Daniel Satinsky: Yes.
Jim Hickman: It goes down to “Esalen brought Boris Yeltsin on his first trip to the U.S. He arranged meetings for Yeltsin and then President G.H.W. Bush.” And I just put in parenthesis where Yeltsin was drunk. Literally he could barely walk up the stairs of the White House he was so drunk. But that isn’t for this. I think it’s an interesting vignette that he was such a drunkard.
Daniel Satinsky: Right, yeah.
Jim Hickman: But those are all…
Daniel Satinsky: I just listened to a podcast about how—it was called “How to Dismantle an Empire.” It’s about the meeting where Shushkevich, Yeltsin and who was the Ukrainian leader?—Kuchma dissolved the Soviet Union. And apparently Yeltsin was drunk through most of that. And he actually, after they signed it, he passed out for several hours before they woke him up to call Bush and Gorbachev and tell them what he had done, what they had done.
Jim Hickman: Yeah. And of course the thing about it is then we get back to what we talked about earlier, my interest in all of the people who helped make these things happen, because this is a good example. He had a huge staff that was used to dealing with him when he was drunk, so they knew exactly what to do, and get him in there and have him sign and get him back to the bed so he could…and then get him back to the phone, you know. He could never have done all those things without all those all those support people. [Laughs.] Crazy.
Daniel Satinsky: Crazy.
Jim Hickman: Okay, then moving on. So, then under “Space Bridges, Citizen Diplomacy,” the second paragraph, it says, you’re talking about 3220 at that point, and it says “the key people involved were all loosely connected through 3220 Sacramento Street and circles around Esalen.” Which is not inaccurate, but I just made a note also 3101 Washington. But if you put that earlier anyway, and that’s fine because it circled around Esalen. But that was before I figured out where to put in something on 3101 Washington, and I think it’s easily done in that earlier paragraph.
Then, oh, the very last line on that page that starts with “says wouldn’t it be amazing.” You see that? The paragraph starts with “Kim Spencer, Evelyn Messinger.”
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, I see, yes.
Jim Hickman: Then at the very end it says “wouldn’t it be amazing if we get Russians that Americans.” I think you mean and Americans.
Daniel Satinsky: Right, okay.
Jim Hickman: Okay, then I have a bunch of stuff on this next page, but it’s all stuff we talked about. It was an idea emerging in various minds, the memories of the pioneers. Well, and, you know, you can say it the way you think it’s best, but the memories of the pioneers differ somewhat. And that’s probably, you know, the neuroscience of memory is it always differs, you know, so that’s accurate from a functional point of view. But then you say “Evelyn Messinger is generally credited as a co-creator.” And I understand she believes that, and that’s okay.
Daniel Satinsky: She believes it very strongly.
Jim Hickman: Yeah. And that’s okay, because technically if they were figuring this out in the hot tub the idea might have been first expressed by her. But that has nothing to do with what happened at the US Festival. See, that’s the thing. Because at the US—I don’t think she knew Rick Lukens, because Rick only knew me, because he was then the boyfriend of my former girlfriend, Mary Payne. And they were together through the, you know, that early group of wealthy young people who created an association together where they always met and stuff. And Mary was a member, and Rick was a member, and they met there. And this was after Mary and I had separated. And so I knew Rick a little bit because Mary introduced me to him, but he was not involved with us in any way.
And however it happened—and I don’t know how it happened—he was involved with the US Festival planning, and so I only heard from him that at the US Festival they were discussing various things and the idea came up about linking it. And I think Rick might have been an inspirator on what if we could get Russia involved in this because he knew that we might be able to do this. But that has nothing to do with Evelyn. Evelyn was not involved with the—now, the one thing about that would be, it would be interesting to ask Peter Gerwe what he remembers about that conversation at the US Festival, what is his memory of that discussion, who thought it up, how did it emerge. It would be interesting to see to get his perspective on it because he was right there in the middle of it.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. I think what Evelyn means is something different. She means it in the sense of technology and the technical capability, not the actual coming to fruition, which is what you’re describing.
Jim Hickman: Yeah. However, then I would say she’s talking about more or less a young woman and her husband, her boyfriend, who have done a couple of things with Internews, and she’s saying that in the entire world of technological development no one has ever thought about a satellite communication? That is very ignorant. See, that’s the thing. So, if that’s what she is saying, then she’s absolutely self-serving and egotistical because it’s not true that nobody in the history of technology had ever thought about bringing this together.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. These are very murky waters to get into, right? And there’s an overlay of this, Jim, which is my guess is she’s fighting for her place to be recognized as a woman who had impact.
Jim Hickman: Absolutely. And I have no objection to it. I don’t disagree with her except when she says the first one was a disaster. See, that’s where she never acknowledged or recognized what it took to actually do the first one. And without that the second one, which they felt was a huge success, would never have happened.
Daniel Satinsky: Never have happened, correct.
Jim Hickman: And so that’s where we go back to the fundamental experiences that occur before great events happen that are often overlooked by history. And then even the second one, you know, Rick and I spent the next six months negotiating with the Russians to get the second one to happen because they weren’t, you know, their first thing was okay, it’ll cost a million dollars. Because they knew Wozniak had all that money and their first thing was you’re going to pay us this time. And it took us quite a while to get them off of that position. And in fact I went back to Peter Ellis and said here’s what they say. And of course Ellis says it’s not going to happen and da-da-da-da.
I’m just saying that in that period, see, I knew Velikhov then, and Rusty [Schweickart] and I went back a few times, and we were talking to cosmonauts. We enrolled Sevastyanov, we enrolled Velikhov, etc. It wasn’t that the Russians put this whole thing together. We put it together. And with Kim and Evelyn recognizing and helping us understand we want a dialogue, etc., so we helped choose, like George Brown.
I met George Brown in Washington after the first US Festival, because he was really intrigued that it happened in his jurisdiction in California, and wanted to know how it went. So, long before anyone thought of George Brown on the second US Festival I was talking to him in his office about what happened. So, when the next one came up I said to him—and others may have already enrolled him, I don’t know—but I said to him, George, we need you on this.
So, we were very involved in putting the second one together, making sure that from the Soviet side we weren’t doing anything that would make them look bad, and from the American side it wouldn’t be a propaganda effort. So, we were working with both sides to make sure it served the purpose that understandably Kim and Evelyn designed, and so that’s all… But I’m just, you know, it’s just one more example of much more is going on behind the scenes than the technical people put this together.
And so however—and I’m not saying that these are details to put in here, but the idea needs to be threaded through here so people always remember that these big things that happened are the result of a lot of small things piling up on themselves to make one big thing out of it. It’s not Phil Donahue made it happen because he’s so famous. Bullshit. Nobody cared about that. From the Russian point of view. They just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t going to be a propaganda thing and they would get ditched, and that was up to us, who were always… And there again we go back to because we had done it successfully they appreciated we weren’t trying to compromise them, and so it came back to, you know, reports from various places that these people can be trusted. Even if they don’t know what they’re doing. I mean, you can still trust their impulses.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. Yeah, yeah. They don’t have an agenda that’s anti Soviet is really what—
Jim Hickman: Exactly. And it’s like—I don’t know if I ever told you about John Denver’s first concert, but it’s like that, you know. When I took John, the first concert, nobody had ever heard of John Denver, or very few people. And we were at a big concert hall and there were hardly any tickets sold. It was almost an empty arena it would be. So, I said to my friend in the KGB we can’t let this happen. And he was involved in helping us get permission for John to come. So, he rounded up prostitutes all over Moscow and put them into the hall and made the hall sold out by—and who knows who else was in there. That was the story I remember. But I’m sure he didn’t bring in 5,000 prostitutes, you know. But he went in his area of influence and got people into that hall. I just remember the prostitute thing because afterwards I said why didn’t you introduce me to some of them?
Daniel Satinsky: [Laughs.] So, that’s probably his working network there for information gathering, right?
Jim Hickman: Right, absolutely. And then…let me just see if there’s anything else because I know you have to go and so do I. Oh, the other thing. Do you know Roger Macdonald?
Daniel Satinsky: No. I may have met him once or twice through you. The name sounds familiar. But I don’t know him.
Jim Hickman: But you know who he is from those days. He was very involved—
Daniel Satinsky: Not really. Remind me.
Jim Hickman: Well, I would say that he was like Anya. He was one of the most important support people in everything Esalen did with the Soviet Union.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay.
Jim Hickman: And is a good friend of mine, and is now, something you might be interested in, he started the [Television News Archive at the] Internet Archive in San Francisco. It’s the largest digital archive of the internet in the entire world.
Daniel Satinsky: Wow.
Jim Hickman: And he now focuses on media, video, video archives from the internet. But anyway, my point is Roger and I have talked about this a little bit and he said, you know—because Roger was always very realistic, and I always liked his opinion, which was often counter to what all the enthusiasts were saying. And he says I remember the party where Rick Lukens came and proposed the idea of the US Festival linkup to you for the first time, and Rusty was there. And he said it’s one of the few times I’ve really been wrong because I said this is ridiculous, they’ll never do this, I think it’s a bad idea.
And so he remembers and reminded me that I first learned about it from Rick when he came to a party we had where we and Mary were there, we were all talking about Esalen, astronauts and cosmonauts and everything. So, it just reinforces my memory that the first sort of thought I had about doing it was from the US Festival people. So, just keep that in mind. And it would be easy to talk to Roger sometime if you’re ever interested.
Daniel Satinsky: In theory I am. I want to see how far I can get because what I’m finding is this is such an interesting and complex story that I’m getting bogged down in this chapter.
Jim Hickman: Yeah, I know. Right. And maybe you do the next version. But Roger and I have a…we talk for an hour to an hour and a half once a week, every week. And so if you’re ever interested I’ll just plug you into that call and we can do 15 or 20 minutes on whatever questions you’re going to have.
Daniel Satinsky: Great.
Jim Hickman: Now quickly. Okay, now another aspect of the disconnect, that Bill Graham disconnect, which again doesn’t have to be in here, but is important to remember. In order to sell this to the Soviets we created with them a presentation that would go live to all these people. And of course a part of the discussion at the very beginning was this is Labor Day, labor. Everybody out there is an employed worker. There could be maybe heads of labor unions, etc. It was a way of selling it. And one of the things they then appointed this moderator, who was a disgusting apologist for the whole Soviet thing, but that was one of their conditions. And so a part of getting the first one done was knowing what to allow them to do and not give them too much room.
And so we had this guy, and he took Rick and me around the city, and we did a three minute documentary of Moscow to put on the screen. And understandably, from the Bill Graham point of view, there’s X number of hundreds of thousands of kids out there who won’t rock and roll. They don’t give a damn about seeing Moscow with all these apologists. So, there’s content, not just I believe it’s disinformation, which is also true because that kind of a video could have been disinformation from the embassy.
But the other part was they also had Russian folk dancers. We got the rock and roll band, but they had Russians going around, you know. And again, anybody who would see that would say nobody in this audience gives a damn about the Russian folk dancers. So, there was also a content side. But the important thing of that was that that’s what had to happen in order to get the first one done. And that’s what we were good at, agreeing on what they required in order to do it that didn’t ruin everything, but allowed the first one to happen, which then made it possible for everything else to happen. Which is what so many people forget. Without those first things none of the rest happens.
And so quickly…provided permission for Evelyn, da-da-da-da-da, Russian technical—oh, and I think I mentioned the other guy on the Russian technical staff, Pavel, because he and Kim became real, had a real good connection and worked together on the others, so that was a part of the whole Russian side of putting together future linkups. It wasn’t just the U.S. people and what they were trying to do. And… you know, then I had some…okay.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay, so I have a different question for you. Do you have a second?
Jim Hickman: I have three minutes.
Daniel Satinsky: Three minutes. I was approached by a researcher who’s doing an EU funded project about the space station and its impact on lives of people in this country, and he wanted to talk to me. I’m not sure I’m going to talk to him. But I thought if this association of space explorers still exists I would like to point him in that direction.
Jim Hickman: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Daniel Satinsky: Because that’s the kind of people who could give him real substantive perception. And he’s interested in the Russian side of the space program. So, how would I do that?
Jim Hickman: To turn him on to ASE?
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah.
Jim Hickman: Well, you know, the first thing would be to introduce him to Rusty, because Rusty was on the space station, and he works with—
Daniel Satinsky: Okay, is Rusty still active and—
Jim Hickman: Yeah, yeah. I mean, he’s, you know, he’s not in… But I remember, I don’t know, a year or two ago he said there was going to be a 50th anniversary at the ASE conference, and he was going to speak on stuff, and so he’s still connected. And he still knows about all the stuff you’re talking about. He would be a much better resource than you to answer those kinds of questions.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. Oh, absolutely.
Jim Hickman: And then he could introduce him to a wider audience, etc.
Daniel Satinsky: Right. So, if I…I could tell this guy to write a letter to Rusty and address it to you, and you could forward it to him.
Jim Hickman: Yeah, that’s a good idea. And I could write a little note to just encourage Rusty to be in touch with him. Yeah, that’s fine.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay. All right. I will do that. I’d like to help the guy, but I don’t want to, you know, go crazy.
Jim Hickman: It’s an important question, though. These are all things most people never think about much. And yet they’re affected by it. And so it’s about awareness on all these pieces of our lives. So, yeah, let’s just see where it goes. Tell him to copy me and then we’ll see how far it goes.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay, all right. Okay, good. And again, thank you for your time. Thank you for your attention to this. I really feel like we’re creating history, and it should be as much a group project as possible. And that’s what I’m going to aim to do throughout this for the book.
Jim Hickman: And you’re doing a good job of it. You’re doing a really good job of that. So, keep me apprised and ask me whenever you need any advice or help and I’ll always claim that I knew all these people.
Daniel Satinsky: Right, absolutely. And you do. Yeah, right, you’re my—
Jim Hickman: And the good thing, I was talking Stan Krippner recently, because he’s writing his autobiography, and he was asking me about well, you know, I don’t know if I should say such-and-such about this guy. And I said, Stan, the good thing about writing it now is almost everyone you ever knew is dead, so write anything you want, there’s nobody alive who can contradict you. [Laughs.]
Daniel Satinsky: Right. Yeah, no, true.
Jim Hickman: I know, I know.
Daniel Satinsky: Well, I’m just, you know, at the end of this I don’t know what to do with all these interviews because I will have pieces of each one in the book. But this is a tremendous resource and—
Jim Hickman: Well, there’s the Internet Archive—I mean, there’s the citizen diplomacy archive Anya has been helping put together. So, when you talk to Anya, ask her about that.
Daniel Satinsky: Yeah, I will.
Jim Hickman: It might be something that, if that’s still really going and they’re expanding it, this would be something they would be interested. The other thing would be Roger and the Internet Archive. That’s the kind of stuff that they often, you know. And then you have it held in a place where part of their agenda is that they inform media people all over the world, if you want to know what happened, come to our archive and you can see the documentation of these things. So, those are two possibilities for it when it’s over.
Daniel Satinsky: Okay, good. Good, good.
Jim Hickman: Okay.
Daniel Satinsky: Thank you very much. Okay.
Jim Hickman: Okay, have a good day. Talk to you later.
Daniel Satinsky: You too, you too. All right, bye-bye.