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Herschensohn (Bruce) Papers
0006
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Contributing Institution:
Pepperdine University. Special Collections and University Archives.
Title: Bruce Herschensohn Papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0006
Physical Description:
58.45 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1949-2010
Abstract: Bruce Herschensohn was 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).
Physical Location: Pepperdine University. Special Collections and University Archives.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Container: * 1-40 (approx; collection boxes)
Container: * 6 boxes of CDs w/ catalog cards + item PDFs
Container: * 40-74 (approx; collection boxes)
Container: * 75-84 (approx; boxes of film reels)
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.
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. Herschensohn 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)
Bruce Herschensohn passed away on November 30, 2020 at age 88.
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.
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
Missile/Space Films
United States Information Agency (USIA) Films
Director of Motion Pictures and Television, USIA
White House Years
Special Files, Author, 1974-1977
Correspondence, 1974-1977
Article/Speech Files (including related correspondence)
Clipping File (Includes scrapbook and oversize clippings)
Projects, 1974-1977
Correspondence, 1978-1991
1986 Primary Campaign for the United States Senate
Special Files, 1978-1991
1992 Campaign for the United States Senate
Policy/ Issues
Administration
Other
Audio-Visual Collection
Still Photograph Collection
Books
There are a number of series within each group.
Some films are held in off-site film storage. For a list of these titles, please email kelsey.knox@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. The finding
aid was written by Jamie Henricks in August, 2012 and updated by Kelsey Knox in December 2020 upon completion of the collection.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Articles
Clippings
Compact discs
Correspondence
Photographs
Press releases
Film composers
United States -- Politics and government
United States -- Foreign relations
Political campaigns -- California -- History -- 20th century
Motion picture authorship
Day of the oath (Motion picture)
Eulogy to 5:02 (Motion picture)
Five cities of June (Motion picture)
Friendship 7 (Motion picture)
USA: The seventh generation (Motion picture)
Towers of Canaveral (Motion picture)
Bridges of the barrios (Motion picture)
Beverly Hills woman (Motion picture)
Supersonic wedge (Motion picture)
Shalom and salaam (Motion picture)
Passing of Marjorie Bean (Motion picture)
Tall Man Five-Five (Motion picture)
John F. Kennedy: Year of lightning, day of drums (Motion picture)
God in a strange place (Motion picture)
President (Motion picture)
Karma (Motion picture)
Radio commentaries
Shining city on a hill (Motion picture)
Tanks know the truth (Motion picture)
Pursuit of immortality (Motion picture)
Roots of American order (Motion picture)