Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140902

Kill you. Domestic politics can unseat you. So he was a Foreign Policy president. Johnson, his grandiosity was being another Franklin Roosevelt. You know, wars do have a tonic effect as well as a very toxic one. And they really rally us all together and there was a great slogan that wilson urged upon the nation and the legislature especially which was politics is adjourned and for the few years that we were actually fighting in the war america did adjourn politics. Rose looking at president ial leadership when we continue. Funning for charl yee rose is provided by the following and by bloomberg. A provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. The great fundamental issue now before our people t is are the American People fit to govern themselve, to rule themselves, to control themselves. I believe they are. Rose doris concerns goodwin is here, she is a historian, she is an author. She is so much more. Her books have brought to life some of the most fascinating figures in American History. Welcome. Thank you. Rose when did Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard taft first meet . They first meet when theyre in their 30s in washington. Teddy is Civil Service commissioner and taft is solicitor general. They lived in the same part of washington and they had kids the same age. They walked together to work. I loved the image of them walking. Taft sort of listening to teddy. Teddy what is the difference in 9 size of these two men . Well, taft would have been then, at a slimmer level, 250, 270. Teddy, teddy weighed in the 200s. But teddy is 5, 9, 10. Taft is almost 6 feet tall. But hes much bigger anyway. So they would have looked shorter than each other. And then what happened to the friendship . Well, it lasted for a long time. And, in fact, teddy makes taft his hand picked successor in 1908 when he wasnt running again. Runs his campaign. Gives him all the advice in the world. Dont play golf, its a rich mans game am you wont look like a working class guy. Fight, brian, dont just answer him, fight him. Rose William Jennings brian. Right. And hes so happy when taft wins. He says taft will carry out my legacy. I trust no one more. He calls him a beloved person in his letters. Teddy then goes to africa. Gives him space, comes back and his progressive friends tell him that taft hasnt been as honest to the legacy. Rose and he is cozying up to c. E. O. S. And to the regulars in the congress, who he needed, he thought, to get the tariff bill through it was more complicated than that. He simply didnt know how to be a public leader and he screwed up the things he tried to do to fulfill teddys legacy. And then teddy comes back and hes missing being president and the progressives say we want you, so he ends up running against taft. Rose and Woodrow Wilson wins. Well, when the two split the vote. Teddy and taft together, teddy as the Third Party Candidate and taft as the regular republican candidate get more than 50 of the vote, but they split it and the democrat wins and wins the congress and wins the senate. Rose and then we had world war i and thats the way history happens. Thats the way history happens. Rose so about more about the friendship. They were very different men, one loved the public eye, taft didnt like the public eye, he was much more cerebral. Deliberative. I think what happened is part of it is opposites attracting, that teddy was so outdoorsy, taft except for golf hardly wanted to walk. Teddy tried to drag him on these Rock Creek Park expeditions he would go on in the afternoon when you climb over rocks and mountains and he would just stay home. But they shared from early on, they were like new reformers in the early corrupt age of the 1890s, 1900s, early gilded age. They both wanted to see politics out of Civil Service. They both wanted to see regulation of government. And they were considered new men. So that was what they shared as young people. Against the establishment of the republican party. Rose said Teddy Roosevelt presided over a transition in americas public life. What was that . Well, before Teddy Roosevelt nothing really had been done to help the social and economic problems of the industrial age. You had this huge gap between the rich and the poor. So many echoes like today, takes me so long to write these book, the ecoes come back. The middle class is being squeezed out. Youve got monopolies that are forming and not doing fairly by people. And youve got ten ams and slums. And they thought then before Teddy Roosevelt that government had nothing to do with that. Indeed it interfered with the economy, you screw up the whole economy. So he begins to have the modern presidency of the steward of the people. And he forces in a certain sense through public pressure to get congress to the first regulation of meatpacking. The first regulation of labor situations. Antitrust suits. Its the modern world. Its beginning, modern regulatory world. Rose you find corelation to todays world as weve gone to a new age which i assume you call, you know, the digital age. Exactly. No, its really incredible. Because what happens in the 1900s because of the inventions, the telephone, the telegraph has come in, everything is speeded up, they talk about nervous disorders at the turn of the 20th century because the pace of life is so much bigger than it used to be before. Youre not writing letters, youre telegramming. You have moved from the country to the city and no longer have the solace of the country. Then you think about it today, if that was considered speeded up, the internet has speeded up our lives exponentially. Rose there was also this basic question, what is the role of government. Thats right. Rose which is still a big basic question, looking at the health care debate. It was debated philosophically. Laissezfaire, the belief that government should not interfere in the economy was held with almost a religious fervour. It wasnt just a political ideology. The overwhelming majority of the people in the politics and the country believed you would hurt this prosperous economy if you got too involved in anyway. So that is why teddy had to use the bully pulpit, the word he defined, the in the platform that a president has unlike any other political figure, to educate the country as to why government had to be important in their lives. It was a big deal weigh did. He was the first person to use the bully pulpit of the white house. Indeed use the word and use the bully pulpit. He loved reporters. They would come in. If you were running around then as a tv guy or radio guy or a print guy and he was having his hour shaving, you would be in there, taking pictures while the barber is trying to keep touch of his moving head. Rose an he never feared the the press, he basically thought they were necessary. Its better than he thought they were necessary, he was a writer sow respected them. And he knew as long as he could accept their criticism he would accept his criticism. They could argue with him, he could argue with them, them in print and instead of breaking the friendship it kept going. That is the unusual thing about him. What i think history is about is stories. You tell a series of connected stories, so here im telling a series of stories about taft and teddy, about tarbell there is another person with great journalist, she makes another decision as a woman, a young woman, at 14, she prayed that she will never get married because she sees the frustration of her mother who had talent and never does something. So she never does get married and become the most famous woman of herera. Today we can have those things together no one of these three women thought they could have. Its good. Rose its good. As you were talking about, i was thinking about your son who went to iraq and all of that. And hes back. We were here together. I remember, i remember. So then there is the campaign, was it mean . It was so meanspirited. I think eventually the only way that teddy could justify his feelings of going against taft was to really exaggerate what taft had done, what he was so he really came to believe taft had betrayed him and was a traitor, he called him a fat head with a guinea pig brain. And taft thinking teddy running for a third term and going after this radical proposal that said the country if it didnt like a Court Decision by popular recall, could recall the decision. For taft judicial love that was way over the edge so he thought a dictatorship might occur or a popular plebocte. They were really mean. When taft got mean to teddy, he got sad. Teddy loved the fight, of course. Eventually what makes a good ending finally is that i felt bad wondering what could have happened to the two of them after 1912 when they run against each other. And people tried to bring them together in 1914, 1916. But it was almost like an armed neutrality. They still were mad at each other. Rose so they never talked. They never had a meal together. Never, never during that time. Well, they met but very coldly. And then finally in 1918 about the year before teddy died, hes in the hospital with an illness that taft had once had. So taft just wrote him a note saying i know what you are going through, its feignful painful and teddy answered hmmmm but they still hadnt seen each other. But then in 1919 only months before teddy died, no, 1918, a pont before teddy dies in january of 19, taft goes to the blackstone hot nell chicago and hes going up in the elevator and the elevator operator says to him oh, mr. Roosevelt is in the dining room eating alone. So taft says well take me back town. He goes in the room, wait until you hear this, there is a reporter there, thank god, to record this. He goes in the room, there are 100 diners. The wait staff is all there he goes over to teddy, hello. Throws his arm around him, teddy says sit down, throws his arm around, the entire restaurant clapped. They know this means the friendship has come together. Rose thats great. So great. And the reporter. Rose it makes me crazy. Teddy says to the reporter thank god this happened. Im so glad were friends again. And then some monthslater teddy dies and taft is an honored guest at the funeral. And he says to teddys sister i done know what i would have done if we hadnt come back together again. I would have mourned it all my life. Rose and. It is emotional. Rose what happened to taft after that. The great thing that happens to taferkts all his life what he wants to be is be a justice on the Supreme Court. Teddy offers it to him three times. He doesnt take either three times, twice he is in the philippines and thinks he cant leave his duty. The third time he is already a candidate for the president sow makes it that choice, i will go to the presidency. Finally in 1921 he get as pointed Supreme Court chief justice. Hes happy the rest, the last decade of his life. He said this is the happiest day of my life when he became Supreme Court chief justice. Rose at what age. In his 60s then. And he lived until the end, he was almost there for a decade until he died. And the incredible thing about his weight is that it goes up and down his whole life depending on his happiness. So hes 250 at yale. Then when hes happy at yale, then 350 and the presidency and back to 2 250 again when hes on the Supreme Court when he didnt need to be thin because he had a robe. Rose an he loved that work. He loved it that work. He was, his father was a judge. He loved being a judge. He probably meant it when he said if it hadnt been for nelly, my wife, i would have still been a judge in cincinnati. But still he later said i got to see a world. My kid kos always say that their father had been president. And i dont think he regretted it. But i think he was very happy. Rose how many president s have we had that became Supreme Court justices. Nobody else. No chief justices. Charles evan hughes had been a justice and ran for president but lost. So he would have been the other one had he won. Rose amazing. And so how old was roosevelt when he died. Only 60. So he had probably hurt himself when he went on that trip on the river of doubt and had some fevers left in him. But he wasnt feeling well the last month or so of his life but had gone back to sagamore hills, seemed to be Getting Better and that night he sppbt the whole nights day with edith and it was at their beloved home. And he went to sleep and had an embolism and died in his sleep as the Vice President at the time said, this is the only way cohave died. Death had to take him sleeping or he would have put up a fight. So 60 years old. I mean so young. The bully pulpit, and the golden age of journalism. We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and as clear as the american constitution. The heart of the question is, whether all americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities. Whether we are going to treat our fellow americans as we want to be treated. And we cannot and now ar are at least we can help make the world safe through diversity. Where in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our childrens futures. And we are all more tal mortal. Rose it has been 50 years since president john f. Kennedy was assassinated in dallas on november 22nd, 1963. Joining me to discuss this man and his presidency and his legacy is robert dallack, a president ial historian and the author of Camelots Court inside the Kennedy White house. His previous book about president kennedy was called an uninfished life. Also here this evening richard reeves, a senior lecturer in the university of southern california. Hes also the general editor of the New York Times book the kennedy years. He also wrote a kennedy book called president kennedy, a profile of power. And Jeff Greenfield joins us. He is a political analyst and author of a new book, if kennedy lived. Hes written about politics all his life. And jill abrahmson, executive editor of the New York Times. She also has written a piece and got a lot of attention in the New York Times book review called an elusive president. And joining us from washington, michael beschloss, he is a president ial historian and regular contributory pbs newshour and nbc news. I am pleased to have all of them here this evening. To reflect on president john f. Kennedy. Needless to say the fact that he was taken in the way that he did, at the age of 46, makes it as as adds to the drama. But i think we wouldnt be interested all these years later if those years were not a time where an awful lot happenednd he was the center of it. Take two things, biggest thing in domestic policy was civil rights. Kennedy took awhile to do it but in june of 1963 sent the first big comprehensive civil rights bill to congress saying that everyone could use hotels, restaurants and other public places. He interacted with the big issue domestically in a way that other leaders had not. And then an international terms, you know, obviously the struggle with the soviet union. You can argue how much he did that may have lead to the cuban missile crisis. But what, once he was here, i would want jfk as my president because he was able to guide us through it. And in retrospect can you imagine if he had not been able to do it and tens of millions of people had lost their lives as a result of these cuban missiles. Richard . I think hes among other things, a cultural icon as well. The politics of the day which we all know is on everything the American People knew but the kennedies taught us how to be a rich country, how to dress, how to think about high culture an i think that lives on beyond political events. See, people dont remember what president s do, you think they remember Theodore Roosevelt put the food and Drug Administration in place. Or Woodrow Wilson the Federal Reserve. Do they even remember roosevelt and social security. I love the anecdote about the guy who said i dont want the federal government fooling with my medicare. Right. So you know, its this idea that but what they remember is rhetoric. And kennedy asked not what your country can do for you. Reagan warning in america the pride is back soichlt think they make connection, and television, television he is enormously important. Kennedys froze in our minds at the age of 46. If he were alive he is 96 years old, but if he walked into this room at the age of 46, he would look like one of us. We still have a kind of presence. You give use lot more credit. Thats right. He also had a little bit easier than later president s because for instance when jeff was watching those press conferences in the afternoon there were three networks, how many of the networks koferpd the press conference, jeff. And when he gave the cuban missile crisis speech, 90 of the country was watching. So the president s voice in those days was so much louder than everyone elses. Now its almost impossible for a president to do that no matter how good the rhetoric is. Rose you called the fact that there was not more known about one of his undiscovered large issues of American History. Well, it was a coverup ted sore enson. Ted kennedy told me didnt know that shall about his Brothers Health until he read my book that is how hid ten was. But ted sore enson was furious at me. Because he was the one that signed off. It was a committee and he was the last one i went to see in new york, talked me into letting him in the medical records, i havent been studying this for nothing. But he was angry at me. There was no coverup. I never argued with him. Of course there was a coverup. Because he knew about the amphetamines and dr. Feelgood and what not. But most people didnt know. No, they didnt. And i think most reporters didnt know either. The thing that is interesting isnt just the cover up because actually when i finished the fantastic biography and realized both the breadth and depth of the Health Problems it makes you see kennedy in a more heroic light. Rose how bad was the health, how did if affect his life and was it heroic the fact that he lived with something that serious. It was very bad he was hospitalized for 44 days a number of times in the late 1950s. Given last rites a couple of times. Three times he received the last rights he was someone who had and a number of physicians i spoke to told me they dont know if he would have lived that much longer or well into his 50s or Something Like that. So it was a serious issue. But they hid it and indeed the day he was the day after he was elected there was a press conference and some reporter asked Bobby Kennedy what about your Brothers Health. He said oh, hes in excellent health. Well, they were to the going to fess up to the fact that this was a man who lived on the edge. Now what saved him in a sense were the medications he was taking. Without those medications, i dont think he could have functioned the way he did. How much of the way we feel today, do you think, at least is attributed to his sense of history, sense of public image, his sense of trying to control the image. And his sense of friendship with journalism . Well, i think all those things. Obviously he felt more strongly about controlling news management as a term they actually used in those days at the time. But the interesting thing is the person who perhaps was more active in this was jackie kennedy. Because she comes back from dallas on the evening of the 2 2nd of november and already she was beginning to think, you know, jack had only had two years and ten months. Hes been robbed of the ability to be thought of as a great president. She literally began thinking about what the library should look like. Talked to Arthur Schlessinger about writing his book, and she had this feeling that he since he had been robbed of the opportunity to write memoirs and do other things to defend himself, she would have to go into the breach. And for someone who was not an historian and had not been particularly conversant with American History that was almost a fulltime thing for her for the next year. Rose im struck by her an i know this from jill, the idea about william manchesters book, did she reportedly did not read it for a number of years. She didnt read it until after she had gone to court to prevent its publication. Finally read it and pronounced it fascinating which it is. And we mentioned two big speeches. The civil rights speech and the American University commencement speech. What do they represent in terms of john f. Kennedy. What they represent to me is that we dont elect president s to manage the government. We elect president s and heads of state to lead the nation and both he and then reagan in our lifetime went, it was their rhetoric t was their words t was their manner that reached the American People. I mean going back to what bob said about smaller events, nobody remembers whether the lincoln balanced the budget. President s are judged on two or three big things and usually something that had nothing to do with the campaign it is a total surprise whether its benghazi or bp in the gulf or what not. It is a reactive job. I mean president kennedy definitely recognized the power of words i think we can all agree on that. And even though its true that the 1965 Civil Rights Act was passed by Lyndon Johnson and we dont know whether if he had lived kennedy would have achieved that, but in his speech on civil rights de frame the issue as a moral issue. And that language and that word had incredible impact. What those two speeches you mentioned, they were in a sense game changers. Why the American University speech . The American University speech said we need to rethink the way in which we look at the soviet union. Now remember, this comes after the cuban missile crisis. He and crush chef were both i think so stunned and frightened by the fact that they came so close to a nuclear war and kennedy was so eager after that to get this nuclear testban treaty with the soviets. And khruschev was too because he invited the americans to come. The admiral lead the delegation and they got that done overnight. They had been hassling about that for years. And whats fascinating about it is, when he went to berlin conservatives always make this point. In the berliner speech he said there are some who think we can get along with the soviet union. Let them come to berlin, except a mond or so later he signed the nuclear testament treaty. The game changer on both those speeches is how drastic a change it is from 1960. You read his 1960 speeches you think are you listening to one of the joint chiefs of staff. And he was a temp orizer on civil rights. Forced into it. Everybody was. You had to deal with the democrats, southern democrats in congress. By 1963 he is declaring this is primarily a moral issue. No president had ever said that. And he said this whole cold war frame has to be rethought, within 48 hours of each other, those speeches, quite remarkable. On civil rights he says during the 60 campaign, tick off the ten things that will get this damn civil rights off the agenda. Give me five minutes. Thats the campaigner. Thats the campaigner. Youre talking about those two speeches. I would say if you want one 48 hours that sort of tells you a lot about kennedys leadership those are the 48. Because idea logically, if he had come in with a big landslide in 1960 and a strong position in the house and senate, he probably would have given those speeches on the 21st of january or maybe even said those things in his inaugural address. Intellectually, he was there when he became president. But the reason why it took two and a half years was kennedy never wanted to be what he called a liberal martyr. He always wanted to wait for the political situation to write them. And bobs right about the missile crisisment it had changed domestic opinion in this country so that americans having been through that close call were much more ready to think of a president who wanted a test ban treaty. And as far as civil rights, by the summer of 19634 th the 1963 the revolution was in full swing and kennedy was able to say to conservatives in this country and people who were at least, you know, tepid about civil rights, the alternative to this is a revolution in the streets. Let me at least propose a law thats going to take it back into the halls of government. Rose lets also talk about how he grew in office. Because i mean he obviously learned. He learned from the steelworker, problem with the steel business. He learned from the bay of pigs. Absolutely. I mean that was, i think, the bitterist but oddly with the bay of pigs is an interesting historical wrinkle involving the times it, in that the New York Times Washington Bureau actually got on to the fact that the bay of pigs invasion was impending and kennedy went to the paper and asked the paper to withhold publication and it did. And then after everything went to pieces it in cuba, he actually said to scotty that he wished the times had gone ahead and published the damn piece because it would have saved him from his worst mistake in office. Absolutely. And not only saved him from the mistake but if tells you something that is so important. And that is that if that operation which was supposed to be secret had gotten so public that it was getting to reporters and editors in washington and new york, he should have said well, you know this is now out it should be shut down. Which he didnt do. When you Flash Forward to the cuban missile crisis and how he handled that in contrast to the bay of pigs a lot had been learned. Totally different. Put that into context, you know, he was a president who won the election by 118,000 votes. And he brings, keeps j. Edgar hoover on, allen dullest on, he brings in matt bundy and mcnamara both republicansment hes very concerned that if he doesnt let the bay of pigs operation go forward the exiles are going to spill the beans. And theyre going to rip him up politically. Hes weak, hes afraid. He doesnt have the guts to stand up to the soviets. So this tremendous political pressure on him to do this even though he has this skepticism. What did he learn . What he learned was that he and khruschev were both followtitions. They just had a different system than we did. And then thats what connected at the end of the the missile crisis. And of course khruschev paid the price because his own people saw this as a military maneuver when kennedy and khruschev realized it was the political clash of all times. And thats why the missile crieses to to though to me is the hinge moment of the whole presidency. Because the whole first year and a half is defined by a disastrous vienna summit. He builds the wall in berlin there is the threat of the eastern peace treaty. Kennedy felt uneasy about this. One of the reasons it is thought that he put some advisors in vietnam was to show that he could stand up someplace. Thats right so once the missile cries sis over and he stands with khruschev on the press i business of disaster precipice of disaster, dean russ said nobody who came out the missile crisis came out the way they went in and i think with john kennedy that was more true than anyone else. Rose was there indications he might have changed in terms of vietnam . This is a probability. So this is like running over simulations, on balance they come out he would have deescalated but at the end of it john kennedy says his conclusions. Every word in that as he said, all the things he said in that, he said we dont have a prayer of staying here. They will throw our asses out sooner or later. He said if i tried to do this before 64 there will be a mccarty scare on our hands, that is the point he couldnt say. I think no one knows exactly what he would have done but thats all national feeling. Of that Lyndon Johnson put, you know, i dont want to be the First American president to lose a war. That pressure would have built on kennedy as well. I done think kennedy ever would have gone as far as Lyndon Johnson did. But he wasnt going to walk away either. All greatment but what that requires if you take it from that point of view is that kennedy keeps americans in harm away i, some of them get killed in 1964, just so that he can get to the election and win the election. Okay. Im not so sure schhe would have done it just for that reason. But lets accept that. Then you get to 1965 then he wants to get his big program through congress. A lot of domestic bills. He had postponed until he hoped to get reelected with a land slide in the second term so in 1965 at the time when hes trying to get bills through the congress on education and poverty and housing and civil rights s that the moment hes going to choose to withdraw from vietnam and take on this huge beard of americans saying that youre selling out the country and youre soft on communism. Im not so certain. Lets talk about Bobby Kennedy and the relationship between the two brothers. Some have said that jack kennedy might not have ever been elected president if Bobby Kennedy wasnt there. Someone mentioned about teddy, you know, bobby never got invited upstairs to private dinners, that he was like a kid pressing his face against the restaurant wall. I mean as important and as much as he trusted his brother, generally trusted his brother, john kennedy had to be in control all the time and that included with his own family and his brother who had some real gaffes in his gaps in his political and historical knowledge. I think their relationship is captured in that iconic black and white photograph that has its in shadow with the two against the window. Exactly. I dont think theres ever been a president with a close advisor like Bobby Kennedy was to his brother. If they had a tape recorder would you have heard large silences because from the way, i even saw this as a guy working in bobbys office long after kennedy is dead there is a certain way that they communicate that if you are an outsider, you dont get. There is all pronouns. There is no proper knowns. They dont finish they dont do complete sentences. They grunt, wink, nod. They know where they are going. Does that make a point how important bobby is to him. It doesnt make a point as to whether his advice was always good. He was a hawk compared to his brother and his brother was a warrior. There is no question that the first couple of years, his determination to get rid of castro. Bobby. Was, you know, that was a fixed idea in his head. You done know where this would have gone o you know, had there been more time because in the missile crisis he did play a role of looking for alternatives. But i call him the advise never chief in that book. Number one. Yes. And he had no chief of staff. And he said to somebody who chided him, making bobby attorney general, were going to get in political hot water over this i need somebody i can put my feet up with, you see. And i think bobby was important to him in that he could confide and talk to him in can did ways. Done mean he was going to follow everything bobby said which he didnt. Because youre right, bobby was a fierce hawk. In temperment you spoke to the sense of almost a detachment. I think the fact that he almost died on several occasions makes and survived the war. It also argues a really critical point it argues that he never really would have personalized a war the way johnson said i will not be the first president. But it also suggests that on Domestic Affairs that detachment might have made him much less ambitious. He didnt think i cant imagine john kennedy calling for a great society. Because the detachment of which you speak is also about how much you think you can accomplish as the head of a government. I dont think we would have phrased great society. Michael . He would have shrunk from the kind of overstatement that lbj used hourly or by the minute. But one thing i remember is that james, the great political scientist who was my revered mentor at Williams College wrote the first biography of john kennedy, came out in 1959. And one of the things he said and it reflected what a lot of people felt at that time, john kennedy is not someone at whose funeral strangers would cry. Look how long he came. The quote that michael just said kind of sent a shiver down my spine. Because the tears that were shed at his actual funeral, i mean collectively, the countrys sadness at kennedys death is, you know, sort of unparalleled national grieving. It was such a blow to the countrys sense of selfregard. And its sense of youth and everything. It took its promise away from the country. I mean it hit him in the gut. We were out there in a way whatever Conspiracy Theory you want to believe, there was a culture of assassination in the kennedy administration, particularly with mr. Castro and then the deaths of other people and yet and who turns out to be the victim but the man who kriteded that culture. But the points that survives is it was such a less violent culture. I mean whatever was going on within the bowels of the cia or the white house. We hadnt lost a president in 60 years. The crime rate had only begun its rocket all through the 60s and the 70s it would make this a much more fearful country. People dont do such things. The line from that is part of what was so shocking. Nobody will be shocked today if a public official was shot. Back then it was quite literally unthinkable 789. Rose a couple points, what was it had said. I think miriam the washington cor core said to him around the funeral, well never laugh again. And moynihan said no, well laugh again. Well just never be young again. And it was Jacqueline Kennedy based on your piece, i think, in which she supposedly said there will be great president s again, but there will not be camelot. And she may not have been doing him a Great Service in the end. Because you remember we were talking about earlier the fact that the pendulum swung away from the adoreation of kennedy in this country in the mid 1960s. And in a way she did it with the best of motives. But by suggesting that metaphor camelot she was really setting him up for the later revision. You were going say intelligence doesnt matter but its judgement. Its judgement. I would argue again its a reactive job, and the question is what do you do. Often on a isnt you have not thought about. The raises the question to me, this judgement, do you have to be, where does judgement come from, and is it therefore an argument for a lot of experience. Because if you could argue that done well, its harry truman and barak obama. Harry truman governed with instinct with a deep knowledge of history that people really didnt know he had. And barak obama who i certainly like tries to do it by int lech, by analysis, by whats logical. And politics is not logical. I was asked david mccullough, how do you judge whos going to be a good president before they get to be president. You cant. Forget it. Because theres nothing like that. Any time you try to set down, whos the most experienced president weve ever had in terms of dealing with washington, its Lyndon Johnson but judgement against the world was thin and lacking. And i think help lead to us a pretty disastrous. That was the distinction between johnson and kennedy, that kennedy had gone across the the difference if grandiosity, otherwise, kennedys grandiosity was aimed at the world. Get world peace. He said Foreign Policy can kill you. Domestic politics can unseat you. So he was a Foreign Policy president. Johnson, his grandiosity was being another Franklin Roosevelt or eclipsing fdr. As we sit down here, the legacy of him is. The fact of the matter is the most important thing about him, partly because of his health s that he did not wait his turn. He destroyed the system that would not have made him president. He didnt wait his turn and now in america no one does. Thank you all. National book award winner a scotts berg spent 13 years writing wilson, a new biography, the former president. I am pleased to have him here back at this table. First of all winning the fat book award is the many things you have received, also a pulitzer prize. Yes. What is it that excites you about buy october fee . I think telling life stories. Ive always been more interested in reading about real life stories than reading fiction, actually. None has been more dramatic than wilson. Why do you say . Well, for two reasons, i think. I dont think i know of november president , certainly in the 20th century who had a greater affect on the century. And second, i dont know of another personal story that ever unfolded in the white house as dramatic as Woodrow Wilson. Lets take the first. What is it that he did that so impacted an entire century . Where to begin. If we work backwards, foreign affairs, the very foundation of 20th century, now 21st century american Foreign Policy all goes back to one speech Woodrow Wilson gave on april 2nd, 1917 when he said the world must be made safe for democracy. And basically almost every policy decision since then has been based on that fundamental. But wilson also instituted his whole Progressive Agenda in the mostly its first term of office. And that is starting with the Federal Reserve system has become basically the bed rom of our economy as well. And also along the way in the bigger sense he really redevine defined the function of a president. He really was the great active president of the 20th century, that other leaders, the fdrs, the lbjes, Ronald Reagans all followed. Where do you rank him among the great president s . I rank him high. I without say in the top four or five president s. There was a period where everyone ranked Woodrow Wilson in the top four or five president s. And the succeeding decades in mid century, he began to fall a bit out of favor. And by the end of the century he was sort of i think down among the near greats, between the greats and the near greats. Rose right. Often when you think of Woodrow Wilson you think of the failure of the league of nations. If you think of an idealistic Foreign Policy. You think of a man who was an academic. And did not come up in his sort of rough and tough tumble of politics. Well, a those things are accurate to a point. He was the academic. He was our only ph. D president. He had the most meteoric rise in American History. This is a man who in 1910 is the president of the a small mens college in the middle of new jersey. In 1912 called princeton. In 1912 hes elected president. United states. I mean it just comes out of the blue. All that being said, he was a great student of american politics and american governance. And the amazing thing is once he get got into office and as president of the United States he proved to have ver sharp elbows. He proved to be a very canny politician. You then argue that when people make comparisons between president obama and president wilson, the one thing that differed among them is the ability of wilson to play inside politics well . I would say they play very differently anyway, without characterizing president obama, i would say wilson had a unique skill set this he really worked. And that was he had a real belief in starched dialogue. He believed the two major branches the executive and legislative branches should coop operate. And i mean that literally am he believed they should cooperate the government. And so o calm he called 25 joint session of congress during his presidency. Whenever he had an important measure to discuss, he would gather both houses of congress, we make him sit through the summer and work and he would go down there every day. Not just to give a peach but he would sit in a little room called the president s room just across the hall. And he would grab it as he walked out the senate chamber, he would twist arm, he would reason with them. He without have dialogue. They had an ongoing relationship with him. I think thats where he has really differed from president obama how did the civil war affect it. I think the civil war affected wilson deeply, he was born in 1856 in the south. He grew up in four Confederate States during the war and during reconstruction. And he saw the devastation that happened to the south. You saw cities burn down. He saw just the whole economic collapse and that part of the country. So he carried that with him for its rest of his life. I just know that was really what was underlying his sharp resistance to getting into world war i and he fought for years to get out of it, he ran for reelection on the slogan he kept us out of war. For that reason he knew how devastating it was. When congress issued the war declaration he said he broke down crying. He really did. Wilson came in and gave this magnificent address. I mean and i remind you also, Woodrow Wilson is the last president to write all his own speeches. So these magnificent speeches, he literally sat alone in a room, did the first draft in shorthand and then typed it up, and rewrote it but after that one speech he want back to the white house and set his head down on the table and sobbed. Sons. Because he had a sense of what was coming he knew it was coming. He knew he had just signed the death warrants of perhaps hundreds of thousands of american boys and that just devastated to him. And what did the war do to him . The war, actually the war in invigorated him tas did the United States. War does have a tonic effect as well as a very toxic one. And they really rally us all together. And there was a great slogan that wilson urged upon the nation and the legislature especially which was politics is adjourned and for its few years that we were actually fighting in the war, america did adjourn politics. And everybody came together and we really became another nation during that period. But by the time it was winding down and ending after all the exyou willtation, he was exaltation, it was devastated it broke his heart. And he always took the wr57 rap. One of the most moving speeches wilson ever gave was at the American Cemetery just outside of paris on memorial day 1919. And basically he looked at all the graves and he said i sent all these boys here. And i have a responsibility now so the president can never send another boy to die. Rose thats when he came home with a search for peace. Came home with his 14 points, basically enacted in the peace treaty. The 14th of which was an arthurrian dream, a league of nations. Rose and his personal life, and his life in the white house. Well, this is to me, really what interests me most at the end of the day. And thats really what i tried to do with this biography of wilson. Which was to write a president ial biography from the inside rather than from the outside. I wanted to follow a man as he grew up and grew into the shoes of the president. Because this was one of the most emotional and passionate men and im not forgetting lincoln, whoever inhabited the oval office. He was married twice. His first wife became a professors wife and College President s wife. He trusted her implicitly. She was his greatest critic and editor. She was a lovely artist. And then there in the white house one year and she dies, of kidney failure. And the president is now just absolutely devastated. And alone. Alone, sinks into a severe depression. He has three daughters all of whom are up and grown. He is alone in this cavernous house. And can barely get out of bed as world war i has just broken out. And its really just this strong presbyterian sense of duty that got him going every day. And then almost, well, he would say prove dentialally, i would say magically, but he met a beautiful young widow who lived in washington. And he instantly fell in love with her. I think he was desperate to fall in love again. But dedid and he convinced her to marry him. And they did. And it turns out she had great historic significance shortly thereafter. Which was . Which was wilson in trying to promote his league of nations around the country in very poor health in the middle of this great 29 city tour, i think the greatest crusade any president has ever gone on on behalf of a cause, collapses. And they rush him back to the white house where a few days later he suffers a stroke. Which they keep a secret from the president of the United States. They keep a secret from everybody in the white house. Only a handful of people including wilsons doctor and his wife really conspire to keep this from the world. And during that period, as i tried to trace in the book, you see the rise of mrs. Wilson rather uneducated, politically unsavvy, no lady macbeth but she really does function as many have said, the first woman president of the United States. How did she handle the job . Well, she handled the job as she would tell you, as a steward. She said she did nothing her husband would not have done. And in essence i think she really served a little more as a chief of staff. But for months and ultimately really more than a year and a half, virtually nobody saw Woodrow Wilson during his second term, the last year and a half of his office. And any document that had to go before the president had to pass before mrs. Wilsons eyes first. Speaking of that, what access to what information did you have that other buy og fear biographers did not have. I was given access to two wonderfulfully personal caches of papers. One came forth when wilsons last surviving grandson died. And in going through his house and effects they found trunks of papers from the grandsons mother that is Woodrow Wilsons daughter. And there were just thousands of personal letters from wilson to the daughter, the daughter to her husband, just all talking about Woodrow Wilson. So a lot of things that really fleshed him out. A second cache surfaced when wood ro wilsons most intimate friend and doctor, dr. Carrie t grayson when his last son died there in the garage, they found trunks of his papers. He who kept meticulous notes of his famous patients with. Did he introduce wilson to his second wife. He did. Dr. Grayson new edit, a rather famous widow in town. Yes, he set them up, very cleverly, in fact, without knowing either of them know was a settup. Rose some of the criticism, you think he was a racist. I definitely think he was a racist, because he was. Sitting here in 2013, yes. If we go back a hundred years to 1913 and examine where washington d. C. Was, where the United States was, an where a boy who grew up in the south in middle of the 19th century was, i would say he was a centrist in his day. He did introduce jim crow to washington basically, introducing segregation into federal offices. Which in effect sanctioned further segregation across the country. Rose separate but not equal. Separate but not equal. But the law of the land in that moment was separate but equal. And wilson was inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. You know, when i say the law of the land, that was just a handful of years before t wasnt even 20 years before wilson took office. He really, he really did believe that the racist should the races should be integrated but didnt think the country, or certainly the south, certainly washington d. C. Which was a sleepy southern town was ready for it then. So i suggest that he didnt believe segregation was sub jugation. He thought if a generation or two could pass, then, indeed, we could all get together. But he quickly realized that separate was not equal. And he did nothing about it. Also suppression of Civil Liberties. He suppressed Civil Liberties during the first world war. This is as black a mark as his racial opinions, i think. I would say in his defense, and i certainly dont want to excuse him but i would like to try to explain it, a lot of things were happening in the world for the first time. There was an international terrorism. They there were bombs being sent to elected ontions to post offices and the president was dealing with an invisible enemies it wasnt like he could say okay were going to attack germany and lick this thing and so during the war were going to im impose all sorts of things on civil liberty liberties. What mr. His faculties like during the time that she and the doctor were running the white house. At first Woodrow Wilsons faculties were quite diminished. He did suffer a stroke. It was i would say a medium size stroke. Rose what was the affect on him. He was paralyzed on his left sides he did not lose his ability to speak. And basically his ability to think that being said, an he maintained his memories and so forth you know, we know more now about strokes than we did then which is how if affects one a emotional life too. Sow was making perhaps some judgements that came out of the blue. We cant fully decipher. But all that being said he could gradually give the occasional speech or statement. But basically the last year and a half in office is just pathetic and much of the time certainly the last month he spends just watching movies ef row day in the east room. Douglas fairbanks had sent him a Motion Picture projector. And he watched silent movies including, and this is so touching, he would watch the news reels of his famous arrival in paris after the war when he was the saviour of the earth. He was the greatest man on earth. The book once more is called wilson by scott berg. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org funding for charlie rose is provided by the following Cocacola Company supporting this Program Since 2002. American express. An charles schwab. Additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Its all about licking your the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ music ] yes, check, please people its all about licking your plate. The food was just fabulous. I should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. I had a horrible experience. I dont even think we were at the same restaurant. Leslie and everybody, im sure, saved room for those desserts