Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Presidency Doris Kearns Goodwin On Presidential Leisure 20220906

Wonderful book. Whats it called . Next year wait till next year about baseball. Its a terrific book and and many others she went to colby then she went to harvard got her various degrees up to her phd from harvard taught at harvard for a while then got into politics. So to speak staffer lbj and other i think youll say a few words about this. Lbj was really her focus for quite a while then she got into writing and has written all these wonderful books i have offered her. Blurb anytime she wants it my blurb for her will be if Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a book a biography of bullwinkle. Id buy it and read it in one night. So let me introduce to you doris kearns cooper. Thank you. Im so glad to be with all of you today, and im really glad i can talk to you tonight. And especially i want to talk to you about one of the most unappreciated aspects of leadership that ive discovered in all these years that ive been studying leaders and thats the ability to find time to relax to refuel to recharge to replenish energy. Its something thats harder and harder to do in our modern world when our cell phones travel with us everywhere we go. But in recent studies that i found it claims that our brain needs time to recharge or we run out of juice like our cell phones and this is something that the president s i have studied my guys. I like to call them because i spent so much time with them. They somehow intuitively understood without the benefit of these modern studies that they needed to find time to relax and recharge and they were pretty busy. They handled depressions and wars and if they could find time to relax and recharge, i think maybe we could as well. But first by way of introduction, let me say which tweets suggested that somehow Lyndon Johnson was an important part of why i became a president ial historian indeed never could i have imagined five decades ago and i started my historians career that i would end up studying dead president s for the rest of my life. It may seem a rather odd profession to spend one days and nights with dead president s, but i wouldnt change it for anything in the world. My only fear is that in the afterlife. Theres going to be a panel of all the president s that ive ever studied and every single one will tell me every single thing i missed about them and the first person to scream out will be Lyndon Johnson. How come that book on the roosevelts was twice as long as the book you wrote about me. But he would have a valid point because theres no question that that experience of being a 24 year old white house fellow to lyndon. Johnson was what made me want to be a president ial historian. We had a big dance at the white house the night. We were selected as white house fellows. He did dance with me. It wasnt that peculiar. There were only three women out of the 16 white house fellows, but as he twirled me around the floor he whispered that he wanted me to be assigned directly to him and the white house when youre a white house value either work one person in the white house staff the others for a cabinet officer. But it was not to be that simple for in the months leading up to my selection like many young people id been active in the antivietnam war movement while i was at harvard and a friend of mine and i had collaborated on an article which wed sent into the new republic but heard nothing from them, which was an article against Lyndon Johnson against the war in vietnam. And suddenly this article appeared in the new republic several days after the dance and the white house with the title how to remove Lyndon Johnson in 1968. So i was certain he would kick me out of the program but instead surprising. He said oh bring her down here for a year, and if i cant win her over no one can so. I did eventually end up working for him in the white house and then a company him to his ranch to help him on his memoirs. Never fully understanding why he had chosen me to spend so many hours to talk with he loved to talk. He was a fabulous colorful anecdotal storyteller, and i love to listen and i like to believe thats why i was there. But i also worry that part of it was that i was then a young woman and he had somewhat of a reputation with women, so i was constantly chattering to him about steady boyfriends. Even when i had no boyfriends at all. Everything was perfect until one day. He said he wanted to discuss our relationship which sounded rather ominous when he took me to the nearby lake called lake elby j. And there was wine and cheese and a red check tablecloth all the romantic trappings and he started outdoors more than any other woman. I have ever known in my heart sank. And then he said you remind me of my mother. It was pretty embarrassing. Pretty bad okay, given what was on in my mind . But i must say the older ive gotten the more i realize what an incredible privilege it was to spend so many hours with his aging line of a man defeated in the war in vietnam and yet a victor in so many ways a bipartisan leader who was able to bring both sides of the aisle together for historic legislation on civil rights and Voting Rights and medicare and id like to believe that that experience fired within me the drive to understand the interperson behind the public figure as as i moved from lbj to of k from jfk to Abraham Lincoln from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt from Franklin Roosevelt to Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard taft. And as i say i wouldnt change it for anything in the world. So im so grateful to have become an historic historian and so glad to be among president ial descendants is so exciting for me to meet all of you today. So here we are and im going to talk to you today really about the president s that i know the best which are Lincoln Teddy franklin and lbj and how they found time in this terrible times of pressure. Were living in a really difficult time. Now as you all know, theres a cascading series of crises and we have to find ways to find ourselves in the midst of it all one thing. I think that history can teach us is the most important lesson is that weve been through really difficult times before really really hard times the civil war the Great Depression World War Two and the thing is that we know how those crises ended. We know that the civil war ended with emancipation secure in the union restored. We know the Great Depression came to an end when there was a mobilization for World War Two we know that the allies one World War Two of the most important fight against fascism probably ever in western history, but the People Living at that time did not know these things they lived like we do. Anxiety of whether we know what the next chapter of our history will be but the important thing is that i think history can teach us that weve been through these tough times before and we emerge with greater strength. We have to believe in this country we have to act for this country and im talking tonight about something lighter, but i think deeper underneath that is that we have to do something we have to be part of this democracy. We have to make it strengthened and i believe history tells us weve done it before and we owe it to our own citizens to do it again. So now we can turn to a lighter come. How did these people in the middle of these terrible pressures like the pressures were dealing with today. How did they find time to recharge and relax . So Abraham Lincoln my guy who i lived with for the longest period of time for 10 years so much so that i felt like i came to know him. I do feel like i wake up with these guys in the morning i think about them when i go to bed at night. He actually went to the theater a hundred times during the civil war maybe even more than that one of the two theaters in washington. Knows that he went there a hundred times and he also went to the fords theater so it could be 200 times. He said when he went to a shakespeare play and he was back in prince house time that for a few precious hours. He could forget the war that was raging people would criticize him. Why are you doing this . How can you go to the theater in the midst of all these pressures . He said if i didnt go the anxiety would kill me. So that was one way that he was able to relax but the other way was that he had an extraordinary sense of humor and he would tell funny stories in the midst of the worst cabinet meetings some of the stories had a moral like an aesop fable that he had loved as a child, but some were just simply hilarious when he had been a lawyer on the circuit in illinois. They would travel from one county courthouse to the other and everywhere. He would go at the end of the day the lawyers and the judges and the bailiffs would live together in the same boarding house or tavern people would come from miles around to listen to Abraham Lincoln tell stories. He was stand with his back against the fire and entertain the crowd for winding stories our after hour one of my favorite stories that he loved to tell had to do with the revolutionary war hero ethan allen who went to england after the war and they decided he was going to a dinner party in england so they decided to embarrass him by putting a huge picture of general George Washington and the only outhouse where hed have to encounter it sooner or later and they figured hed be at the idea that George Washington was in an outhouse, but he came out of the outhouse not upset at all. They said well, didnt you see George Washington there . Oh, yes. He said i think it was the perfectly appropriate place for him. What do you mean they said well, he said theres nothing to make an englishman faster than the sight of general. George was. And and he had he had hundreds he had hundreds of these stories. So in them in the middle of the worst cabinet meetings one of these hes suddenly remember. Oh, theres a story related to what im talking about and out would come one of these great stories. I actually told that story on john stuart and they had to bleep the word. I just said it was lincoln who said it wasnt me . But anyway humor, he said whistled off sadness that a good story for him was better than a drop of whiskey. And he one time people said to him. Why do you tell so many stories . And he said because stories are better than facts and figures stories have a beginning a middle and end he understood i think what is true and thats why even today we went to sagamore hill and there was a great. National park ranger there who was telling a stories about Teddy Roosevelt. Theres something about stories who our brain is hardwired. So that stories of the way our ancestors used to tell people in the cave days. What the next generation would want to know so lincoln understood that and every great lecture when you look at the speeches he gave we remember the beautiful language, but they always told this is where we come from. This is where we are now. This is where we need to go. And then the other way he was able to find solace and relaxation was like many president s. He found refuge by getting away from washington dc. From june until october he and his family would go to the soldiers home three miles away from washington. It was a beautiful government compound for disabled veterans and included a twostory brick cottage where he was able to live in the summers and it was there away from the pressures of washington that he was able to think through the emancipation proclamation to write it and to think through the the war of necessity that it would allow him to constitutionally make it possible. So a number of our other president s have now discovered including pierce and buchanan and grant and harrison spend summertime vacations at a different Place Congress hall. I dont even know this place in cape may, new jersey, which was considered the summer white house and then in the next century president truman had a winter white house in key west, florida where he worked he strolled on the beach. He played poker he walked around the town and he came there. He said 11 times. Hes been 175 days. Or six months of his life there. So i think the ability to find another place to go from the primary place of work allows one to find that refuge that lincoln did. So now we move from Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt. I think no president had more sporting activities than Teddy Roosevelt Late Afternoon was a time for really active enterprise. It could be a boxing match a raucous game of tennis jujitsu a horseback ride his enormous capacity for work was matched by an enormous capacity for play. He particularly loved taking friends on hikes through rock creek parks wooded area and he made a simple rule you had to move point to point. You couldnt go around any obstacle if you came to a rock you had to go off you came to preview you had to go down it so there are stories of journalists and friends falling by the wayside in these ridiculous walks that he took but the best story was told by the french ambassador jewels juicer on he was so excited on his first walk with president. He came with his silk outfit on as if he were gonna walk in the sham say he say he found himself in the woods hating every minute of this walk. Finally they came to the river. He thought thank god its over. So he later wrote judge of my horror when i saw the president take office clothes and say was an obstacle we cant go around it. No sense of getting our clothes wet. So lets get undressed. So he said i too for the honor of friends took off my apparel. However, i left on my lavender kid gloves why he was told well, it would be most embarrassing if we should meet ladies on the other side. So all i could imagine was this idea of this friendship. I kept picture with absolutely nothing on but his lavender kid gloves. But back to Teddy Roosevelt. Oh, wait wait, i was going to tell you something else. So jules brings to mind another naked president john quincy adams. He evidently enjoyed skinny dipping in the potomac and theres a story thats told of a female reporter who found him one day when he was in the water and she yelled to him that she wouldnt let him come out unless he gave her an exclusive interview and then she promised he could go away and get dressed. So i dont know. This is another naked man. Youre gonna hear four naked men in my talk tonight. Youll see how they come along. But anyway the other way that Teddy Roosevelt was able to relax his wildly eclectic sporting activities were matched by his reading of books in books. He found not only relaxation. He said but stimulation they were his greatest companions. He would carry a book everywhere. He went even waiting for edith to come down to dinner. Hed be reading a book. And somehow in 1902 when he was faced with the worst political situation. They had to face a strike by the mine workers against the mine owners when it was fearful that the fuel couldnt even get to new england. He wrote to the librarian of congress and theres a great letter he writes to him. He says i need help. I need a book to take me away for a few hours a history of poland perhaps or maybe something on the early mediterranean races and then a week later. He wrote to the librarian. He said exactly the books. I would have wished. Its been such a delight to drop everything useful everything related to the coal strike or congress or the tariffs and spend an afternoon reading about the relations between a syria and egypt which could not possibly do me any good but in which i reveled accordingly, is that great. So there is no frigate like a book Emily Dickinson once said to take us lands away how true this was for Teddy Roosevelt and how true it was for Abraham Lincoln who was able through his reading as a boy to imagine a different way of life and escape from what seemed an excellent excellent poverty on his Hard Scrabble family farm literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings, but then theres another way that roosevelt was able to find replenishment and that was by taking these train trips around the country he would get out of washington. He said he had to get out on these long train trips one lasted nine weeks and covered 24 states freed from the vexations of congress. He radiated delight as he was stopping the train stations along the way connecting to these huge crowds that had come to see him they would bring him bizarre gifts some of which are probably in the house a badger. Well, not that a lizard a horn toad two bears a silver loving cup capable of holding. Types of beer now, of course he had to meet with local officials on these train trips. He would make speeches along the way but he spent invigorating days at yellowstone at yosemite at the grand canyon finding solace as always in the beauty of the Natural World and then as the train would pull away from the station. He was stand there waving to people who had just come to the little strange stations along the way where he wasnt stopping the Railroad Crossings and they would wave back and he loved it. But theres one story thats told where hes waving frantically at a crowd and theyre not responding to him until hes told because it was nearsightedness his waving frantically had a herd of cows Little Wonder that they were not responding. So then for teddys successor William Howard taft as for many succeeding president s golf provided the greatest relaxation. Taft said the beauty of the game is you cannot play if it unless you permit yourself to think of nothing else as every man knows he said whos played the game it rejuvenates and restretches the span of life. And yet when he was running for president and teddy was acting as his Campaign Manager teddy told him in no uncertain tone terms you must stop playing golf while youre running for president the golf is a rich mans game a dudes game the working class isnt going to like you at the very least never permit yourself to be photographed on the golf course he countered but its a great form of exercise in my neverending quest to lose weight, but teddy remained adamant, so but once the election was won taft was so glad to return to his favorite form of relaxation. It was said that his love for the game created a golfing boom in the nation at large. Well that love for the game. Ive discovered was shared by wilson who said it put oxygen into his heart by hearting by nixon by trump and by eisenhower, theres a story that i said howard was so serious about golf that he asked the Augusta National to remove a tall pine tree on the 17th hole because it thwarted his own long drives they refused his request but ever since the tree has been known as the eisenhower pine tree and one can see it on the Augusta National course. But then theres another story about golf that my husband tells my late husband was working for john kennedy in the campaign in 18 19 in 1860 in 1960, and he they won the election. He became a young white house aide to john kennedy and not long after the inauguration. Kennedy called him into the office and he said look at this. Theres a series of small indentations on the floor here of the oval office. What do you think . They are and my husband said, could it be some security devices . Could it be some microphones implanted by Jay Edgar Hoover . No kennedy grind. Its from ikes golf shoes. You see he would put them on at his desk and then he would walk outside to practice his putting on a new putting green that he had put outside on the south lawn. Well, jfk said, i guess we all have our own ways of relaxing from the burdens of office. At least i wont leave any marks on the floor. I wouldnt even tell you where that one goes. But anyway, lets return to taft. For he found in my beloved baseball another means of relaxation. It was taft to in 1910 at a washington senators game throughout the first ball and that became a thing that president s do legend also taps calves credit with the seventh evening stretch as the story is told the six foot two 300 pound president grew increasingly uncomfortable in the small wooden chairs. So by the seventh inning he stood to stretch his legs then his fellow spectators decided that they saw him rising and theyd follow his lead as a matter of respect for the presidency. Thus the tradition of the seventh ending stretch was started. While following in taft splits footsteps baseball has provided relaxation for president s hoover who considered baseball . Number one fan for nixon for reagan who would announce cubs games when he was during his broadcasting career for bush 43 who had owned the texas rangers. So now we go from baseball we go from sports we go from storytelling from going to the theater and come to fdr and some of my favorite stories about carving out times for relaxation and replenished come from Franklin Roosevelt. Lets start with his hobby of stamp collecting it started when he was a child allowing him to master a small corner of the world a protected space. That was all his own from his very loving but very overbearing mother all his life he would spend time arranging and rearranging his stamp collection. It provided a meditative space in which he could concentrate and focus. Theres a wonderful story of a visit from churchill to roosevelt during World War Two and he recalled sitting by the president s side for two hours as the president was just simply putting his stamps in a place for getting the cares of the world until finally a dispatch came in the both of them had to turn their attention to the world war at large, but he said he just found enormous comfort in watching that roosevelt would switch himself from those terr. Precious to Something Like a stamp collection and then there was also his love of poker a love that was shared by truman and eisenhower fdr relished the psychological aspects of the game as i suspect all of them did and he took particular pleasure in paying by check when he lost because he figured that the person who he lost to would want to keep the check as a souvenir so he would never cash it. So but the great story is told it was his custom every year when the speaker of the house was about to call when congress would adjourn he would play a poker game with his cabinet officers and the rule was at the moment the speaker of the house called to say the congress was adjourning whoever was ahead at that moment would win the game. So one of these years hes playing with secretary morganthau of the treasury and a bunch of other guys and hes way behind when the speaker of the house calls. So he pretends that its somebody else on the line. He said well, were in the middle big spoke again. Call you back. They playing finally at midnight. He pulls ahead and he whispers to an aid. Call me back. Oh mr. Speaker. Youre adjourning. Well, boys. I guess i win and he rakes in all the chips. Well morgan thou finds out the next morning who had been ahead the first time that it had closed. They speaker the house that calls at 9 am he was so angry he came in and actually resigned his post to secretary of the treasury until of course fdr convinced him that it was all in good fun. Well, then there was fishing a love that fdr shared with cleveland who wrote a book about the virtues of fishing with coolidge with eisenhower with truman with carter and with bush 43. And once again, theres a story i love in which fishing played a great role for fdr turned out. There was a longstanding fight between two of fdrs cabinet officers hopkins and ickys about how to spend the billions of dollars in in public works projects ickys had been a progressive businessman and he thought it was better to spend it in longterm projects you would prime the pump. And create some infrastructure like Laguardia Airport which of course needed redoing afterwards and the lincoln tunnel and the bonneville dam, but it took a long time for those things to be developed. So people werent getting to work immediately hopkins had been a social worker and he thought you just needed to get to work people whatever schools libraries painting murals. They needed the dignity of work and they would argue about it and fdr was okay if they argued about it until it went into the press and finally like icky said about hopkins. Hes just producing nothing. Hes not just longterm projects of what we need and then hopkins said, yeah, but people dont eat in the long term they eat every day and they started arguing with each other in the press. So so fdr decide i better take them on a long fishing trip. He took them not panama canal for a threeweek fishing trip. They would have martinis every night. They would play poker. They were fishing and then finally, he said they buried their feud in the sea. He sent down a trunk into the bottom. A in which they both promised they wouldnt fight in public again. So fishing had actually made that possible and then there was another 10day fishing trip in the caribbean in december of 1940 when roosevelt freed from the conventional thinking in washington after churchill had said we desperately need help you have to send us weapons, but their neutrality laws he couldnt do it. He came up the brainstorm with len lease while he was on that fishing trip. He said he had to be away from washington in order to think again a lesson for all of us. And then there were swimming of course for fdr after losing his ability to walk with polio. He had a pool that was donated for him and made into the white house and he would swim in that pool somehow to strengthen the muscles in his arms and his shoulders his stomach and his lumber lower back. After the election as president as i say these donors had put together to create a pool for him, which leads me to another story about another naked president like john quincy adams. Lbj liked to swim naked in his pool. So my husband learned this after he left kennedy after kennedy died and he joined johnson staff and a few weeks later. He was called by bill moyers who said he wants to see us in the pool. And so my husband said, i dont have a bathing suit. He said dont worry. Its not needed so they get to the pool. They quickly undress themselves get into the pool johnson doesnt relax. He just talks the entire time in the pool. My husband said hed walk. He was like a polar bear. He was just side stroking up and down the pool. Come on in boys. Itll do you good so they get in but it wasnt meant for relaxation. He talked about all the bills that he wanted to pass in the congress the entire time he outlined this is in march and april of 1964. Eventually. My husband will write the Great Society speech from which this is the the rudimentary beginning of it talks about civil rights and Voting Rights and medicare federal aid to education and tax cut. I want you to start putting together a program. He said we need task force as we need a speech and so in that pool naked lbj outlined what would become the Great Society . Well when nixon came to the white house, he took out the pool and put in a bowling alley, which he preferred to swimming. Finally. Its back to a pool right now. But of all my stories about president s relaxing fdrs Cocktail Party is my favorite story. During World War Two. We had a Cocktail Party every night and the rule was you could not talk about the war you could talk about books. You read you could talk about gossip you could talk about movies. Youve seen as long as the war didnt come up. So for a few precious hours, he could relax and not think about the war. So after a while this Cocktail Party was so important to him. He wanted the regulars who would be at the Cocktail Party to live at the white house on the second floor with him to be ready for the Cocktail Party. So the white house became the most exclusive Residential Hotel you could possibly imagine his Foreign Policy adviser. Harry hopkins came for dinner one night slept over never left until the war came to an end his secretary missile hand lived with the family in the white house. Lorena hancock, a friend of eleanor has lived right there. And the great Winston Churchill came and spent weeks at a time in a room right there on the second floor the white house. So when i was writing the book about franklin and eleanor no ordinary time, i began obsessed where did each one of them sleep so i mentioned this when i the book came out on a radio show in washington, and it happened that Hillary Clinton was listening, so she called me up at the Radio Station invited me to a sleepover in the white house. She said we could then wander the carter together and figure out where everyone has slept 50 years earlier. So two weeks later. She followed up with an invitation to a state dinner after which between midnight and 2 am the president mr. Clinton my husband and i with my map in hand went through every room up there and figured out yes Chelsea Clinton is sleeping where Harry Hopkins was the clintons are sleeping where fdr was and we were given that night this chance to sleep in Winston Churchills bedroom. There was no way i could sleep. I was certain he was sitting in the corner drinking his brandy and smoking has ever present cigar. In fact that room as the scene of my favorite story in World War Two when churchill came there right after pearl harbor he and roosevelt was set to sign a document that put the associated nations against the axis powers. And no one really liked the word associated nations so early that morning roosevelt awakened with a whole new idea of calling them the United Nations against the axis powers. He was so excited. He had himself wheeled into churchills bedroom our bedroom to tell him the news but its so happened churchill was just coming out of the bathtub and had absolutely nothing on. So roosevelt said, im so sorry. Ill come back in a few moments, but churchill ever able to speak in a very formal voice said, oh no, please stay the Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the president of the United States. Can you imagine you have the ability to say that at that moment and then hes told the idea of using the word United Nations. He quotes an entire poem in British Literature where the words United Nations and once been used. So the next morning i couldnt wait to go in the bath. And then i truly felt i am in the presence of the greatness of the past. But still despite cocktail hours theaters exercising there were times when the pressures were such that sleep proved impossible what then did the president s do. Well lincoln had two rituals on really troubling days. He would go over pardons for soldiers before bedtime. If he found an excuse for saving a soldiers life from death who had fallen asleep on pick a duty perhaps or run away from battle. He could go to bed. Happy knowing that hed given that soldier a Second Chance to redeem himself and knowing how joyous the signing of his name would make his family and his friends somehow allowing someone else to live helped him to think about all those that had died and then he was still unable to sleep. He would go into the room where his young age, nicole and hey lived and he would read aloud to them from shakespeares comedies when they when they would fall asleep. Finally he would return to his own bed, but those comic passages would be in his head rather than the news of the day. Well fdr had his own ritual for nights that were filled with great tension. He would close his eyes and imagine himself back at hyde park as a boy standing with his sled at the top of the hill that stretched down from the wooded to the wooded cliffs below at the hudson river. He would in his minds eye accelerate down the hill maneuvering all the familiar curves get to the bottom of the hill take the sled up and go over and over again in his mind. Again, and again, he replayed that remembered scene undoing the knowledge that he would never climb a hill or ever walk on his own power again, and thus the present of the the United States fell asleep. So to bring us to the modern day a few years ago. I was interviewing a ceo of a very Important Company in the world. I was telling him these stories about how my president s fell asleep. So i said to him. Well, what do you do and really tense times and he grinned and he i take an ambien. So thats our modern day. But in closing, let me take you back to where i began with my lifelong love of history and to the place where that love truly began to the days when i was only six years old and my father taught me that mysterious art of keeping score while listening to baseball games so that when he went to work in new york during the day i grew up in rockville center. We were huge brooklyn dodger fans. He would come home at night and i could record for him, which i had done every play of every inning of the game that had just taken place that afternoon and he listened was such a tentiveness and i loved him so much that it made me feel that this is magic about history. Even if its only four or five hours old to keep my fathers attention. In fact, he made me i think understand the narrative art because at first i would be so excited. I would blurt out the dodgers one or the dodgers lost which took much of the drama of this two hour telling away. So i finally learned you had to tell a story from beginning to middle to end. He made it even more special for me because he never told me then that all of this was described in great detail in the sports pages of the newspapers the next day. So i thought without me he wouldnt even know what happened to the brooklyn dodgers. Well, though my father died of a sudden heart attack when i was still in my 20s before i got married and had my three sons. I have passed his love of baseball and my memories of my father onto my boys though when the dodgers abandoned us and went to los angeles. I couldnt follow baseball anymore until i went to harvard my boyfriend took me to fend my park. So reminiscent of old ebbets field a team. So reminiscent of the old brooklyn dodgers almost always winning but losing at the end that i became an equally irrational red sox fan we had season tickets for over 35 years and i must say there was so many times when ive sat with my sons at the ballpark at fenway park, and i could imagine myself once more a girls talking with my father and watching the players of my youth on the grassy fields below Jackie Robinson Pee Wee Reese duke snider gil hodges, and i must say there is magic in these moments for i could open my eyes and i see my sons where my father once at and i felt the invisible loyalty and love that would somehow connect my sons to the grandfather whose face they never had a chance to see but whose heart and soul they have come to know through all the stories. I have told which in the end i think is why i so love this curious. Love of history allowing me to spend a lifetime looking back into the past allowing me to believe that the private people we have loved and lost in our families and the public figures we have respected in history like the president s. We are honoring today really can live on so long as we pledge to tell and to retell the stories of their lives. Thank you for letting me share those stories with you tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if the cspan microphone i where are you . There you are. So. We are were being filmed by by cspent. Oh, yes. Yes. Were being filmed by cspan and were getting youre giving your permission by asking a question to appear on cspan. So i dont want any complaints from anybody. All right . Go ahead. Wait a minute. Wait for the story good. Thank you so much for coming and doing this. I feel like a 13 Year Old Girl whos just running to Justin Bieber really . Its such a fan. Um, im very or at least how i think a 13 year old might anyway. In the introduction to your book bully pulpit you use the line. I just i really loved it was you said at that time about which you were writing the country was molting m o l t i n g. Is there do you feel we are molting right now . And what is a good sign of molting as opposed to molten . Well, you know, i think what i meant then was the turn of the 20th century. I think in many ways echoes today more than any other time. We had the Industrial Revolution that had shaken up the economy much like technological revolution and globalization have today. We had a country that for the first time had a gap between the rich and the poor we had people in the country who felt suspicious of people in the city we had immigration coming that made people feel a nostalgia for an earlier way of life. All the technological advances had made people scared about the pace of life changing. It was moving from a country that had been mostly a farm country into a country. That was an industrialized country and i think now were in a state where our country is changing and similar ways and the one thing that theater roosevelt warned against that i think is so relevant today is that he was afraid that if people in different sections or regions or parties began thinking of each other as the other that thats when democracy would be apparel rather than as common american citizens and that was it peril at the turn of the 20th century. There really was a feeling that democracy was at risk. They were anarchists bombings in the streets when you know from your own from from president cleveland as well because of happening in the 1890s as well as the turn of the century and it just meant that the country was moving into a different direction, which i think we are now and its scary for people and theyre people who dont want to move in that future direction and somehow weve got to figure out a way. Its a very long answer to your question, but i think we have to figure out a way to get people to feel that common sense of identity. Again, its bigger than just polarization of parties. Its somehow not feeling a relationship to people in different parts of the country if i had one thing i could do. Id like to see some sort of National Service program where the Younger Generation they come out of high school and they have a year or two and they go to a different part of america. They go from the country to the city or the a country its why the military service is so important it creates that common sense of identity. I have a son who joined the army right after 9 11 it just graduated from harvard, and he said that that experience of having a combat platoon leader. He earned a bronze star in iraqi, then went to afghanistan will stay with him the rest of his life because he was able to meld people together. We need to do that in this country. And i think thats what i met by the molting. So its a long answer to your great question. Hi, you had mentioned the idea of oh, there you are. Thank you. Youd mentioned the idea and the talk of president s relaxing and today in the modern day world presence relaxing is is frowned upon the day tallied the times as you say that they play golf or go swimming or fishing or go to the beach and i wondered if that was a concern. In the world where there was no instant media for the president s and if it was something that they really gave any thought to how their rest was perceived. I think your question is right. I think that in those days partly people would go away from from congress all summer long and when there was no air conditioning and it was so terrible to live in washington. It was acceptable. I mean, i think roosevelt went to hide, you know, he went to sagamore hill fdr would go to hyde park there was a certain kind of tolerance that there were times when you needed to be away from from washington, and i i really dont have much patience for people who complain if somebody takes some time away. The pressures are such that they need to do so and i think we have to just give them slack when they do so and and its partly the social media that people maybe as lincoln said people did criticize him because he was going to the theater so much to them must have been some of that in those days, but i think there was less than there are today because people understood that there had to be a time away and there had to be a time at work and they worked pretty hard as they did and besides you bring your work with you everywhere you go. Its not like it goes away from you. So i think we have to have a little more acceptance of the fact that its a really tough job and that we should allow them to find whatever time they can and and its we have to give it to ourselves. I mean, thats the problem with whats happening today. Theres a sense that you can never leave your work behind you and its not a healthy thing. I think and were beginning to i think we learned that through covid in a strange way as people spend more time at home and felt what it was like to balance home and family in a way that they hadnt done before when they were on that ambitious track. Wait a minute. Oh, wow pretty quick. Thank you. Um, you so beautifully about johnson being the great compromiser and how today biden probably much had a similar track that johnson had in terms of being a senate of so many years and involved in government. How do you feel you would advise biden to learn from history to be able to get through these times now . Well, it was interesting in i think it was in march of 2021 President Biden had a group of us historians to come and talk to him about what kind of advice we would give from our president s in the past. It was something that president obama had also done he had arranged. In fact, id help him arrange a series of dinners where we would come and give him advice on whatever he was talking about at the moment from our guys and not that we came dressed up as jackson or jefferson or roosevelt, but we came with those guys minds in our heads we had maybe four or five of those with president obama and they were so much fun. So President Biden did the same thing i talked to him about the fireside chats and the importance of somehow being able to connect to the public because as lincoln said we were talking about this earlier tonight public sentiment is everything with it. Anything is possible without it. Nothing is possible and i still think thats true and thats why being able to connect to the public. In the way you talk to the public and link and roosevelt understood you shouldnt talk to them too often. He only gave 35 side chats a year. I mean, im 35. Sorry. I saw chassin is 12 years rather that meant two or three a year. He said if my speeches ever become routine, they will lose their effectiveness. And i think thats one of the problems for modern president s. Theyre on the air all the time. You dont make a distinction between a really important speech and a second early in sports and speech. I think youre right that president brian brought with him a perception of a senate that was different from it was today where you really could bring people together where they spend time in washington together. They werent running home in as they do now. They have homes and theyre not in washington on the weekends. Theres not that camaraderie that there once was and you cant change that part of the of the world to make it the world. It is today. Something has to break the the fever thats in washington that is make people unable to get along and do something there to be compromises and some of these most important issues where overwhelming majority of the people feel one way and they cant get it through the congress and i think hes tried to do as well a job as he can. Do i think when he first came in the fact that he was able to get a hundred million vaccines in the peoples arms at a time when he promised a hundred days made it work and then the Delta Variant came and then afghanistan came and then the inability of the democrats to come together on the issues came and then and then ukraine has come and the inflation has come its been a cascading series of crises that im not sure its faced any other president a long period of time and without the strength of the country being together to face these crises. Its a really hard time. I sometimes think in my own lifetime that has been the most difficult time to be president even as i look at the historically but as i said earlier on we still have to remember that it was really tough what we went through before and we got through it again and somehow weve got to believe this country can do it again. So, i think its getting late. So yes, sir to do the one more will take one more. Okay. Sounds like the auction one more. May i ask you in retrospect did lbj regret accelerating our involvement in vietnam . You know, its its interesting when i when i was with him those last years. We talked we talked about the war. It was very hard for him to acknowledge that it had been a mistake because if you acknowledge that then youre acknowledging that. What did these boys die for and it becomes really hard to do that. Theres no question. However that in those last years what he talked to me about was he wanted to remember the times in his life that were happier for him when he was with the National Youth administration when he brought rural electricity to rural texas when he passed the civil rights bill the Voting Rights bill, and he was just hoping that somehow history would remember not the war which was so ever present in those last days when he was so sad when hes in the ranch and those last days knowing that it cut is legacy and too, but he still held out hope that they would remember what was done for civil rights and Voting Rights and history is now recording that i must say historians polls each one that comes out lbj goes higher on the polls what he was able to do in civil rights. I mean when he came into the presidency jfks bill on civil rights to end segregation in the south was absolutely stuck. I dont think there was any hope it was going to easily get through congress and he made his First Priority to pass that bill and his friend said to him. You cant do this. Youre going to fail nothing will get through the congress the filibuster will prevent it. Youll have to go before the public in 11 months and youre going to have to run as a failed president and youve only got a certain amount of currency as presidency. You cant spend it on this and then he famously said then what the hell is the presidency for and he went for civil rights and what he did was extraordinary. It really was i mean he he was able to he brought every single congressman and groups of 30 to the white. And then youd have dinner with them at the white house and then lady bird would take them on a tour of the mansion and hed have port and brandy with the guys and then the next day he would start calling them he would call them at 6 00 am he would call them at midnight. He even called a senator at 2am, and he said i hope i didnt wake you up and instead of said no, i was just looking at the ceiling hoping my president would call. And then he understood that he had to get the republicans to break that filibuster. So he started in on Everett Dirks and youll see new the minority leader could bring the republicans unless he got 22 republicans to join the 44 northern democrats because the Democratic Party was split into he couldnt break the filibuster. So he starts promising anything to dirksen and in those days there was no transparency you what do you want me to come to peoria springfield . You want pardons. Do you want this you could have anything you want, but finally he knows what will move dirks and he said everett you come with me on this bill you bring 22 republicans break that filibuster 200 years from now school. Will know only two names Abraham Lincoln and Everett Dirksen, how can dirksen resist and ill just tell you the last story. So anyway, it was an extraordinary thing. He did and then the next year the selma demonstrations have those people are heard on that bridge and he knows that hes got to go before a joint session of congress and argue for Voting Rights, even though we thought civil rights needed two years to be worked on before he went to Voting Rights and i must say my late husband wrote that speech the we shall overcome speech forelin and johnson, its the most incredible speech every now and then history and fate meet at a certain time in a certain place. So it was in lexington and concord, so it was at appomattox. So it was in selma, alabama. This is not a problem and its not a white problem. Its not a northern province. Its not a southern problem. Its not a moral problem. There is no moral right to deny your fellow citizens the right to vote. It is an american problem and we are met here tonight to meet that problem and then weeks later the Voting Rights act passed those acts of courage on his part and id like to believe and i think his children linda and lucy have seen it happen that hes going to be rewarded for what he did in social justice and in Economic Opportunity and he was an extraordinary man. I probably the most interesting man ive ever met in public life and i really would like to believe that history will record what he did and the great thing that hes done and ill leave this last message because he had tapes of all these telephone conversations that he had with all these people and those tapes if now been preserved if youve ever heard them, theyre extraordinary how hes able to talk to these people and the funny story. I heard was years later i met don kendall the the ceo of pepsi cola and he said to me now, i know you you knew Lyndon Johnson you were young girl, but i have a story you dont know and he said when Richard Nixon first became president , he asked kendall to go to johnsons ranch to talk about some private controversial matter. He said i get to the ranch johnsons working on his memoirs. Says, how can i remember what happened 20 years ago 30 years ago. The only chapters are any good at all. I had this little taping my system on my oval office and then i have verbatim conversations of all these deals i made with the congressman those chapters are really coming alive. So you go back and tell you good friend nixon as he starts his presidency. There is nothing more important than a taping system. By Lyndon Johnson contrib ute, thank you all very much. Thank you. All right. Well, then what i want to do today is