Victory in the Pacific: Warren G. Moses History Lecture

[FULL STORY]

Students in Newman’s Upper School filled Henson Auditorium on the morning of March 21, 2013 for the Warren G. Moses History Lecture. This year’s speaker was noted professor and author Dr. Julius William Friend, Jr., a member of Newman’s Class of 1943. He spoke to the students about his time as a soldier and news correspondent during World War II, and after the Lecture, he also visited an upper school history class.

 

Friend joined the Army in June 1944, not long after he graduated from Newman. He was thrust into the conflict during the Okinawa campaign, when the war in the Pacific was at a fever pitch (the Japanese would not end their resistance on Okinawa until June 1945). After he was injured during a battle, Friend was offered a position as a war correspondent. He accepted, and helped relay news of the Army’s progress back to the world. From his vantage point, he watched the war against Japan in its final stages leading up to the use of the atomic bomb. He related to the students the government’s rationale for deploying the first nuclear weapon in war. Faced with the inestimable loss of life associated with a land war on the Japanese mainland, the bomb was a calculated risk that wound up saving lives. After the second bomb in Nagasaki, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrendered to Allied forces, ending the war.

 

Thanks to the generosity of the Moses family, Newman students have an opportunity to learn about one of history’s most complex and fascinating times by people who witnessed it first-hand. Another important part of the event is the Moses Scholar Essay Contest, in which three students are honored for their excellence in writing on a subject related to World War II. This year, the students wrote about President Roosevelt’s four freedoms – Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Fear, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom from Want – and which of these freedoms should guide U.S. foreign policy. The three most talented essayists, as judged by faculty, were honored as Moses Scholars.

 

Samuel Rawls Price Dunbar ’13

Eleanor Grace Masinter ’13

Daniel Garrett Silbert ’13

After the lecture in the auditorium, Friend sat in as a guest lecturer in Mrs. Vogt’s U.S. History class. The students were particularly interested in his time in the CIA, which he joined when it was a new organization. Friend explained that when he returned from the war he wanted to be a history professor, but there weren’t any jobs in that field. Instead he took a job as an operations officer which allowed him and his young family to live around the world at some very momentous times in history. He was able to live in Rome and study for his doctorate at the Vatican Library, he remembers watching the Berlin Wall go up when he lived in Germany, and he even told a story about how his young daughter was devastated when they had to move to Paris because she wanted to go back to Italy.

 

He also shared with the students some of his memories of New Orleans during wartime before he shipped out. He remembers being upset because due to the gas rationing in the city his parents wouldn’t let him learn to drive at 16 years old. While in high school at Newman he worked for the Times Picayune as a copy boy. Always interested in current events from a young age, he would enter 250-word write ups often in a contest held by the paper called “Biggest News of the Week.” While he never earned first place, won second place three times. One of those times was December 7, 1941 in which he predicted that if the Japanese were to react to our refusal to stop shipping supplies up the Burma Road, there was sure to be war. Sure enough, that did happen, and he admitted he probably should have won first place for that particular entry which only won him second place.

 

In 1949, Friend earned a master’s degree in European History. In 1960 he earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. His career included 27 years in the CIA. He is a former professorial lecturer of history at George Washington University, where he taught history for many years. He was Chairman for Francophone Area Studies at the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute, and has lectured at Harvard, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and many other universities. He is the author of six books and numerous articles on European questions, particularly on France and French Socialism. He is fluent in French, German, and Italian, with reading knowledge in Spanish and Catalan.

About the Moses Lecture:
Warren G. Moses was born in New Orleans on June 27, 1917. A member of the Class of 1934, Mr. Moses attended Tulane University, graduating with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the age of 20. He later served until 1974 as a member, and then as chair, of Newman’s Board of Governors.

In 1997, in honor of their father’s 80th birthday, Mr. Moses’s sons made a gift to Newman to establish an annual lecture about World War II, to memorialize their father’s interest in history and the contribution he made to his country during this epic struggle. The Warren G. Moses History Lecture celebrates this Newman graduate and American hero, as well as honors students who share that interest through their award-winning essays.