Richard D. Heffner is the producer and host of public television's prize-winning The Open Mind--the nation's longest-running public television interview program--which he began in 1956. Now he draws on nearly fifty years of his broadcast conversations to form As They Saw It. Heffner has woven decades of provocative and thoughtful discussions with major figures from Malcolm X to Donald Rumsfeld, Gloria Steinem to Norman Mailer, Robert Caro to Jonas Salk, into a unique and authoritative mosaic exploring the major issues of our time. As such, the book is an account of the past fifty years as spoken by figures who made and lived our history. It is a treasury of never-before-published material from a dazzling array of public persons--both tremendous reading for the general public and a major new resource for students and historians alike.