July 2, 1986 - Dusko Doder, author and sovietologist, speaking at Minnesota Meeting. Doder’s address was on Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev's chances for success in achieving the social and economic transformation for the Soviet system. After speech, Doder answered audience questions. Doder is a Yugoslavian native, was educated in the United States, and served as Moscow correspondent for UPI and the Washington Post, and a Wilson Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the author of "Shadows and Whispers: Power Politics Inside the Kremlin from Brezhnev to Gorbachev." Minnesota Meeting is a non-profit corporation which hosts a wide range of public speakers. It is managed by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
October 1, 1986 - Jeff Greenfield, the political analyst, media critic and ABC television Nightline correspondent, speaking to the World Press Institute at Macalester College. Greenfield’s address was on the topic “The Information Age.” He talks about the press and changes in the news because of new forms of technology. After speech, Greenfield answered audience questions. The World Press Institute at Macalester College in St. Paul is observed its 25th anniversary. About a dozen foreign journalists come to the institute each year for six months of study and travel in the United States. The goal is to give them a broader understanding of the American culture and government. About 300 journalists have been a part of the program over the years.
October 16, 1986 - William Raspberry, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated American public affairs columnist, speaking at Minnesota Meeting. Raspberry talks about issues facing the black family, including single parent homes and joblessness. After speech, Raspberry answered audience questions. Raspberry was also the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communications and Journalism at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. An African American, he frequently wrote on racial issues. Minnesota Meeting is a non-profit corporation which hosts a wide range of public speakers. It is managed by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. This was the first live broadcast of Minnesota Meeting presented by MPR.
October 22, 1986 - Charles Atkins, commissioner of welfare for the state of Massachusetts, speaking at Itasca Seminar held in northern Minnesota. The seminar’s topic was "Self Sufficiency: Is It Possible?", and Atkin’s addressed his state's efforts to place welfare recipients into jobs. After speech, Atkins answered audience questions. Mr. Atkins has developed a program in Massachusetts to move women off the welfare rolls and into jobs. 25,000 women have become employed through the Education and Training Choices program since 1983. Prior to becoming welfare commissioner, Mr. Atkins served as deputy commissioner of the addiction services agency in New York City during the early '70s. In that position, he created a program to find employment for ex-drug addicts. In 1973 and '74, he was manager of employment operations for Citibank in New York, where he found other employment within the organization for low-level employees whose jobs had been eliminated by automation. When he was in Boston's Employment and Economic Policy administration, he succeeded in obtaining a 23-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to reduce youth unemployment in Boston.
November 5, 1986 - Mitch Snyder, homeless advocate, speaking at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth and sponsored by the College's Center for the Study of Peace and Justice. Snyder’s address was titled, “The Hungry and Homeless in America." Snyder is a member of the Washington D.C. based community for creative non-violence, which provides food, shelter and other help for about two thousand Washingtonians each day. Snyder has received attention for several acts of civil disobedience on behalf of homeless people and he is perhaps best known for his highly publicized fifty-one day fast in 1984. That fast reportedly helped convince President Reagan to release almost one million dollars in funds to begin converting an unused, federally owned building into a one thousand bed shelter for the homeless.
November 21, 1986 - Dr. Gerold Yonas, former chief scientist at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, speaking at Minnesota Meeting. Yona’s address was on the topic "SDI: Prospects and Challenges." Minnesota Meeting is a non-profit corporation which hosts a wide range of public speakers. It is managed by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
November 24, 1986 - MPR’s Jim Bickal reports that interim Minnesota Twins Manager Tom Kelly has been named permanent manager. Announcement also included two new managerial positions in organization.
December 2, 1986 - Richard Lawrence Garwin, the American physicist who authored the actual design used in the first hydrogen bomb (code-named Mike) in 1952, speaking at Minnesota Meeting. Garwin’s address was titled “Space Defense: The Impossible Dream,” and focuses on the SDI program. Garwin received his bachelor's degree from the Case Institute of Technology in 1947 and obtained his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1949, where he worked in the lab of Enrico Fermi. He was assigned the hydrogen bomb job by Edward Teller, with the instructions that he was to make it as conservative a design as possible in order to prove the concept was feasible (as such, the Mike device was not intended to be a usable weapon design, with tons of cryogenic equipment required for its use). Later on, while at IBM, he was the "catalyst" for the discovery and publication of the Cooley–Tukey FFT algorithm, and did research on inkjet printing.
December 17, 1986 - MPR’s Jim Bickal reports that the Minnesota Twins have decided against signing starter pitcher Jack Morris to a multi-year contract.
December 22, 1986 - Henry Cisneros, mayor of San Antonio and president of the National League of Cities, speaking at Minnesota Meeting. Cisnero’s address was on the topic "The Survival of the American Cities in the '80s". He places a special focus on jobs. George Latimer, St. Paul Mayor, introduces Cisneros. Minnesota Meeting is a non-profit corporation which hosts a wide range of public speakers. It is managed by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.