The but not to pay i95 or to deliver a package to my po box church. Pgo works book is a cry from the new middle visit the website booktv. Org and type the authors name or book title into the search box. To the of the program. Good evening thank you for joining us for the program today. My name is gavin im the director of programs, exhibitions and partnerships for the massachusetts Historical Society. Before i begin the program on extend a special welcome to anyone who might be attending Virtual Program for the first time. If youre not filming with mhs was the oldest Historical Society in america in a been collecting preserving collecting and preserving our history since 1971. Have an amazing collection of close to 14 million manuscript pages and putting papers of three of the first six u. S. President s. In these days of social distancing we take into hosting virtual events. We have Online Events planned for the rest of the calendar year exploring many subjects of u. S. And massachusetts history which including seminars, brownbag lunch talks in the upcoming conference. For making our collections and online programs available for free we are only able to do this actually support of our members. If you are not a member or supporter, i hope you will consider joining us. With a special event this evening, will explore the life and legacy our speaker is who is a professor of history and the Beckett Family senior fellow at the university produce also National Endowment for the humanities fellow for 20202021 season. This area of specialty is cold war modern presidency and u. S. Political and double medic history with a focus on the 1960s from got john kennedy through watergate. Professor is a noted expert on Richard Nixons white house tapes. He is a maritime lifetime author of seven books including Richard Nixon in europe the reshaping of the postwar atlantic in his most recent book is making of the cold war. Since the first full biography whose public career spanned from the 1930s to 1970s. He is also a longtime friend to mhs. His research brought him into the mhs reading room and his work have been supported with a known fellowship the massachusetts Historical Society so that further do, please join me and welcome professor nick and dermot. I am grateful for the massachusetts Historical Society. Not just for hosting this event but for all of the reasons mentioned in the announcement of the book including facilitating is gavin said Numerous Research trips over a period of several years. And also for loaning many boxes of microfilm all the way to texas. I mean it literally if when i say would not be your thigh your health. Money also think cspan book tv. Not just for covering the event tonight before truly being the best in the business that what you do. I like to give a preview in terms of what i plan to do with our time. With the books officials pub date thing tomorrow, meaning many of you might not had a chance to read it yet. I would like to talk a little bit about what i learned anyway. Of lodge, about writing and research in the process of discovery for that way when you do have the chance to read the book these points might have greater meaning. At the end, it will be happy to answer some questions you like to ask a question and dont get a chance, the free semi and email. I always enjoy hearing from readers from those who tend book talks. Course the new ideas and conversation that are stimulated by those messages. I think or i will i see in my students. Henry cabot lodge is the most famous person youve never heard of. That is what is students. I do not know when i personally first heard the name Henry Cabot Lodge. Probably either in high school or college. However i do remember my reaction. He was a person with a famous sounding name yet i cannot place him. Was he the one who was Woodrow Wilsons nemesis . If so, how old he have been Richard Nixon in 1960 . Lodge did look older like the grandfatherly eisenhower than the youthful nixon during that race. You know, for this kid who grew up in the midwest, lodge has when this names you knew is important but you did not know why. For many the misunderstanding is compounded by the fact that Henry Cabot Lodge junior was named not for his father who died when cabot is he known was young. But his grandfather. And in addition, there are so many cabot and lodges especially in the northeast and family traditions are such that certain first names like henry repeat through multiple generations of the family tree. This is a book i never planned to write. As a writer there are things you spend a lot of time on, but they never quite gained traction. Then there are things you have no plan to write that come together relatively easily. This book is in the latter category. In early 2015 the executive editor of Yale University press of who would go on to become my editor called me to it ask what i knew about Henry Cabot Lodge junior. I tried to think of an area to answer but my answer is not much. I knew it lodge was a figure whose name appeared often on the kennedy, johnson and Nixon White House tapes making him almost unique in that sense. But he was still an enigma to me. Then bill asked me what the big book on lodge was nice that i dont think there is one. Bill was intrigued after entering a big book ought Richard Nixons vice presidency in which lodges name also kept coming up. So he asked me if i like to propose a biography. At the time signing a contract in the summer of 2015 i knew lodge had a substantial volume of papers at the massachusetts Historical Society. And the researcher probably necessitate research every president ial library from Herbert Hoover all be up to ronald reagan. And probably also extended trip to vietnam. But he really did not know it is getting into. And if i did i mightve thought twice about it. Im the kind of research are that if youre going to write about for example when lodgment eisenhower during the war, youve got to go to lg or to the hotel st. George on the top of the hill and see the site eisenhowers headquarters. Researcher me as an obsession that can be especially problematic when writing about summit like lodge was such a long career that took him to so my parts of the world. Now at the other end of this journey whether one comes with the first biography of Henry Cabot Lodge junior liking him more or less, the real purpose is to show that lodge was so much more than meets the eye. The sheer number of notable events of with he which was associated. Yet his role was hidden in those events make some kind of a cross between a wheres waldo, a forest gump and at times even a james bond type figure. A member of the greatest generation crossed with the best and brightest, lodges values and sacrifice of self or bigger causes are traits in short supply that our Society Needs again. While some politicians give lip service to serving the greater good, most famous is stated in john f. Kennedys admits ish and ask not what your country can do for you but what you could do for your country, lodge lived it. He was the last troop boston brahman to be active in public life. His career goes back to a time and compromise was an art and a comedy of virtue instead of a political they become today. Difficult finding a photo for the cover of a book like this. One photo capture someone with so many different phases of a life, of a career. Besides the one thats on the cover i would like to show you a few more that helped illustrate his life in his career. If youd please advance to the next slide. This photos Lyndon Johnson captures a behind the seam role with five consecutive president s from Dwight Eisenhower through gerald ford. Here in this photo on the south lawn lodge and johnson mustve escaped the oval office undetected, containing their conversation outside away from johnsons taping system. Once the press figured out they were on the loose, they quickly work to catch up. It is a theme throughout lodges career. And in the photo, this is the one of the one that appears in the book. He could see a number of familiar faces in the crowd including his son george in the back of the room. And then as you move aright from their secretary of state dean rusk. Secretary state mcnamara and Vice President hubert humphrey. If you could please advance the next slide. The next one is also something i noticed a lot in the various White House Photo collections. For a period of nearly 20 years lodge was often in the room when important decisions were made. While not always in cabinet, he consistently operated at that level or even as a second secretary of state at times. Having the actual title was something lodge rarely asked for or mentioned. And here again with mcnamara and ross injunction, when ross was asked his opinion many others in the oval office took note. Rather than learn what Henry Cabot Lodge junior stood for or the lessons of his life, and said we have largely forgotten him. As we did the other members of the best and the brightest for the role of vietnam. For example, similar question that my editor could have asked me what is the big book on dean rusk . There is not one today. Or robert mcnamara, there isnt one. Most of these wafer big biographies will surely be written one day. Unlike russ and mcnamara his life other than vietnam for the postwar era in terms of Foreign Policy influence ensure versatility i put them up there with Marshall James baker each represent their own era. Lodge tapes of his best years of Public Service and Democratic Administration with the other party its heartedly people like lodge willingly works for democrats to consider it a duty to do so. But harry truman and Dwight Eisenhower each appointed members of the opposite party to the supreme court. We should member lodge for taking part in an expanding the american adventure in southeast asia. The halfcentury public life is more than that. Entire generation of americans has been born and come of age since lodges death in 1985. The lessons of his life and times except at most a brief mention of the vietnam war. Lodge being oldfashioned did himself no Great Service controversial subjects or tellall memoir. Never tell them how she did it when asked if you plan to write a comprehensive history of his career. I do not sing book he said its interesting i dont reveal them than the book will be dull he wrote to evan thomas the Second Period one of eight editors interested in publishing lodges memoir. Its an air of big personalities and ideas that stood out against the mundane and the mediocre. Once again about Public Officials seek opportunities to serve for a primary reads other than financial gain. On three occasions lodge gave up his political career to serve the greater good. Thank he reserved to serve in kent by combat world war ii second when he sacrificed his senate seat to manage eisenhowers campaign for the presidency. And we willingly accept an appointment from the democratic present too the most challenging posts in the world. Knowing including those have benefited from lodges sacrifices were there to help in 1964 when he had a genuine chance for the presidency following his surprise when in the New Hampshire primary even though his success to withhold their support. His first ambassador tour in saigon from 1963 to 1964 represents where the greatest turning points and not just what would be known as the vietnam war but you have this time with the cold war. The people Like Community with her corresponded in some form for the buck including family members in virtually every form that i could track down who was still living, one in particular gave me early on a suggestion that not only did i carry out what resulted in the particular book you see. Phillips wrote a good book himself about vietnam holds aye vietnam matters about a decade ago was a jfk era official who is serving in vietnam at the time of lodges first appointmen appointment. As ambassador which began in august of 1963. Over breakfast at a diner in arlington, virginia, Rufus Phillips encouraged me to it study the origins of lodges appointment to vietnam. Most important contribution you can make, brook philip said to me was to determine in these instructions regarding the kill on november 1, 1963, for me then hearing that advice it hardly seems possible that i could find something new that adds to our understanding of an event that is been written about so many times. The most famous account being those featured in pentagon papers which began appearing in 1971. And then later the mid 1970s publish volleys of the Church Committee. The conventional wisdom today is that the coup which occurred at least to some degree of cia support was a key turning point in terms of American Military involvement in vietnam. Resulting in the assassination a u. S. Ally. By removing a widely and destabilize in vietnam as colin powell said about iraq when you break it, you buy it. And the coup of the events leading up to the coup with the fall of 1963 was when the knighted states bought it. Three weeks later they were deployed to the beaches in 1965. His lodges meetings with kennedy to occurred after the initiation of the taping system the summer of 1962. And occurred in a location of the taping system functioned in the oval office. Thousand june and august of 1963. I have seen plenty of strain things with respect to president ial tapes after working on the nixon tapes for so long. But to help with the kennedy tapes is defined in evidence of a tape that once existed, a tape that remain restricted or classified that i could request a review and hopefully in time for this book. Or anything at all that might simply lead me to the next clue. What Rufus Phillips suggested to determine what kennedy and lodge discussed about the coup seemed like an impossible task. Kennedy of course did not live to write about it from his perspective. And lodge generally did not talk about the subject with only a few exceptions were he was generally disciplined and would stick with the general account of his conversations with kennedy. If you could please advance to the next slide. And so of course and a talk like this at the skip over quite a few details. But the first thing i did trying to track down and follow through with his advice that phillips gave me was digging in some records about the promise of the county tapes. The deed of gift, where the tapes were stored at various times, the chain of custody, how they were process ultimately at the National Archives. Any irregularities along the wa way, major press coverage during the time, leading up to when they became public. And then of course when, why existence and knowledge of the taping system became public. So that is what you see here in this 1982 frontpage story in the Washington Post authored by a journalist who had already become famous for writing about president ial tapes, bob woodwar woodward. I think an informal word about the taping system has begun to spread as early back in 1973 and through the 1970s, it was relate this peace by woodward in 1982 they gave front page attention to the tapes first time. Besides the big headline the inside pages of the paper that day are several pages listing the extensive logs of the kennedy system including the dates that were recorded, subjects that were discussed, people that kennedy met with. Giving you tantalizing clues about what may be on the recording system without actually giving away any tapes themselves or transcripts from this tapes. So these are really logs. This was really the first strike against me and my task that phillips gave me. Because the list of dates that go on for pages, have a full copy here but i cannot reproduce it for the screen. On the righthand side is a list of dates taped in august of 1963. So those corresponding with lodges for world meeting with kennedy in the oval office. We can see the qualities of the best i could make it, the dates skip right over the farewell meeting with kennedy and august 15, 1963. In other words according to bob woodward and the official logs of the kennedy taping system there was no recording made of the meeting. But i was not ready to give up yet. Again comics friends with the nixon tapes showed me sometimes you can still find other clues. So if you could please advance to the next slide. You know, many writers over decades better known than me and more than a few famous vietnam era journalists have been over this long before me. Thats her like a good starting point after striking out with the coverage i found in the Washington Post to see whether writers before meet looked into this mystery and what they might have discovered. They started to look into it and might have lost the scent or the trail went cold at some point, maybe with future tapes and document releases that will be a good place for me to it pick up the search. So i went through all the obvious things. David howards panthers in boston, and others. The prominent journalist from the era from that kennedy years through the pentagon papers era. In part because, some of them are still in private hands, even today. There are still a few people who are live from that time. One in particular i was able to get access to was some of arthur dolmans correspondence. As one of firstgeneration great scholars of vietnam. An