Ramparts (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Ramparts was an American
political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.
after executive editor Warren Hinckle
hired Robert Scheer
as managing editor. Its contributors included Murray Rothbard
, Noam Chomsky
, Cesar Chavez
, Seymour Hersh
, Tom Hayden
, Angela Davis
, Jonathan Kozol
, Todd Gitlin
, Sol Stern
, Tariq Ali
, Alexander Cockburn
, Christopher Hitchens
, David Welsh, and John Beecher
. Unlike most leftist publications
, Ramparts was expensively produced and graphically sophisticated. It reached an audience that may have been put off by the grittier "movement" publications of the time.
Between December 1966 and December 1969, newsstand sales increased from 10,000 to 42,250, and the number of subscribers jumped from 87,976 to 244,069. Between December 1969 and December 1970, the number of Ramparts subscribers increased to 299,937. By July 1967, the magazine was also earning around $13,000 per month from its advertising sales. A share of the magazine was owned by New Republic
magazine owner Martin Peretz
, who became a critic of the New Left a few years later.
Ramparts was an early opponent of the Vietnam War
. Its April 1966 cover article concerned the Michigan State University Group, a technical assistance program in South Vietnam that Ramparts claimed was a front for CIA
covert operations. In August 1966, managing editor James F. Colaianni
wrote the first national article denouncing the U.S. use of napalm
in that conflict. One of the magazine's most controversial covers depicted the hands of four of its editors holding burning draft cards, with their names clearly visible. Ramparts also unearthed the first conspiracy theory about the Kennedy
assassination, and in 1967, editor Sol Stern
's interview revealed that the CIA had backed the National Student Association
as part of its Cold War
strategy. The magazine published Che Guevara
's diaries, with an introduction by Fidel Castro
, and the prison diaries of Eldridge Cleaver
, later republished as Soul On Ice
. Cleaver was a Ramparts editor when he witnessed a confrontation between Huey Newton and a police officer outside the magazine's office in February 1967; he soon became the Black Panther Party
's minister of information.
The magazine's temporary shift to a biweekly format and an expensive trip to cover the 1968 Democratic National Convention
led to financial instability, as did a drop in subscriptions. With a reduced budget and a smaller staff, Ramparts continued publication, but finally closed its doors for good in 1975.
and Rolling Stone
. Robert Scheer later became a featured columnist in the Los Angeles Times
and is now the editor of Truthdig
and a regular participant in the NPR
program Left, Right and Center. Another Ramparts editor, James Ridgeway
, is a senior correspondent in the Washington DC bureau of Mother Jones and the author of many muckraking books. James F. Colaianni went on to represent the radical Catholic perspective with the books Married Priests & Married Nuns and The Catholic Left. Two editors, David Horowitz and Peter Collier
, later underwent political conversions and became neoconservative critics of the left. For a brief time, the magazine's Washington correspondent was Brit Hume
, now of the Fox News Channel
.
The magazine also featured discussions of arts and culture. It included contributions from (or interviews with) Thomas Merton
, Allen Ginsberg
, Kurt Vonnegut
, Ken Kesey
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
, Gabriel García Márquez
, Susan Sontag
, Eduardo Galeano
, Peter Ustinov
, Erica Jong
, and John Lennon
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.
History
Founded by Edward M. Keating as a Catholic literary quarterly, the magazine became closely associated with the New LeftNew Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
after executive editor Warren Hinckle
Warren Hinckle
Warren Hinckle is an American political journalist based in San Francisco. As a student at the University of San Francisco he wrote for the student newspaper, the San Francisco Foghorn. After college he worked for the San Francisco Chronicle...
hired Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer is an American journalist who writes a column for Truthdig which is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate in publications such as The Huffington Post and The Nation...
as managing editor. Its contributors included Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
, Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, Cesar Chavez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
, Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
, Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, known for his involvement in the animal rights, and the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.-Life and...
, Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
, Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States. Kozol graduated from Noble and Greenough School in 1954, and Harvard University summa cum laude in 1958 with a degree in English Literature. He was awarded a Rhodes...
, Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications.-New Left activist:...
, Sol Stern
Sol Stern
Sol Stern is a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to its quarterly magazine City Journal. He is the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice , and has written extensively on education reform...
, Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
, Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Claud Cockburn is an American political journalist. Cockburn was brought up in Ireland but has lived and worked in the United States since 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch...
, Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
, David Welsh, and John Beecher
John Beecher
John Beecher was an activist poet, writer and journalist who wrote about the Southern United States during the Great Depression and the American Civil Rights Movement. Beecher was extremely active in the American labor and Civil Rights movements...
. Unlike most leftist publications
Alternative press (U.S. political left)
Under the broad heading of the alternative press are several subcategories including periodicals published by groups, movements, or individuals affiliated with the U.S. political left...
, Ramparts was expensively produced and graphically sophisticated. It reached an audience that may have been put off by the grittier "movement" publications of the time.
Between December 1966 and December 1969, newsstand sales increased from 10,000 to 42,250, and the number of subscribers jumped from 87,976 to 244,069. Between December 1969 and December 1970, the number of Ramparts subscribers increased to 299,937. By July 1967, the magazine was also earning around $13,000 per month from its advertising sales. A share of the magazine was owned by New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
magazine owner Martin Peretz
Martin Peretz
Martin H. "Marty" Peretz , is an American publisher. Formerly an assistant professor at Harvard University, he purchased The New Republic in 1974 and took editorial control soon afterwards. He retained majority ownership until 2002, when he sold a two-thirds stake in the magazine to two financiers...
, who became a critic of the New Left a few years later.
Ramparts was an early opponent of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Its April 1966 cover article concerned the Michigan State University Group, a technical assistance program in South Vietnam that Ramparts claimed was a front for CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
covert operations. In August 1966, managing editor James F. Colaianni
James F. Colaianni
James F. Colaianni is an American Catholic lay theologian, author, publisher, lawyer and activist.In 1939, Colaianni graduated from St. Joseph’s High School in Paterson, NJ and attended Seton Hall University...
wrote the first national article denouncing the U.S. use of napalm
Napalm
Napalm is a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with gasoline or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, primarily as an anti-personnel weapon...
in that conflict. One of the magazine's most controversial covers depicted the hands of four of its editors holding burning draft cards, with their names clearly visible. Ramparts also unearthed the first conspiracy theory about the Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
assassination, and in 1967, editor Sol Stern
Sol Stern
Sol Stern is a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to its quarterly magazine City Journal. He is the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice , and has written extensively on education reform...
's interview revealed that the CIA had backed the National Student Association
National Student Association
The United States National Student Association, a confederation of American college and university student governments, was founded in 1947 at a conference at the University of Wisconsin. It established its first headquarters in Madison, not far from the U. of Wisconsin campus...
as part of its Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
strategy. The magazine published Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
's diaries, with an introduction by Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, and the prison diaries of Eldridge Cleaver
Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party and a writer...
, later republished as Soul On Ice
Soul On Ice
Soul On Ice is a memoir and collection of essays written by Eldridge Cleaver. Originally written in Folsom State Prison in 1965, and published three years later in 1968, it is Cleaver's best known writing and remains a seminal work in African-American literature...
. Cleaver was a Ramparts editor when he witnessed a confrontation between Huey Newton and a police officer outside the magazine's office in February 1967; he soon became the Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
's minister of information.
The magazine's temporary shift to a biweekly format and an expensive trip to cover the 1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...
led to financial instability, as did a drop in subscriptions. With a reduced budget and a smaller staff, Ramparts continued publication, but finally closed its doors for good in 1975.
Influence
Several former staffers went on to found their own magazines, most notably Mother JonesMother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
. Robert Scheer later became a featured columnist in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
and is now the editor of Truthdig
Truthdig
Truthdig is a Web magazine that provides a mix of long-form articles, interviews, and blog-like commentary on current events, delivered from a progressive point of view. The site is built around major "digs" led by authorities in their fields who write multifaceted pieces about contemporary, often...
and a regular participant in the NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
program Left, Right and Center. Another Ramparts editor, James Ridgeway
James Ridgeway
James Ridgeway is a prominent American investigative journalist.-Career history:Ridgeway began his career as a contributor to The New Republic, Ramparts, and The Wall Street Journal....
, is a senior correspondent in the Washington DC bureau of Mother Jones and the author of many muckraking books. James F. Colaianni went on to represent the radical Catholic perspective with the books Married Priests & Married Nuns and The Catholic Left. Two editors, David Horowitz and Peter Collier
Peter Collier (political author)
Peter Collier is a writer, and publisher. He was the founding publisher of Encounter Books in California and held that position from 1998 until he resigned in 2005, when it moved from San Francisco to New York City, and Collier was replaced as publisher by Roger Kimball. He remains a consultant...
, later underwent political conversions and became neoconservative critics of the left. For a brief time, the magazine's Washington correspondent was Brit Hume
Brit Hume
Brit Hume is an American television journalist and political commentator.For twenty years he was a correspondent for the American Broadcasting Company, including Chief White House Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor...
, now of the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
.
The magazine also featured discussions of arts and culture. It included contributions from (or interviews with) Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
, Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
, Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
, Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Hughes Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His best known works are Memoria del fuego and Las venas abiertas de América Latina which have been translated into twenty languages and transcend orthodox genres: combining fiction, journalism, political analysis, and...
, Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
, Erica Jong
Erica Jong
Erica Jong is an American author and teacher best known for her fiction and poetry.-Career:A 1963 graduate of Barnard College, and with an M.A...
, and John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
.
Research resources
- Records of Ramparts magazine at The Bancroft Library, University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
Books
- A Bomb In Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America by Peter Richardson (New Press: 2009)
- Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz (Touchstone - Simon and Schuster: 1997)
Articles
- "'Ramparts': the End of Muckraking Magazines." By Adam Hochschild, Washington Monthly, June 1974, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p33-42.
- "No Longer Emerging: 'Ramparts' Magazine and the Catholic Laith, 1962-1968." RAMPARTS' MAGAZINE AND THE CATHOLIC LAITY, 1962-1968. By Jeffrey M.Burns, U.S. Catholic Historian, Jun 1990, Vol. 9 Issue 3, p321-333
External links
- Ramparts by Pam Black, Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 2004
- Back When Ramparts Did the Storming by Dwight Garner, New York Times, October 6, 2009
- Scoop by Jack ShaferJack ShaferJack Shafer covers media for Reuters.com Opinion section. Prior to joining Reuters, he edited and wrote the column Press Box for Slate, an online magazine. Before his stay at Slate, Shafer edited two city weeklies, Washington City Paper and SF Weekly...
, New York Times Sunday Book Review, October 8, 2009 - A Fistful of Dynamite, by Daniel McCarthy, The American ConservativeThe American ConservativeThe American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
, January 1, 2010 - The Ramparts I Watched: Our Storied Radical Magazine did Transform the Nation, for the Worse by Sol SternSol SternSol Stern is a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to its quarterly magazine City Journal. He is the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice , and has written extensively on education reform...
, City Journal, Winter 2010