Do Words Help Make The World A Better Place?

What would you include on your list of what you think are the coolest jobs in the world?

My list is long, but many of the jobs I’d pick are based on second hand knowledge. In other words, I don’t really know people personally doing some of the jobs. Luckily I do know one person, Richard Amdur, whose job has global implications. He is one of the few who can say, without naiveté or irony, that he is trying to bring about world peace.

Let’s take a trip, a mental vacation, back through the Wayback Machine (Peabody and Sherman reference).  Can you talk about where you grew up and a little bit about your family?

I grew up in Forest Hills, Queens.  The borough’s great diversity is said to have deepened over the past decade or so, but even 50+ years ago our block was quite mixed, with Chinese, Irish, Italian, Korean, Latino and European Jewish families.  My mother was born in Brooklyn in 1928, and suffered the fate of many women of that era: directed into secretarial school while her younger brothers went off to college.  Still, she managed to pursue a literary/cultural career that suited her sensibility, working at Channel 13, the Saturday Review, Knopf and other publishers, including as the typist for the famed “Auntie Mame” by Patrick Dennis.  My father was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1922; the family name was “Amdursky” at the time.  His father was Russian, and his mother Polish, but owing to the changing borders of the times they were considered “stateless”.  Family lore has it that this designation saved them when applying to come to the United States; whereas other nationalities faced strict quotas, there were no such limits for stateless people.  Family lore further has it that all my father carried upon departure in March 1939 was a small bundle of photography magazines; he subsequently made his life in the photo business.

Peabody with his boy Sherman and the Wayback Machine

You attended one of the top high schools in New Jersey, Ridgewood High School. For those who are not familiar with it it looks a bit like a small college. It has historic brick buildings, old trees, a campus of sorts that does not look at all like architectural big boxes that are the cousins of Walmarts and some prison facilities too. I mention all this as the school had and still has a sense that it is a place for the elite. Is this something that you think is good for the students who are in it even if others think it makes the people there elitists? Did you feel the school itself or the community at large instilled the sense of superiority?

I had no idea that Ridgewood is or was one of the top high schools in New Jersey, or that notions of an “elite” were part of the picture.  All we knew, when we moved out of the city in 1971, was that Ridgewood had “good schools” along with the other hallmarks of suburbia, i.e. greenery and bigger houses.  I never felt that the school was trying to instill a sense of superiority.  But I also never felt that the school was trying to instill anything particular at all.  All I sensed was a mass of kids playing sports, doing their homework and socializing. Seen now from the perspective of a father of a ninth-grader who attends a school where social service and political engagement are prominent, the absence of an ethical dimension seems glaring, although maybe I was just too self-absorbed as a teenager to see it, or perhaps education itself has changed.  Promoting an “elite” today seems obsolete, misguided, and divisive; I would hope the school is focusing on nurturing individuals into compassionate global citizens.

Could you talk about how you prepared yourself for college in terms of courses and skills and activities?

I don’t recall preparing for college beyond trying to get good grades and do well on the various tests.  I had always wanted to be a writer and so gravitated towards working on the school newspaper as an extracurricular activity.  When it came time to think about college, journalism was the natural path.

Ridgewood High School

Can you remember how you did your college search and can you talk a bit about where you ended up going?

Our search wasn’t much of a search.  We had heard that Syracuse University had a good journalism school, and so that was automatically at the top of the list.  We did visit Cornell, Ithaca College, and the University of Rochester (I suspect my father simply wanted to visit Kodak), but none of these had a journalism program and so never really had a chance.  I don’t recall ever thinking about ranging beyond New York State; this seems strange to me now, since there were reputedly even stronger journalism programs at Northwestern University and the University of Missouri.  I have wondered whether an additional factor in conducting such a limited search might have been my parents’ never having attended college.  Then again, I guess we were just dead-set on Syracuse; I applied early decision and was accepted during my interview at the school’s outpost in Manhattan.

In high school you were already interested in writing. In part this may be due to the influence of family. Did your father ever push you toward writing/journalism?

There was no specific push from my folks, but the family influence was strong.  Our house was filled with books.  Throughout my childhood, my family’s Saturday outing was to dinner at John’s Pizza or the Cookery in Greenwich Village followed by browsing the stacks at Brentano’s or the 8th Street Bookshop.  Another nudge for a sports-obsessed kid may have come through the knowledge that a person with my family’s name was a sports reporter for the New York Times.  I remember writing parodies of “Get Smart” in grade school, a questionable undertaking since “Get Smart” was itself a parody.  But ultimately we are in the realm of mystery; if I had paid attention to the high school aptitude tests, I would have become an engineer.

What was your college experience like? If you had a do-over what would you change?

My college experience was great.  I made many good life-long friends; took interesting courses; and went abroad for a semester, a period that transformed my sense of self and sense of direction.  I have no desire for a do-over, but perhaps would make a tweak or two: spend an entire year overseas and not just a semester; and establish closer relationships with professors.  If I did have it to do over again, I would study something other than journalism, probably history, literature or political science (I went back to school for a master’s degree in the latter).  Real-world training on the school paper or local paper probably would have sufficed, and I recall being told that newspaper editors were a grizzled lot who wanted raw recruits they could train themselves without having to un-do the errant ideas implanted in j-school.  All this sounds rather quaint and of a different era; forgive my ignorance but do people even study journalism any more?  Isn’t it all “communications” and “media” now?

Syracuse University

Can you tell us how you approached a job search and can you tell us what your first job was out of college?

I came out of college still so infused with the excitement of my junior semester abroad that I wanted only to see more of the world.  My first job was at the Foundation for Research into the Origin of Man (FROM), for which I was to produce a newsletter and -- the main lure -- travel frequently to Africa to confer with the people doing the actual work in the Rift Valley.  After two months of isolation in a gloomy mid-town walk-up office, I realized that this path had quickly become an evolutionary dead end.  So I pounded the pavement, dropping off resumes at magazines and book publishers.  Such were the times (1979) that within a week or two I ended up with three offers of editorial assistantships and 24 hours in which to decide among Beverage Industry Weekly, Penthouse Forum and Cosmopolitan (where I had done temp work as a typist during the summer before senior year).  I chose Cosmo, and had the great fortune to work for Barbara Creaturo, a senior editor who took a special interest in my professional and personal well-being -- and who taught me an editing directive I still follow today when working on the drafts of others or submit to when others work on mine: take ownership of the text, change what needs changing, cut what needs cutting.

Could you take us through how you eventually came to have what I think is one of the coolest jobs in the world?

The photo library of the United Nations was a customer of my father’s business, Modernage Photo Services, and my father became good friends with its chief.  I had heard his name for years but only met him at the opening of a photo exhibition at the United Nations in 1991.  At that time, the United Nations was gearing up for the first “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro and I was writing books about the environment for young adults, a good fit.  I was hired to help with the public information campaign, and stayed on after the conference to work on other subjects and projects.  One of those, the “Blue Books”, was  an initiative of then-Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and were designed to bring together in one place the essential documents for a given subject, such as the struggle against apartheid.  This sounds very analog now but at the time it seemed a great advance for scholars, including the professorial Boutros-Ghali himself.  Having come to the attention of the “38th floor”, I was soon turned into a speechwriter.  I was then given a chance to stay with Mr. Boutros-Ghali’s successor, Kofi Annan, and then again asked to stay with the current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.  This experience has been a dream come true -- a dream that first took shape during the semester abroad with Syracuse, when I became hooked on all things “international”, and deepened as a result of a year on a kibbutz and then, a decade later but still before mortgage and child, a year-long backpacking trip with my wife through Europe, the Middle East and Asia. 

Can you tell us in some detail if at all possible, how you do what you do? What process to you go through to write words for others.  How much back and forth is there once you have sent out a draft?

I am the Director of Communications and Speechwriting in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.  I work closely with communications colleagues across the UN system, but primarily with the Department of Public Information and the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, who meets the press daily at noon.  Our shared job is to “tell the UN story” -- to inform the global public about the challenges and opportunities of our times, and about what the United Nations is doing to  advance peace, human rights and sustainable development for all.  My team and I write speeches, toasts, op-ed articles and other items for the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General, and senior officials designated to deliver messages on behalf of the Secretary-General.  We also write messages for UN “days” -- from the well-known Human Rights Day (December 10th) and International Women’s Day (March 8th) to lesser-known observances such as the International Year of Pulses (2016), some of which generate occasional mirth or raised eyebrows but all of which have their constituencies and value (here is the full list: www.un.org/en/sections/observances/united-nations-observances/).  Our operation -- in essence, producing “The Daily SG” -- has ample room for individual inspiration but depends crucially on consultation with colleagues across the UN system who provide thoughts, statistics, case histories and other “input”; the UN is a storehouse of information and expertise.  Some issues claim the headlines, but we also strive to highlight orphaned conflicts, emerging concerns and neglected perspectives.  Speeches often serve as the vehicle through which the UN clarifies its positions; going public forces the mind, and therefore drafts undergo rigorous peer review.  We aim to be forthright and persuasive, and to help the Secretary-General fully use his unique platform and pulpit.

Is this job incredibly stressful or is it mostly fun? Do you ever want to throw a few jokes in just to lighten things up?

The job is demanding owing to the high volume, fast pace and intense scrutiny, but overwhelmingly I feel blessed to be working for the United Nations with remarkable colleagues on issues that matter for all humankind.  Humor is always good.  Secretary-General Ban is keen to tell jokes and crack wise, and we have employed Bob Marley, Gangnam Style, Star Trek and even twerking to good 

effect.

Richard with UN in the background

 Given your experience with writing could you give a few tips to students who want to become writers or speechwriters?  How should they develop their skills?

I am hesitant to offer writing advice.  I can assemble readable words on a page but I don’t feel they ever really sing as well as I typically hope when staring at the blank screen.  Aspiring writers should read a lot, write a lot, recognize that writing is re-writing, and remember that writing is predicated on having something to say, i.e. thinking.

Who are the writers you admire?

Primo Levi.  Charles Dickens.  Norman Mailer.  Philip Roth.  David Foster Wallace.  I see I haven’t selected anyone still working (Roth has announced his retirement).  Ok: Stephen King.  Nor did I mention any women: Joan Didion. Dorothy Carrington. 

  

You are now about to enter what I call the tunnel. Your daughter is entering high school and that means traveling though a path that leads to the college search and application process. Poor you. Are you already thinking about this? Is your daughter?

My daughter recently told me that she and friends, during the first few weeks of ninth grade, found themselves talking about college and saying, “Wait, there’s something wrong with this picture”.  But college might be more front-and-centre at her school than others since she attends “Bard High School Early College”, in which students do college-level work in 11th and 12th grade.  The school recently had an information session about the college process for 9th and 10th grade students and their parents.  My daughter has some possible destinations in mind -- some because they are strong in her areas of interest, others because they are in sunny climes, still others because older kids on our block are attending and bringing back good reports.  We are all thinking about it, but not yet in an oppressive way.

Do you think there is too much stress on students today or is it just another manifestation of the competition that comes from globalization?

Isn’t the stress mostly on college graduates, given that so many have enormous debts and so many companies want to hire them for free on extended internships?  Something needs to be done about the costs of college tuition; it seems like a racket or another manifestation of a rigged economy.  Another main stress would seem to be that of picking a major or professional path very early; I still want my daughter to get the classic liberal education, including at college, unless she herself wants to specialize.  Notwithstanding these stresses, college and high school students would seem to have wide-ranging opportunities to get involved, connect with like-minded people, and pursue their interests and aspirations.  We grown-ups need to create the enabling environment in which they can thrive.

You mentioned that you might take up a book project that you have thought about so for some time. Do you want to talk about this.

My father worked so much that he was mostly a mystery to me. When he died, I felt a strong need to find out more about him, so I embarked on a reporting endeavor: I interviewed many of his former colleagues and scoured his bookshelves and files.  My main source is the material he left in the basement (he spent so much time down there that he referred to the main floor of the house as “upstairs”).  I also felt that the growth of photography offered a window onto the history of New York City and the immigrant experience.  So I am trying to tell two stories at once, with the working title: “Modernage: the history of photography through my father, the story of my father through photography”.  The construct is a bit cumbersome, and I am leery of echoing, with nowhere near the writing ability, Mailer’s “Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as History”, so I will probably end up jettisoning the subtitle.  I am also building a website -- tentatively called “harry’sbasement.com” -- illustrated with some of the visuals he left behind, including a collection of daguerreotypes, stereocards and photographic ephemera.  Did I mention that I still have to finish the actual book?!  At this point this is a project for when the speechwriting stops. 

Do you have any advice for those who would like to be you when they grow up?

No advice for anyone wanting to be me!  But for anyone wanting to be themselves: Get out there and see the world.

Anything else you want to add?

Thanks for the opportunity to do this; it’s been fun to look back at paths taken and untaken.  In case you haven’t told your readers, this all started with our seeing each other again at our 40th high school reunion.  I hadn’t been planning to attend but am very glad I did -- proving again the value of Woody Allen’s maxim that 80 per cent of success in life is just showing up.

this is a single daguerreotype, an image from the civil war, when people memorialized themselves knowing they were unlikely to return
This daguerreotype is part of Richard's father's collection

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Richard’s words help us to see how the paths we take in life are not always predictable and by no means linear.  While this life lesson is certainly important, it is something that has happened or will happen once we have reached a certain stage in our lives.

What Richard underscores that is different for those living now from those who lived just a generation or two ago. Back then living in a bubble in which the focus was on the local and on the self was what many did. Today, however, we need to change our approach. Richard says it concisely:

Promoting an “elite” today seems obsolete, misguided, and divisive; I would hope the school is focusing on nurturing individuals into compassionate global citizens.

These words serve as a perfect summary of the report, Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions issued from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education this January, which calls for significant changes in how students should be evaluated for admission to highly selective colleges and universities. Many educators have welcomed this report. It focuses on encouraging students to become global citizens, people who care for their family, communities and their place in the world. The emphasis is on ethics instead of the number of AP classes with A grades or SAT scores well above 700 on each section.

Richard’s wisdom about what parents can do to support their children’s education and his belief in the liberal arts to instill needed life skills echoes what many leaders in business and education cite as vital to the preparation of the next generation.

Finally, Richard’s advice about writing should be quoted by teachers who want to give advice to students that works. His style, filled with subtle wit and graceful turns of phrase demonstrates the skills writers need to succeed in communicating effectively and well.

I want to thank Richard for his words. He has done far more than just show up. He has helped write words that have shaped the discourse of peace in our era. Way back when, we were in high school together, he was a deep thinker who was also modest. He’s taken these traits and made them a consistent part of his life and in doing so has achieved great things. I look forward to reading his book and hearing about his new projects too.

Parke and Richard at RHS reunion