President said at the time was he had as a new president thought if i just have one congressman disagrees with me , im the president of the united states. Thats no big deal. Then he found out that one congressman was jack brooks and that was a big deal. But it talks about how president and Congress Work together and i think at this time, it is very important that we hear that message about how they Work Together and were especially pleased to not to have harassment jack brooks son jeff here with us. Jeffhas worked in the financial industry. And all all size companies for more than three decades. He started his career at citibank in taiwan, rose to Vice President of citigroups International Securities in london. Currently the managing partner of pinewood trading fund and is the chairman of the Jack Brooks Foundation which provided the wonderful reception for us tonight so please join me in welcoming and thanking jeff brooks. [applause] thank you so much tony for that kind introduction. We are all grateful to you, and the Carter Library and museum or your generosity in hosting us this evening. With events like this, im grateful that my fathers example can continue to inspire people for years to come. Jack brooks devoted his life to this country. First as a marine, then by serving his constituents as their representative. Serving his constituents long enough to serve alongside and us president. But the best one of course, president jimmy carter. So its truly an honor to have all of you all here to sharewith you this new biography. The meanest man in congress, jack brooks and the making of an american century. On my own, i could never have accomplished as much as these two intrepid authors. The Brooks Family and rightfully all of america, owes these two men a special debt of gratitude. Ladies and gentlemen, the only two people who know more about my dad that i do, jim and brendan signaling. Tonight is special in another way. We are fortunate to have witnessed mister hendrick herzberg. He was president and white house chief speechwriter, editor of thenew republic, staff writer for the new yorker and a needed voice of reason even rstoday. He and the authors are going to have key observations about german brooks career and we like to thank you for being here this evening. [applause] as was just mentioned as many of you know the foundation has also been found in my fathers name and here is on you more about it let me introduce my good friend, truly a man for all seasons and the president of the new chad Brooks Foundation , mister john this sunday. [applause] good evening area im thrilled to be here and i have two announcements ,tonight i have an easy job but neither of these would have happened if it wasnt for jebs tenacity, his passion, his leadership and i want to thank him for that and most of all thank you for your friendship. Im thrilled to announcethe. First item and that is the Jack Brooks Foundation is up and running. Were inspired by and will be working to continue the legacy of hard work and a a nononsense, nonpartisan approach to public policy. The intention of the foundation is to help as Many Americans as possible reconnect with our Representative Government and im very, very proud to be leading this effort. Ourfirst initiative will be to promote a legacy project. The center for American History at the university of texas at austin is a custodian for the jack brooks in the congressional papers area i am happy to announce that they have begun a oneyear effort to digitize and make available and searchable online key legislation champions by german brooks. We have a lot of activity at the foundation. Wereexcited and invite all of you to stay in touch. We loveto hear from you. So without further delay let me begin the conversation about my friend jack brooks, the meanest man in congress. Brendan, tim, please, lets get started. [applause] thank you jeb, thank you very much. Its great to be here in a private library andmuseum. And perhaps we should have a few words of welcome and directly from our president jimmy carter. El when carter dedicated i think its a jack brooks federal building, he had some nice things to say about jack brooks. He said i would like to pay particular tribute to the leadership role of chairman jack brooks. Hes a formidable ally to having a tough fight. He hates to lose and rarely does and had it not been for him we probably would not have prevailed. Im deeply grateful to jack and im a little bit later our authors write, he said a lot more informally, they write one time in private company, back in plains georgia, carter spoke in plainer language to dear companions including travis wilkie, the wellknown journalist for the boston globe. This is what happens with your old friend of mine. Carter recalled that relationship brooks had been the best ally anyone could have on capitol hill. Hes a sonofabitch. And a mean insider. Now, jack brooks is a name i suspect most cspan viewers might recognize but the American Public might wonder just who jack brooks was. Around capitol hill, on capitol hill and in the District Of Columbia jack brooks was as famous as elvis. But those of you who feel a little bit like you might have heard of him, may remember that the iconic photograph that was taken november 22, 1963 on the plane that flew Jacqueline Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson among others back to washington. And if you look at the picture you see over jackies left shoulder, theres jack brooks. So i want to ask each of you two guys, how did this guy go from i dont know, being a Newspaper Delivery boy to that airplane, what propelled him to those. I think it was really a man of his generation and now tom brokaw geis probably the greatest generation. He went from a very hardscrabble life where his father died when he was 12 and he worked his way from paperboy to junior reporter for the beaumont enterprise. He learned, one of the early lessons he had was that by going and doing eight social column, he included all the names of everybody who was there. And he said why did you do that . He said i knew the reditor would take out any names and i got paid by thecolumn inch. And so that was an early lesson for him. And then, he went on to go to the university of texas, this is in the late 30s, early 40s. Pearl harbor happened. You wanted to sign up forthe marines. A marine recruiter came to campus and at this time jack was the editor of the Campus Student newspaper, so the marine, i believe it was , he went and the recruiter said that he was too scrawny. He wouldnt make a marine,you should go to the army. And he said no, i want to go to the marines so he said you know, you want a story in my paper. And he said yes. About the arecruiting area and i dont know if we can get in for the next few months. Well, but maybe if i have that application i wouldntbe a problem. So he already was figuring out ways to negotiate. Then he did go to the marines , went to the South Pacific for 2 and a half years. Island hopping and also there he began to learn to negotiate other things like his men needed dry boots because of the dampness of the jungle and the, they were requisition. He was able to find a couple of cases of whiskey and suddenly, the boots that were supposed to be 50 boots was a two in front of it,they became 250 pairs of boots. And so that kind of even though it may be wheeling and dealing, it started to prepare him for congress. And i the time in air force one with Jackie Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, he had already been in congress for 10 years so he was season area he had learned at the foot of sam rayburn who was a master of process and getting legislation. Most politicians with a kind of ambition jack brooks had, would learn to be called mister president. But jack brooks doesnt seem to have been that guy. Nor was he yearning to be senator or governor so and so. The title he reveled in was mister chairman. Why . Why is that . He just wanted to be the best representative for that district, that the district he grew up in rid of those are people he knew and he wanted torepresent them as well as he could. And for him, thatrwas it. He had kind of made it at a young age, he was 29 when he first entered congress in 1953 and he had other opportunities. He was me potentially, this was the rumor at the time that he was going to be tapped for ag in 1965 was his dear friend johnson was president and he had no interest. He said no, im where i should be. As you said, he wanted to be called mister chairman and he eventually was mister chairman for the House Government Operations Committee from 74 to 88 and then of course the judiciary from 88 to 94. And i think that was the top of the mountain for him. It was to be the chairman of the preeminent arbiter of constitutional principle. One of the things that struck me reading the book was just how close he was to Lyndon Johnson. Not just as a political alignment, not just as somebody who could help him out on capitol hill but its deeply personal, intimate relationships. To the point where i got the impression maybe sometimes he didnt really want to go over reto the johnsons every night and watch tv and drink and have fun. Tell us a little about the nature of that relationship which was so unique . President s found in jack c brooks an ally. And somebody that they knew. Somebody who was there in the house with johnson that was certainly the case. Johnson knew the institution of congress as well as any president ever has and he knew that jack brooks was the person he needed behind the scenes to get things donethat he needed to get done. And brooks dont didnt vote for all the great sis legislation. He voted for most of them but not all. And johnson didnt fault him for that because he knew youre not going to push over jack brooks when hes standing on his own principles. When they got off of air force one and came back to washington, brooks went with johnson to his Vice President s home and stay there much of the next week or two. Spending time with them, not only handling details, but i think as a aikind of personal bulwark. Saying that youre the best man for this now. And giving him encouragement. Listening to the tapes at the Johnson Library in austin, it is amazing to listen to the two of them have this backandforth repartee that said these are really master politicians who know what theyre talking about, who know under congressmen what they need. What they want to accomplish. And how to trade area and how to get their votes. Though, they would take off the names right off the top of their tongue for dozens and dozens of congressmen and know exactly what the districts were like and what the future was. And thats a certain level of trust. On november 22 when theyre all huddled in a parkland hospital, no one knew if this was a communist plot, if there wereother shooters out there. There was this not just anxiety but trauma that everyone was going through and then jack brooks finally got to the hospital and saw lyndon there surrounded by secret service in a corner with lady bird and his mobility was limited because this was, he was present as soon as kennedy had passed away but this was a bit more the future of commanderinchief so they were not going to let him go anywhere but johnson was also , people didnt know about him because he was very caring and very compassionate individual and he wanted Jackie Kennedy to have somebody you wanted to send lady bird to the operating room. Where kennedy was lying and he couldnt go himself so he sent jack brooks to escort her back there. He was in the room with kennedys body and with the two of them and they did it with colony upstairs. And after after johnson they asked brooks to go with reagan to the airport and brooks recalled car ride with the secret service from parkland to Love Field Area that it was the way he said it, he said it was the fastest ive ever gone and it took off like a striped. [bleep] zebra. You get the idea. And johnson got into the other car and Rufus Youngblood was the big burly secret service men who got in basically on top of him and albert thomas, another congressmen or someone else, they just stuck those cars and took offto love field. He had come into his own during the Johnson Administration and he had an interesting balance of kind of rhetorical balance between essentially liberal goals, liberal ideas and not exactly conservative, but hardheaded rhetoric and a hardheaded approach. Tell us a little bit about how brooks helped give us the great society. Remember, he was a Texas Democrat and thats different. When he was very fiscally conservative, he came from a district. He was very strong on civil rights. He was very strong onunions. These were the Different Oil refineries that were right there on the border between texas and louisiana. These are his constituents so he was kind of, stood out from a lot of other southern democrats or Texas Democrats for that. Im sorry, whats the question again . Thats this combination which was turned into something socreative. Of liberal goals, liberal hopes s, there was no other time. I think kind of the excitement and politics of some of the new deal legislation had taken its course and you have the war and this new generation of legislators coming back. They were battle hardened and would still have these kind of liberal principles but they were whats the phrase . Harden battle. They were a new type of policymaker. They were betty betty, worth a . One gets the impression reading this that maybe johnson was kind of lonely because he so, not just welcomes the boxes to the white house, but he was liable to call them up and they had other plans and they would go right to the white house and they must have spent hundreds of hours together, not just talking politics, but enjoying life. They watched gunsmoke on tv. [laughter] i mean, it was like two couples ehat are getting together all the time. So, yeah. They enjoyed each Others Company and there was no question of that and brooks, for a president that i was like the loneliest job and is so you need someone or people, at least as someone who isnt trying to get anything for personal gain. He might not have shied away from getting something from beaumont, but he was never anything after anything for himself and i think that is something that president s need. One thing he learned from rayburn is that you dont talk to the press, back in the day you did not, i mean, they had this board of education as well kind of insider leadership from both the republicans and 0mocrats who would be in the speakers chambers after 5 00 p. M. And they would drink scotch and discuss politics. Surely, bourbon. Bourbon and then they switched to scotch. All three of them . [laughter] so, if you learn that from rayburn, so it was interesting education that he thought. Rayburn, was he still speaker . Yeah till 1960. So, it was a real we belonged to texas, did we . Big texas allegation, but it was those three rayburn, johnson and nsbrooks that kind of steers steered the conversation and they understood what levers to pull. T and of the direction they steered it in was different from what we now think of as what texas wants. Its a different todaynt. Why was he so friendly to civil rights . Do you know what the racial composition of his district was . Much more mixed of them the rest of texas. So much in just this Little Corner and you had, you know, kind of Migrant Workers from generations to thator corner, si think he grew up in a very different kind of community. His district had very kind of traditional whites and they had a it was a town in his district and where the grand dragon for the ku klux klan lived was in his district as well and if so you had this real mix of people in the political outlooks and not only did he have to steer, but through that he also really believed in the civil rights. He believed there was a time when after in response to the brown versus board of education, where i think it was 84 southern democrats, congressman and 18 senators find the southern manifesto, which it didnt do say they continue segregation, but that was the purpose of it and he refused it to sign. There were a few others, i think, maybe a dozen including his friend to jim wright that also refused. Out of more than a hundred i imagine. 82 signed it and about a dozen that did not and then 19 senators. 82 out of 430 . Well, southerners, defined as the 11 original confederate states. Did he ever have did he ever think about running for a statewide office or National Office . In the book it feels like he really didnt give that a thought. He said he was never tempted and it just didnt occur to him and so consequently he didnt care if some reporters from california called up he would talk to them, but he didnt care about the press getting anything special from him that would elevate his national stature. He cared about his district in the beaumont and brown and cared about the power of the chairmanship in washington. He got been in transmit from the New York Times in 1966. They asked him for comment afterwards and he was like, i dont know, i guess they like my policy about shipping and coastal waterway. Now, when how many president s did you say he worked under . Ten . People learned quickly not to make the mistake he worked under 10 president s. He worked with 10 president s. [laughter] i get the feeling from his military experience where he knew the rule book, but he played by the real available coming the rulebook of human nature and that it was kind of the wayf he became as effectivea legislator as he did. He learned he could bend the rules like adding the number two in front of the 50 and also learned as an officer they were staging to go back to guam at one