Book notes Program David mccullough discussed his biography of president harry truman the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography and instrumental in changing attitude about the truman presidency. Heres a portion of the interview. The number of president s that were already assassinated why would the government have protections for them. It was not done i wouldve the government have a pension they were pensions of Army Officers and everybody else but no pension for the president he had very little money he had to borrow some money, quite secretly which dean cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and it doesnt mean he didnt have money he did have money but he needed cash to cover 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, his memoirs which no other president has done except for herbert hoover, herberts time in office was briefer than trumans and trumans presidency covered far more tumultuous history, to undertake the twovolume memoir was a very major ambitious task. And then he built his library there had been a previous president ial Library Franklin roosevelt established after roosevelt that died in office. Truman was the first president to officiate over the establishment of his president ial library in there again he was beginning something new. One of the things i tried to imply or to emphasize in the book is truman was a very creative public figure. He was a creative president and a creative presidency he was a builder all his life he built roads, courthouses and when he got to washington he became president he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house, the great leery of criticism. He is the one that entirely rebuilt the white house, the white house that we have today is the white house the harry built except for the outer shell that was maintained the original outer shell the entire interior is a reconstruction of the original, he took part in every detail of the reconstruction he loved building and creating things in a larger way his presidency is marked by a creative and intubated acts as the Marshall Plan and truman doctrine and nato in. 4. So forth. I remember thinking, hes in the car. I think the fact that he had high color, he rated good health made him seem but a person. He turned to didnt seemed like a little man to me. To me at that moment he was 6foot eight but i never spoke to him, never met him. Ive often thought wouldnt it be interesting if you go back in time to reach out and touch him on the shoulder in 1956 that fall night and say mr. President im going to write your biography someday . Knowing what you know, what you think you would think . Im sure some of it he wouldnt like because this was after an honest attempt to see the complete man with his flaws and faults. I would hope in some he would think i understood him better than other people have is a much more complicated complex intelligence, thoughtful considerate man than the stereotype harry truman type. He isnt james whitmore. He isnt just a missouri will rogers. All of the people ive interviewed who worked with him and were in the white house all say please understand this was much more. How many interviews did you do . About 126 and it ranged across a broad spectrum. Some people hardly know them at all the saw him come and go and some of whom were so important during the ten years to write the book. Who did you spend the most time with . I guess in total perhaps either Margaret Truman or george elsie on the white house staff and secret Service People who were invaluable because they work with him all the time. Many of whom had never been interviewed before. Are secret Service Allowed to talk after the fact . Apparently so. Wonderful because they saw him offstage, they sent him under all conditions, often enormous pressure. My account is based on material that can only be had by reaching that time through living people and their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing to listen to and its true of all the people who work for him at all levels. I did not find a Single Person who knew him well and worked with him who wanted to tell me what his terrible backstage was, ungrateful or difficult boss he was to work with and it wasnt just that they liked him they were devoted to him, in a way i kept hoping i would find some people who had some to pull out but it never happened. When did you start all of that . 1982, ten years ago. What was the reason . I was looking for the subject and start working on a book about picasso. I had to go around the barn with harry truman and i quit that book and stopped after a few months because i found i just like him so he was a repellent human being and didnt really have a story that interested me. He never really went very far had adventures, and immensely important painter, i found his treatment of his family and attitude toward women, he wasnt somebody i wanted to spend five years with as a roommate so to speak and by editor suggested i think about doing Franklin Roosevelt because at that time there is not a good biography of Franklin Roosevelt on impulse i said if i would do 26 country president , it would be harry truman and he said well, why not harry truman x i looked into it and i found it was not a good biography of harry truman, there isnt a complete time the last chapter youre talking about, part of his life is never been written about before. It comprised of 20 years of his life and beyond that there was immense collection of letters and diaries which he poured out all of his life on paper and he left a very revealing record unlike that of any president i know of and im sure will never have another president that leaves anything like that. We dont write letters much anymore or keep diaries much anymore and he did both his whole life and long before he ever realized is a figure in history. In one month in 1947 when he was president and his wife was looking after her mother, harry truman the president of the United States wrote to her 37 times. These were just simple how are you . The weather is cool or whatever. These were real letters to his. Did you figure out how he wrote them . Letters, he had wonderful and clear straightforward, strong handwriting just like he was but very legible so never a problem reading his handwriting as there was seldom ever a problem. He also pointed out some time in his life he and his wife called their daughter every night . Yes. They were very close. The same people with him as secret Service Agents were white house domestic staff has said they were closest family theyd ever known in the white house and though they dont want to be quoted by person, they say truman was the favorite president , the first president to walk out to the kitchen and the first president in their memory to walk to the kitchen to think the chef or cook for the dinner that night. Remember Chauvin Coolidge coming but they thought that was to see if anybody was with food. Truman you everybody by name and all about their family and this wasnt a politicians device, its just the way he was. The whole give him hell, harry truman on the job of the office in the white house with his people, the lowest level and highest never gave anyone hell or raise his voice. If anything, hes remembered for how considerate he was. Small favors and courtesies. Appeared on cspan more than 75 times including 50 appearances on book tv. Up next, he discusses his biography of john adams. The 2001 book of this recipient of Pulitzer Prize. John adams was born 1735. He lived until 1826. He lived longer than any president in our history. Hes been commonly thought of as a rich boston blue lead. He was none of that, he was rich or or blueblood, he is a farmers son because of his scholarship to harvard, discovered books and read forever as he said. John adams was the most deeply broadly red american his time. Lets please today remember john adams, second president of the United States signed legislation created the library of congress. To be here to talk about john adams and remember john adams is particularly appropriate. His a man of genuine brilliance. Also a man of great heart and humor, devoted to his country. Truthful, devoted to his wife and family, hardworking and altogether one of the bravest patriots and history. His abrasive, sometimes temperamental, sometimes taxes, sometimes over the concern with his own position or place in his posterity and also a man to his credit but also disadvantage who he said never considered popularity his mistress. He never quoted popularity, he is a man of principle. His courage was the courage of his conviction, i think one of the most vivid important examples of his principal behavior and conduct in life, the only founding father is a matter of principle. We know its important to judge those who didnt own slaves in the context of their time. Thats correct and fair and historically the sensible sound thing to do but lets not forget john and Abigail Adams were also of the time and opposed slavery. Abigail perhaps even more than her husband. At one time she said i wonder if all prevails and suffering we are going through are gods punishment for the sin of slavery. San andreas fault of slavery to runs through our countrys story begins well before the revolution just as the revolution has too many people seem to not understand begin well before the declaration of independence. Declaration of independence John Dickinson opposed the declaration of independence was launching into a storm in the paper. What made it more than just a piece of paper is the fact that we succeeded in the revolution, in the war. Weve fought for and succeeded gaining our independence john adams would not set free and independent, he would have said independent and free. You have to have independence and then comes freedom. New englanders find major, cultural tradition were fiercely independent people, independence was a way of life and so was the. I think the the utmost importance and understanding that time, that age and moment in history and protagonists, we believe strongly in the separation of church and state and they all did, to the separation of church and state in their time did not mean separation of church and statesman. If we really want to understand, we have to understand the part religion played and there outlook on what might happen next. They also had Long Distance communication that took a lot of time and travail almost beyond our reckoning to get a lot of backandforth between philadelphia and boston were where the adams lived, took at least two weeks. Communication across the ocean were separated he literally ten years and that separation was created by the Atlantic Ocean and communicated across the Atlantic Ocean, upwards of three to six months and what does that mean . It meant both in personal life and to the medic or official life one had to be more is possible then we understand today for ones own decisions. Abigail adams at home running the family and farm developed accounts keep people working with her to make the farm work because i was there only means trying to educate the children in making decisions about whether to get smallpox shocks for example. Had to make those decisions herself couldnt pick up the phone and asked her husband what she ought to do and that was part of life the assumption of responsibility to oneself. When adams was serving in france and netherlands and england again and again he had to make tremendous decisions on his own that would affect the course of events at a time and of the United States in this country but also of course his own career but he made them because it was necessary. I think communicated any faster than something to be transported. We think of communication transportation as two different things, at that time was the same thing. No faster than a sailboat, vast difference. They work like we are because they lived in a different time. A very different time. A very interesting time. I tried to read not only study the book, not only what they wrote and home i did they write, neither john or Abigail Adams was capable of writing a sentence or short letter they wrote just between the two of them over 1000 letters to each other. Over 1000 survived in massachusetts to store society in all on red paper and as a consequence of as good as today and you can hold them in your own hand in your holding the letter about the susan distance from your eyes they did with two hands as they did and believe me, something tactical, very important and visceral happens when you are working the real thing. It is not the same as seen on micro reproducing the book. The community, mortality, vulnerability of the people come through and the bravery. Think about woman 11 00 at night, doing all she did sitting down and writing those letters and nearly always inserting into her letter a wonderful quote from one of her favorite poets of shakespeare and nearly always getting it a little bit wrong. [laughter] which shows she didnt look it up. [laughter] she wasnt taking a book off the shelf and copying it saying this will make me look great. [laughter] she knew it, it was part of her but equally important and rewarding in reading not just what they wrote but what they read, i did a small piece for the Washington Post this summer about that, going back and reading all those writers so many we are required to read in english and high school or college, Samuel Richardson and nobles of Samuel Richardson. To be reminded about what wonderful writers, we talk about progress in heaven knows we live with the benefits of progress of progress all the time certainly when we go to the dentist. [laughter] when i think of poor john adams the end of his life, not a tooth in his head everyone of them was pulled long before novocain but we have a certain vanity and arrogance about progress but when you read what they wrote in the 18th century, i dont think anybody would be better today or even as well. Ill tell you Something Else that make us all set up and shape up, the Literacy Rate in massachusetts was higher in their time than is today and what a disgrace that is. What a lot of work still has to be done about the. The books they read as they do our lives in our time, they affected their notion of truth, heroism, right, wrong, how you write a letter. John adams advised young john quincy, dont try to write literature you write about it, dont strain for thrills and fancy affect. Write the way you talk, its a letter. Write the way you talk. So when you read his letters, youre hearing them talk and one of the things ive done my books, particularly in this book one of the ways i approach biography simply my way and i think its the only way, to let them talk much as possible. Most of life is talk if you think about it. How they talk in the words they use and figures of speech and expression, cadences are a reflection of personality and style, the person. Abigail was hugely influenced by writings of Samuel Richardson, the great novel of orissa, one of the most popular in the 18th century and she wrote an interesting letter to a niece saying she wants to read clarissa and hugh ought to write the letters the way they are there. People fighting letters back and forth to each other and thats all it is. Even when she wasnt separated from her husband, she would write to somebody else, to her sister, mary, some of the best letters she ever wrote and she needed to write and work her thoughts out on paper and feelings out on paper and its a very important part of writing for all of us. Youve all had the experience, you sit down and write something you find you have insight or thought you never would have had if you hadnt required or forced result or wanted to write. Something about writing focuses the brain in a different way. Weve opened archives to look at all the problems with historic David Mccullough. In 2000 when he appeared on our monthly calling for an indepth to discuss his books and writing process. He gives us a tour of his home and where he writes. Weve got video of your home and writing. Not a shed. [laughter] thats on Music History massachusetts, a village in the center of the island of marthas vineyard. The house is part of 19th century, part of it is 20th century, thats the back porch looking out over the acre i own will be have nice boring back to a neighboring farm since the island was first settled. This was my walk to work, it measures 12 by 8 feet and windows on all four sides. I have about 800 books in the end my faithful typewriter upon which i work since about 1965, every book ever written on that typewriter and theres nothing wrong with it. Its an example of a beautifully american americanmade machine. Have you written every word in this room . Everything. What, part of it in charlottesville when we lived there for a year, but a part of the year when i was doing research at the library of university of virginia but essentially all of it was written there. What kind do you right . Im not writing all day, im reading what i wrote the day before or going over notes, theres no telephone. Is there music . No music. A nice view but i have my back to the view. Its far enough from the house, you see general washington and some of his soldiers marching along, i hope they show the end because theres a guy at the end i identify with, these are always a little slow catching up, youre going to see him. I look at him and hes my example. There week no. There he is, thats the one. [laughter] is always a little behind. I work there because when children are young, i didnt want them to have to be walking around. A call to look at whats in front of me as i worked, i think the earliest photograph of the capitol, i love that photograph. We could talk about this later but the top this is the great line from adams letter to abigail under this roof carved as of this, indicated there into the mantelpiece of the dining room of the white house. Its the map of boston, and shows very importantly on the book im working on now and it