Rob Zapple and Michele Zapple

00:02 My name is Michelle's Apple. I'm 53. It's April 10th 2011. Where in Wilmington North Carolina, and I am married to rob. My name is Rob zapple. I'm 58. Today is April 10th. We're in Wilmington 2011 and that's Wilmington, North Carolina, not Delaware.

00:26 Here we are here.

00:30 Well, I thought we would talk about your dad today and let's start with his name was named by Nicholas Robert zapel born 1915 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was the oldest son.

01:03 John and Anna zapotosky, which was our name when they immigrated from Ukrainian the Ukraine they came over in the early teens of 1900.

01:21 My grandfather who I never met John.

01:25 Who was the youngest son of 10 in their family in this is all just family history?

01:34 And the way the inheritance laws were basically set up at that time and they were from their Village that he had the least to gain and again from family stories. He decided to make the the jump to come to America what you did and worked for a number of years in the asphalt pits in Jersey City from which they took the asphalt to pave the streets of New York. He died when my dad was 16, so that would have been right around 19 in the middle of the depression 3132.

02:15 Of from the fumes of breathing too much tar from the open pits, which is how they used to do it here in the United States or

02:30 Yes, he was the oldest one. And again he was born in 1915. And so that it was Dad Nicholas and then he had an older sister. Always good point older sister Mary who I do not know very well and two younger brothers were Peter and Walter and they grew up in Jersey City. They're their mother and my grandmother who I had briefly when I was younger never learned English and so at a very young age dad basically took over the family at 16 with a mother who spoke me a very limited or no no English and two younger brothers who were much younger and and Mary

03:23 Who shortly after World War I had a nervous breakdown and then she never fully recovered for the rest of your life. And by all accounts is very high-strung. Even when she was younger.

03:37 Until I remember that your dad must have spoken English and Ukrainian I had no idea about until very late when I tell I was an adult.

03:56 And in some cases it after after his death, we would try to get him to you with sort of bait him to try and say like, you know.

04:06 Say something in Ukrainian and he would always just shut that off like there is no Ukrainian to him and there was none of my uncles who spoke nothing, but Ukrainian until he was late teens or early twenties when he was in his neighborhood in Jersey City.

04:28 He went in my entire life. I never heard him say other than a couple of August, but I now know is it little Leo catchphrases or little jargon pieces that that part of his life was shut off completely as was not uncommon for a lot of

04:49 People who came through that died generation because after we are going up in in Jersey City and then going to college he was a very good athlete and help to put himself through college through scholarships as well as doing a trick backs basketball shots turn pennies and nickels and and then also to law school as well.

05:21 Well, I remember the first time I came to the cape house and we went upstairs and there were all those pictures and basically I recreated his

05:33 Like your pictures

05:37 Yeah, there's a lot of good pictures.

05:39 He was very involved in the

05:44 Very involved in the community Through

05:57 Now you would gather all of the neighborhood kids who never had a chance to get outside of Jersey City.

06:07 What time do the uses contacts and influences among different businessmen to put together the

06:16 Money and the

06:18 Different locations outside of Jersey City so that everybody could get a chance to spend some time in a more rural setting and he paid for groups of kids throughout the summer to make sure that they had that opportunity and me and created a Boys & Girls Club that still exists today in Jersey City and that was being very involved in his community.

06:46 But at a certain point of view with his law degree and going to St. John's College, which was not the same John to wean off today, but was a sweetie what is now been plunged into the breakers Hellyeah part of the New Jersey state system.

07:18 And he had no one of many incredible Strokes of luck for a month. Basically on the son of a son of an immigrant that am a lawyer and judge pulled him under his arm and said NICU and you're a smart kid and your you mean well and I Jersey City's not for you you want to get out and I'll really cuz it was so corrupt. Partly. I think mainly is what he was was telling you.

07:54 Yeah World War II happened. He join the Coast Guard where he met my mom who is also one of the first officer CIA in the in the Coast Guard in the sparse. Yes and Evan the initial program. She just graduated from Smith college and she went to a dad in Philadelphia. I made sure about the war and dad was spent most of the war in the Aleutian Islands on a destroyer.

08:29 Where are you received a commendation for bravery form your diving into the waters during a on ship fire that. Yeah, I up an Aleutian Islands. It's when I just remembered that cuz he he met the man who saved a few years before his death is still remember that?

08:58 What about all those pictures then? I would take pictures like with President Kennedy and President Johnson.

09:05 To President Truman Dad after the Coast Guard and I went back to Jersey City and again received as an even stronger advice that if you wanted to have career with his new wife to bring you to be you need to get out at your city and Joey did they packed up and moved to Washington DC and where they applied for as a young lawyer work on Capitol Hill and he was fortunate enough to get a job with the FAA Federal Aviation Administration.

09:44 I said a young staff lawyer and then somewhere within the first year or more to that. He was working there you made friends with then-senator wheeler from Colorado again again, one of these other Strokes of luck. We were talking about like 1948, I guess at this point. Yeah. I said wheeler said that you know, when paraphrasing that the emergence of certainly radio which is well-established at this point and television and they needed from federal level to get a handline. They need somebody to to figure out what the regulations and how we can put this together and and we have to keep an eye on it from the Senate Congressional point of view.

10:38 And you ask Dad if you might be interested and but it would mean leaving what was clearly a promising career in the FAA to jump into this kind of unformed position and he agreed.

10:52 To do it and I started his career for 35 years and became the communications Council to the United States Senate.

11:03 And we are starting to be jumped right in with them later became known as the of the Payola scandals with a television in the field during the 50s and looking back. You can see forming a

11:21 Clear philosophy that under the N. I'm keen understanding of the need for a public television and radio system that would

11:36 Be free of commercial ties and the pressures put on through a large organizations large businesses who were solely focused on making sure that the most listeners listen for the longest time and bought their products, which is at the end of the day what commercial television and radio it is about how do you think he convinced everybody to

12:04 For the need for educational television. Do you think it was really focusing on the kids or was it focusing on grown ups or

12:12 I don't know. There were all these earlier a lot of people who are involved and I know that some of the key players from his point of view were the sender John Pastore from Rhode Island, who is the first Italian-American to be Governor as well as senator from that state and also warned magnussen from the state of Washington Washington DC in the entire culture was much different. Then there was more I certainly extensive for cooperation and led by I mean, it's so weird but having lived through it, they the sense of possibility after the war certainly with that President Eisenhower leading the way and then pick up by Kennedy it was

13:03 He was The Observer is a real thing and people talk about the Camelot or The Shining Light.

13:19 I know.

13:26 From my own personal experiences

13:30 With Dad and growing up in that. That it would say, yeah.

13:35 He was a real thing then.

13:48 The people that people actually believe there was something better out there that there was a real goal for, good that we could achieve to be a better and stronger society and

14:05 We had the resources to create a better society and we just needed the philosophy and we needed the people behind it.

14:17 It was a sad day when the President Kennedy was assassinated.

14:22 During that. The seeds were late for the creation of basic became public television, of course it over now. We're already existing in a number of states the educational television systems that people of like mind had taken the challenge of their own and it started create separate entities that were sometimes private funding sometimes States would take their own money find little chunks of money to create an educational television system, but there was no system. That was Nationwide that would set up and protect what is got lost somewhere in there that the airwaves are owned by the people.

15:08 Guaranteed to be owned by the people are not owned by commercial entities and they need to be protected for the use by the people.

15:19 For the use of education and educated populace laid-back and all the way to Thomas Jefferson which end of sounds do, you know corn at this point, but you got to have it for democracy to succeed and it's it's that kind of thinking that was actually thrown around the room.

15:39 This guy quotes when you had senators and congressmen and people who are writing legislation actually talk like that.

15:51 Where do you think the idea came to him about the maybe the negative effect of violence on TV on children? Because I mean I thought I thought that was my idea to get books that it was his idea to go back into the 20s and 30s, even before then with with literature in your violence is being written out and either Neo to cartoons or comic books or literature. I just so happened that radio and television was able to deliver, you know, too much larger Mass audience examples of violence or since has been around there's nothing that attracts of people's attention full attention greater than violence and and kind of sensation.

16:48 They were series of hearings were held in the 60s that where they focused on the effects of violent television on young young people special young viewers, and it's in over the course of an in his hearing soon be gone forever and I'm talking about years and they they would produce meow 2 in thick real findings showing exactly how much violence affected young children when they when they watched it repeatedly?

17:22 And those are all taken and everyone nodded carefully and then the more powerful private interests.

17:30 Do corporations would say yes, we understand and then they'd be put on a shelf until the next time the cycle come back up again and somebody would remember. Hey didn't we study that before and that? Yeah, but it's time, you know, we are much Advance now and they would have another study that would show that we haven't Advanced at all. But one of the things that did come out of the earrings in the 60s.

17:54 Was more firm data to be used for the to make the case for creating a public television system that connect that could be free of that kind of gratuitous violence that and also block out periods of time during the day that younger children and parents of younger kids could watch and become informed and be educated and entertained all the way down the line and as well as provide emergency broadcasting across the entire television network that would spend all you know, how that the entire country.

18:31 And the same with it with radio as well and and that's what you know, Dad was deeply involved with in writing the public television Act of 67.

18:44 That brought together all these ideas and deed when when he died. It was one of the things that that he remembered and wanted to be remembered for for bringing this.

18:55 To the American public but it certainly was not his net worth in tremendous number of people. He was in the right to the right guy in the right place at the right time to have the support of being so many talented legislators to kind of brings him. The law that was also backed up because they realize that you can legislate all you wanted to say, you know, we're going to make this incredible system of public television and public radio's but unless you have the money in the founder of funding of it doesn't mean anything and that's why I was followed up 1968 by the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting again, the amount of thinking I mean, we all look at it now as if this is some sort of institution that is always been there will always be there a little wasn't again bunch of men and women sitting around a table trying to figure out the system how we could permanently fund what everyone agreed was a good idea.

19:55 High-end any idea centered around creating this nonprofit organization The Corporation for Public Broadcasting that would be outside of the influence hopefully of the Rio de Janeiro government and and be funded in part by the federal government but have funding happen over a multi-year sequence. So that in theory, it would not be influenced by Presidential politics it that it would have a much longer swing much the same way that senators are elected over six year. So they can get the Long View the idea was to protect that kind of funding so that public television and public radio could continue to operate without fear of major shifts horseshoes me minor shifts in a row are popular shifts that it would they would have this the strength of having lunch levity.

20:55 And security of their funding that immediately came under attack by the Nixon Administration. I have vivid memories of being at the house keeping the summer and 1968-69 dad who would take two weeks at the most when Congress is in session. I was in recess and would come up ending in the middle of it and you got the call and get a background on home phone. And now it's one of the few times I heard him really explode on the phone when he founded the Nixon administration had the Congress going to recess and then made an attack and tried to go in and basically cut got the frequency by which CTB would be funded since you change the law and undo the work of

21:47 Little Sheldon some people and certainly something the dad was heavily invested in, you know in his career he went back and was it successful to save it. But as we all know now are they putting the funding for those organizations from Corporation public broadcasting on a one or two-year cycle is devastating. It means I have to turn around and fight for funding every year every year the centrally and in pulls away from their overall purpose, which is to provide a secure a source of funds. So that public television has the ability to expand its Vision public radio has his chance to expand it also geographically throughout the entire United States is they found quickly and that part of the Mandate of public television public radio was to reach into those places that commercial broadcasting simply didn't care about it because they didn't pay the bills and made no sense to go into a community of 1000.

22:47 2000 people and put up with the entire infrastructure because the payoff was not there that was not the case and is not the case with public television and public radio. Their mandate is to use some of that funding so that those those communities in those people are fully served for 9 a.m. Formation entertainment and also emergency broadcasting and without them. There are many thousands and tens of thousands of people the United States who have no connection to a broadcasting if it weren't for the money's in the effort of the people of public television Public Radio.

23:28 I'm Switching gears. But what about like, I remember being in college and reading in a buck and coming across something that said this apple Doctrine and I was like zaful Doctrine is that means happel. I mean, do you remember having that experience or you already knew it or it's weird when your dad worked so hard and in in so many ways and I look back now that Corsican going up in the 60s. There was a natural tendency by a lot of younger people myself included to you. I'm just poo poo anything that had to do certainly with your parents, but then doubly so when you talk me about the government took me.

24:14 Decades to realize how important to work that that he was doing at the time. I just so you know, you were not anti-government, but you just thought that that was not the place you wanted to be in shortly after the Nixon years. You just I just kind of shut a lot of that stuff out the chapel Doctrine was a wonderful honor that was presented to him is as part of the fairness Doctrine. It was a section that was peeled off and still remains in effect that in general guarantees that political broadcasting so that the debates of which dad again quadri hard for the first presidential candidate debates again, we look at this now, like, of course, this is how you have any kind of a political race, especially national race. It wasn't always the case. I remember the absolute Joy dad attended the first

25:14 Kennedy debates, they had that was a lie. He was a part of making that happen in from behind the scenes a large part of it and you recognize it at that point the how important it was to educate the public if they don't know what's going on. If they don't see these guys in these women, you know, and we have this wonderful technology. You know what I'm talking about black and white television and then that's what it was now we can put these people who are going to be the president that were the senators of the congressman people will make the decisions into your living room. You can look them in the eye through the television set how important that was and how you really strong of an emotion. It could be a good react and deed is probably the biggest change as far as the way we elect our officials it was being made to have that. He also recognized it again that commercial television

26:14 Could easily grab ahold of that and I buy either withholding or promoting a candidate Indian putting them forward in their their time and their Television Studios. Are they giving them time on there are ways did they get a commercial entities could abused this technology tremendously and part of the Jackal Dr. You just insisted and input into federal law that there will be fair and equal time given two candidates on both sides regardless of how much power what kind of backing you have or how much money do you have to tear has to be a great equalizer in there and do this day and hopefully for the future this is what will be one of the small little your cheeks are not change the bricks that helped create, you know a stronger democracy.

27:06 Not bad for a kid who's if you have sent immigrants, son.

27:10 Well, you know how we always thought that he had like the does Apple name had been changed his apple and he came through Ellis Island. But but after he died we found his parents name was that was a Petoskey and it's always sad that I never had the view of the full direct story because all of his brothers have died and music course grandma is his mother's died and you'll just looking back at the actual newspaper clippings in September 24th. I believe it is Venice in September of 1938 at the ripe old age of 23 head of the family. He decided to change his name and ultimately the name of his family his appetite from from zapotosky to zapple and went through the proper procedures.

28:10 Weather isn't the advice of the people the attorneys in the judges that he was working with or or what. It was a much different time back. Then the idea of a the Red Menace communism was bad the name zapotosky had a clear European and Ukrainian or Russian connotation to it.

28:35 And once you made that decision and certainly I know is it is it is a kid living in the in the 50s when he was in the midst of a lot of his work on Capitol Hill into the 60s. He was a part of his life that he essentially just close the door on and there was never any attempt to talk about family where he came from where his parents came from there was never an attempt to go visit back into the village and Ukraine where they had come from that entire part of his life was simply Waldo and there were a couple of small attempts by politicians to try and and bring that forward and fortunately I had enough strength and stronger allies in the senate in Congress who left his defense and just said this is this is not

29:35 This is me on the wrong road to go down with Nick's Apple entire time. You are the fifties in McCarthy era. Of course, I can't put myself in his shoes, but it having lived as a kids were there.

29:54 It is it really hardened and it was it had to have been a very nerve-wracking. For him with the supposition that with a name like zapotosky. He was he was always a potential Target for a political enemy his way through it and was able to go on.

30:21 To do what I think is snow what I know is a lot of good for certainly our family, but even more so for for the country and it's truly amazing.

30:36 Amazing Story how one person one kid

30:41 Can make a change.

30:46 What about Amvets?

30:49 After the war he got heavily involved with the creation of Amvets and in the leadership of vampires recognizing the need for all of the year at the veterans that were returning from the war and you had this tremendous body of men and women who had such great purpose and great focus and then all of a sudden one day another Wars over and you're supposed to come back and rejoin society and pick up where you left off or for many of these people have been for 5 years since they had to wear in their communities and they were simply lost

31:28 Hi, Dad. Step forward and with me. I'm terrible out there having a many other people helped create the National Organization Amvets for YouTube to bring Focus to the lives of a lot of veterans and to Lobby in a locally as well as a senior in Washington for legislation that would help veterans from all the different me a military's to for housing for education for all the things that they need to do to put their life back together and in a regular Society public and create new communities. So he was always a questioning very very proud of that as well.

32:26 What about after he retired? It was like so, you know, he went from being such a powerful person to retirement at that time, you know by I think people weren't there they weren't as active as they are now. Now when you retire like you have a whole agenda for what you're going to do when you retired what happened when he retired to hard. That's a hard one. I know we also have my mom being certainly the one on the on the front line to a kind of live through with it with him through all of this. He was so focused. The only thing I can say in his career in Washington and was used to spending seven days a week 12 to 14 hours a day and and that's legitimate. I know as a kid growing up.

33:15 And I can't tell you the number of Wheaton football basketball games. He just wasn't there for and and not I'm not not resentful for you. Just if he was he was constantly working and attending functions and traveling as part of the work and then when you go from that and into this kind of thing of retirement, I know after you get through the honeymoon. Of retirement, I know I'm 6 months you realize when we doing and you went back to Consulting and he consulted with the all of the major networks. And yeah, you know to ask him to do when he was in his position watching what you refuse to do with it until afterwards and and slowly that you know, once you're out of power you don't end in Washington that all drift away and he found himself trying to write his Memoirs which test did not we know didn't see the need for

34:13 And without a a clear Focus, I mean you tried everything from stamp collecting to playing golf when she found incredibly frustrating and ultimately he he would have done better reader an Avid Reader all the way up until he died. But hey, there was a thing a real loss of self that it without being connected with a job in Washington. I mean at the time that's that was the normal age to retire, but now we know that people live, you know so much longer in there so they still have so much to do but Jimmy Carter came in in 76, so

35:13 Can you buy me again me I probably get 10-12 years of active.

35:19 Consulting work that he didn't but then he lived until he was 94, I believe he already has quite something with a good guy.

35:39 I'm curious to know what what has been the most influential thing to you about your father.

35:48 Community service, I think.

35:54 I've always seen as Michelle going to test me on I had difficulty focusing on money.

36:02 Even though I enjoy doing a lot of different things never have pursued a career in the Arts, but community service wherever I've gone has been absolutely great and everything. We did for my years in California. So relieved to hear the work that I do here locally with Jalen Hall and also for the local public radio station whqr can find its roots back to those days of sitting around the dinner table and you're in hearing what was going on and and just feel kind of pouting is only a at 11 to 13 or 14 year old can do but somewhere back of my mind. I was cataloging going off.

36:45 Dad's actually doing something pretty good. And it makes it makes a difference and I think a really positive one. So I think about that a lot as I sit through the endless board meetings that I that I tend to sit through that there is there there is a better good out there and just takes a little bit of effort and a lot of patience, but we can move and the society forward.

37:12 Also it like knowing about a person like that. It attaches a face to like something that has changed.

37:20 Society you're right honey. It's really true. I mean that I look and even though I like I sound like you know what they know the old geezer. I guess I'm getting there but the idea that we are the tell me these things we take for granted like public television are like Sesame Street Live in our kids all grew up on like public radio and you're the wonderful things like Garrison Keillor or the Metropolitan Opera being being delivered her but not we take it for granted as in November in this huge debate about do, you know if we want to give them more money while then we know it always be around when they aren't and it is not a given and there's a. Where we didn't have that and it makes a huge difference when you see the amount of effort and time and and literally, you know, we have Blood Sweat and Tears. They went into kind of creating those things those institutions an instant of sort of

38:20 Venus that's what's so annoying that we all would suffer as a result of it and hopefully somebody in the future will step forward and I'll start in the reinvent the wheel and it's so unnecessary. And when we see when we could be going the opposite direction is building upon it and setting aside the other funding to create a better more educated society that will make us safer and stronger in the future and our kids, you know, our kids have been influenced by it, but they don't I don't think they know the direct connection to Nick, you know, I mean they kind of but they won't know it until they're you know, RH or whatever it is. Correct. They all are influenced by how they're raised.

39:05 Yeah, it's a monster with all these guys hitting in some college or something something. Maybe their kids when they come home and say this is my professor said something about this apple doctor today.