The Sixties have always fired passions and stirred up angry debates. Now, the decade's history is being re-written by scholars who were in diapers during the anti-war riots. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a new generation looks at The Sixties. Also, the tragic failure of Robert McNamara.

SEGMENT 1

Historian Tom Sugrue tells Steve Paulson that much of what we believe about the 1960s is wrong. The real story involves the emergence of modern conservatism. Sugrue teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

SEGMENT 2:

Journalist Paul Hendrickson researched the role of Robert McNamara in the Vietnam War. He tells Steve Paulson that McNamara continued selling the War to the American people long after he had personally given up on it. Hendrickson is a reporter for the Washington Post. His book on McNamera is called "The Living and the Dead." Also, Robben Fleming, one-time Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin and later President of the University of Michigan (and our own Jim Fleming's father) tells Judith Strasser what it was like to try to manage schools that were hotbeds of student activism. Robben Fleming's memoir is called "Tempests into Rainbows: Managing Turbulence."

SEGMENT 3:

In her book "Babel Tower," novelist A.S. Byatt chronicles the passions of the 1960s and describes a utopian community just after the French Revolution. She tells Steve Paulson that the two eras have much in common. Byatt's best-known book is the novel "Possession."

Distribution dates:

• week of 12/08/96 - hour 3
• week of 07/06/97 - hour 3