December 3, 2025 • 38 mins
Many longtime WBZ NewsRadio listeners know the legacy, and iconic voice, of longtime talk radio host David Brudnoy. He made his mark in the Boston radio market with a career spanning from the 1970s right up until his death in 2004. What some might not know about Brudnoy was his longtime friendship with his mentor Frank Meyer, a man who helped shape the person and broadcaster Brudnoy became. In author Daniel Flynn’s book, The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, it details impactful conversations and correspondence between Brudnoy and Meyer. Daniel joined Dan to discuss his book and the legacy of David Brudnoy.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well, if you read the Boston Globe on Sunday, which
of course you certainly should read the Boston Globe on Sunday. Well,
one of the pieces in the Ideas Colin was the
Long Strange Trip of David Bradnoy. His erudite brand of
libertarianism made him a fixture of Boston media for decades.
Newly unearthed correspondence with his mentor illuminates where many of
his ideas came from. Now you still never have a
(00:33):
headline ending with a preposition. But in that case, I
guess the Globe made an exception with us. Is the
author of that piece? It was not the headline writer
Daniel J. Flynn. He is Dan Flynn. Hey Dan, welcome
to the Nightside.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
How are you outstanding? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You have a very interesting background. You're a Massachusetts guy,
spent time in the United States Marine Corps. You're a
visiting fellow the Hoover Institute, and have the author of
several books. The most recent is a book called The
Man Who Invented Conservatism, The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer.
(01:14):
This story intersects with my predecessor, one of my predecessors,
David Brodnoy, I have the great opportunity to sit in
the same iconic talk host chair, not necessarily the chair
that he sat in, but the metaphorical position of not
only David, but Paul Sullivan too, much more talented talk
(01:36):
show hosts than I who preceded me here on WBZ.
David was here for many years, Paul here a shorter
period of time, but they both were great talk show hosts,
and I think my audience remembers them both well, and
they certainly remember David Brudnoy and the story. Tonight, we're
(02:01):
going to focus on David, who twenty one years ago
this month. Matter of fact, twenty one years ago next Tuesday,
passed away, and he has been missed ever since you
started down. You had your your own long strage trip here, uh,
(02:21):
investigating the life and times of someone who was a
mentor to David Brednoy, Frank Meyer, Frank s. Meyer. UH.
Tell us a little bit about Frank Meyer, UH, and
why people will be interested not only in this book
in terms of David bretdnine, but also in terms of
learning about Frank Meyer.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
So Meyer.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
In the m I five and I six documents that
I have, they call him the that's the way, that's.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
The British m I five and m I six of
the British UH the equivalent of the British CIA.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yes, And so they call him the founder of the
communist student movement in Great Britain. He was the head
of the student bureau there. He was calling for the
violent overthrow in the nineteen thirties of Ramsey McDonald, the
Prime Minister. And at the very time he was doing this,
he was having a surreptitious affair with Ramsey McDonald's youngest
daughter in Ken Downing Street. And so if you do
(03:15):
something like that, you're going to find yourself kicked out
of the country. He became a cause to leb in
England because of his deportation. When he came back to
the United States after about ten years, he reprises that role.
He was the Johnny apple Seed of communism in Great Britain,
and in a more quiet way, he becomes the Johnny
apple Seed of conservatism, ironically enough, in the United States.
(03:36):
And he does this from the unlikely location of Woodstock,
New York. Not only Woodstock, New York, but he's living
next to Bob Dylan, and all this time he's importing company,
he's mentoring the next generation of conservatives. He had, you know,
he's the first editor that publishes Joan Didion's freelance work.
Gary Wills, who later you know, later wins the Polser
(03:58):
Prize as a historian. He said in the fifties and
sixties he spent more time with Frank Meyer than anyone
outside of his family. All sorts of people come up there,
and Frank is sort of the mentor. The last person
that's pulled into this magnetic man's you know, gravitational pull
is David Brodnoy. He's sort of the last guy that
Meyer mentors. And of course this was lost to history
(04:19):
because these letters, you know, were in this warehouse that
I that I stumbled upon three years ago, and really
tell a fascinating story that I think for your listeners
that know BRODNOI as a talk radio host, Well, what's
in these letters is kind of a broad noise that
they don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Okay, that's a perfect setup. And tell me the story
of how you found these letters. You were working on
a book on Meyer when COVID happened, and you were
attempting to get all sorts of information. This is one
of those characters who the government in those days had
kept files on and so you had filed some freedom
(04:58):
of information quests which are totally legitimate, and because the
government was shut down for a while, you were told
that when it reopened in whatever it was twenty twenty
one or twenty twenty two, that they were starting they
were going to start again with some of the requests
that dated back to twenty fourteen, which you were in
(05:20):
a panic because you had to find information, and that
source of information a lot of the information about Meyer
and what was known about him by our surveillance organizations
which overseveiled people in America at that time. I think
both the left and the right now agree on that
(05:42):
you were kind of cut off of the past. But
you're a good journalist. What did you do that got
you to this treasure trove of letters that also opened
up a font of information about David Bardnall.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well. At the Hoover Institution where I'm now a visiting fellow,
they claimed to have Frank Meyer papers, but when I
looked at them, they really weren't much. They were just
things that he had clipped out of the newspaper. So
I started calling around. You know, where are his real papers?
Because you know, there's a rhythm to archives if you've
been going through them for a while, they usually have
like pictures and tax returns, things that you would keep letters.
None of that was at Hoover, and so I started
(06:18):
calling around, and finally I encountered this couple that had
purchase Frank Myer's house and all the contents they'd insisted
they had donated to Hoover. I insisted that they had
kept it. This went back and forth, and finally they said,
we have a warehouse. So I go out to Altoona, Pennsylvania,
and there's six hundred and sixty five boxes. I go
through them over the course of three days. People that
(06:40):
say writing is a white collar job, they would beg
I would beg to differ given what went on in
that warehouse. But you know, right as I am opening
these boxes, I'm seeing folders of letters from Joan Didion,
from Tolkien, from C. S. Lewis, from TS. Elliott, from
William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, Henry Kissinger, and and then
(07:00):
lo and behold, there's a folder of sixty Letters between
Frank Meyer and David Brudnoy, and that really, you know,
someone else might look at the Joan Didion folder and say, wow,
I've struck pey dirt, But as a Boston guy, I
saw the Brodnoi and I thought, wow, this is great
and I have to do something on this. And so
it really tells the story of Brudnoy going from a
(07:21):
person who was really a Frank Meyer impersonator to becoming
his own man. And the letters encompassed the late nineteen
sixties to the early nineteen seventies. So the backdrop is
this period of great change in the United States. That's
the obvious backdrop. They're talking about all these things that
are going on, But the more subtle part of the
(07:42):
letters is the great change that's happening in David Brudnoy.
He goes from this impersonator of Frank Meyer, this kind
of Archie Bunker curmudgeon like figure. Within a few years
he's kind of gone native with the counterculture and he
rebels against his mentor. And that's really when Frank Meyer starts, Sorry,
that's really what David Brudnoy starts to become David Brunnoy.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
My guest is Dan Flynn. He's an author. The book
that that brings him to our studio tonight, our metaphorical studio,
is the man who invented conservatism, The Unlikely life of
Frank S. Meyer Uh, and we are going to focus
on that portion of his life that he that he
(08:24):
mentored David Brudnoy. We've told you the story of who
Meyer was, who he became, and also how these letters,
this this trove of letters was unearthed. Again. Dan Flynn
is not only an author and a writer, but he's
also a journalist and he's always looking for first source,
which of course what any good journalists should look for.
(08:46):
And when you get these letters lots of information. We're
going to take a break. Dan, I know that many
of my listeners are listeners of w b Z for
a long time, and many of them remember David Broadnay
very well. And as I told people when I inherited
this show, there was a fellow named Peter Casey, who
(09:08):
was our news director and programming director at the time,
who made the decision not only after David's death, but
then after Paul Sullivan's very untimely death. Paul Sullivan died
sadly of melanoma. At the young age of fifty, David died.
He lived a little longer, but he literally was on
(09:29):
air up until the final days of his existence. Here
an extraordinary figure. I said all along my first show,
I said, I'm not going to be as smart as
broad Oy, and I'm not going to be as funny
as Sullivan. But I'm with I'm whom you're going to
have for a while. I didn't think it would last
nineteen years, and my audience didn't either. And there's probably
(09:52):
some of the audience who don't understand how but I
feel like I stand on the shoulders of Paul Sullivan
and David Brodnoy, and they are very important people in
my life, and I want to learn as much as
I can in the next hour about Brudd's as we
call him, David Broadnoy to his friends, was known as Brud's.
I'll be back with my guest, Dan Flynn. If you
would like to call and ask Dan a question or
(10:17):
make a comment about David Brodnoy. He will be gone
on Tuesday, twenty nine years. The twenty first anniversary of
his death will be next Tuesday, December the ninth, and
the world has been a much poorer place since he
departed this earthly coil. We be back with Dan Flynn
on Nightside. You know the number six, one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty six one seven, nine three one, ten
(10:39):
thirty Back on night Side with my guest, Dan Flynn,
author of the book The Man Who Invented Conservatism, The
Unlikely life of Frank S. Meyer and his interactions his
mentorship of someone all of us knew very well.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
David Broadnoy, you're on night Side with Dan Ray on
w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
We will get to phone calls, and we do have
phone callers already, but I don't want to short change them.
So in these six minutes that we have left here
to the Breakdan, I assume it's fair to say that
you would consider both Meyer and Brednoi intellectuals.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Oh, certainly of the first order.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Okay. Is that what drew them together? What was the
magnet that drew them together?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, I think they both had this libertarian outlook. They
were both smart guys. At a certain point in the correspondence,
Broadnoi says to Meyer, you know, I don't think I
can talk about deep philosophical philosophical topics with Bill Buckley,
but I can with you. Buckley teaches them how to
play tennis in one of the letters, and he says,
I'm hooked on tennis because of Bill Buckley, but he's
hooked on you know, these conversations that they have going
(11:50):
to Woodstock on the phone. And also the attraction is
the issues that they believe in. There's a lot of
chaos in the late nineteen sixties. And in the letter, he's,
you know, throwing cold water on Woodstock. Meyer lived in
the actual Woodstock's. He vows never to go to another
college graduation. Broadnoy does until order is restored on campus
(12:12):
and the students become more civil, you know, as old
as new again. And he talks about this rider. You
know what, you know, I thought it was interesting that,
you know, some of the great symbols of the times
Woodstock an easy rider, he trashes, He writes to BRUNNOI
I'm sorry, he writes to Meyer, I can't remember when
I've seen a movie which disturbed me more an easy rider.
(12:33):
And that has a big effect on them. Because Brudnoy
wants to review movies for National Review. They already have
a movie reviewer guy named Richard Corlis, who from nineteen
eighty to nineteen thirty five was Time magazine's movie reviewer.
So he's a pretty talented guy. David was so ambitious
that he starts kind of worming his way in there,
elbows this guy out, and in the process, this guy
(12:56):
he becomes so enraged and jealous of Broudnoi he does
takes the unusual step of writing a letter to the
editor of the very magazine for which he writes for
to trash broad noise stuff. Now they saved him by
not publishing it, but it shows you the degree to
which Broudnoi was driven. We knew him as a film
critic in Boston, but back then he wasn't known at
(13:16):
that at all. He gets his first start in that
under Frank Meyer at National Review, and he reviews, you know,
dozens and dozens of films for them over the years.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, Maya opened a lot of doors for Bruadny. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, I mean, I mean one of the interesting things.
And this is where he things kind of change. Meyer
got him, you know, tried to get him jobs in academia,
but also got him a plush role in a speakers bureau,
the primary Conservative speakers Bureau, arranges for Broadnoi to have
a lecture at Dartmouth in May of nineteen seventy one,
and there are hundreds of students there to see Broudnoise.
(13:50):
He gets paid five hundred bucks. Broad Noise starts slipping
from Meyer's grasp at this point because he started to experiment,
as a lot of people did in those years, with
marijuana and some stronger stuff. And as he says in
his autobiography, he goes to this lecture in an Ivy
League school and a lecture that is mentor arranged, and
he was tripping his brains out. He gave a lecture
(14:11):
which was a very well received lecture on campus while
high on LSD, while hallucinating to an Ivy League campus,
and I thank you. That shows one of the cracks
in this relationship. It shows you David Brudnoi sort of
becoming his own man and less Frank Myers guy.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
But they maintained this friendship. Did it end abruptly at
some point? Was there a moment in.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Time where where Brednoy you went in a different direction
as Meyer, or was there a moment in time when
bred NOI felt, hey, I have learned all that I
can learn, and it's now time for me to find
someone else for the next stage of my life.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
How would you describe that.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Meyer dies of lung cancer in April of nineteen seventy two,
and a little before that time, David starts agitating for
gay rights and in the conservative movement at that time,
I don't know that that was the most popular thing
in the world, and so Meyer, although Meyer had sort
of dealt with gays in the Communist Party and was
very comfortable in that kind of world, he thought, you know,
(15:15):
this isn't good for your career to do this, and
I you know, some of the most the most interesting
letters he writes to Elsie Meyer, he says, I'm not
trying to be a martyr. I'm writing what I believe.
Lots of concerntives are with me. So he is pushing
and in fact I spoke to an editor. Did David
send him an article in nineteen seventy one called Lavender Power.
(15:35):
The editor thought initially that it was a satire, because
you know, to get a gay rights article at that point,
but David was pushing the issue, and Meyer, just like
on the on the drug thing. Meyer was sort of
a little skittish, like, hey, you know Iceberg ahead your career,
You're going to get in trouble with your career. Meyer
dies before all this happens. But that is the second
(15:56):
point at which David sort of becomes his own man.
And also, I think that's part of the reason why
he was so beloved on Boston airways, Why reason people
listen to you because he wasn't a cookie cutter sort
of ideological partisan where you can kind of know what
the guy's gonna say. David had some very interesting beliefs.
I mean, he certainly had some very right wing beliefs
(16:16):
on taxes, on crime, anti communism, but you know, on
pornography or on the draft, or on drugs. There were
so many issues where he would have come on the
liberal side of things. So you didn't always know what
you were going to get with David. And I think
that's one of the reasons why people tuned in well
with David.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I always knew him to be a full fledged, unabashed libertarian, yes,
but I.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Think the libertarians are so and that's Meyer sort of
rubbing off on him obviously. I mean, people saw David
speaking before young Americans of Freedom, and they actually said,
there's David Brudnoby. That guy thinks he's gonna be the
Frank Meyer of tomorrow. And so he was known as
sort of Meyer's goppel ganger at the time. But by
the time the relationship ends, David Broadnoise starts to be
(17:04):
his own guy. He's on WGBH, you know, given commentary
on the news, and within a few years he's on
the radio in Boston, and so much shows he his
own guy that by the time he writes this memoir,
Frank Meyer occupies just one line. He acknowledges him as
a mentor, but there's not a whole lot more to
say about him after that. That's why I think these
(17:24):
letters are so neat, because it gives you a glimpse
into a time in broad Noise life that we don't
know a whole lot about.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And David, you know, had worked not only here at
WBZ in Boston as a talk show host, but he
worked at WHDH from the mid seventies to the early eighties.
He worked at WRKO from the eighties the early eighties
to the late eighties, and then he worked here at
WBZ from eighty eight until his death is passing in
(17:55):
two thousand and four. So he was a fixture of
almost thirty years in Boston talk radio at a time
arguably when Boston Talk radio was at its at its peak, frankly, Uh.
And so he had he had a real impact. Uh.
(18:16):
And he was always someone who was always very accessible.
I have a friend of mine who would see David.
I believe it was in a Newbury Street coffee shop
and one morning she recognized him and went over to
just to say I enjoy you very much, or you know,
just to give him a compliment, and he said, oh,
please sit down, I'd love to meet you. And you know,
(18:37):
it wasn't a you know, he was gay, she's a woman.
It wasn't he's trying to pick her up. But he
actually had a real interest in other people, in my opinion,
and and he always loved to have conversations, which is
what was the core of David Brudnay. And I assume
you would agree, I hope with that with that vignette
(18:58):
as as something that was in sightful into who he
was and what an open person he was, not only
about his own sexuality, but also an open person to
meet other people.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah. One of the one point in the letters he
talks about he was living on Cedar Street on Beacon
Hill at that time in the early seventies. He talks
about throwing a party and he had this tiny apartment.
He did a head count. There were seventy three people
in the party. So there was currently a night at
the opera. Feel at this party that he throwed that
he threw on Beacon Hill. But it showed you the
kind of social guy that he was. That here he was.
(19:30):
I think he's in a one bedroom apartment and he
get seventy three people crammed in one room, probably doesn't
know half of them, but is enjoying himself because he
really was a social animal.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I believe I was at that party. To be really
honest with you, with.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
A date, So you were seventy three.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, it was actually West Cedar Street. I think it
was sixty nine or some athlete. Yeah, we're gonna take
a break.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Close on the number, but it was West Cedar Street.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Okay, right, we will take a quick break here and
in a moment we'll hear the news and then we'll
come back with phone calls. If you'd like to say
something about David Brudnoy. Ask more importantly, Dan Flynn, a
question either about David Brudnoy or a man who had
a great influence on David's life, Frank s Meyer, about
(20:18):
whom this book has written The Man who Invented Conservatism
The Unlikely Life of Frank s Meyer. Uh, we have
some lines six one, seven, two, four thirty, six, one, seven, nine, three, one,
ten thirty. We will be talking with Harvey Silverglate, who
not only knew David Brudnoy, but he also knew Bob Dylan.
So this should be an interesting conversation. But don't feel
(20:40):
that you have to have been a contemporary. You've more
than welcome to joint ask a question or offer a
comment or a compliment to the memory of David Broadnoy,
Gone much too soon for certain coming back on night
Side after this.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
If you're on Night Side with Dan Ray one you
bas Austin's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
With me is my guest, Dan Flynn. Dan is the
author of a book called The Man Who Invented Conservatism,
The Unlikely Life of Frank s Meyer, and Howard intersected
with the life and really influenced the life of a
Bostonian Grand Bostonian. If you will, David Brednoye, let's get
the phone calls Dan Flynn, gonna go to my great
(21:23):
friend Harvey Silverglade, extraordinary attorney and Harvard Law school guy.
Through and through Harvey, you are with Dan Flynn. I
don't know if you ever met Dan before, but David
Brednan was a friend of yours, and I all mentioned
that you were pretty close with Bob Dylan, who owned
a place in Woodstock. Go right ahead, Harvey, you could
(21:44):
go in any way you want with this conversation.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
David wanted his fellow Jewish lapsed Jewish gay intellectual Alan
Ginsberg on this radio program. By that time, David Jillness
was sufficiently advanced, so WBZ took to then extraordinary. Now
it's not so extraordinary. I believe Dan broadcasts from his home,
(22:12):
but they moved his whole studio from the WBZ studio
to his apartment. I believe it was on Commonwealth Avenue
in Boston. He's the correct time.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yep, you're correct.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
And David called my late wife, Elsa, because he knew
that she was a close friend of Allen Ginsburg, and
she said, he said, Elsa, you don't know me but
I know you were a friend of Allen Ginsburg. I'd
love to have him on my radio talk show. So
Elsewhere arranged it, and as usual I got the benefit
(22:48):
of being dragged along Alan, Elsa and I all slept
up to David's apartment on Common Avenue and it was
the most introt conversation between David and Allen that I
that I can remember. And then Elsa's said, Oh, David,
(23:11):
how'd you like to come by my studio and take
some pictures? And he came by and I had hanging
on my wall a copy photo of one of the
twenty by twenty four's, the original of which I believe
is now don't been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yes it has, Harvey. What was the interaction between Ginsburg
and David Brednay like.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Well, you know, they were very similar in a lot
of ways. And if the programs back then were all recorded,
then you have more access to it than I would.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, Unfortunately a lot of those are lost to antiquity.
The one thing that radio and TV stations have done,
they've always been limited for space, and back in the day,
the real to real times of radio stations and the
three quarter inch days of television, electronic news, and even
film all of a lot of that stuff has been discarded, sadly,
(24:19):
so sadly.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Well, I do remember a few things that they discussed.
They discussed their David was very interested in in Alan's
relationship with Bob Dylan. They were quite close friends, and
(24:47):
so that took up part of the conversation, and part
of a conversation was Alan's relationship with my late Wifeelsa.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, well, I'm sure must have been a fascinating evening
at the old Yeah boy, Harvey, I know that you
knew all of these characters. Is there any question in
your mind that is lingering for Dan Flynn who did
such a deep dive into the relationship that our friend
(25:19):
David had with Frank Meyer.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Well, only that I have not I will order you
a book, but I have not read your book. How
did the David and Frank Meyer meet?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So, David in sixty eight started writing for National Review,
and he wrote Meyer a letter very shortly thereafter. Meyer
lived in Woodstock and said, why don't you come up
to Woodstock. He actually lived on the property that was
adjacent to Dylan's property on Ohio Mountain Road in Woodstock,
and so Dylan's property was way set back. Myers was
(25:59):
on right, hugged the road, and my Brunnoy goes up
there and he said, I've never spent a more relaxing
or mentally taxing weekend in my life. And so in
the fifties, Meyer would Meyer's best friend was Eugene O'Neil junior,
and Eugene O'Neil junior just like any character in his
father's plays, you know, after a night of drinking and smoking,
(26:19):
and they would recite plays back and forth, and there
was all sorts of crazy stuff that went on. After
one of those nights, he went home and he he
he killed himself and Meyers Meyer's wife found the body.
Most of the times were a lot more jubilant than that.
But they would, but they would, but they would spend
all night because since since Meyer left the Commis party,
he stayed up all night. He was afraid they were
(26:41):
going to come back in exact retribution. So he stayed
up all night and slept during the day. And when
he had guests up there, Joan Diddeon or Gary Wills
or Ed Vulner or any of these people, they would
stay up all night and so I think that's what
David was saying, that he's never spent a more relaxing
weekend and he's never spent a more mentally taxing weekend.
But that's what they did up the epenwoodstock.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Harvey as always thank you for joining and contributing to
the conversations. I have very important important words and stories.
I as always.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Appreciated and on coming.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Dan, sure, sure, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Else when I visited David at the hospital the day
before he died, we had to get online. There were
so many people who came to pay their final respects
to David before he died, so he.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Almost had a uh a pre mortality wake and in
some respect, wow, it was it.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Was a I believe he was at the mass General.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
It was a pre wake.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, that's well put. Well point. Harvey is always thank you,
my friend. I thank you for your friendship over so
many years. We'll be back on Nightside with more phone
calls with Dan Flynn, Dan who has written a book
on the life of Frank Meyer, but it intersected at
a very critical time in the life of our mutual
(28:03):
friend David Brednoye. Moving back on Nightside, right after this,
and we've got Janet, and we got Tina, and we
got Michael, and we're going to get them all in,
I promise.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm w BZ, Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
My guest is Dan Flynn, the man who invented conservatism.
His book The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Big
part of the book that will be of interest to
my listeners is the influence that Meyers Frank Meyer had
on David Brednoy, one of my predecessors. In this program,
let me go to Janet in Boston. Janet, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
Well, thank you. I enjoyed and thank you for sharing
my meeting with David at the coffee shop on Newberry Street.
And I just want to add a little PostScript to that.
Strap meeting went on every four to six weeks for
over four years, and during that time, you know, he
(29:01):
interviewed me practically every Saturday. He wanted very curious, you know,
once he found out I was a nurse, why did
I become a nurse, And why was I working in Boston?
And why did I leave Canada and so on. So
but the interesting thing is that the longer he got
to know me, and the more he interviewed me, he
started sharing some extremely extremely personal information about himself. And
(29:28):
you know, I just I couldn't believe. And I because
I felt at first when when this happened, when I
first met him, I felt, you know, I was intruding.
It was his morning off, he was enjoying his coffee.
But it was unbelievable that it went on for so
many years.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
He must have trusted you as a great friend to
have brought you into his circle of friends. Janet.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Yeah, and he just, you know, he certainly, you know,
got a lot of information about me. But then then
he start to open up and and and told me
some you know, very you know, as I say, personal,
which I certainly won't share, but it was it was
a wonderful, wonderful experience getting to know him.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, Dan, thanks for joining us and finishing the second
section of that story. We'll talk soon, okay, okay, thank you.
You know, it's funny when you mentioned earlier tonight, Dan Flynn,
that Meyers letters and all of his documents were stored
in a warehouse in Altoona, Pennsylvania. I was reminded yesterday
(30:38):
that the only other thing I know about Altoona, Pennsylvania.
That's where they arrested Luigi Mangioni about a year ago
for the murder for the alleged murder of the United
Healthcare executive. And now I know another item of Altuna,
Pennsylvania a little more pleasant than what we learned in court.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
The mallow cups come from Altuna too.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Oh that's good to know. Let me go to Tina
in Wunsaka, Rhode Island. Tina, you were on with Dan Flynn.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Go right ahead, dance, Yes, hello to the two Dan's.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (31:15):
I really loved mister Bredna.
Speaker 7 (31:19):
I used to call him up all the time. And
the one thing I liked about him he was similar
to you, Dan Ray, because he always liked my calls.
He always used to comment and what I had to say.
And I really liked him because he was so smart.
He was an intellectual and a lot of times when
I call a radio program, I'm trying to learn something.
(31:42):
So I really admire of somebody who has who was
in brilliant and intelligence because I'm just an ordinary person.
I don't have that much like David Breundno I had.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
And well, so I hope you're not necessarily looking to
learn a lot from my programs, but uh, my guests
are people who are pretty smart, like Dan Flynn, so
that that compensates for it.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
I hope, Oh I didn't.
Speaker 7 (32:08):
I don't know Dan Flynn at all. All I knew
was David Brodnoy and how much I enjoyed him.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I don't enjoy, you'll enjoy. You'll enjoy this book if
you get an opportunity to get it. It's uh, it
would it's it would be an interesting read for you.
The man who invented conservatism, The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer.
He had a big impact on David Brodnoy as always, Tita,
thank you appreciate it so much. We'll talk again. Okay,
thanks so much.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Okay, all right, good night.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Let me go to Mike and Quincy. Mike, you're next
on Night Side with Dan Flynn.
Speaker 8 (32:42):
Hey, how's it going, Dan, And we're.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Going We're going find but time is tempest fugit here.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
I wanted to make a key point. Yeah, David always
talked about the ideas and the argument. Uh, I'm a
flame and liberal. I called him twice and he was
very very respectful about the ideas as compared to his successor,
(33:09):
Avi Nelson, who sometimes would attack people.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Well, you know, as a flaming liberal, you're supposed to
now get it with the times here, you're progressive. Mike.
Speaker 8 (33:19):
Oh, no, I'm a list.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I'm only teasing you, did Flints Say hi to Mike,
one of my more liberal listeners.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Hey, Mike, Well, I think the thing with David. Both
David and Frank Meyer were guys that converted to conservatism
or libertarianism. They started out on the left, and I
think sometimes, you know, when you start somewhere else, you
can be a little bit more tolerant of people because
you realize, well, you held these ideas way back when,
and it wouldn't have helped much if you started shouting
(33:48):
someone down or berating them or saying they're dumb because
they don't agree with you, Because of course, those people,
you know, decades earlier believed the same thing as the
people they disagree with. So I think some people that
make that into actual journey, they tend to have a
little bit more tolerance. And I think David had a
lot of torrance with callers, just as just as Dan does.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
Mike was very respectful. I remember once I called him
about a point he made about JFK and I wanted
to argue with him and he blew me out of
the water.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm sure you had your good nights as well, Mike.
I appreciate you call. Keep calling nights. Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I'm gonna wrap the hour with Mike and Plymouth. Save
the best for last. Go ahead, Mike and Plymouth you
next time.
Speaker 9 (34:30):
Night, Jay, Dan, and Dan, thank you for taking my
call real quickly. I just want to share a fond
memory of my dad. Who's my late dad, whose birthday
was today, died thirty one years ago. My dad was
a moonlighter Dan. He worked two full time jobs and
on his eleven to seven shift when I was on
break from high school or college. In between breaks, he
(34:54):
would take me with him to work at Harvard University
as a janitor and I would help him out and
give me twenty for the week to help him clean
press his offices.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Wow.
Speaker 9 (35:03):
And on the on the way on the way to
work at ten thirty, going down the Jamaica Way and Brookline,
he would be listening to David Brudnoy. I would want
the bruins of the Celtics on him. He would say,
listen to this guy he's brilliant. This guy's My dad
was a Kevin White Tipple Neil Democrat that had nothing
in common with David's politics. But he knew intellectualism and
(35:25):
he appreciated it, and he knew and he also enjoyed movies.
He couldn't tell you the starting lineup of the Celtics
or the Red Sox, but he could tell you the
cast of every John Wayne movie.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (35:36):
I used to call the affinity for David is that
he loved his movie reviews.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, he used to used to call the basketball teams
the men in the short pants. Well, this my great,
great call. Thank you so much for ending on a
real positive note. As always, Thank you.
Speaker 9 (35:54):
My friend, and thank you for taking my call on
my dad's birthday.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, happy birthday. Hopefully your dad's sitting somewhere in a
far away place tonight. But the busy signal is still
getting up there.
Speaker 9 (36:04):
Okay, thanks Mike, he's smiling tonight on you appreciate it,
Dan Flynn.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I can tell how much you loved doing this book
from our conversations of the last couple of days and
of course our conversation tonight. Uh, the book. It's a
long title, The Man who Invented Conservatism The Unlikely Life
of Frank S. Meyer. A lot in there about David Brednoi,
which should interest my audience. How can folks get the book?
(36:32):
Is it Is it available Amazon and regular places or
do you have a website with theses?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Way mainly Amazon. It's published by Encounter Books and i
I Books, so it's it's a joint production, but it's yeah.
I think most people these days, about half of them
are getting him on Amazon. So yeah, you can get
the man who havented Conservatism there. And obviously, you know,
you knew David as a friend. I just knew him
as a listener, so it was just something. To get
(36:59):
to know him in the letters was a complete thrill
because he's not a guy that I knew in life.
And what an amazing thing that I mentioned this party
back in the nineteen seventies and you say, oh, I
was there. I mean, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah. Boston's a small world, big city, small town, you
know what I'm saying, Dan Flynn. I enjoyed it exceeded
my expectations, and I know the book will as well.
And also people can read a little bit of a
taste of this if they can get to the Boston
Globe from last Sunday The Long Strange Trip of David
Brudnoy in the Ideas Column and Your Sunday Globe written
(37:34):
by Daniel J. Flynn. Dan Flynn, we will talk soon, Okay, thank.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
You, my friend, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
When we get back on night Side, the great Rick Edelman,
he is going to talk with us tonight about his
new book which deals with college. It's called The Truth
About College, and we'll have Rick Edelman and also an
opportunity for you to ask questions of mister Edelman back
on Nightside after this that
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Well, if you read the Boston Globe on Sunday, which
of course you certainly should read the Boston Globe on Sunday. Well,
one of the pieces in the Ideas Colin was the
Long Strange Trip of David Bradnoy. His erudite brand of
libertarianism made him a fixture of Boston media for decades.
Newly unearthed correspondence with his mentor illuminates where many of
his ideas came from. Now you still never have a
(00:33):
headline ending with a preposition. But in that case, I
guess the Globe made an exception with us. Is the
author of that piece? It was not the headline writer
Daniel J. Flynn. He is Dan Flynn. Hey Dan, welcome
to the Nightside.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
How are you outstanding? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You have a very interesting background. You're a Massachusetts guy,
spent time in the United States Marine Corps. You're a
visiting fellow the Hoover Institute, and have the author of
several books. The most recent is a book called The
Man Who Invented Conservatism, The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer.
(01:14):
This story intersects with my predecessor, one of my predecessors,
David Brodnoy, I have the great opportunity to sit in
the same iconic talk host chair, not necessarily the chair
that he sat in, but the metaphorical position of not
only David, but Paul Sullivan too, much more talented talk
(01:36):
show hosts than I who preceded me here on WBZ.
David was here for many years, Paul here a shorter
period of time, but they both were great talk show hosts,
and I think my audience remembers them both well, and
they certainly remember David Brudnoy and the story. Tonight, we're
(02:01):
going to focus on David, who twenty one years ago
this month. Matter of fact, twenty one years ago next Tuesday,
passed away, and he has been missed ever since you
started down. You had your your own long strage trip here, uh,
(02:21):
investigating the life and times of someone who was a
mentor to David Brednoy, Frank Meyer, Frank s. Meyer. UH.
Tell us a little bit about Frank Meyer, UH, and
why people will be interested not only in this book
in terms of David bretdnine, but also in terms of
learning about Frank Meyer.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
So Meyer.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
In the m I five and I six documents that
I have, they call him the that's the way, that's.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
The British m I five and m I six of
the British UH the equivalent of the British CIA.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yes, And so they call him the founder of the
communist student movement in Great Britain. He was the head
of the student bureau there. He was calling for the
violent overthrow in the nineteen thirties of Ramsey McDonald, the
Prime Minister. And at the very time he was doing this,
he was having a surreptitious affair with Ramsey McDonald's youngest
daughter in Ken Downing Street. And so if you do
(03:15):
something like that, you're going to find yourself kicked out
of the country. He became a cause to leb in
England because of his deportation. When he came back to
the United States after about ten years, he reprises that role.
He was the Johnny apple Seed of communism in Great Britain,
and in a more quiet way, he becomes the Johnny
apple Seed of conservatism, ironically enough, in the United States.
(03:36):
And he does this from the unlikely location of Woodstock,
New York. Not only Woodstock, New York, but he's living
next to Bob Dylan, and all this time he's importing company,
he's mentoring the next generation of conservatives. He had, you know,
he's the first editor that publishes Joan Didion's freelance work.
Gary Wills, who later you know, later wins the Polser
(03:58):
Prize as a historian. He said in the fifties and
sixties he spent more time with Frank Meyer than anyone
outside of his family. All sorts of people come up there,
and Frank is sort of the mentor. The last person
that's pulled into this magnetic man's you know, gravitational pull
is David Brodnoy. He's sort of the last guy that
Meyer mentors. And of course this was lost to history
(04:19):
because these letters, you know, were in this warehouse that
I that I stumbled upon three years ago, and really
tell a fascinating story that I think for your listeners
that know BRODNOI as a talk radio host, Well, what's
in these letters is kind of a broad noise that
they don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Okay, that's a perfect setup. And tell me the story
of how you found these letters. You were working on
a book on Meyer when COVID happened, and you were
attempting to get all sorts of information. This is one
of those characters who the government in those days had
kept files on and so you had filed some freedom
(04:58):
of information quests which are totally legitimate, and because the
government was shut down for a while, you were told
that when it reopened in whatever it was twenty twenty
one or twenty twenty two, that they were starting they
were going to start again with some of the requests
that dated back to twenty fourteen, which you were in
(05:20):
a panic because you had to find information, and that
source of information a lot of the information about Meyer
and what was known about him by our surveillance organizations
which overseveiled people in America at that time. I think
both the left and the right now agree on that
(05:42):
you were kind of cut off of the past. But
you're a good journalist. What did you do that got
you to this treasure trove of letters that also opened
up a font of information about David Bardnall.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well. At the Hoover Institution where I'm now a visiting fellow,
they claimed to have Frank Meyer papers, but when I
looked at them, they really weren't much. They were just
things that he had clipped out of the newspaper. So
I started calling around. You know, where are his real papers?
Because you know, there's a rhythm to archives if you've
been going through them for a while, they usually have
like pictures and tax returns, things that you would keep letters.
None of that was at Hoover, and so I started
(06:18):
calling around, and finally I encountered this couple that had
purchase Frank Myer's house and all the contents they'd insisted
they had donated to Hoover. I insisted that they had
kept it. This went back and forth, and finally they said,
we have a warehouse. So I go out to Altoona, Pennsylvania,
and there's six hundred and sixty five boxes. I go
through them over the course of three days. People that
(06:40):
say writing is a white collar job, they would beg
I would beg to differ given what went on in
that warehouse. But you know, right as I am opening
these boxes, I'm seeing folders of letters from Joan Didion,
from Tolkien, from C. S. Lewis, from TS. Elliott, from
William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, Henry Kissinger, and and then
(07:00):
lo and behold, there's a folder of sixty Letters between
Frank Meyer and David Brudnoy, and that really, you know,
someone else might look at the Joan Didion folder and say, wow,
I've struck pey dirt, But as a Boston guy, I
saw the Brodnoi and I thought, wow, this is great
and I have to do something on this. And so
it really tells the story of Brudnoy going from a
(07:21):
person who was really a Frank Meyer impersonator to becoming
his own man. And the letters encompassed the late nineteen
sixties to the early nineteen seventies. So the backdrop is
this period of great change in the United States. That's
the obvious backdrop. They're talking about all these things that
are going on, But the more subtle part of the
(07:42):
letters is the great change that's happening in David Brudnoy.
He goes from this impersonator of Frank Meyer, this kind
of Archie Bunker curmudgeon like figure. Within a few years
he's kind of gone native with the counterculture and he
rebels against his mentor. And that's really when Frank Meyer starts, Sorry,
that's really what David Brudnoy starts to become David Brunnoy.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
My guest is Dan Flynn. He's an author. The book
that that brings him to our studio tonight, our metaphorical studio,
is the man who invented conservatism, The Unlikely life of
Frank S. Meyer Uh, and we are going to focus
on that portion of his life that he that he
(08:24):
mentored David Brudnoy. We've told you the story of who
Meyer was, who he became, and also how these letters,
this this trove of letters was unearthed. Again. Dan Flynn
is not only an author and a writer, but he's
also a journalist and he's always looking for first source,
which of course what any good journalists should look for.
(08:46):
And when you get these letters lots of information. We're
going to take a break. Dan, I know that many
of my listeners are listeners of w b Z for
a long time, and many of them remember David Broadnay
very well. And as I told people when I inherited
this show, there was a fellow named Peter Casey, who
(09:08):
was our news director and programming director at the time,
who made the decision not only after David's death, but
then after Paul Sullivan's very untimely death. Paul Sullivan died
sadly of melanoma. At the young age of fifty, David died.
He lived a little longer, but he literally was on
(09:29):
air up until the final days of his existence. Here
an extraordinary figure. I said all along my first show,
I said, I'm not going to be as smart as
broad Oy, and I'm not going to be as funny
as Sullivan. But I'm with I'm whom you're going to
have for a while. I didn't think it would last
nineteen years, and my audience didn't either. And there's probably
(09:52):
some of the audience who don't understand how but I
feel like I stand on the shoulders of Paul Sullivan
and David Brodnoy, and they are very important people in
my life, and I want to learn as much as
I can in the next hour about Brudd's as we
call him, David Broadnoy to his friends, was known as Brud's.
I'll be back with my guest, Dan Flynn. If you
would like to call and ask Dan a question or
(10:17):
make a comment about David Brodnoy. He will be gone
on Tuesday, twenty nine years. The twenty first anniversary of
his death will be next Tuesday, December the ninth, and
the world has been a much poorer place since he
departed this earthly coil. We be back with Dan Flynn
on Nightside. You know the number six, one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty six one seven, nine three one, ten
(10:39):
thirty Back on night Side with my guest, Dan Flynn,
author of the book The Man Who Invented Conservatism, The
Unlikely life of Frank S. Meyer and his interactions his
mentorship of someone all of us knew very well.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
David Broadnoy, you're on night Side with Dan Ray on
w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
We will get to phone calls, and we do have
phone callers already, but I don't want to short change them.
So in these six minutes that we have left here
to the Breakdan, I assume it's fair to say that
you would consider both Meyer and Brednoi intellectuals.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Oh, certainly of the first order.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Okay. Is that what drew them together? What was the
magnet that drew them together?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, I think they both had this libertarian outlook. They
were both smart guys. At a certain point in the correspondence,
Broadnoi says to Meyer, you know, I don't think I
can talk about deep philosophical philosophical topics with Bill Buckley,
but I can with you. Buckley teaches them how to
play tennis in one of the letters, and he says,
I'm hooked on tennis because of Bill Buckley, but he's
hooked on you know, these conversations that they have going
(11:50):
to Woodstock on the phone. And also the attraction is
the issues that they believe in. There's a lot of
chaos in the late nineteen sixties. And in the letter, he's,
you know, throwing cold water on Woodstock. Meyer lived in
the actual Woodstock's. He vows never to go to another
college graduation. Broadnoy does until order is restored on campus
(12:12):
and the students become more civil, you know, as old
as new again. And he talks about this rider. You
know what, you know, I thought it was interesting that,
you know, some of the great symbols of the times
Woodstock an easy rider, he trashes, He writes to BRUNNOI
I'm sorry, he writes to Meyer, I can't remember when
I've seen a movie which disturbed me more an easy rider.
(12:33):
And that has a big effect on them. Because Brudnoy
wants to review movies for National Review. They already have
a movie reviewer guy named Richard Corlis, who from nineteen
eighty to nineteen thirty five was Time magazine's movie reviewer.
So he's a pretty talented guy. David was so ambitious
that he starts kind of worming his way in there,
elbows this guy out, and in the process, this guy
(12:56):
he becomes so enraged and jealous of Broudnoi he does
takes the unusual step of writing a letter to the
editor of the very magazine for which he writes for
to trash broad noise stuff. Now they saved him by
not publishing it, but it shows you the degree to
which Broudnoi was driven. We knew him as a film
critic in Boston, but back then he wasn't known at
(13:16):
that at all. He gets his first start in that
under Frank Meyer at National Review, and he reviews, you know,
dozens and dozens of films for them over the years.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, Maya opened a lot of doors for Bruadny. Is
that fair to say?
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, I mean, I mean one of the interesting things.
And this is where he things kind of change. Meyer
got him, you know, tried to get him jobs in academia,
but also got him a plush role in a speakers bureau,
the primary Conservative speakers Bureau, arranges for Broadnoi to have
a lecture at Dartmouth in May of nineteen seventy one,
and there are hundreds of students there to see Broudnoise.
(13:50):
He gets paid five hundred bucks. Broad Noise starts slipping
from Meyer's grasp at this point because he started to experiment,
as a lot of people did in those years, with
marijuana and some stronger stuff. And as he says in
his autobiography, he goes to this lecture in an Ivy
League school and a lecture that is mentor arranged, and
he was tripping his brains out. He gave a lecture
(14:11):
which was a very well received lecture on campus while
high on LSD, while hallucinating to an Ivy League campus,
and I thank you. That shows one of the cracks
in this relationship. It shows you David Brudnoi sort of
becoming his own man and less Frank Myers guy.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
But they maintained this friendship. Did it end abruptly at
some point? Was there a moment in.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Time where where Brednoy you went in a different direction
as Meyer, or was there a moment in time when
bred NOI felt, hey, I have learned all that I
can learn, and it's now time for me to find
someone else for the next stage of my life.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
How would you describe that.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Meyer dies of lung cancer in April of nineteen seventy two,
and a little before that time, David starts agitating for
gay rights and in the conservative movement at that time,
I don't know that that was the most popular thing
in the world, and so Meyer, although Meyer had sort
of dealt with gays in the Communist Party and was
very comfortable in that kind of world, he thought, you know,
(15:15):
this isn't good for your career to do this, and
I you know, some of the most the most interesting
letters he writes to Elsie Meyer, he says, I'm not
trying to be a martyr. I'm writing what I believe.
Lots of concerntives are with me. So he is pushing
and in fact I spoke to an editor. Did David
send him an article in nineteen seventy one called Lavender Power.
(15:35):
The editor thought initially that it was a satire, because
you know, to get a gay rights article at that point,
but David was pushing the issue, and Meyer, just like
on the on the drug thing. Meyer was sort of
a little skittish, like, hey, you know Iceberg ahead your career,
You're going to get in trouble with your career. Meyer
dies before all this happens. But that is the second
(15:56):
point at which David sort of becomes his own man.
And also, I think that's part of the reason why
he was so beloved on Boston airways, Why reason people
listen to you because he wasn't a cookie cutter sort
of ideological partisan where you can kind of know what
the guy's gonna say. David had some very interesting beliefs.
I mean, he certainly had some very right wing beliefs
(16:16):
on taxes, on crime, anti communism, but you know, on
pornography or on the draft, or on drugs. There were
so many issues where he would have come on the
liberal side of things. So you didn't always know what
you were going to get with David. And I think
that's one of the reasons why people tuned in well
with David.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I always knew him to be a full fledged, unabashed libertarian, yes,
but I.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Think the libertarians are so and that's Meyer sort of
rubbing off on him obviously. I mean, people saw David
speaking before young Americans of Freedom, and they actually said,
there's David Brudnoby. That guy thinks he's gonna be the
Frank Meyer of tomorrow. And so he was known as
sort of Meyer's goppel ganger at the time. But by
the time the relationship ends, David Broadnoise starts to be
(17:04):
his own guy. He's on WGBH, you know, given commentary
on the news, and within a few years he's on
the radio in Boston, and so much shows he his
own guy that by the time he writes this memoir,
Frank Meyer occupies just one line. He acknowledges him as
a mentor, but there's not a whole lot more to
say about him after that. That's why I think these
(17:24):
letters are so neat, because it gives you a glimpse
into a time in broad Noise life that we don't
know a whole lot about.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And David, you know, had worked not only here at
WBZ in Boston as a talk show host, but he
worked at WHDH from the mid seventies to the early eighties.
He worked at WRKO from the eighties the early eighties
to the late eighties, and then he worked here at
WBZ from eighty eight until his death is passing in
(17:55):
two thousand and four. So he was a fixture of
almost thirty years in Boston talk radio at a time
arguably when Boston Talk radio was at its at its peak, frankly, Uh.
And so he had he had a real impact. Uh.
(18:16):
And he was always someone who was always very accessible.
I have a friend of mine who would see David.
I believe it was in a Newbury Street coffee shop
and one morning she recognized him and went over to
just to say I enjoy you very much, or you know,
just to give him a compliment, and he said, oh,
please sit down, I'd love to meet you. And you know,
(18:37):
it wasn't a you know, he was gay, she's a woman.
It wasn't he's trying to pick her up. But he
actually had a real interest in other people, in my opinion,
and and he always loved to have conversations, which is
what was the core of David Brudnay. And I assume
you would agree, I hope with that with that vignette
(18:58):
as as something that was in sightful into who he
was and what an open person he was, not only
about his own sexuality, but also an open person to
meet other people.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah. One of the one point in the letters he
talks about he was living on Cedar Street on Beacon
Hill at that time in the early seventies. He talks
about throwing a party and he had this tiny apartment.
He did a head count. There were seventy three people
in the party. So there was currently a night at
the opera. Feel at this party that he throwed that
he threw on Beacon Hill. But it showed you the
kind of social guy that he was. That here he was.
(19:30):
I think he's in a one bedroom apartment and he
get seventy three people crammed in one room, probably doesn't
know half of them, but is enjoying himself because he
really was a social animal.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I believe I was at that party. To be really
honest with you, with.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
A date, So you were seventy three.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, it was actually West Cedar Street. I think it
was sixty nine or some athlete. Yeah, we're gonna take
a break.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Close on the number, but it was West Cedar Street.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Okay, right, we will take a quick break here and
in a moment we'll hear the news and then we'll
come back with phone calls. If you'd like to say
something about David Brudnoy. Ask more importantly, Dan Flynn, a
question either about David Brudnoy or a man who had
a great influence on David's life, Frank s Meyer, about
(20:18):
whom this book has written The Man who Invented Conservatism
The Unlikely Life of Frank s Meyer. Uh, we have
some lines six one, seven, two, four thirty, six, one, seven, nine, three, one,
ten thirty. We will be talking with Harvey Silverglate, who
not only knew David Brudnoy, but he also knew Bob Dylan.
So this should be an interesting conversation. But don't feel
(20:40):
that you have to have been a contemporary. You've more
than welcome to joint ask a question or offer a
comment or a compliment to the memory of David Broadnoy,
Gone much too soon for certain coming back on night
Side after this.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
If you're on Night Side with Dan Ray one you
bas Austin's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
With me is my guest, Dan Flynn. Dan is the
author of a book called The Man Who Invented Conservatism,
The Unlikely Life of Frank s Meyer, and Howard intersected
with the life and really influenced the life of a
Bostonian Grand Bostonian. If you will, David Brednoye, let's get
the phone calls Dan Flynn, gonna go to my great
(21:23):
friend Harvey Silverglade, extraordinary attorney and Harvard Law school guy.
Through and through Harvey, you are with Dan Flynn. I
don't know if you ever met Dan before, but David
Brednan was a friend of yours, and I all mentioned
that you were pretty close with Bob Dylan, who owned
a place in Woodstock. Go right ahead, Harvey, you could
(21:44):
go in any way you want with this conversation.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
David wanted his fellow Jewish lapsed Jewish gay intellectual Alan
Ginsberg on this radio program. By that time, David Jillness
was sufficiently advanced, so WBZ took to then extraordinary. Now
it's not so extraordinary. I believe Dan broadcasts from his home,
(22:12):
but they moved his whole studio from the WBZ studio
to his apartment. I believe it was on Commonwealth Avenue
in Boston. He's the correct time.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yep, you're correct.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
And David called my late wife, Elsa, because he knew
that she was a close friend of Allen Ginsburg, and
she said, he said, Elsa, you don't know me but
I know you were a friend of Allen Ginsburg. I'd
love to have him on my radio talk show. So
Elsewhere arranged it, and as usual I got the benefit
(22:48):
of being dragged along Alan, Elsa and I all slept
up to David's apartment on Common Avenue and it was
the most introt conversation between David and Allen that I
that I can remember. And then Elsa's said, Oh, David,
(23:11):
how'd you like to come by my studio and take
some pictures? And he came by and I had hanging
on my wall a copy photo of one of the
twenty by twenty four's, the original of which I believe
is now don't been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yes it has, Harvey. What was the interaction between Ginsburg
and David Brednay like.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Well, you know, they were very similar in a lot
of ways. And if the programs back then were all recorded,
then you have more access to it than I would.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, Unfortunately a lot of those are lost to antiquity.
The one thing that radio and TV stations have done,
they've always been limited for space, and back in the day,
the real to real times of radio stations and the
three quarter inch days of television, electronic news, and even
film all of a lot of that stuff has been discarded, sadly,
(24:19):
so sadly.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Well, I do remember a few things that they discussed.
They discussed their David was very interested in in Alan's
relationship with Bob Dylan. They were quite close friends, and
(24:47):
so that took up part of the conversation, and part
of a conversation was Alan's relationship with my late Wifeelsa.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, well, I'm sure must have been a fascinating evening
at the old Yeah boy, Harvey, I know that you
knew all of these characters. Is there any question in
your mind that is lingering for Dan Flynn who did
such a deep dive into the relationship that our friend
(25:19):
David had with Frank Meyer.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Well, only that I have not I will order you
a book, but I have not read your book. How
did the David and Frank Meyer meet?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
So, David in sixty eight started writing for National Review,
and he wrote Meyer a letter very shortly thereafter. Meyer
lived in Woodstock and said, why don't you come up
to Woodstock. He actually lived on the property that was
adjacent to Dylan's property on Ohio Mountain Road in Woodstock,
and so Dylan's property was way set back. Myers was
(25:59):
on right, hugged the road, and my Brunnoy goes up
there and he said, I've never spent a more relaxing
or mentally taxing weekend in my life. And so in
the fifties, Meyer would Meyer's best friend was Eugene O'Neil junior,
and Eugene O'Neil junior just like any character in his
father's plays, you know, after a night of drinking and smoking,
(26:19):
and they would recite plays back and forth, and there
was all sorts of crazy stuff that went on. After
one of those nights, he went home and he he
he killed himself and Meyers Meyer's wife found the body.
Most of the times were a lot more jubilant than that.
But they would, but they would, but they would spend
all night because since since Meyer left the Commis party,
he stayed up all night. He was afraid they were
(26:41):
going to come back in exact retribution. So he stayed
up all night and slept during the day. And when
he had guests up there, Joan Diddeon or Gary Wills
or Ed Vulner or any of these people, they would
stay up all night and so I think that's what
David was saying, that he's never spent a more relaxing
weekend and he's never spent a more mentally taxing weekend.
But that's what they did up the epenwoodstock.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Harvey as always thank you for joining and contributing to
the conversations. I have very important important words and stories.
I as always.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Appreciated and on coming.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Dan, sure, sure, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Else when I visited David at the hospital the day
before he died, we had to get online. There were
so many people who came to pay their final respects
to David before he died, so he.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Almost had a uh a pre mortality wake and in
some respect, wow, it was it.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Was a I believe he was at the mass General.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
It was a pre wake.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, that's well put. Well point. Harvey is always thank you,
my friend. I thank you for your friendship over so
many years. We'll be back on Nightside with more phone
calls with Dan Flynn, Dan who has written a book
on the life of Frank Meyer, but it intersected at
a very critical time in the life of our mutual
(28:03):
friend David Brednoye. Moving back on Nightside, right after this,
and we've got Janet, and we got Tina, and we
got Michael, and we're going to get them all in,
I promise.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm w BZ, Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
My guest is Dan Flynn, the man who invented conservatism.
His book The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Big
part of the book that will be of interest to
my listeners is the influence that Meyers Frank Meyer had
on David Brednoy, one of my predecessors. In this program,
let me go to Janet in Boston. Janet, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
Well, thank you. I enjoyed and thank you for sharing
my meeting with David at the coffee shop on Newberry Street.
And I just want to add a little PostScript to that.
Strap meeting went on every four to six weeks for
over four years, and during that time, you know, he
(29:01):
interviewed me practically every Saturday. He wanted very curious, you know,
once he found out I was a nurse, why did
I become a nurse, And why was I working in Boston?
And why did I leave Canada and so on. So
but the interesting thing is that the longer he got
to know me, and the more he interviewed me, he
started sharing some extremely extremely personal information about himself. And
(29:28):
you know, I just I couldn't believe. And I because
I felt at first when when this happened, when I
first met him, I felt, you know, I was intruding.
It was his morning off, he was enjoying his coffee.
But it was unbelievable that it went on for so
many years.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
He must have trusted you as a great friend to
have brought you into his circle of friends. Janet.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Yeah, and he just, you know, he certainly, you know,
got a lot of information about me. But then then
he start to open up and and and told me
some you know, very you know, as I say, personal,
which I certainly won't share, but it was it was
a wonderful, wonderful experience getting to know him.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Well, Dan, thanks for joining us and finishing the second
section of that story. We'll talk soon, okay, okay, thank you.
You know, it's funny when you mentioned earlier tonight, Dan Flynn,
that Meyers letters and all of his documents were stored
in a warehouse in Altoona, Pennsylvania. I was reminded yesterday
(30:38):
that the only other thing I know about Altoona, Pennsylvania.
That's where they arrested Luigi Mangioni about a year ago
for the murder for the alleged murder of the United
Healthcare executive. And now I know another item of Altuna,
Pennsylvania a little more pleasant than what we learned in court.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
The mallow cups come from Altuna too.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Oh that's good to know. Let me go to Tina
in Wunsaka, Rhode Island. Tina, you were on with Dan Flynn.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Go right ahead, dance, Yes, hello to the two Dan's.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (31:15):
I really loved mister Bredna.
Speaker 7 (31:19):
I used to call him up all the time. And
the one thing I liked about him he was similar
to you, Dan Ray, because he always liked my calls.
He always used to comment and what I had to say.
And I really liked him because he was so smart.
He was an intellectual and a lot of times when
I call a radio program, I'm trying to learn something.
(31:42):
So I really admire of somebody who has who was
in brilliant and intelligence because I'm just an ordinary person.
I don't have that much like David Breundno I had.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
And well, so I hope you're not necessarily looking to
learn a lot from my programs, but uh, my guests
are people who are pretty smart, like Dan Flynn, so
that that compensates for it.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
I hope, Oh I didn't.
Speaker 7 (32:08):
I don't know Dan Flynn at all. All I knew
was David Brodnoy and how much I enjoyed him.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I don't enjoy, you'll enjoy. You'll enjoy this book if
you get an opportunity to get it. It's uh, it
would it's it would be an interesting read for you.
The man who invented conservatism, The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer.
He had a big impact on David Brodnoy as always, Tita,
thank you appreciate it so much. We'll talk again. Okay,
thanks so much.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Okay, all right, good night.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Let me go to Mike and Quincy. Mike, you're next
on Night Side with Dan Flynn.
Speaker 8 (32:42):
Hey, how's it going, Dan, And we're.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Going We're going find but time is tempest fugit here.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
I wanted to make a key point. Yeah, David always
talked about the ideas and the argument. Uh, I'm a
flame and liberal. I called him twice and he was
very very respectful about the ideas as compared to his successor,
(33:09):
Avi Nelson, who sometimes would attack people.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Well, you know, as a flaming liberal, you're supposed to
now get it with the times here, you're progressive. Mike.
Speaker 8 (33:19):
Oh, no, I'm a list.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I'm only teasing you, did Flints Say hi to Mike,
one of my more liberal listeners.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Hey, Mike, Well, I think the thing with David. Both
David and Frank Meyer were guys that converted to conservatism
or libertarianism. They started out on the left, and I
think sometimes, you know, when you start somewhere else, you
can be a little bit more tolerant of people because
you realize, well, you held these ideas way back when,
and it wouldn't have helped much if you started shouting
(33:48):
someone down or berating them or saying they're dumb because
they don't agree with you, Because of course, those people,
you know, decades earlier believed the same thing as the
people they disagree with. So I think some people that
make that into actual journey, they tend to have a
little bit more tolerance. And I think David had a
lot of torrance with callers, just as just as Dan does.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
Mike was very respectful. I remember once I called him
about a point he made about JFK and I wanted
to argue with him and he blew me out of
the water.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm sure you had your good nights as well, Mike.
I appreciate you call. Keep calling nights. Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I'm gonna wrap the hour with Mike and Plymouth. Save
the best for last. Go ahead, Mike and Plymouth you
next time.
Speaker 9 (34:30):
Night, Jay, Dan, and Dan, thank you for taking my
call real quickly. I just want to share a fond
memory of my dad. Who's my late dad, whose birthday
was today, died thirty one years ago. My dad was
a moonlighter Dan. He worked two full time jobs and
on his eleven to seven shift when I was on
break from high school or college. In between breaks, he
(34:54):
would take me with him to work at Harvard University
as a janitor and I would help him out and
give me twenty for the week to help him clean
press his offices.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Wow.
Speaker 9 (35:03):
And on the on the way on the way to
work at ten thirty, going down the Jamaica Way and Brookline,
he would be listening to David Brudnoy. I would want
the bruins of the Celtics on him. He would say,
listen to this guy he's brilliant. This guy's My dad
was a Kevin White Tipple Neil Democrat that had nothing
in common with David's politics. But he knew intellectualism and
(35:25):
he appreciated it, and he knew and he also enjoyed movies.
He couldn't tell you the starting lineup of the Celtics
or the Red Sox, but he could tell you the
cast of every John Wayne movie.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (35:36):
I used to call the affinity for David is that
he loved his movie reviews.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, he used to used to call the basketball teams
the men in the short pants. Well, this my great,
great call. Thank you so much for ending on a
real positive note. As always, Thank you.
Speaker 9 (35:54):
My friend, and thank you for taking my call on
my dad's birthday.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, happy birthday. Hopefully your dad's sitting somewhere in a
far away place tonight. But the busy signal is still
getting up there.
Speaker 9 (36:04):
Okay, thanks Mike, he's smiling tonight on you appreciate it,
Dan Flynn.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I can tell how much you loved doing this book
from our conversations of the last couple of days and
of course our conversation tonight. Uh, the book. It's a
long title, The Man who Invented Conservatism The Unlikely Life
of Frank S. Meyer. A lot in there about David Brednoi,
which should interest my audience. How can folks get the book?
(36:32):
Is it Is it available Amazon and regular places or
do you have a website with theses?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Way mainly Amazon. It's published by Encounter Books and i
I Books, so it's it's a joint production, but it's yeah.
I think most people these days, about half of them
are getting him on Amazon. So yeah, you can get
the man who havented Conservatism there. And obviously, you know,
you knew David as a friend. I just knew him
as a listener, so it was just something. To get
(36:59):
to know him in the letters was a complete thrill
because he's not a guy that I knew in life.
And what an amazing thing that I mentioned this party
back in the nineteen seventies and you say, oh, I
was there. I mean, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah. Boston's a small world, big city, small town, you
know what I'm saying, Dan Flynn. I enjoyed it exceeded
my expectations, and I know the book will as well.
And also people can read a little bit of a
taste of this if they can get to the Boston
Globe from last Sunday The Long Strange Trip of David
Brudnoy in the Ideas Column and Your Sunday Globe written
(37:34):
by Daniel J. Flynn. Dan Flynn, we will talk soon, Okay, thank.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
You, my friend, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
When we get back on night Side, the great Rick Edelman,
he is going to talk with us tonight about his
new book which deals with college. It's called The Truth
About College, and we'll have Rick Edelman and also an
opportunity for you to ask questions of mister Edelman back
on Nightside after this that
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