Bob Alpern in Army, College, NYC and Baltimore

Description

John Friedrich (56) interviews his friend Bob Alpern (93)about early influences in his lie, including seeing unemployed people along Riverside Drive in New York City, living in shanties. Bob shares that FDR's programs like the CCC and the WPA appealed to him, and that And then in my first, political activity, that supporting the Adlai Stevenson Presidential campaign.

Bob talks about enrolling in the Army in 1946, since he couldn’t get into college with all the veterans returning from WWII. Bob then attended college at NYU. Yeah, that was. Bob became more political seeing the Cold War arms race, and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. It became clear to him “that we had to stop this mad arms race that could Wipe Out the Earth.”

Bob talks about his job with The National Guardian, a left-wing publication. That employment interrupted his plans to work during the McCarthy era State Department.

Bob talks of getting married to his first wife, Lois Sherry. They attended operas at the since demolished Metropolitan Opera.

Bob was offered a job with the Army Air Force exchange service in Germany, but Lois didn’t want to go right after the war. So instead they moved to Baltimore, where Bob began working as a credit manager in retail credit.

Participants

• John Friedrich
  

Interview By

• John Friedrich