Vietnam War Is Subject of Conference at Brooklyn College, May 19

What did you do during the war? Brooklyn College will host a conference on the Vietnam War and Brooklyn in the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, May 19, in the Brooklyn College Library. The conference will feature students from Assistant Professor Philip Napoli's class "Vietnam and the American Experience of the War" at Brooklyn College and from Assistant Professor Mike Foley's class "The History of the Vietnam War" at the College of Staten Island for an evening of presentations and speakers concerning the Vietnam War, its immediate consequences, and its lasting aftermath.

Students in Professor Napoli and Professor Foley's classes have spent the last semester studying the Vietnam conflict and have recorded
interviews with people whose lives were touched by the conflict. Veterans as well as war protestors were interviewed. At the conference each student will present the results of his or her Vietnam-related oral history project.

The keynote speaker for the conference is former Brooklyn Congresswoman Liz Holtzman, who, in 1972 at the age of thirty, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. During her six years in the House, she was a vocal critic of the war and served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Nixon. She served as Brooklyn District Attorney from 1982 to 1989 and New York City Controller from 1989 to 1992. Her autobiography, Who Said It Would Be Easy?: One Woman's Life in the Political Arena, was published in 1996.

The conference will start at 4 p.m. in the Woody Tanger Auditorium on the first floor of the Brooklyn College Library with a screening of Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning Vietnam war documentary The Fog of War. Liz Holtzman will deliver her address at 7 p.m. The
events are free and open to the public, but space is limited and reservations are required. Anyone who is interested in attending the
conference or participating in the study may contact Professor Napoli by calling (718) 951-5303 or by e-mail:pnapoli@brooklyn.cuny.edu, or Professor Foley at msfoley@earthlink.net.