INTERVIEWS

Hoffer appeared in several television interviews for public and commercial TV in the 60's and 70's. Beginning in 1965, a local station in San Francisco showed a series of interviews with Hoffer which eventually ended up on PBS. These caught the attention of producer Jack Beck and newsman Eric Sevareid, both of CBS-TV, who subsequently succeeded in winning over CBS News to the idea of a broadcast interview with Hoffer.

In the fall of 1967, CBS aired the interview, called "Eric Hoffer: The Passionate State of Mind." The program lasted an hour, and featured questions by Eric Sevareid. Hoffer spoke passionately on a number of subjects, including the U.S. policy in Vietnam, the importance of Israel, the failure of leadership in the black revolution, and the character of Lyndon Johnson. First shown on prime-time television in September, it was such a popular success that the network aired it again in November. Americans responded to Hoffer and his ideas, and the show brought him more fame than his books ever had. CBS News was flooded with the largest mail response it had seen in years. According to Kenneth Crawford in Newsweek, "Within a few days of the broadcast most city bookshops were sold out of Hoffer's works." Hoffer had spoken out "against the fashionable attitudes of the day." By doing so, wrote Eric Sevareid later, he "had made millions of confused and troubled Americans feel very much better about their country."

In 1978, the Public Broadcasting Service aired a similar interview called "Eric Hoffer: The Crowded Life." Hoffer was asked questions by Jeanne Wolfe, and his long answers provided the bulk of the program. This show, like the Sevareid interview, was a popular and critical success, and it even won several prizes, including one from the Chicago Film Festival.

The text of the CBS interview appeared in a collection of interviews by Erid Sevareid titled "Conversations With Eric Sevareid." The text of the PBS interview exists in teleplay form by TV Publications, but it is difficult to track down. The availability of these programs on video is unknown to myself at the present time.

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