The War and Peace Broadcast: 35 Years Later

Thirty five years ago in early December 1970, the Vietnam War raged on – and in New York City WBAI listeners heard Leo Tolstoy’s 1500 page masterpiece WAR AND PEACE read from cover to cover, non-stop – with readers including Dustin Hoffman, Ann Bancroft, Mel Brooks, Julius Lester, Abbie Hoffman, William F. Buckley, Buck Henry, Carolyn Goodman and some 175 others from all walks of life. All said and done, it was almost five straight days of radio broadcast, and now the Pacifica Radio Archives revisits this amazing record-setting event with a new two hour audio documentary. A diverse group of world citizens were invited to re-record passages from the book to bring attention to the universality of the novel and add relevance to the continuing struggle to make sense of the current war in Iraq. 2005 readers include Helen Thomas, Cindy Sheehan, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Arianna Huffington, Robert Fisk, Mike Farrell, Ed Asner, Shirley Knight, Count Nikolai Tolstoy (senior living member of Tolstoy family), and many others.