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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. You may or may not know the name Edward Sorel, but you almost certainly would recognize some of his New Yorker magazine covers, political cartoons in various places, and some of his other work in Vanity Fair, in the Atlantic, in Ramparts, in the Nation, in Esquire, in the Village Voice, in New York Magazine, in the National Lampoon and I could go on.

Now, Ed Sorel is out with what we might call an almost 93-year oral and visual history of his life and times, a memoir of his life, which started in the Bronx, and a little later, the High School of Music and Art, integrated with his take on the 13 presidents who have been in office during his lifetime. Yes, 13 presidents. Ed Sorel turns 93 this week.

In fact, the author's note at the start of the book says it has two purposes, to preserve some of his art and to "Offer an explanation of how the United States ended up with a racist thug in the White House." Spoiler alert, he's not talking about Joe Biden. Second spoiler alert, Chapter One of the book is called Portrait of The Old Lefty As a Young Lefty. The book is called Profusely Illustrated: A Memoir, and I'm thrilled that you came on the show. Welcome to WNYC.

Edward Sorel: [crosstalk] to be here.

Brian Lehrer: I'd like to take advantage of your long memory to hear some stories most of our listeners could not have been around for. Can I start by asking you about your aunt Jeanette during the Great Depression of the 1930s, who you say had concluded the capitalism, was incapable of providing jobs and she joined the Communist Party. How do you remember your aunt Jeanette and her influence on you?

Edward Sorel: I remember her as the one who took me to the Museum of Modern Art and tried to convince me that making pictures was a worthwhile endeavor. I also remember her as a complete Stalinist. There was nothing that Russia did that was bad and there was nothing that America did that was good. It was because of her that I collected cigarette foil and made it into a ball to send to Spain so that we could win. She was-

Brian Lehrer: Against Franco.

Edward Sorel: -my political influence.

Brian Lehrer: You also recall aunt Jeanette and her husband, Harry, as going in and out of hating FDR. What was that ambivalence about for them as 1930s lefties for the president who most people today think of as legendary for launching so many social programs?

Edward Sorel: They were true believers. Whatever the daily worker told them or whatever their communist cell told them, they believed. They also believe that after the war, that communism would triumph all over the world and there was no arguing with them. They were absolutely-- what can I say? They were Stalinists.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. One last thing about aunt Jeanette, there's so much else to get to. Just to help us understand some of the politics of the 1930s, you recall that she and her husband, Harry, were adamantly opposed in 1939 to the US getting involved in World War II but later changed their minds. I know that was because, you write, because Hitler invaded Russia, never mind what he was doing elsewhere.

We tend to think of people opposed to US involvement in that war as right-wing, Charles Lindbergh, America Firsters, the precursors of Donald Trump in a way. What was it for people like your lefty aunt and uncle that made them isolationists in 1939?

Edward Sorel: Because Stalin had signed the non-aggression pact with Hitler. They had all sorts of justifications for that. They simply were going to do anything that Stalin told them to do. It was as simple as that. It's not too different from Fox News supporting Putin at this time.

Brian Lehrer: Right, pretty interesting and weird. We'll get into some of that through line actually, because some of the things in your book, even though it was written before the war in Ukraine started, relate. Did the wing of your family, though, who thought Stalin was a good man, sour on him out loud to you at a certain point?

Edward Sorel: On the contrary, when Khrushchev finally told about all the things that Stalin did-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: This is 1950s?

Edward Sorel: In the '50s, aunt Jeanette defended Stalin. She said, "Well, you're going to judge a man after he becomes senile and everything he did before he became senile was just fine?"

Brian Lehrer: May I ask and I think I have an indication from your previous answer, what you think about the war in Ukraine today as a political person? I know there are some on the contemporary left, who somewhat support Russia because they still see American imperialism as the root cause, others see defending Ukraine as the biggest fight for civilization since World War II. What do you think?

Edward Sorel: I think he has to be stopped. I think he has to be stopped at all costs. I also think that it could've been avoided if we hadn't insisted on pushing NATO to its very border. There was no need for that. Clearly, he is a menace to the entire world, and I don't see any other course of action.

Brian Lehrer: My guest is the legendary illustrator and political cartoonist and writer, Edward Sorel. His new book is called, Profusely Illustrated: A Memoir. We were just talking about your first chapter. /Portrait of A Young Lefty by The Old Lefty, which you are now, let's talk about the old lefty as a young art student. You were studying primarily visual art before your career in political cartooning, in magazine covers and other illustrations and writing.

You write that you love painting what you saw and that largely meant people and street scenes, but you portray the teachers at the High School of Music and Art in those days as being totally into abstract art as the only acceptable art and having disdain for anything representational or naturalistic. Can you tell us first about yourself in this respect? Where was your head at artistically when you were in high school and why?

Edward Sorel: I wanted to learn how to draw properly. I wanted to be able to draw the human figure out of my own head without models/ if you teach me how to draw the figure, but no one was interested in that, they were only interested in abstract art. They were only interested in design, as far as illustration was concerned. To them and to //, who I went to after Music and Art, illustration was the lowest form of art. Whereas I love telling stories, I was always at the bottom of my class because I was not a particularly good designer and I didn't enjoy flat design. I enjoyed naturalistic drawing.

Brian Lehrer: It sounds like you have or had at that time destain for abstraction, which was considered very progressive, I think at the time, the modern era breaking free from just painting realistic things. Why didn't you like abstract art and why were your teachers so locked into it? We're talking about the 1940s.

Edward Sorel: Everybody wanted to be on the cutting edge and the cutting edge was Cubism. That's what they were proselytizing for that kind of art. I got stuck at a particular moment in history, in art history, where that's all/ that was being taught. There were other schools, other art schools, my friends who went to Pratt learned how to draw from the figure but Cooper Union was a free school and my parents could afford free, so I went to Cooper Union and there simply wasn't any interest in real drawing.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote at Cooper Union to avoid the abstract monolith, you majored in graphic design, which you describe as a euphemism for crass commercial art.

Edward Sorel: Yes, exactly. I did have one break, I was in the same class with Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser. So that even though, by the time I graduated, I could no longer draw. I did go into business with him, we started a studio called Push Pin Studios, and they taught me how to draw. Somehow or rather they were able to go through three years of Cooper Union and still know how to draw, and they taught me.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. As you've shown and I will disclose that I have a brother who does real art in graphic design, Warren Lehrer. It's not just crass commercial art, but I understand what you were writing there. That's how it was seen and being taught and most of the people who are graphic design majors were going to go into commercial art, but for you, that was as close to learning representational art as you could get.

Let's talk about that triumvirate that you just referred to, because there at Cooper Union in the 1940s, you met the two other great designers who would become your partners at Push Pin Studios, Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser. Glaser may be the best known of the three of you if for nothing else for his "I Heart New York" posters, but can you talk a little bit about what kinds of art or what kinds of politics you bonded over with them?

Edward Sorel: Yes. We bonded over the poverty that we grew up in. That was our great bond. We were all lefties, and Milton in particular, actually, I started the studio with Seymour, and I started as the salesman. Since I couldn't draw, I was of no value on the drawing board, I brought in jobs for Seymour. When Milton came back from his Fulbright in Spain and Italy, he joined us. Milton was the one who persuaded me to try drawing again and showed me how to do it. I owe him a great deal.

Brian Lehrer: Four years at Music and Art, four years at Cooper Union, and they never taught you how to draw, and then your friend and business partner taught you easily enough, it sounds like because you wanted to do it.

Edward Sorel: Yes, I wanted to do it. I made lovely pictures when I was nine years old. It was only after art school that I couldn't draw anymore.

Brian Lehrer: That's hilarious. You write, "At that time, I.F. Stone became a hero of yours." He was a journalist, not an artist. So what did you admire about Isidor Stone?

Edward Sorel: Well, he was the man who told truth to power. He had his own little newspaper that came out every week, The I.F. Stone Weekly, and he found out things that the New York Times and the other newspapers couldn't find out. It was through him, largely, that I had great suspicion of the Korean War, and found out, subsequently, that we deliberately needed to get part of Korea for ourselves because we were already planning to be in conflict with either China or Russia. That was the reason. There was no reason why Korea could not have ended up into a democratic government. The elections were completely fraudulent.

Can I tell you one story that I learned about Korea? The United States after the war managed to get an election. The UN started an election in South Korea for who would determine the future of that country. They hired Krishna Menon, an Indian, to oversee the fairness of the election. Well, the election wasn't fair because Syngman Rhee had imprisoned all the opposition. After the election, Krishna Menon was going to declare the election a fraud, but then he got a phone call from Nehru in India, explaining to him that the United States had informed him that if Krishna Menon declared the election in Korea a fraud, the United States would decide that Pakistan deserved the Kashmir. There was--

Brian Lehrer: The region that-- The old dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, which had just become independent.

Edward Sorel: India, not wanting to lose Kashmir, decided that the election was valid, and we had a dictator in South Korea. It was that kind of machination. We were always on the side, it seems to me, of dictatorships, not only in Korea but in Guatemala, in South America, in Iran. The story of how America far from promoting democracy was promoting fascism in many, many countries, or at least, all they cared about was having puppet states all over the world. The American public was totally unaware of all of this.

Brian Lehrer: Since your book is a memoir of your life, and a collection of your art, over the decades, and your takes on each of the presidents of your lifetime, since we're talking about the Korean War period, how much did you like Harry Truman?

Edward Sorel: I didn't like him at all. It wasn't Joe McCarthy who started the loyalty oath in America, was Harry Truman. These champions of freedom and democracy continually did things that did just the opposite. The idea of having a loyalty oath was something that you'd expect from Nazi Germany, not from America. There were other things that Truman did as well.

He, of course, had a domino theory which this country followed long after he was president. His theory was that we had to stop communism wherever it appeared, or else it would take over the world, and the world would fall like a bunch of dominoes.

Brian Lehrer: The cold war domino theory, they called it that.

Edward Sorel: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, my guest is the legendary illustrator and political cartoonist, and also writer, Edward Sorel. His new book is called "Profusely Illustrated: A Memoir."

Let me stay on this theme of the presidents and the through-line in your book about them because you write that your goal in writing about all of them through your lifetime, was to show readers how each one committed unconstitutional acts. You were just giving the Truman example, through your I's that have turned our country into an oligarchy, you wrote, and that's an interesting word right now, considering the current push to punish Russian oligarchs, making oligarch more of a dirty word than it had ever been, perhaps in this country. Do you see the American oligarchy and the Russian oligarchy under Putin as having some common traits, or being mostly different?

Edward Sorel: I think the world has been run by the powerful ever since the world began. The oligarchs are the ones, whether you call them oligarchs or the powerful, it's the same thing. We've had to--

Brian Lehrer: Well, how do you define the word? Are you thinking about rich people who have a lot of political power through their money?

Edward Sorel: Well, yes, but I'm also thinking of a business running the country. It's always been that way. The Tea Party was started largely by John Hancock who was smuggling in tea from Holland. His tea from Holland was even more expensive than the British tea with the tax, but he got a bunch of long shoremen drunk and to dump the British tea because he had to protect his own Dutch tea.

Brian Lehrer: That's the original Tea Party, not the Obama outburst of Republican party activism.

Edward Sorel: The original Tea Party. Business has been at war with democracy for a long time. Self-interest has been at war with democracy for a long time. As a matter of fact, I was calm before I started this program, but when I started going on about it, I start stuttering.

Brian Lehrer: That's why we exist to get people riled up about what they believe in. I wonder, listeners, does anybody want to share a memory with Edward Sorel or ask him about something from his-- Obviously, we're concentrating on the earlier portions of his memoir taking advantage of his long life. He's going to turn-- do I have your birthday right, you going to turn 93 this Saturday?

Edward Sorel: 93 this Saturday, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Well, happy birthday. I may be one of the first to wish you a happy birthday. Listeners, 212-433-WNYC though we only have a few minutes left, but if anybody wants to react anything or anybody from Ed Sorel's generation want to chime in with anything, we can take a couple of calls, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. You write that your simplest explanation for how we wound up with Trump is that 60 years of anti-communist fearmongering after World War II had a lot to do with it. How simply can you draw that connection?

Edward Sorel: One of the things that the business wanted to do was to break the power of the unions as soon as World War II ended. The new deal had made far too many changes in their power, and they were very eager, and calling unions communists was the easiest way to do it, and they broke many unions. Because I am also a proselytizing athiest, I was particularly upset by the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower who put "In God We Trust" on our currency because he was enamored with Billy Graham.

Billy Graham convinced him that there was really no difference between the American constitution and the Russian constitution. The only difference that there would be if we put "Under God" in our pledge of allegiance. Thanks to Eisenhower, we now have to say "Under God" in our pledge of allegiance. We have "In God We Trust" on our currency and we have prayer breakfast for Congress.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take a phone call. There's your take on-- I'm glad we're getting some of your takes on FDR and Truman and Eisenhower. Stephanie in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Edward Sorel.

Stephanie: Hi. I just want to say thank you. I own an agency, an illustration agency here in New York called Illustration Division. We've been around for 25 years and I know firsthand really how extraordinary this man is and the body of his work. I just want to say, Mr. Sorel, thank you. You are inspiring and obviously very inspired yourself and you're so appreciated. I just wanted to call in and say that.

Brian Lehrer: Stephanie, not to put you on the spot, but do you have any particular Edward Sorel image, one of his New Yorker covers, one of his political cartoons, anything that's just standing out in your mind right now?

Stephanie: Hard to name one. I'm sorry, I can't narrow it down. Obviously, I subscribe to The New Yorker and he's just-- In the Pantheon of illustration and in particular New York illustration, he is a king.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you very much. Mercy in Orange, New Jersey, you're on WNYC with Ed Sorel. Hi, Mercy.

Mercy: Hi, my question for Mr. Sorel is my mother went to Music and Art class of '46, but she was a music student and she grew up in the coup, so I think your politics were the same. Michelle Kitsis, she was. I don't know if you remember her.

Edward Sorel: No, I don't, but I don't remember much of anything anymore.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: All right, Mercy. Thank you very much. One more. James in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, James.

James: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Ed, you probably don't remember me. I worked at Vanity Fair in the late '90s and in the early 2000s and I was the editorial designer. I worked with Graydon Carter and David Harris who was the design director. At the time, I remember you coming in once in a while to drop off your sketches back when we had a scan in art, but because everything was done with scanners back then.

I just remember you coming in with portfolios full of sketches and work, and just showing these beautiful, incredible illustrations that documented all of the various political and entertainment stories that Vanity Fair covered. Then I also remember you working on the murals in the Monkey Bar, the restaurant at the Great Northern in Manhattan, just beautiful murals on the wall, showing people and life and entertaining and eating and just really great memories and I have the privilege to meet you. Just thank you for an amazing career.

Edward Sorel: Well, thank you. That's nice to hear that.

Brian Lehrer: Ed, picking up on James, listen on Twitter writes, "Please ask Mr. Sorel about his experience in creating murals of famous artists and performers of the 20th century for the Waverly In and the Monkey Bar." I'll say that that's another wonderful thing about this book, though so much of it is your political memoir and your illustrations and cartoons and stuff having to do with those, but you also have all these literary and other figures who you drew from Oscar Wilde to Wayne Wang.

Edward Sorel: Well, I had interest other than politics. If you just stay on politics, you'd go crazy. I loved doing movies, pictures about the movies, and also the literary stuff. I did a book called Literary Lives, which was the lives of various authors done in comic strip form, and of course, I chose the craziest writers possible because they make interesting stories.

Writers are crazy. Writers are crazier than artists are and nobody is as crazy as composers. My theory is that because composers are dealing with the abstract, they're crazier than we are. Authors deal with words, we deal with pictures. It was something to grab onto. Anyway, yes, I did books on authors and--

Brian Lehrer: We're going to leave it here because we can't top that thought. Ed, maybe we're going to have to do a follow-up call-in on the show one day for our listeners in those various fields and we'll replay the clip of what you just said. Edward Sorel said on the show that writers are crazier than artists and composers are crazier than all of them. Maybe we'll come back to that, but since we can't top that, we will make that the last word.

I do want to say that the book is called Profusely Illustrated: A Memoir and there will be a book event for Profusely Illustrated at the Rizzoli Bookstore. That's on Broadway between 26 and 27th street tomorrow at 6:00 PM, Ed Sorel in conversation with Dan Okrent, and a slide show of some of Ed's work. Again, that's at the Rizzoli Bookstore, Broadway between 26th and 27th streets, tomorrow at 6:00 PM in conversation with Dan Okrent. I so enjoyed you coming and being in conversation with us. Thank you so much.

Edward Sorel: Thank you.

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