Interview
I [interviewer James Cavanaugh] first interviewed Meyers for a little over seven hours in his Silver Spring, Maryland home on November l9 and 20, 1980. I attempted to avoid repetition of the stories contained in Meyers' “Recollections” and sought to pull from him interpretations of events in RCIA history. Meyers, however, is a natural storyteller and the easiest way for him to “interpret” is to illustrate with a story. Hence, most of the anecdotes in his “Recollections” are repeated in this interview. The interview, therefore, should be used in close conjunction with the “Recollections” (part of Mss 56). The two sources flesh each other out, although the “Recollections” are better on details. Whenever in the interview Meyers repeated a story from his “Recollections,” it is so indicated in the abstract below by placing “Recollections” in parentheses after the major subject heading.
The interview is basically anecdotal. Its greatest value lies in the anecdotes not previously written down in Meyers' “Recollections,” the discussions of the RCIA's relations with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, and in the fleshing out of the “Recollections” stories.
I returned to interview Meyers for another seven and a half hours on September 22 and 23, 1981. This second interview was more revealing than the first. Meyers did not repeat any stories from his “Recollections,” and was very candid. The discussion is particularly useful for sorting out the internal politics of the RCIA, for explaining the Jim Suffridge to Jim Housewright presidential transition, and for reevaluating various RCIA leaders. There are also useful sections of the RCIA's Foreign Affairs Department and on a couple important organizing drives not included in the “Recollections.”
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks; a voice track containing the discussion, and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher, by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button, may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “MEYERS AND RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) PRESIDENT JAMES SUFFRIDGE” should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 07:25 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Seven minutes, twenty-five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “MEYERS AND RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) PRESIDENT JAMES SUFFRIDGE continues until approximately 08:05, at which point discussion of the next topic (“MEYERS' R0LE IN THE RCIA”) begins. Whenever Meyers discusses a topic covered in his “Recollections,” (“Recollections”) appears after the topic heading which is typed in capital letters.
Notice that in most cases, sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentence underneath “MEYERS AND RETAIL CLERKS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (RCIA) PRESIDENT JAMES SUFFRIDGE” gives further details on what appears on the tape between 07:25 and 08:05.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index to the Interview
There is no separate index for the December 1980 interview. There is a master index for all the UFCW leaders which includes the indexing of this interview. Because the master index was completed before the second Meyers interview, an index of the September 1981 interview (tapes 9-16) is included as an addendum to the UFCW master index.
