics Corporation. Convair Division.
Herschensohn, Bruce, 1932-
KABC (Radio station : Los Angeles, Calif.).
KABC-TV (Television station : Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.).
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918-2008
Tunney, John V. (John Varick), 1934-
United States Information Agency.
Articles
Clippings
Compact discs
Correspondence
Film composers
Motion picture authorship
Photographs
Political campaigns--California--History--20th century
Press releases
Radio commentaries
United States--Foreign relations
United States--Politics and government