Im lauren finch, acting director of the museum. On behalf of all of my Library Foundation colleagues i thank you for coming this evening. And id like to extend a warm welcome to those who are joining us online as well. I would also like to acknowledge the deer support of our underwriters for the Kennedy Library for moms, bank of america, the Lowell Institute and our media sponsors, boxing glove, xfinity and wbr. Richard aldous agreed to sign books, our bookstore has copies of his books available for purchase. This year marks the centennial of the john f. Kennedys birth. As we honor his life and legacy during this centennial year, we cannot be more pleased to explore the life and the birth of our dear schlesinger junior in more detail tonight. I am delighted to introduce theparticipants in tonights program. We are pleased to welcome richard aldous, author of the new biography schlesinger, imperial historian. He is a professor of history at bard college and the author of 11 books including mcmillan, eisenhower and the cold war and reagan and thatcher, the difficult relationship. I am also delighted to introduce our moderator for the evening, an old colleague, timothy naftali. Professor at new york university. He is an awardwinning author, a president ial historian and also served as director of the injured nixon president ial library and museum. Join me in welcoming richard andtimothy. [applause] thank you warren and thank all of you. Youve written a wonderful book , which we all have the opportunity of purchasing. Why did you decide to write about Arthur Schlesinger . Can i say what a pleasure it is to be here at the library and im grateful for the invitation and also its wonderful to be interviewed by such a fine historian. The answer to that question may be the real answer lies in my childhood that arthurs lessons was one of the first historians, proper historians that i read. And i can still see the gold spine of the tradition of 1000 days when my fathers bookshelf and i didnt realize that very recently that when i look back and researching these papers, they quoted schlesinger and the Research Academic articles that i wrote quoting schlesinger and i think for me, more recently i realized that he is the very epitome of the historian and if you like the action intellectual, public intellectual and im fascinated by the way in which he traversed those two different worlds. Excelling in both but also controversial in both. What will were the surprises for you as you did your research . In some ways my first surprise was as a historian that thisis a man who kept everything. He knew every historian and biographer, what People Like Us would do with the material but im fairly sure that through the paper that he doesnt destroy any of the material. There were some very personal things in the archive that he kept. One of the slightly disconcerting things is that very often because he wrote a great memoir, you can actually see him having already read the papers by the biographer is reading too. But i think that the real surprise for in some ways the best quality about Arthur Schlesinger the man is that quite clearly he is the same in private as he is in public. Hes not saying things in his private correspondence that he isnt prepared to go on the record and say so theres a kind of integrity about him that he really does say what he believes and often that means speaking truth to power to. We are at the Kennedy Library and tell us how you understand now, having written this fine book, arthurs relationship, Arthur Schlesingers relationship with john f. Kennedy. Its a fascinating relationship as he said in his introduction. This is the centenary of john f. Kennedy and the centenary of Arthur Schlesinger, both born in 1917 but in a curious way, they dont seem like contemporaries and in many ways they work. Because solicitor was fast tracked through school, it means that although he was at harvard, he wasnt in the same year as john f. Kennedy, he was in the same year as kennedys older brother. And i think that that relationship always has a about it a kind of a curious quality of both being an insider but not part of the kennedy circle. And ultimately i think the same thing brings them together is not some of the usual things, throwing the football at hyannisport and so on. It is actually the relationship as a historian that kennedy loved his history, was a writer. Thought of himself as a historian so where they really bonded was over history. We are going to talk a bit about this and i hope over the course of our conversation and during the q and a to what extent do you think president kennedy was comfortable sharing his thinking with Arthur Schlesinger . Thats a interesting question. I think he was very comfortable in the company of Arthur Schlesinger, that schlesinger is somebody who inside the white house, he would quite often drop by at the end of the day. Kennedy would beckon him into the oval, whoever was in there and invite him to join those conversations. He often liked ruminating with schlesinger about, what was this like with, in the days of Grover Cleveland or pulled or truman or whoever . He liked those aspects but you know as well as i do that kennedy was interesting in that he was never really close to anyone. William dahmer makes this point in his book that he uses people where they are useful. He enjoys People Company but even the kind of characters like dave powers , theyre not really, nobody gets close to him. This is something that ive come to realize over a number of president s that i look at and worked on, reagan was similar that hes almost a characteristic of those, is very distinction in the oval office because theres hes something unknowableabout him. You used the entirety of arthurs diaries, theres an edited version but a lot of the most interesting materials are not in the edited published version. You use the whole version. To what extent do you think Arthur Schlesinger felt he got the elusive candidate, that he understood this to . To the extent that he believed he actually understood the president . In some ways as you say, he understands the elusive quality as well and one of the things that he faces, once you start writing 1000 days is how to reconcile his own relationship with kennedy. Lets not forget that in 1959 and 1960, he was unsure about kennedy. Ultimately he thinks well, stevenson is close to probably doesnt deserve another shot but he kind of flirts with the idea that maybe stevenson should have another go. Hes not part of the innercircle and one of the reasons why and what he has to confront again after kennedys assassination is that in his heart of hearts he knows that kennedy is not a liberal in the sense that he understands it. That kennedy in many ways is a conservative president with a small fee so part of the intellectual job that he does for kennedy is almost reconfiguring him as a more progressive figure, trying to reconcile him not being a liberal with his conservative instincts and instead recasting him as a progressive kind of a president. Lets step back because this might be surprising to some of the people listening, how would arthur have described a liberal . What does it mean to be a liberal in arthurs era . In some ways thats an interesting question and difficult question to answer cause schlesinger himself is constantly parsing what it means to be a liberal and i think in particular, he has this kind of sense of politics as an educational process. He likes the educational president , most particularly roosevelt who sees politics as a way of kind of identifying things which are in the public good, not just things that can be improved. Thats one of the things he has to deal with with kennedy. Kennedy is more of an efficient, technocratic president and schlesinger would have liked. What we say four people what kind of decisions would fit in this category of being technocratic rather than liberal . For example, when kennedy dealt with the whole question of civil rights, its not something that he comes into office seeing as a burning desire to address an injustice, instead, is when he sees for example the events of birmingham and he recognizes that within a kind of democratic society, a key is an ill that needs to be addressed but this is something which is, yes its wrong but he comes to that realization not necessarily through a kind of a as i said, a billowing desire to correct things or a burning kind of inner belief, its because its inefficient within society and thats what where he moves in parentally. Are you saying for Arthur Schlesinger, a liberal had to be passionate . I think thats right and also, a sense that politics is more than about efficiency. That its about this kind of sense of looking at society, kind of understanding how you fit within this progressive art that runs through as he would conceive it, through character like Andrew Jackson and president roosevelt, fdr and someone like Adlai Stevenson who he did see as a more progressive liberal character although interestingly, when hes working, in the 1960s he had many of the same reservations about stevensons liberalism. We do say that arthur had this idea of this predictability of america, that it was always Getting Better . Absolutely and theres an underlying notion tos lessons or history, something that he gets from his father. Arthur schlesinger, his genius father is somebody who develops this kind of notion of progressive history, hes somebody who looks at history through the idea of a cycle that america is going to go through. This progressive, conservative cycle and thats something which arthur junior then subsequently picked up and write a book about. What does he think the role of the individual is in creating a more perfect america . Certainly for himself, this is one of the reasons why he thinks that historians should participate in that process. Thats not enough for Arthur Schlesinger to be writing books. That the historian have to apply the lessons of history in a direct way by participating so even in his own individual case, yes he does believe in individual and then you look at his books, the age of roosevelt, the age of jackson. Its very much looking at the role of the individual but also just think of the title of those books. The age of. There is a sense of a generation grappling with these kind of problems and a generation as a cohort kind of moving forward also. So you could make an argument, in fact, i do in the book, that actually almost its entire frame of reference is governed by one individual, one president and, of course, thats fdr. In the age of jackson in many ways its a book about roosevelt as much as it is one about the 19th century and then the age of roosevelt itself the child to take those lessons and to apply them in the specific context to stephenson and to kennedy. He believed, to use a churchillian phrase, the the president is the person who sets the weather, the person who sets the tone for policy but also one of the lessons he learned from roosevelt is that its not enough simply to be the weather maker, that roosevelt takes his experience from the First World War when his assistant secretary for the navy and he understands that you, the president has to dig right out into his administration, has two final decisions through, has to not just talk somebody from state department, state department issue, he might have to bring agriculture in and ask him about some matter that you are constantly driving your agenda by making sure that at every level of government its something thats being understood. This book is also about people as well as ideas. And one of those people of course is arthur. Why dont you share, the book has a number of examples. Arthurs struggles. We think of them, those who knew him and those of read about them, success, and men who enjoyed success after success after success but in your book its clear that wasnt the case. Tell us a a bit about that very human side. Its actually, its one of the things that he outlines in his own memoir that he does tend to smooth over the struggles which hes had. On one level its also very smooth the like, a surprise when he still in his 20s, harvard professorship, special assistant to the president. Another Pulitzer Prize. He has a record of success that is enviable, but hes in a very Nice Public School doing very nicely when hes a boy, but his parents are very ambitious and they shift him up two years and he goes from being somebody who plays baseball and sports and is one of a normal kind of boy to suddenly being the kind of a little squirt. He talks about how thats the age were start wearing glasses and is not very sporty. And he struggles school. It goes to his parents put them out, under the school, send him off where again he struggles matches because of his size and age but because he is surrounded by people who are much, much wealthier than him. That kind of struggle he goes off with oss, the forerunner of the cia during the second world war, and again he finds it very, very difficult. Hes unable to really make close friendships. He makes some very important enemies to a very large degree persecute him while hes there. But the one thing, one thing that always post in fact, the constant in his life, some of a local kind of here is harvard. Subways at school he realizes that the person he wants to become is his father, a harvard professor. So much so that he changes his name from to Arthur Schlesinger junior. Because a limited to be, his father. When hes in oss hes able to pull at various times contacts to provide favors to smooth things over for him. Even the way in which arthur senior is able to maneuver things to make sure that it gets his fellowship at the society for fellows or that offer from harvard is forthcoming, even on kind of berries prizes his father is very influential. Theres a sense in which these both an outsider and an insider, but ultimately the harvard connection even with jfk, the harvard connection is some things that is kind of an unmoving part of his life, very often rescues him. Someone coming to your book who hasnt spent a lot of time at the Library Might be surprised at how Arthur Schlesinger was not in the inner circle of the Kennedy Administration. And from the book i get the sense that he was frustrated by that. He was frustrated on one level because i think once he goes to the white house he doesnt feel that is able to influence events as much as he would want to. Theres a kind of sense of frustration that is personal but in some ways that frustration is born of realizing as a special assistant with a special responsibility, for example, one stage it leads perhaps he will become the National Security adviser. Thats something that wouldve had real kind of authority in the staff that went with it but hes a gadfly, and so on days that kennedy wants to see them or he is amused by him, or he is taking seriously he can have an impact but other times youre right, he feels frustrated because hes not able to make that kind of influence, have that kind of influence with thee president. On occasion his impact so lets talk about those occasions when he does have an impact on policy. So i think in many ways its a learning curve for him because he thinks that youve written about and demonstrate this, during the debate of pigs hes right about the bay of pigs. Hes one of the few people in the lead up to the bay of pigs who says you shouldnt do this. The first of all doesnt, he doesnt say this facetoface to kennedy, and then he curses himself when he goes back to his office and he writes a memo saying to the president quite clearly dont do this, and then he tells kennedy this. He then goes to see than ruskin and eventual Bobby Kennedy says enough, stop. And so at that point yesterday that. The lesson you learned from that is if not enough to be right. You have to be heard. And so on the things covered in one hell of a gamble, he wants to get to berlin, hes able to be heard and have an influence that someone like dean acheson is taking a very hawkish line on this. Schlesinger the security he has to learn the lesson of the bay of pigs. You have to widen kogut get all kinds of opinions so for example, he brings Henry Kissinger as a consultant to the white house and he writes a series of memos to kennedy making clear what his policy should be. Hes able to be heard and influences kennedy. You could make an argument in doing that he establishes the kind of the wing which kennedy in deals with the cuban missile crisis. So on the outside, the actual, the wing which kennedy a successful with berlin using schlesinger model has kind of longstanding ramification. Talk about a a troll of shag policy towards italy. Italy is a good example of one of his major frustrations, the state department, and in a thousand days its one of the few things that he does where he stabs at somebody, dean rusk, is sliced and diced in the book. But youre right, that he believes in something called, hes written in the 1940s about the vital center, the need to encourage at the noncommunist left. When he sees this emergent italy come something called the opening to the left, he wants kennedy to encourage a Broad Coalition that takes in the noncommunist left and pushes the comments out in italy. So yeah, thats a good example of something that he takes an interest in and he pursues in this gadfly kind of way. And in essence to a followoo the vital center. Its a building exactly. Its not being afraid of social democrats knowing full well they are anticommunists as conservatives. In the way its all part of the context of the younger schlesinger. Its one of the things we have to remember is that he grew up in the 1930s. To some extent he has this worldview that sees the rise of fascism, nazism on one side, stalinism on the other side and kind of roosevelt democracy as a beacon in the middle. By the time he gets to 47 work in recess, seen penetration by people like morris who he worked with, he was a soviet agent, he recognizes that you have to find a way for the no