Has announced it will issue its analysis of the bill later today and you can read more at thehill. Com and watch the senate live this afternoon at 4 00 eastern on cspan2. This week on q a robert caro. He talks about on power, his audio project looking at the evolution and exercise of political power in america. Brian robert caro, why did you decide to do, for the first time, an audio of what you are thinking instead of publishing . Robert when you write your book, hopefully it endures. Sometimes you are doing a lecture and you say, that was worth saving. But the thing about lectures is, the moment they are over, they are over. They disappear. So when audible said, could we record two of your lectures, i said, great. Brian so its audible. Com for eople that do not know it. They can subscribe to that and get this hour and 42minute talk that you made. It was from lectures . Robert it was the 100th anniversary of the pulitzer prizes. Last september. So the Neiman Foundation sponsored a celebration of the centennial at harvard and they asked me to give a talk. I put some work into that talk and i said, i wish this ouldnt disappear. Someone from audible came up and said, that was a very moving talk. How would you feel about it eing recorded . I said, i would like that. But when they did it, they transcribed it. They said it would only come out to 47 minutes. It was not long enough. Are you giving any other lectures . As it happened, i was giving one next week also on the subject of political power. But from another angle, at the New York Historical society. So they basically took down my words, turned it into a script. I wrote a little abridged thing combining the two things saying how they joined and i recorded t. The interesting thing was, my books are all recorded by an actor. Ou hear my new york accent perhaps so i said to my agent wants, maybe i could record what. She says, then the price will go down. Rian you mentioned lynn nesbitt and this talk that you made on audible. Com. For people that have no idea the value of an agent and how important it was to you, tell us how it happened. About lynn nesbitt. Robert thats a good story. I was a newspaper reporter and i wanted to do a biography of robert moses as i thought that was a way of examining how real political power works in the cities. Because we are in a democracy and we are taught in high chool and college that basically the power comes from people casting ballot boxes and people getting elected. But in robert moses, you have a man who was never elected to anything and he had more power than anyone in new york state and new york city that anyone who did. More power than the mayor and governor combined. E held that power for 44 years and i had no idea it, nor did anyone else, how he got that power. So i wanted to do this book, but the only advance i could get was for 5,000. They give you 2,500 in advance. So for six months, i tried to work on the book while i was a reporter. But i wasnt getting anywhere. We had no savings. So i quit, i got a grant from the Carnegie Foundation for a year, and the money for that ran out. Ines sold the house. We had a house in long island. That got us through another year. We moved to an apartment in the bronx. Then i was really out of money. And i had written about half the book by that time. Three or four years into it. It took seven years to do it. Nd i had dinner with my editor and he said basically, the Publishing House liked the book so keep going. I said, can i have the other half of my advance . And he said, no bob. We like the book, but nobody ill read it. Ot many people will going to read the book on robert moses. So you have to prepare yourself for a very small hunter. So walking home that night, i did not know what to say to her. We had no place else to urn. We were out of money. And very quickly after that, my editor left the Publishing House, which allowed me and i said, i need an agent. So somebody gave me a list. And three of them were men. In my talking too long ere . I think i am. Three of them were men and it was 1970 the Womens Movement had not come to the bronx. So i went to see the men first. They all reminded me of me. Hornrimmed glasses and tweed jacket. Hey were too much like me. Then i went to see this young agent, lynn nesbitt, who was young agent, lynn nesbitt, who was just, i think, setting up. She called and said she read the book and she would like to represent me. Could i come in and see her . I went in to see her and she said something very complimentary about the book. Lynn always understands the books. And she said, you have to tell me something first. What do you look so worried about . I didnt know i looked worried. But i was. I said i am worried i will not have enough money to finish the book and she said, how much do you need . I dont remember the figure, that i figured i needed two more years. I told her what that figure was and she said, and she remembers this the same way is that what you are worried about . You can stop worrying right now. I can get you that by picking up the phone. Verybody in new york knows about this book. Was up in the bronx, i had no idea. Thats how i get her. She has been my agent now that was 1970, 47 years. Ive had the same agent and the same editor for 47 years. Brian i did some calculations. 4,513 pages you have written. I am sure you have written more than that. How has this business changed for you . The business of writing, since he first book that came out in 1974, 1975. Robert the business of writing has not changed much at all. I still have the same way of doing it. Brian what about the way you look at power since that first book . Robert right, because i was never interested in doing a biography of robert moses or Lyndon Johnson to write the life story of a great man. I was never interested in that. I was a reporter that covered politics and i got interested n political power. And i conceived of these books as studies in political power. But i thought when you are a reporter, i won a couple of really minor journalistic awards. You think you know everything. The first time robert moses story was told to me, i realized i did not know anything about power at all. Nd you are just constantly learning things. What Lyndon Johnson in the senate, you say, how did he run it . This way and that way. I had never heard of these things. Brian my numbers here are, when you published,robert moses the powerbroker, you were 39. When you published the years of Lyndon Johnson, you were 7. When you published the years of Lyndon Johnson in the senate,means of ascent, you were 55. When you post master of the senate in 2002, you were 67. And the last book in 2012, you are 77. Obert sorry to hear it. Brian did you think you were going to do five books on Lyndon Johnson . And can you get the presidency written about in one volume . Robert well, the answer is no, i dont think. It was supposed to be three volumes, but when i got into it, i realized i wanted to spend a whole volume on the senate, master of the senate, how the senate works, because i think it is fascinating. The senate before Lyndon Johnson, it was a great institution. The days of webster, clay and calhoun. Thats the 1850s. Then for 100 years after that, until 1955, it was the same dysfunctional mess it is today. If you want to know the truth. Lyndon johnson becomes majority leader in january, 1955. And he stays until january, 1961, until he becomes Vice President. For those six years the senate works. It is the center of governmental creativity and ingenuity and energy in washington. It is not Dwight Eisenhowers civil rights bill, it is Lyndon Johnsons civil rights bill. I said, if i could figure out how he did it and explain it to people, for one thing it will take a long time. That made it four volumes. And then there was the stolen election. I was only going to write one chapter on that. That he as your listeners probably know. He was like tens of thousands of votes behind when he ran for the senate in 1948. He finally wound up winning by 87 votes because the ballot box was found in the middle of the desert with 200 votes had the same handwriting cast in alphabetical order. So as i got into that, i said, i am supposed to know something about political power. I never thought about what a stolen election means. What is a stolen election . How is it done . I am going to explain the whole thing and thats another volume. So its up to five volumes now. Brian i read this on wikipedia and i know you hate this question. We talked about this over the years. But im going to read this back to you and have you fill in the blanks at the end this is on wikipedia, its about your books on Lyndon Johnson. In november, 2011, caro estimated he fifth and final volume would require two to three years to write. In march, 2013, he affirmed a commitment to completing the series with a fifth volume. As of april 2014, he was continuing to research the book. Where are we . Everyone wants to know and i know you hate that question . Robert ive done almost all he research already. Ive written about 400 type pages of it. I have one more big thing of research to do. Brian is that vietnam . Robert yes. All i can say to you is, it will take this long. I am not going to change the way i do it. Just because im getting older, i dont know what the point would be. Brian on the vietnam stuff, you were going to go and live in vietnam like you did in the hill country. Are you still going to do that . Robert yes. As it happens, when i finished the section i am working on now, which is Lyndon Johnson passing and this incredible urst in 1965, he passes the Voting Rights act, medicare, medicaid, i think 16 separate education bills. Whenever poor people get paid to go to college now, its Lyndon Johnson. He passes headstart, he does this all in a few months. So its quite a study, one of the formative moments in american history. The moment is three or four months. He wins this landslide election in november, 1964, against barry goldwater. And rams through so much of what has made america what it is today. When you are old today, what did you do before when you knew doctors bills were coming . Hospital bills were coming . Its a new world in so many different ways because of what he did. I said im going to explain this how he managed to do it. In the same i dont say im oing it good or right, but its the way i do it. I am going to show how he got these things all through so fast. Brian when i listened to the audible. Com, roughly twohour bob caro talking about himself, his life, his books, his power and all that. That was one word, there was one word i kept hearing. Do you have any idea what that is, besides power . Robert ina . Brian lets stop there for the moment. Thats not the word im thinking about. But ina, if i remember right, you have been married for 60 years . Robert yes. Brian she is the only other person to Research Anything for your book. Robert thats true. I know other historians, really good historians have teams of researchers. There is nothing wrong with that. Three or four. I look at the acknowledgment, sometimes they have for research assistance. Assistants. They have a team of research assistants. But i have a team, and its ina. Shes the whole team. Shes the only person beside myself. Other people do xeroxing and stuff like that. Shes the only person i ever trusted to do research on the books beside myself. Brian where did you meet her . Robert i met her at princeton. Brian what was she studying . Robert she was at connecticut college, a sophomore. I dont think she was well, i depess she had already started her interest in medieval france. She has written two books of her own about france which are enduring works on the section of intersection of history and travel. Really revolutionary ideas. But she has always been there for me. Brian how much has achieved how much has she researched for you . I dont know if there is a way to categorize it. Is she always at your side . I know you spent a whole a lot of time in the hillside. In the l. B. J. Library and she was there with you then. Robert when i shes always the thing i was talking about before when the money ran out, the first time, when we were doing the powerbroker, we had talked about selling the house. Ina loved the house. I didnt really care. Ina loved it. And she came home one day and she said, we sold the house today. That was one moment that involves ina. There are so many. Another was, i said you know, i am not understanding the hill country. I am not understanding these people. They are different from new york. Were going to have to and therefore, im not understanding Lyndon Johnson. We will have to move to the hill country for maybe two or three years. And ina said, why cant do you a biography of napoleon but then she said, what she always said which is, sure. So she does her own books. But she also does an awful what lot of research for me. Brian this is about a minute i think. This is the word that youll hear it that i heard. I want you to talk about this word. Robert so i was at harvard alone and i never particularly liked going to social events alone. I spent a lot of my evenings alone there in that office. It was a land of incredible loneliness. I soon realized that i wasnt really understanding this loneliness. When youre alone like that Little Things becomes bigger things. Rebecca was home aa lot. The gentle, dreamy, bookish woman would be alone. Alone in the dark when she went out on the porch to pump water. Alone with the rustlings in the trees and the sudden splashes n the river. Alone in the storms when the wind howled around the house. Alone in the horrible nights. Alone in bed with no human being to hear you if you should call. Brian the first part of it was you talking about being alone. The second part was about rebecca, the mother of Lyndon Johnson. But i kept hearing the word loneliness, lonely, and alone. Robert thats very perceptive that you picked that out. No ones ever done it and thats a word. The hill country was so empty, one of the most remote, isolated, and empty areas of the united states. When Lyndon Johnson was growing up, they had the johnson ranch, which is 18 miles beyond johnson city. Johnson city was a little huddle of houses with 300some people. But the ranch was 18 miles further up into the hills. Lyndon johnsons little brother Sam Houston Johnson said the kids was so lonely he and his brother they would go down one corner of the ranch down to next to what they called the Austin Fredericksburg highway. But it was just a gravel really, just a graded path. He said he and lyndon used to go down to that corner of the fence nearest the road and sit there for hours in the hope that one new person would come by on a horse or carriage so they would have somebody new to talk to. I said this is a loneliness here. I grew up in new york. Im not getting what it means. So one of the things i did was i took i wanted to see what it was like to have a whole day with nobody to talk to. Like the women of the hill country. If they didnt have kids. A whole day with no one to talk to. Go to sleep, get up the next day with nobody to talk to. So i took a sleeping bag and i went to the hills. Not on the johnson ranch. And did that. What you had, what you play for your listeners, was one of the Little Things become big things. But also the nights are really scary. And you say these women, the women of the hill country, their husbands were often away like sam johnson was often away. He was a legislator, she was out there all alone. And all alone means something, which is hard. Its hard for me. Its hard for people in cities to even grasp. Brian how lonely i know you vent done the vietnam thing how lonely do you think Lyndon Johnson was dealing with the vietnam war . Robert i have not been to vietnam, but i have spent months, if not years of my life, researching how we got nto vietnam. What it looked like from inside the white house. Let me say that. The story of how we got into it vietnam, im just really up to t now. I think i am going to have to take a pass on answering that. Brian thats fine. I know you are in the middle of the book. Im just wondering if youve discovered, when you talk about loneliness, if Lyndon Johnson as ever lonely and what did he do about it if he was . Robert as president . Brian yes. Robert he narrowed the circle of decisionmaking to very few people. Many of the crucial decisions on vietnam escalating the war for the first time, the first large escalation, and all the succeeding escalations, a lot of the details of that were decided not in cabinet meetings and not in meetings of National Security council, but what he used to call the tuesday lunch. As every tuesday at 1 00, they would have lunch in the family dining room. It varied, but there often be only four people at the table. Dean sat at his right and next would be john bundy and after johnson fired him and and on his left would be robert mcnamara. Next to him was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, gus wheeler. So if you can get an idea of the thinking among this very small group of people, ultimately you learn a lot about how an empire, which is what we are, goes to war. By just figuring out best you can what was happening at those lunches. He narrowed the people who knew about the decisionmaking the secrecy was almost an object. He was a secretive man and he wanted secrecy. He kept the group of decisionmakers so small that you really say, its just this little group of men that are oing it. Brian how much can you tell us what your plans are in vietnam . Where are you going to go, how long are you going to be there, how we you get the feel of it now that the country is no longer at war . Robert well, i want to go to he great battlefields. A i want to get an idea of i want to describe there are a number of good books on this but i want to go for myself what its like to fight in the jungle. You know, because thats really something. Something we havent counted on. I had a friend who was a great war correspondent. He was a great friend of ine. He said, i covered the normandy invasion in world war ii and i rem