Hostages as Messages

Now & Then

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Society & Culture, History, News Commentary

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Biden has formally declared that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained in Russia. Heather and Joanne reflect on Gershkovich’s plight and look at three other political detainments in American history: the 1776 arrest by the British of Continental Army Major General Charles Lee, the 1861 Confederate capture of New York Congressman Alfred Ely, and the 1974 abduction by the Symbionese Liberation Army of California heiress Patty Hearst. Join CAFE Insider to listen to “Backstage,” where Heather and Joanne chat each week about the anecdotes and ideas that formed the episode. This week, they discuss their memories of hostage-taking and bomb scares in the early 1970s. Head to: cafe.com/history Listen to “Up Against The Mob: The Springfield Crew”: apple.co/3x4sgYj For more historical analysis of current events, sign up for the free weekly CAFE Brief newsletter, featuring Time Machine, a weekly article that dives into an historical event inspired by each episode of Now & Then: cafe.com/brief For references & supplemental materials, head to: cafe.com/now-and-then/hostages-as-messages/ Now & Then is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is now and then.
0:07.0	I'm Heather Cox Richardson.
0:12.0	And I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:14.0	Today we're going to be talking about a grave but important and extremely timely topic,
0:21.0	and that is high profile hostages throughout American history.
0:26.0	Now, obviously this topic is in part a reaction to the fact that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkowitz,
0:36.0	widely respected reporter, 31 years old, who covers Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union,
0:42.0	he has been captured and I guess formally charged now with espionage.
0:48.0	Of course, he was stationed as a correspondent there in Russia, but now this very serious charge has been brought against him.
0:55.0	And a charge of espionage carries a prison term of up to 20 years.
1:02.0	And it's noteworthy that according to the New York Times, the last time an espionage charge was brought against an American reporter
1:11.0	was 1986, which was towards the end of the Cold War, a period again where there's a sort of geopolitical,
1:20.0	ideological battle going on with the United States on one side and the Soviet Union on the other.
1:27.0	But in the case of the person charged with espionage in 1986, Nicholas Danelov,
1:33.0	he was returned home a few weeks later in a prisoner swap.
1:37.0	It's noteworthy that what we're seeing now in some ways echoes what we're seeing at another time of extreme differences to say the least between the United States and Russia.
1:50.0	Last week's Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that there was no doubt that Gerskovich was wrongly detained,
1:56.0	but of course the United States is still in the midst of a formal process to reach a formal determination of that.
2:02.0	He also has had a conversation with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to call on Russia to release Gerskovich
2:11.0	and of course his fellow American prisoner Paul Whalen, who's been detained for a number of years now.
2:18.0	Gerskovich is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles. He grew up in New Jersey.
2:24.0	He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, which put out a statement very shortly after his detainment.
	...

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