An Extraordinary Couple: William Cohen & Janet Langhart Cohen

[Music] you're listening to now I've heard everything conversations with the icons of our time that's one of the questions that she's frequently asked how could you coming from that black experience marry an oppressor but you weren't your folks weren't oppressors you're not an oppressor I married you cuz I love you William Cohen and Janet langard Cohen today on now I've heard everything I'm B Thompson [Music] well we're all familiar with that old saw that Opposites Attract but how opposite is too opposite at first glance it might have seemed that William Cohen and Janet langard were just too opposite to be a successful couple Cohen was white Jewish Republican langhart was black Christian Democrat but when journalist langard inter interviewed Senator Cohen something sparked and by 1996 they were married the following year President Bill Clinton named Cohen his defense secretary now the couple's marriage has largely been sustained by a mutual empathy they have for the racial or religious discrimination each has faced since childhood in 2007 William Cohen and Janet langhart Cohen co-wrote a book called love in black and white and that's when I have the chance to sit down with the two of them for a joint interview so here now from 2007 William Cohen and Janet langard Cohen I noticed most of the media attention seems to be focused or coming from the angle the Opposites Attract but I think one of the points you're making in your book is it not is that there is more than perhaps bonding you together than the Opposites that have attracted I think people see the Opposites the Opposites are more from their point of view than for from our point of view we're obviously male female black white um Republican Democrat that's the mixed marriage part but we we come together on our principles and our values and um that's what I think along with other things enables us to have a wonderful marriage well we both started out at the the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder Janet a little bit further down than me um but um we SED from Modest homes and we were able to overcome bigotry in my case anti-Semitism and Janet racism and what brought us together I think is the fact that we both understand what it's like uh to be the object of someone else's dislike or hatred and uh that made us I think sensitive to each other's um personalities and principles as Janet has said that we have both adhered to what we believe in and that U has sustained us over the years I did wonder if maybe the commonality of having been at some point in your life marginalized overcomes whatever physical or ethnic or racial kind of differences there are between you well I think it gave us great empathy for each other's plight certainly bill for me uh Bill suffered anti-Semitism as a young boy growing up in Banger because his father was Jewish um I suffered from racism because of segregation Jim Crow and AP partide America so I think those two isms made us somewhat Mavericks and outcasts and being on the outside of being excluded from the mainstream and I think that that is basically the story of our lives and how you can be excluded from the mainstream and nonetheless given this great country of ours you can still overcome uh those obstacles that are placed in your way if you persevere if you have strong family values as Janet had a terrific mother who uh overcome enormous obstacles to invest in her uh values of um regarding other people as human beings and not as color yeah my mother taught me that uh at 7 years old uh an incident happened and she said you were a little colored girl and there will be people who won't like you because you're colored but you must promise me that you will never practice that on others you must never judge or hurt other people for something they can't help and uh I think that has enabled me to beyond my my feelings of of disliking racism and disliking bullies and being somewhat of a follower of Malcolm X to come out of that revolutionary mentality and still reach across the color line and love Bill despite that so well that's one of the questions that she's frequently asked how could you coming from that black experience possibly cross the color line and marry an oppressor or someone who was uh of the family of the oppressors as such but you weren't your folks weren't oppressors you were not an oppressor and I didn't marry your color I married you cuz I love you oh I know that but I'm talking about what you you need a moment no what other people will ask her how could you do this and uh and Janet will say look uh I was brought up to look at people as people and not as a color and uh I could love someone like me by virtue of the again the values implanted by her mother and I didn't hate white people I hated racism and if I were to deny myself the opportunity of loving Bill based on his color I would be doing the very thing that I've asked other people people of the majority Society not to do to us so it's it's really complicated and marrying bill it made me Mrs Cohen it didn't make me white it didn't give me Amnesia you know so I can understand why people might ask that question because racism has perverted all of our Notions about race and gender and class and religion well Don Imus once said when he uh discovered that Jen and I were engaged or about to married he said that that I was the whitest man in America and then we had Michael Eric Dyson who gave a presentation at politics and Pros recently said I'm the blackest white man he knows that was quite an endorsement for Michael Eric Dyson on because he's written a book debating race and in that have you interviewed him yet in that in that book he talks a great deal like his other books about the problem we have in this country on Race well I gather that your intent with this book was not to sit down and write a history book but in telling your own story you have in effect told us a history story haven't you I think that's true and that was something I learned in the process of doing it because we were talking about our parallel lives and we both grew up in the shadow of World War II and that's the first book in of our lives and as I mentioned about apartheid America and it's a love story between Bill and me but between us and our country and what was happening in our country at the time to see its growth and what we discovered is our country was Coming of Age just as we were coming of age and here we are witnessing the an anniversary of Selmer Alabama and 42 years later uh you can see John Lewis who's a member of Congress who was out on those front lines who was being beaten and uh and whipped by uh the police when dogs set upon him and yet he's now a leading figure in the United States Congress and you can have a female uh Mrs Clinton Senator Clinton uh running for the presidency and a Barack Obama running for the presidency and you can see how uh much and how far this country has come in 42 years because it wasn't that long ago that you had uh the the marches to be sure in in Alabama 42 years 20 years before that you had the Holocaust that was taking place in in Europe So In Our Lifetime we've seen how hatred has been Unleashed against people because of their ethnicity their faith their religion uh and their race and we also see uh I saw Mrs Clinton uh Senator Clinton speak down in Alabama today uh at a different Church than Barack Obama but they each had a wonderful message her message was is that this movement that enabled me a black woman or a black male to succeed in whatever to realize Dr King's dream it enabled her to realize a dream and because we didn't get the Equal Rights Amendment we can't say it was the Equal Rights Amendment that enabled I believe 16 White women to serve in the US Senate and we only have one black male so uh it it was a movement it was a movement not just for civil rights and human rights not just for black people but for all people yet we have not yet reached the point where a black white marriage is so commonplace that people say why are you writing a book about this will we ever reach the point where you'll be non- news that's one of the reasons I wanted to participate in Bill's book this is really his voice and I'm contributing to that uh I wanted to open up the dialogue so we could all talk more about race and racism um Black History Month isn't just my history it's Bill's history too if we're talking about slavery we can't just talk about the slave and not talk about the master so I think uh this book will hopefully open it up for everybody to Grapple with it so they can see we're not that different we've already cracked the human genome to know that RAC is some sort of myth some pernicious fiction that we're using or the largest Society uses to control the the smaller groups so I think in in reading our book you'll see a love story you'll see patriotism and you'll see a history lesson I remember there was advice from Anne Landers a number of years ago bless her heart she said that the only way that two people from different faiths could make a successful marriage as if neither felt very passionate about their faith you think that's a a logical answer in these times I think that there is something to her uh her statement uh although Janet is quite passionate about having been raised as a southern baptist uh and the um the faith that her mother um certainly carried with her throughout her entire life uh I think Janet also has been one of these individuals who's always questioning asking questions challenging convention uh I myself uh was outside the faith not by virtue of choice on my part but by virtue of the Jewish Community decided that uh I really wasn't part of that community so I left that Faith after studying it as seriously as a student and um embraced um Unitarianism uh in terms of of of dealing with existential questions of what is our place on Earth uh what are we here for all of these questions that we try to come to grips with uh as to try to inquire and to test and to challenge and to to seek uh some answers to these questions which I think is part of the human condition but we both feel a spirituality that is common and we both feel that there is something much greater than ourselves that there is a force in the universe we don't quite understand it in terms of the shape uh it's submission uh what our role is where we uh we we go U but we know that there's a um that there's a force out there that uh that uh and we are children of that Universe I think it might be difficult for some Interfaith couples uh to marry and come together if they had dogmas if they were very staunch in their respective faiths that might be harder to penetrate because one of the things that sent me on a search uh just one of the things was that I found when it comes to God that word God or that other word religion people seem to draw a line in the sand you're right or I'm right rather and you're wrong and it's very divisive so I think Bill and I loed out again in that I did have a deep faith I do have a deep Faith but I question it and uh I believe it is in the New Testament that we're told we can ask and it shall be given but we feel comfortable going in any uh religious U uh institution we can walk into a CH Catholic Church which we do St Patrick's from time whenever we're in New York we can I can go into a synagogue we can celebrate which we have this this past year so uh we embrace all of the religions and because there's only one truth and how people get there uh it depends upon their geography their their history Etc but there's one truth I celebrated um uh Martin Luther King's birthday for the first time in a synagogue this year and we had our first B is going to teach me how to say Hana yeah very good uh we celebrated Hanukkah in our home we had a beautiful mano uh a manura that found me and um then after we lit the candle at Sunset we went off into the other room in our breakfast room and enjoyed our Christmas tree so we have the best of all worlds it sounds like my house I'm Protestant and my wife is Jewish so this is now if we could only convince Capitol Hill that in terms of politics there's only one truth and that everybody has a because it strikes me that an outsider might assume that a Republican and a Democrat would have to box up and check their politics at the door otherwise they would never be able to get along I don't sense though that the two of you put a lid on it when you're at home I have I think we're the first members of the third party we're at home because Bill is a moderate Republican and I never think of him in terms of politics maybe because we agree on so many important issues social issues um but he's a Statesman you know this man is a Statesman who who else would have worked so well in the cabinet of Bill Clinton mhm uh and then go and and carry the water for the president during the days the president was having a very difficult time on that bombing at the same time they were considering impeaching him it was the Republican who went to the majority and and spoke on behalf of our president and convinced him that this was not Wag the Dog right so but I'm guessing that the two of you probably have some spirited discussions from time to time we do now I'm not going to deny that we have to fess up we what would you say we we we argue all the time and we argue about uh the candidates and uh and their positions we uh we debate uh the War uh to be sure uh Janet was an outspoken critic from the very beginning and not as outspoken as I wanted to be because you told me to temper it you know be diplomatic I'm the wife of a former Secretary of Defense it would be Unbecoming no it's not question of Unbecoming it's a question of we have troops we have 140,000 troops there in uh and live risking life and limb at this moment and I want to be careful that anything that I say not in any way impair their ability to carry out their mission and I and Janet is so passionate on this issue because she's been going to Wal to Reed and she's been dealing with those who've lost limbs and brains and and the families and the hardship and so her anger and her passion uh is is something that I respect and I celebrate in terms of how she cares for those who are serving us in their families uh my position is I have to be more measured on it because I don't want to involve myself in this debate in a way that could in any way impair uh the the morale of the troops and and so it's it's a slightly different approach to it I share her um her concern about what's going on and the fact that we don't take care of our uh the people who serve and sacrifice for us in the way that they should be cared for well beyond Walter Reed well out into the VA system into Rural America red state blue State America where these young men and women don't get the kind of follow-up care that they they really need you know we're talking about our country's history and when I did my book and I was I was delighted bill that you uh interviewed me for that uh I was writing my book before 911 and I had mixed emotions after 9/11 to talk about the history of our country because it's not a pretty history not all of it to talk about racism and slavery and lynchings in Jim Crow but I want to say we did have that that is part of our history we need to know that because it lives in us but I do want to say that this is a great country I've lived its Nightmare and I'm living its American dream and the dream is better that anything is possible here and I would say that there was a moment U that really came home to me about the greatness of this country when Janet and I were on the deck of the USS Kennedy uh in New York uh Harbor uh on Independence Day 2000 and we sat stood there I should say looking at the Statue of Liberty and the moon was was up and it was a beautiful night and I had my arm around Janet and I said just think about this I had a grandfather who immigrated from Russia without a penny in his pocket and he came here and he had to Sail by uh Lady Liberty and um I wonder what he would think now that by him stepping out into the darkness with no notion what the future would hold for him that years later the little boy that he held in his lap would become Secretary defense and that my wife who is a descendant of slaves would one day be on that deck with me as the first lady of of the Pentagon that's that tells you a lot about this country only in America that's true William Cohen is now 82 and Janet langhart Cohen is also 82 they celebrated their 28th anniversary last February now you can get your copy of love in black and white by William Cohen and Janet langhart Cohen by tapping the link in our show notes by clicking the link in the description below if you're listening to this on YouTube or by going to our website her everything.com we may earn an Amazon commission if you make a purchase while you're at herd everything.com don't miss my 2017 interview with Paul Robeson Jr instead of looking at people from the point of view of their culture we are more than any other country in the world obsessed with looking at people through the lens of race as skin color and my 2003 conversation with the son of Martin Luther King Jr Dexter Scott King I still am baffled how he you know was able to raise a family write several books lead a major movement and still make such a enormous contribution to humankind and of course we post new episodes of now I've heard everything every Monday Wednesday and Friday and you can find us everywhere you listen to podcasts and thank you so much for listening next time on now I've heard everything we are marking an important anniversary the 50th anniversary of a major historical event that the United States had never seen before and hasn't seen since the resignation of a president we'll revisit my 1991 conversation with renowned Nixon biographer Steven Ambrose I came to have a grudging and then a genuine admiration for him and now having dealt with this period uh 19 1974 to 1990 I've come to really like the man which it isn't easy to do he doesn't want to be liked he wants to be respected he wants to be admired he wants to be obeyed he doesn't care if you like him or not that's next time on now I've heard everything I'm Bill Thompson [Music]