Programs. In 1982 he appeared on book notes to talk about his biography of president truman it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and to help change the view of the truman presidency. Here he is from 1992. Cspan you start off by saying as far back as he could remember truman held onto the mythical roman heroes. What is that all about . The mythical hero who left in time of war with the great general and was victorious and renounced all of his power and returned to the farm. Thats a theme the country was founded on. If you are at the capital with the great painting of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief of the Continental Army to congress the symbols earth all throughout that painting because they believe this is what democracy entailed that any citizen should be called upon at any time to serve b ultheir country in any capacity and the power belong to the people and would bepo returned to those who held it. He like to say i never forget who i was, where i came from and where i gogo back to. That is his theme obviously that he knows who he was. And he was proud of he was. And the return to independence after he left the office of the presidency in 1953, was his way to let his actions speak louder than words. Living up to that idea was not as easy as he expected. And then the harry truman of independence missouri. He missed washington and the pressure in the segment of washington. He live nearly 70 years but he was 20 years in washington a senator and Vice President and president. Cspan ear that he left to go back to independence . 1953 when eisenhower took the oath of office. When truman walked down he was citizen truman. He had no pension. No allowance for office space. No secret service. The income was is an army pension of 119 a month and he got on the train the new president eisenhower loaned him the president ial car that belong to roosevelt to ride home to independence and all the way across the country he was greeted one town after another by crowd to came out to seeee him. The he got restless and walked around the train he would just say hello toto everybody. And returning to what he had been. S interesting as all the rest of it. I mass sometimes what drew me to truman but one of them certainly for me it is a wonderful story and the story of his retirementt years is as appealing for me to write as any in the book. Cspan 117 pages. Including sources. Its a slim volume. [laughter] but the problem is to keep it to one volume i was determined it would not be a twovolume biography. I wanted it to be a big book i didnt know it would be quite this big but the span and the arc of his life is a chronicle of American Life with the jeffersonian agrarian which he experiences directly as a boy growing up in a small town. With power based primarily on scientific accomplishments. A 19th century man. And manner of speech and have it and thought before the First World War and yet the most momentous of all of the 20h century but he is not prepared. We were not prepared as a country either. He had the various ordeals he had to get behind. And thats what symbolizes the history of our country. Theres a lot of things we can do with this book i will skip to the last chapter in some of your notes. Because its relevant you talk that harry truman and his wife got in their own core after he was president and drove back to new york . Talk about that. He loved to drive an automobile which is interesting because its one of the few recreations. He didnt play golf or tennis and didnt know how to dance. Driving an automobile and reading and walking where his primary recreations. He bought a new chrysler and wanted to get a workout. So they decided they would drive from independence to washington and friends try to stop them from doing that. But they were determined and set off on the car it was an adventure because and then assure them out of town as rapidly as possible. So that as a consequence people would pass them by former president of the United States driving along the highway the cars would drop back and pass them again to see if their eyes are playing tricks on them he turned and said there goes our incognito. Now the press corps that had covered them drove out to maryland and heard that he was coming they all followed him and he loved that and then with his short sleeves on driving the car the crowd all gathered around and then drove up to new york that was on the town and went to restaurants just like anybody visiting new j york taxicabs and pullover and drivers way to jump out and say hairy. You are my man and on the way back a state trooper pulled him over because apparently he was cutting to close when he pass them he said the trooper just wanted to say hello and shake his hand. That was the last automobile trip after that they go by train or plane or boat. There was the attempted assassination. Why wouldnt the government have protection at thates time . It just wasnt done why wouldnt they have a penchant for Army Officers . In fact he had very little money. He had to borrow some money secretly that dean atchison cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown it doesnt mean he didnt have money. He did that he neededave cash o cover the expenses. And then with theg autobiography memoirs which no other president has done except for Herbert Hoover that was much prefer it was far more mulch on tumultuous. Then to undertake the twovolume and more which was very ambitious. And then he built his library. So truman was the first president to officiate over the library. Something i tried to imply or emphasize in the book is that truman was very creative public figure and president presidency. He built roads and court houses then he built the famous truman balcony back at the white house that was a great flurry of criticism and then he entirely rebuilt the white house what we have today is the house that harry built except for the outer shell which was maintained. The entire interior is reconstruction. He took part in every detail of that. He loved building and creating. And of course in a larger way his presidency is marked such as innovative acts of the marshall plan. So to be a builder in the last chapter of his life appealed to him tremendously. Having his office at the library and to take people aroun around, except when he traveled. Did you ever meet him . S no. I saw him once when i was a youngster my first trip to new york i was starry eyed and god said job at the magazine called Sports Illustrated he came out of the st. George hotel a big car pulled up and i stood with the crowd i had never seen a governor before so i was excited about that. And then former president truman. I remember thinking my god he is in color. Because he only had black and white television. And i think he had very high color. He radiated good health that makes him seem very vital. He did not seem like a little man to me. He seemed like he was 6foot 8 inches but i never met him. I often thought would it be interesting to gobe back and then to say mr. President i will write your biography some day. What do you think he would othink . This after all is an honest attempt to see the complete man and his faults. I understood him better than other people it was a much more complicated and complex and keenly intelligent the spirit manrr of the truman implies. He is an just a salty down home missouri will rogers. Guest in total perhaps either margaret truman, his daughter or else he and Clark Clifford and some of the secret service peoplsecretservice peope invaluable because they were with him all the time. Many of them had never been interviewed before. Host are the secret Service Allowed to talk after the fact . Guest apparently so. Cspan you found nothing guest no. And they were wonderful because they sold them off stage. They saw him under all conditions and often under enormous pressure, tension. You mentioned that attempted assassination. Two of the secret service men who are still here in washington, walked me through the whole event from both inside and outside of the warehouse where it took place and spend a better part of one saturday doing that, and i dont think, im sure thats never been done before. So my account of that is based on material that can only be han by reaching thats time for living people. And their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing to listen to. And its true of all the people that work for him at all levels. I didnt find a Single Person that knew him well or worked with him who wanted to tell me what his terrible backstage temper was or what an ungrateful or difficult boss he was to work pwith. The closer people were to him, not thatm they liked him but ty were devoted to him and in a way i kept hoping i would find some people who didnt like him or have some skeletons to pull out of the closet, but that never happened. Bria cspan when did you start w this . Guest 1982. Cspan what was the reason . Guest well, i was looking for a subject. I started working on it book about pablo picasso. I had to go around and find up with harry truman. I quit that didnt stop after a few months because i found i disliked it so. He was a propelling human being and it didnt really have a story of the kind that interested me. There wasnt a one volume biography of if i were going to do a 20th century president it wouldnt be truman and he said why not carry truman. So i looked into it and i found there wasnt a good biography of harry truman. It was the complete life and times. The last chapter that you are talking about has never been ab about before. Its a very important part of his life. And beyond that, there was this collection of letters and diaries that he poured himself out on paper all of his life and left a written personal very revealing record unlike that of any president i know of and im sure we will never have another president that believes anything like that. We dont write letters much anymore and they dont keep diaries much anymore. He did with his whole life and long before he ever realized it. When his wife was back looking after her mother, harry truman, the president of the United States wrote 37 times and these were not just simple how are you, the weather is turning cool, these were real letters. Cspan with a long and . Guest is from actualwr letters. He had wonderful straightforward strong handwriting just like he was. But very legible so there was never a problem reading his handwriting as there was very seldom ever a problem understanding they called their daughter every night in new york. Guest yes they were very close. With secret Service Agents or as white house staff, domestic staffaf have said they were by r the closest family that they had ever known in the white house and though they dont want to be quoted by person they all say truman was their favorite. She was the first president ever to walk out into the kitchen, the first president in their memory to walk out toane the kitchen to thank the chef or to cook for dinnerat that night. They remember Calvin Coolidge coming out once or twice. They thought perhaps i was to see if anybody was [inaudible] truman knew everybody by name, knew all about their families. This wasnt a sort of politicians device. Its just the way he was. The whole give them hell, harry, harry truman on the job come in the office, at the white house with his people, the lowest level or highest level, he never gave anyone help. He never raised his voice. If anything he is remembered for how considerate he was. Then for small favors and courtesies he would do. Cspan and me ask a few things about yourself and then we will get back to president truman. Where were you born . Guest Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1933. Im the third of four sons. My family lived in pittsburgh for many, many generations, and i grew up in a very heavy household. My own children have told me you have no chance of ever being a serious writer because you have to have the childhood. Cspan what did your parents to . Guest i father had an Electrical Supply business whih is still in business. One of my brothers now runs it and i went to Jail University and when i got out i was determined to go down to new york and get a job either at a magazine or newspaper. Cspan how did you get into yale . Guest i guess i did well enough on the College Board exams and had a pretty good grades in highgh school and my o older brothers had gone there and that seemeded to help in the days. Cspan what did you study . Guest english major and minor in art. I was torn on whether i wanted to be a writer or painter. I never imagined i would wind up writing a history and biographies, but i feel in my work im working in the School Following a tradition or school if other writers who have been trained academically as historians butd who are writers who work in the past of the way foreign correspondents might workor in another country. People like barbara and bruce and paul and robert care of. I suppose they are not journalists. Cspan you can fo do with reason . Guest to findfi a job. Out in the streets i tried to get a job at the Herald Tribune and the colliers magazine and time life and was hired to be a trainee at Sports Illustrated. Guest i stayed almost five and a half years and then when john kennedy was elected i came down to washington to be part of the frontier. Very lovely number. N worked at the u. S. Information when admiral was running it which was exciting and wonderf wonderful. But after the president was killed and giving his post, i went back to new york to work as an editor and writer at the heritage magazine, the heritage publishing company. My major effort there is the picture that history in world war ii which is still in print all these years and then at that point i started writing my first book which was the johnstown flood. Cspan how many other books . Guest this is my sixth book. Cspan giving the ten year pure co. From 1982 to 1992, did you write any other books guest i published a collection, anthology of essays which came out last year called brave companions, is no other books. But i did a good deal on television. The host of the smithsonian world series on Public Television and lately that lasted five years for the American Experience series. And ive narrated a number of other documentaries like lbj programs and the civil war. Cspan voice, you can hear the voice over 11 episodes of the civil war. Did you get reaction from people . Guest often im on an Airline Ticket counter or order something in a restaurant and somebody will step down and say thesn civil war, that was a big undertaking. Its almost walltowall narration. I felt i had been in the game of 60 minutes but was never seen. But it was a privilege to be part of that into such a wonderful project. Ken burns is a major figure in broadcasting today and he defied all the experts. The conventional wisdom about television is that nobody was interested in this curiousob programming, and certainly nobody would watch anything that went on for that many hours. Cspan how much time did you devote to that . Guest i was involved from the beginningth and as i recallt took about four r and a half years. I think it took longer than it took to fight the war. Cspan in the notes in the back, you talk a lot about your family and rather than me read it, how many kids and how many were involved . Guest we had five children and they all helped in one way or another. Some extensively. One son drove me all through france to follow the war. Trumans part in world war i and that same young fellow who took the photograph of me on the back of the book. Thats bill mcauliffe. And jeffrey is another sign to help with research on capitol hill at the library of congress. Others hold with either research or sustaining their father through difficult times, and the book is dedicated to our youngest daughter who did a very valuable work in helping with the research on the restoration of the white house, but more than that, it was with my wife and me all the time for those ten years. We moved to washington to do the smithsonian series of when i was 50yearsold, which is exactly the time truman came to washington as a senator. We came with one daughter who was a teenager, just as margaret was, we lived in a small apartment and making all the adjustments one does to living in washington. So i felt a certain empathy whenever i think of truman and his senatorial heres invading it was valuable for me because they talwe talk about the presi. In order to better understand the records and study. In the study the way the bureaucracy works at the press works and everything about washington itself to study the living form as well as the historical record. Host cspan you said with historian dick baker you wrote after roosevelt. Spinnaker was one of the most dramatic moments in the story when truman the evening of roosevelts death he is summoned from the white house by press secretary when he was having a drink with sam rayburn and euphemistically known as the board of education it was the hideaway beneath outside where they would b meet for a drink after work every day. Truman, getting the message earlier he was coming to the white house, left rehbergs bute and ran back to to his own office fo of the Vice President s office on the senate side. I wanted to make a run. For one thing ive wanted to do in order to find out what time he mustve been at various places. B i knew how fast he walked, so i could tell how long it took them to walkpl over and im the Vice President s office over two the hideaway. But you cant just start running through theea capital. With the Capitol Police remained on and we were coming along through the hole if youg run through the stone halls of the capitol, it is a thunderous sound. We came to a point where the Capitol Police have a kind of rest area in office and they heard this noise. Four or five of them came out into the hall to see what was going on. Its very apprehensive as we toward them. As we got up to them, the capital officer who was out front said it. I could ever possibly explain to you what we were doing but they did make the run. Its an interesting point because