Assassination and a number of president s were already assassinated, why wouldnt the government have protections from him . There were pensions for army officers, everybody else but no pension for president s. In fact he had very little money. He had to borrow some money secretly, which dean addison cosigned. To pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but you need cash to cover all the expenses of moving out of the white house. And when he got home in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, it is memoirs which no other president had ever done except for Herbert Hoover but hoovers time in office was much briefer than trumans and trumans presidency covered far more tumultuous history and hoovers had so to undertake the 2 volume memoir was a very major ambitious task. And then he built his library. Now, there had been a previous president ial library. Franklin Roosevelt Library at hyde park but it was established after roosevelt died in office so truman was the first president to officiate over the establishment of his president ial library and again , he was beginning something new. One of the things ive tried to imply or to emphasize in the book is that truman was at heart a very creative public figure. It was a creative president. His was a creative presidency. The roads, he built courthouses and when he got to washington he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house with a great flurry of criticism and of course he is the one who entirely rebuilt the white house. The white house we have today was really the house that harry built. Except for the outer shell which was maintained of the original outer shell. The entire interior is a reconstruction of the entire house and he took part of every detail of that reconstruction. He loved the building and he loved creating and of course in a larger way his presidency is marked by such creative and innovative acts as the Marshall Plan and truman doctrine and nato and 24 and so forth so to begin to be a builder in this last chapter of his life appealed to him tremendously and building the library, having his office at the library, welcoming guests they are, taking people around the library became his life and it was tragic when he went to europe. Did you ever meet him . I saw him once when i was a youngster in my first job in new york. I was story i and ive gotten a job at a news magazine called Sports Illustrated and i was coming home from work one night and we lived in brooklyn and i came out of the subway stop at the old Sanctuary Hotel and a car pulled up and governor hammond stepped out. And i had never seen a governor before so i was excited about that and out stepped president truman, former president truman and i was astonished and i remember thinking my god. He is in color. Because we only had black and white television. Black and white newspapers. And i think the fact that he had high color, he radiated good health, made him seem very just notjust vital that a person. And he certainly didnt seem like a little man to me. To me at that moment itwas six foot eight. But i never spoke to him. I never met him. Ive often thought wouldnt be interesting if you couldgo back in time and i could be able to reach out and touch him on the shoulder in 1956 that fall night and saymister president , im going to write your biography someday. Knowing what you know, what do you think he would think of this . Im sure theres some of it you wouldnt like because this is after all an honest attempt to see the complete man with his flaws and faults. But i would hope that in some he would think i had understood him betterthan other people have. I think that he was a much much more complicated, complex keenly intelligent man. Thoughtful, considerate man and the stereotyped harry truman portrait implies. He isnt James Whitmore playing give them hell harry. He isnt just a salty, downhome miserywill rogers. And all the people ive interviewed who knew him and worked with him and were in the white house with him, all say please understand that this man was much more than met the eye. How many interviews did you do . About 126 arranged across a broad spectrum. Some people who hardly knew him at all but some who come and go as neighbors or people in independence but also some of whom were so important that i interviewed them many times over during the 10 years it took me towrite the book. Who didyou spend the most time with . I would guess in total perhaps either margaret truman, his daughter or george elsie who was on the white house staff and Mark Clifford and some of the secretservice people who were invaluable because they were with him all the time. And many of you have never been interviewed interviewed about him. Are secret serviceallowed to talk after the fact . Apparently so. They are wonderful because they saw him offstage. They saw him under all conditions and often under enormouspressure. Tension, attempted assassination. Two of the secret service men who are still here in washington me through the whole event from both inside and outside blair house where it tookplace. I spent the better part of one saturday doing that and im thats never been done before so my account and that is based on materials that can only be had by reaching that time through living people. And their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing tolisten to. And its true of all the people that worked for him at all levels. I did not sing to him well worth wanted to tell me what terrible back or or difficult boss he was to work with. At closer people work to him, they were hoping i would add some fall out of the closet that never happened. When you start out . 10 years ago. I was looking subject. Working on a book. I had to go around the bar with pablo and i because i found so. It wasto me, a human being. And it really i did meet venture. It was an immensely. I have a lot of but i found his treatment of his family, his attitude towards women. It wasnt somebody i wanted to five years ago at with as a roommate. My that i think about doing Franklin Roosevelt because at that time there was not a good one biography of Franklin Roosevelt. And just on impulse, just in a vessel way i said number if i were going to do a 23 president it would be Franklin Roosevelt, truman and he said well, why not harry truman. So i looked into it and i found that there was not my life. The last chapter that you, part of his life has never been written about before and advises your life. For part of his life and my own was this immense collection of letters and diaries which he poured himself out on paper, all of his life and he left a written personal very revealing record unlike that of any president that i know of and im sure were never going to have another president leaves anything like that much more i anymore. He did both his whole life and long before he ever realized he was quite the figures in history. In one, in one month in 1947 when he was president and when his wife best was back in and looking after her mother, harry truman, the president of the United States over 37 times. And these are just simple how are you the weather is turning cool, the ever find out how you . The actual letters all survive. Yet wonderful clear straightforward strong handwriting just like he was. But fortunately, very legible so that theres never a problem reading his handwriting. As there was very, never a problem understanding what he was talking about. Also point out that he and his wife, best truman called her daughter every night in new york. Yes. They were very close. The same people that were with him has secret service or white house staff, domestic at five familythey had ever known in the white house. And though they dont want to be quoted by person, they all say truman was their favorite president. It was the first president to walk out to the kitchen. And first president in their memory to walk out to the kitchen. To thank the chef or the cook for the dinner that night. They remember Calvin Coolidge was to see if anybody was filtering food. Truman knew everybody by name on the staff, knew all about their families. This wasnt sort of a politicians device. Its just the way he was. And the whole give them hell harry, harry truman on the job at the office, in the white house with his people, the lowest level or the highest level never gave any one hell. Never raised. If anything is remembered for howconsiderate he was. And for small favors. Mccullough has appeared on cspan more than 75 times including appearances on book tv up next one was the recipient of the period he lived until 1826. The age of nearly 91. He lived longer than any president in our history. He has been commonly thought of as a rich boston blueblood. He was none of those. It was rich, it wasnt a bostonian and he wasnt a blueblood. It was a farmer son because of a scholarship discovered books as he said forever. John adams was the most deeply and broadly read american of his bookish time. And lets please today remember it was john adams, second president of the United States who signed legislation that created the library of congress. Though to be here talk about john adams, to remember john adams is altogether particularly appropriate at this occasion. He was a man of genuine brilliance. He was also a man of great heart, great humor. Voted to his country. Truthful, devoted to his wife , to his family hardworking, godfearing. One of the greatest greatest patriots in our history area he was as well named, abrasive, sometimes from a. Overly concerned with his own position or place in the f of his friend. He was also a man to his credit also to his as he never did her popularity as mistress. He never reported. He was a plant man for it was. Behavior was that is the only founding father who ever never owned a slave as a matter of principle. We know its important to judge those who did own slaves in the context of their time. And fair and historically, the sensible sound do not forget that john and Abigail Adams were also of their time and they opposed slavery. Even more likely that one point i wonder if all prevails and suffering are going through our gods punishment or the sin of slavery. Slavery one through 40 well for. Not well before the declaration ofindependence. The declaration of independence as John Dickinson the signing of the declaration of independence was in many ways as dickinson said launching storm in a skiff made of paper. What made it more than just what he succeeded in the revolution, in the war. We fought for and succeeded gaining independence and john adams would not have said three independent, he would have said independent and free. You have to have independence, then comes the freedom and new englanders by nature, bicultural tradition fiercely independent people. Independence was a way of life. So was religion. I think this is of the utmost importance in understanding that time, that age, that moment in history and those protagonists. We believe in the separation of church and state and to a large degree theyall did to. But the separation of church and state in their time, in their minds and ive been spirit to separate church statement. And if we really want to understand that time and those people we have to understand the part that religion playedin their life and their whole outlook on what might happen next. They also had very Long Distance communication that took a lot of time and a lot of prevail and is almost beyond ourreckoning. To get a letter back and forth between philadelphia and boston for wednesday where the atoms lived in the cold rain free at least two weeks. Medication across the ocean and the abigail and john were separated work fully in family. Separate was created by the ocean communicated across the ocean. Reports of 3 to 6 months. And what did that mean . You cant just say its very inconvenient. Mens and personal life and in diplomatic or official life that one had to be more responsible than we understand today from ones own decisions area Abigail Adams at home running the family, running the farm, trying to balance accounts and keep able in good people working with her to make the farm workbecause that was the only means of subsistence. Trying to educate the children, taking decisions about whether to go get smallpox shot for example. And to make those decisions herself that she couldnt pick up the phone and asked her husband what should i do . That was life. Assumption of responsibility to ones self. When adams was serving in france and in the netherlands and in england as a diplomat, again and again he had to make momentous decisions on his own. Decisions that would affect the course of events at the time , and fortunes perhaps of the United States and its country but also of course his own career he made them because that was necessary. Nothing could be can indicated any faster than something could be transported. We think of to medication and transportation has two Different Things but at that time it was the same thing. No faster my sailboat or somebody on a horse. It works like we are because they live in a different time. A very different time and a very, very interesting time. Ive tried to read not only writing a book, i tried to read not only what they wrote , and oh my, did they write. Neither john or Abigail Adams was capable of writing a sentence or a short letter. And they wrote between the two of them over 1000 letters to each other. That has survived, they doubtless wrote many more than that but over 1000 have survived all in the Massachusetts Historical Society and all on rag paper and as a consequence those letters are as good as the day they were written and you can hold it in your own hand and youre holding that letter about the same distance from your eyes as they did with two hands as they did and believe me, something tactile, something very important, visceral happens when youre working the real thing area it isnt the same as seeing it on microfilm orreproduced in a book. By humanity, the mortality , the vulnerability of those people comes through and the bravery. Think of that woman alone in her 11 00 at night having been up since five in the morning doing all she did, sitting down and writing those letters and nearly always inserting into them into her letters some wonderful quote from one of her favorite poets or from shakespeare and nearly always getting it a little bit wrong. Which shows she didnt look it up. She wasnt taking a book off the shelf and copying it out. This will make me look erudite. She knew it was part of her. But there is equally important and equally rewarding experience in reading not just what they wrote what they read area and i did a small piece in the Washington Post this summer about that, going back and reading all those writers and so many of us were required to read in english courses in high school or college, Samuel Johnson and hope swift and defoe and Samuel Richardson and novels of Samuel Richardson. And to be reminded of how terrific they were. What wonderful writers. We talk about progress and heaven knows we live with the benefits of progress all the time and certainly when we go to the dentist. When i think of poor john adams with the end of his life not a tooth in his head. Every one of them. Had to be pulled. Long before novocain. But we have a certain fancy and a certain arrogance about progress. But when you read what they wrote in the 18th century, i dont think anybody does it any better today or even as well. And ill tell you Something Else that want to make us all sit up and shake up. And that is that the Literacy Rate in massachusetts was higher in their time and it is today. And what a disgrace that is real and what good work, what a lot of work still has to be done about that. The books that they read, affect their lives as they do our lives and our time. They affected their notion of truth, heroism, right and wrong. How you write a letter. John adams for example advised Young John Quincy dont try to write literature when you write a letter. Brain for thrills and fancy effect read right but when you talk. Its a letter, remember that. we thought so when you read his letters and to a very large degree the letters of lindsay, yourehearing them talk. And one of the things that ive done in my books and particularly in this book, one of the ways to approach biography is my way, im not saying it the right way, is to let them talk as much as possible. Most of life is talk if you think about it. And how they talk, the words they use. Thefigures of speech, the cadences , all of it is a reflection of personality. Of style, of the person. Abigail was hugely influenced by the writings of Samuel Richardson, particularly the great novel clarissa was one of the most popular novels of the 18th century and she wrote a very interesting letter to companies saying you want to read clarissa and you want to read, you want to write your letters the way they are in the novel area the whole novel is just letters, thats all it is. People writing lettersback and forth to each other and their written to the moment. Whats happening right now and thats the wayabigails letters are written. All of those letters that she wrote to her husband were written in large part because they were separated for so many years and there suffering they experienced by because of their separation is to our advantage because we as a consequence have the letters. But even when she was from, right. He would write to her sister mary for example, some of the best letters he ever wrote the point is right. He on paper feelings out on paper this is a very important point about writing for all of us. And youve all had the experience. Sit down and start to write something you find that you have an insight thought that you never would have had you hadnt required or forced yourself or wanted to write area something about writing focuses the brain a different way area open archives offer programs with historian david, read in 2001 he appeared on our monthly call in program in depth to discuss his books andwriting process. Here he gives us a tour of his