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Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Michael Tigar Mike Tigar: From SLATE Leader to Civil Liberties Attorney The SLATE Oral History Project Interviews conducted by Martin Meeker in 2018 Public Domain Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley ii Since 1954 the Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* This oral history recording and transcript have been placed in the public domain by its creator in a document signed June 30, 2018. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Michael Tigar, “Mike Tigar: From SLATE Leader to Civil Liberties Attorney,” SLATE Oral History Project, conducted by Martin Meeker in 2018, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2018. Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley iii Michael Tigar Photograph courtesy University of Michigan Law School Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley iv Michael Tigar attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate between 1958 and 1962; he returned to Berkeley to earn his degree in law in 1966. While an undergraduate, Tigar was active in the student political organization SLATE. He was elected for a term to the Associated Students of the University of California senate as a SLATE candidate. While a student at Berkeley, Tigar worked at KPFA radio station. In this interview, Tigar discusses the following topics: the context surrounding student activism and the role of SLATE in giving student activists a voice; KPFA and progressive radio; and the relationship between law and civil liberties advocacy. Note that Michael Tigar also was interviewed as part of the Free Speech Movement Oral History Project and his transcript for that project is also available from the Oral History Center. Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley v Table of Contents — Michael Tigar Interview 1: January 12, 2018 Hour 1 1 Born on January 18, 1941 — Father as the Executive Secretary of Machinists’ Union at Lockheed in 1937 — Jacobus tenBroek — Attending UC Berkeley in 1958 — Volunteering at KPFA, the Pacifica station — Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review — SLATE’s issue-oriented appeal — Free Speech Movement — SLATE as male-dominated — “Zero consciousness of what we now understand to be LGBT issues” — City Lights Bookstore — Clark Kerr’s response to Dave Armor’s election — “Falling out of love with the Navy” — Roommate Aryay Lenske (Kalaki) — Students for Civil Liberties — House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) — Beat Movement — Litigation as an instrument of political repression — Direct Action Movement — Against nuclear proliferation — Value of lawyering — National Student Association — Honorably discharged from the Navy as a conscientious objector — Televised presidential debates, Kennedy versus Nixon — Reading Paul Sweezy and the labor theory of value Hour 2 20 Right to privacy, McCarthyism, and real-life consequences: “It wasn’t just that you were being required to disclose; it’s that a step was now being taken to make sure you didn’t work” — Reversing the Kerr Directives — Involvement in the Free Speech Movement throughout law school at Boalt Hall — Thoughts on current free speech issues affecting UC Berkeley — Bernie Sanders — The Liberal Democrat (TLD) Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley 1 Interview 1: January 12, 2018 01-00:00:06 Meeker: Today is the January 12, 2018. This is Martin Meeker, interviewing Michael Tigar for the SLATE Oral History Project. We are here, actually, in a jury deliberation room in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, and this is interview session number one. The way that we begin these interviews is the same with everyone. So just say your name, date and place of birth. 01-00:00:34 Tigar: My name is Michael Tigar, and the date of birth is January 18, 1941—so I’m about to have a birthday—and we’re at 14th and Clay Streets in Oakland, California. 01-00:00:45 Meeker: Well, happy birthday. 01-00:00:46 Tigar: Thank you. 01-00:00:47 Meeker: And, again, thank you very much for joining us today, for participating in this group of interviews about the history of SLATE. We certainly want to delve into SLATE, but before we get there I’d like you to tell me a little bit about your family background and upbringing. I know that you have kind of a colorful family background history, including how the name Tigar becomes associated with your bloodline. So maybe you can just kind of situate the family that you were born into. 01-00:01:21 Tigar: My mother and father were divorced when I was four or five, but my father had been born Charles Henry Locke, Jr., L-O-C-K-E. He changed his last name to Tigar, as had his elder sister, Inez, who became Zyska Tigar, a Vaudeville performer, and then his brother, Eugene Tigar, a barnstorm pilot. And exactly when my father changed his name I’m not sure, but it was before he had married my mother. He was working at Lockheed Aircraft, and then became the Executive Secretary of the Machinists’ Union in 1937. That’s two years after the Wagner Act. And Lockheed, that was the first industrial local of the Machinists’ Union. Everybody sort of knew that a war was coming, and that airplanes would be needed, and he had that job throughout the war. He left it after the war. My mother, after my mother and father were divorced, became a secretary, and then became service supervisor for all of Southern California for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Permanente. Had three hundred people reporting to her. Had everything wonderful about the job, except she got half as much money every month as a male would’ve had in that. And so we had lived, after my parents were divorced, with my grandmother, who was a violinist, and was also divorced from my grandfather, but she had taught her three daughters violin, viola, cello. And it was a modest circumstance. My two uncles had gotten an ROTC regular scholarship. I got one, too, where I would Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley 2 do four years at Berkeley, I would get a regular naval officer commission, and there it was. So that’s the background. And I could’ve gone to other schools, but I wanted to go to university at Berkeley. It was the state school. Somehow being able to get home for holidays was important. I’d never been out of California anywhere. 01-00:03:20 Meeker: The name Tigar, was that invented by your aunt? 01-00:03:22 Tigar: My aunt Zyska must have invented it. It turns out it means tiger in Croatian, but to change her name to Zyska—she was an exotic dancer, vaudeville performer. I only met her in her later years. Lately we’ve turned up some ads for her performances in the San Bernardino County newspaper, and the Santa Ana Register, “Famed Vaudevillian Zyska Tigar will be performing her” whatever. [laughter] And I just found a copyright notice that she is the author of a song that I haven’t been able to find yet called “Aunt Lou From Good Old Kalamazoo,” and I’m waiting to go to the Copyright Office and get that. But yeah, she’s the one. 01-00:04:07 Meeker: You had mentioned your father before you were born was involved in leadership of his union. Your mother was involved with the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. I did another big project on Kaiser. I know that at this point in time the AMA was labeling them socialized medicine, so they were kind of more along the Labor Left side of the equation. 01-00:04:33 Tigar: Absolutely. 01-00:04:34 Meeker: Was this information, was this knowledge, was this communicated to you as a child? 01-00:04:42 Tigar: Yes. These things were a part of my growing up. My grandmother took us every week to the Lake Street Baptist Church in Glendale. Glendale was a segregated community, as a practical matter. I mean, there was a sign on the public pool. But support for labor organizations was a part of Kaiser, because labor organizations were the first big members of Kaiser Foundation: the Retail Clerks’ Union, Joe DeSilva’s union, very powerful. And objection to racism; that is, that we didn’t stand for that in our house. So those values I certainly had, because they were a part of growing up. 01-00:05:29 Meeker: Did your mother or father communicate to you about who they were voting for? Were they interested in the political process on a scale? Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley 3 01-00:05:38 Tigar: My mother supported Democratic candidates, and then when her older sister, Aunt Pat, came out to California, yes.

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