Good evening, every saturday night throughout the summer booktv is putting on several hours of a wellknown author. Kind of our twist on binge watching. Tonights featured author s historian David Mccullough the author of a dozen books including bestselling histories on the american revolution, the invention of manned spaceflight the settlement of the Northwest Territory and the creation of the brooklyn bridge. He is a two time winner both Pulitzer Prize and National Book award and appeared on booktv and cspan over 75 times. Coming up over the next several hours we will show you some of those programs. First up in 1992 he appeared on cspans book not programmed to talk about his biography of president harry truman. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and hope to change the view of the truman presidency. Here is David Mccullough from 1992. David mccullough, and your last chapter called citizen Truman Truman had held to the idea of the mythical roman heroes cincinnatus. Whats that all about . Cincinnatus was the mythical hero who left the plow, left the farm to go to the aid of his country in time of war and became a great general and it was victorious and then he renounced all of his power and returned to the farm. Thats a theme that this country was founded on. If you go up to the rotunda in the capital and you look at the great painting of the tremble of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief and the Continental Army to the congress, the cincinnatus symbols are all do that painting because the Founding Fathers really believe this is what democracy entails. It meant that citizenship met any citizen should be called, could be called upon any time to serve his country or her country and any capacity including the greatest power. In the power belong to the people, therefore, power would be returned by those who held it for a time. Truman liked to say i try never to forget who i was, where he came from, and where would go back to. Thats the cincinnatus Team Obviously but it also shows that he knows who he was. He knew who he was and he was proud of who he was and the return to independence after he left the office of the presidency in 1953 was his way of letting his actions speak louder than his words but when he got home he found it was living up to the idea wasnt as easy as expected and well we all remember i think with affection the harry truman of independence missouri walking the same streets of the town he had grown up in and just being a citizen neighbor truman once again, he wasnt all that easy for him. He missed washington, he missed the simulation of the pressure and the excitement of washington. In order to understand truman you have to understand, it seems to me, life in jackson county. He lived to be almost 90. The year that he left washington to go back to independence . 1953 when eisenhower took the oath of office as the 34th president of the United States. When eisenhower took the oath and true maroon walked down off the platform he was right back down on ground level again as citizen truman. He had no pension. He had no allowance for office space, no franking privileges. No secret service guards. His only income was his army pension which was i think 119 a month. He got on the train and the president , the new president general eisenhower had given him loaned him the president ial parlor car can the railroad car that had belonged to Franklin Roosevelt, the famous magellan to write home to independence. All the way across the country he was greeted at one town after another the crowds that came down he got restless and got up and walked around. It was regular passenger train the rest of the train was for the regular passengers he just walked up and down the chain saying hello to everybody and returning to what he had been, the last part of his life in many ways is as fulfilling as happy as interesting part of his life as all the rest of it. He is a great story, harry truman, and asked sometimes why did you do truman and what drew you to truman . And there are many obvious reasons but one of them certainly for me as a writer is its a wonderful story. The story of his retirement years is as appealing, was as appealing to for me to write is also anything in the book. 1117 pages. Including source notes. Correct. [laughter] if you stop at source notes. 992 pages of text. A mere slim volume. The big problem was to keep it to one volume. I was determined it would not be a two volume biography. I wanted it all in one volume. I wanted it to be a big book. I didnt know it was gonna wind up quite as big as it is. Its a big subject. Its a big life. The arc of his life is really a chronicle of American Life in those years. He goes from what is essentially a jeffersonian jacksonian farms and small towns which he experiences directly as a boy growing up in a small town environment for 11 some years. To a country and nation that describes the world with power based primarily on industrial technological and scientific accompaniments. He is a 19thcentury man formed in all manner of speech, habit, thought, taste, formed in that period before the british world war and yet he has to face momentous the most momentous of all decisions of the 20th century by which theoretically he is not prepared but then we were prepared as a country either. To me hes like bunyans pilgrim and pilgrims progress. He has these various ordeals and complications and difficulties he has to overcome or get beyond. Each one of which represent something that symbolizes the history of our country. This is a book about america for me. I wanted to be as much a book about america as it is about harry truman. Is a lot of things we can do a with this book we only have a short hour. Im going to stay with the last chapter and also some notes. In this last chapter because its relevant to today commute talk about harry truman and his wife got in their own car after he was president , drove by themselves back to this town in new york, talk about that. He had a new chrysler and love to drive an automobile. Which is interesting because it was one of the few recreations he had he didnt know how to play in sports, he didnt play golf commute and play tennis. He didnt even know how to dance. Driving an automobile and reading and walking were his primary recreations. He bought a new chrysler and as he said he wanted to give it a workout. They decided to drive from independence back to washington and friends tried to sway them from doing that but they were determined and they set off in the car and it was an adventure in itself. Every time they came to people would of course recognize them and they be great for us and the police would get very concerned they were in town and worried about their safety and worried if something happened to them would be the fault of the local police. Mr. Truman like to drive quite fast above the speed limit. Mrs. Truman did not approve that. She would have him hold to the speed limit. As a consequence they were often being passed and what people would pass them by they would look there was former president of the United States his wife driving along the highway and the cars would drop back and pass them again to see a set eyes there goes our incognito. Then when they arrived in washington many of the press corps covered him drove up to maryland to pick him up. They heard he was coming. Waited for the car to come in and they all followed him in the town and he loved it. When he stopped at the mayflower and got out just as short sleeves on driving the car the crowd all gathered around, traffic backed up and caused quite a commotion. They then drove up to new york to see margaret, who was then living in new york and went to some shows went to see on the town Leonard Bernstein show. Went to the restaurant just like anybody visiting new york. And causing great commotion. Taxicabs would pull over to the curb and drivers would jump out and say hi harry, you are my man and all that. The state trooper pulled him over for apparently he had been cutting people too close when he passed them. He said the trooper wanted to say hello and get his to shake his hand. From then on they would go by train, plane come about. There been an attempted assassination and the number of president s had already been assassinated. Why with government at that time have productions . It just wasnt done. In fact, he had very little money. He had to borrow some money. Quite secretly. Dean atchison cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown. It doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but he needed some cash to cover the dances moving out of the white house. When he got home, in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography and memoirs which no other president had ever done except herbert hoover. Hoovers time was much ab trumans presidency covered far more tumultuous history than hoover. To undertake the two volume memoir was a very major ambitious task. Then he built his library. There had been a previous president ial library, Franklin Roosevelt library at hyde park it was established after roosevelt. Truman was the first president to actually officiate over the establishment of this president ial library. He was beginning something new. One of the things i tried to imply or emphasize in the book is that truman was in part a very creative public figure. He was a creative president. His was a creative presidency. He been a builder all his life, he built roads, he built choruses he got to washington when he became president he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house. Which caused a great flurry of criticism. He is the one who entirely rebuilt the white house. The white house we have today is really the house that harry built. Except for the outer shell which is maintained the original outer shell. The entire interior is a reconstruction of the original house. He took part in every detail of the reconstruction. He loved building he loved creating and things. In course in a larger way his presidency is marked by such creative and innovative acts as the Marshall Plan and truman doctrine and nato the Library Building the library, having his office at the library welcoming guests and taking people around the library became his life except for his troubles when he went to europe. Did you ever meet him . I saw him once when i was just a youngster when my first job in new york i was very starry eyed and got a job in a new magazine called sports illustrated. Was coming home from work one night we lived in brooklyn and i came out of the subway stop at the old st. George hotel and a big car pulled up. It was a small crowd rating and i stood with the crowd and a big car pulled up in governor harriman stepped up and i never seen a governor before. I was quite excited about that. And out stepped former president truman. I was astonished. And i remember thinking, my god, hes in color. Because we only have blackandwhite television. Black and white newspapers. The fact that he had very high color, he radiated good health. It made him seem very vital to a person. He certainly didnt seem like a little man to me, to me at that moment he was six foot eight. But i never spoke to him and never met him. Ive often thought that would be asking if he could go back in time and i could reach out and touch him on the shoulder in 1956. Mj, mr. President , im right your biography someday. Knowing what you know about him, what do you think he would think of this . Im sure there are some of that he wouldnt like because this is after all an honest attempt to see the complete premises flaws and faults. I would hope that in some he would think i had understood him better than other people have. I think he was a much much more complicated, complex and keenly intelligent man. Thoughtful, considerate man than the stereotype of harry truman. The portrait implies. He isnt james whitmore. He isnt the kind of he isnt just the kind of salty downhome missouri well rogers. All the people ive interviewed who knew him and work with him and were in the white house with them, all say please understand that this man was much more than met the eye. How many interviews did you do . About 126 and that ranged across a broad spectrum. Some people who hardly knew him at all but saw him come and go as neighbors or people in independence. Also some of whom were so important and what interviewed them many times over. Who did you spend the most time with . I would guess in total perhaps either margaret truman, his daughter, or george elsie, who is on the white house staff and clark clifford. Some of the secret Service People who are invaluable because they were with him all the time. Many of whom had never been interviewed before. Are secret Service Allowed to talk after the fact . Apparently so. They were concerned . No. They were wonderful because they saw him offstage they saw him in all conditions and often under enormous pressure. You mentioned the attempted assassination two of the secret service men still here in washington walked me through the whole event from inside and outside blair house where it took place. Spent the better part of one saturday doing that. Im sure thats never been done before. So my account of that is based on material that can only be had by reaching that time to living people. Their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing to listen to and true of all the people that work for him at all levels. I did not find a Single Person who knew him well and work with him who wanted to tell me what his terrible backstage temper was or what an ungrateful or difficult boss he was to work with. The closer people were to him it wasnt just that they liked him that they were devoted to him and in a way i kept hoping i would find some people who didnt really like him and had some skeletons to pull out of the closet but that never happened. When did you start on this . 10 years ago 1982. What was the reason . I was looking for a subject, i started working on a book about Pablo Picasso, had to go around the barn with Pablo Picasso to wind up with harry truman and i quit that book i stopped after a few months because i found i dislike him so a repellent human being. He didnt really have a story of the kind that interested me. He was instantly successful. He never really went very far or had any adventures so to speak. He was immensely important painter. He was the krakatoa of modern art. I found the treatment of his family his attitude toward women, all he wasnt somebody i wanted to spend five years with is roommate so to speak. In my editor at simon and schuster suggested that i think about doing Franklin Roosevelt because at that time there was not a good biography of Franklin Roosevelt. Just on impulse in a visceral way i said, no, if i really do 1 20 century president it would be Franklin Roosevelt it would be harry truman and he said, well, why not harry truman . So i looked into it and i found it was not a good biography of harry truman. There isnt a complete life and times the last chapter that youre talking about that part of his life is never been written about before. Comprised 20 years of his life is a very important part of her life. Beyond that there 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 those of any president i have known him. We dont write letters much anymore. He did both his whole life and long before he ever realized he was going to be a figure in history. In one month to give you an example, in one month in 1947 when he was president and when his wife best was back in independence looking after her mother harry truman, the president of the United States wrote to her 37 times. These were just simple how are you and the weather is turning cool. These were real letters. Did you ever find out how he wrote them . Was it on hand. Actual letters. And wonderful, clear, straightforward strong handwriting, just like he was. But fortunately very legible so theres never a problem reading his handwriting as there was very seldom ever a problem understanding what he was talking about. In the last chapter you pointed out at some point in his life that he and his wife called their daughter margaret every night in new york . Yes they were very very close. The same people with him as secret Service Agents or is white house staff, domestic staff in the mansion, have said they were by far the closest family they have ever known in the white house. Though they dont want to be quoted by a person, they all say that truman was their favorite president. He was the first president ever to walk out to the kitchen and the first president in their memory to walk out to the kitchen to thank the chef or the cook for the dinner that night. They remembered Calvin Coolidge coming out once or twice but they thought that was perhaps to see if anybody was filtering food. Truman knew everybody by name on the staff. Knew all about their families. This wasnt a politicians device. Its just the way he was. The whole give them hell harry, harry truman on the job at the office in the white house with his people at the lowest level or highest level never gave anyone hell. He never raised his voice. If anything he is remembered for being for how considerate he was. From small favors and courtesies he would do. Let me ask you a few things about yourself then i will get back to president truman. Were you born . Was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 1983 andabi grew u very happy household my own children have told me you have no chance of ever being a serious writer because you had too happy childhood. What did your parents do . My father had an Electrical Supply business Electrical Supply company which is still in business by one of my brothers now runs it. I went to Yale University