Im here not to represent my claim or my issues. My husband and i are here to make sure that this panel and that everyone that will listen to us will understand that cases like my own and, unfortunately, like mrs. Mcnutt are not isolated. I personally have dealt with at this time almost 1,000 cases just in the last six months of veterans and their spouses and children who are dealing with complex claims that are being denied over and over and over again or being lowballed and zero rated. This weekend on cspan, a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing on dealing with the backlog and processing disability claims. Watch this morning at 10 eastern. On cspan2s booktv, taking stock of the grand old party. Later tonight, just past midnight at 12 15 a. M. And on cspan3s American History tv, 50 years ago as a nation grieved for a lost president , lbj stepped into the oval office. Sunday at 3. Here are some programs to watch this weekend on booktv. At 4 p. M. Eastern, jack cashel talks about his book, if i had a son race, guns and the railroading of george zimmerman. Tomorrow at 8 45 eastern, Newt Gingrich talks about his most recent book, breakout pioneers of the future, Prison Guards of the past and epic battle that will decide americas fate. Then at 6 p. M. Eastern in light of the ongoing battles over the federal budget in congress, we take a look at several book withs that have recently aired on booktv about the u. S. Economy and visit booktv. Org for this weekends television schedule. Next on booktv, andrew and Stephen Schlessinger present a collection of letters from their father. Arthur schlesinger jr. Was a special assistant to president kennedy, and his letters include correspondences with the kennedy family, Lyndon Johnson, Henry Kissinger and william f. Buckley. This is about an hour. [applause] well, welcome, and thank you for that nice welcoming applause. And i want to thank you all for joining us for what i know is going to be a very special evening. As many of you know this year, vanderbilt welcomed john meacham with, i would say, wide arms and a very warm embrace as a distinguished visiting professor. [applause] and i think john has done well, and i hope we can take the visiting off pretty soon. [laughter] i would say that our Political Science students are just thrilled to have such a unique opportunity to learn from this accomplished historical scholar and celebrated to have. Johns most recent book, Thomas Jefferson the art of power, rose to the coveted number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list and was selected as one of the best books of the year by the times book review and the be washington post. And the washington post. His best selling biography of Andrew Jackson, american lion, earned him a pulitzer prize. As executive Vice President of random house john, as you might expect, is involved in the creation and publication of fascinating books that top the most interesting and influential reading lists. His passion for learning, discovery, his exper or tease and his engagement in the literary world also benefit the university greatly by making it possible for us to bring Exciting Events to nashville like this talk based on the letters of Arthur Schlessinger jr. I am proud to have john as my partner in this years lecture series. Tonight he has invited stephen and Andrew Schlessinger to share with us the labor of love involved in reviewing approximately 35,000 letters written by their father, the late, great Arthur Schlessinger jr. , to create this remarkable book. Were also pleased to welcome tom brokaw back to campus. [applause] tom was honored when he delivered an inspiring talk to our graduating seniors in 2012, and we are thrilled to have him back on campus for this exciting and interesting conversation. Now, without further ado, im going to turn things over to john and thank him for arranging this conversation among these truly extraordinary men who share an exthe tensive finish extensive and personal understanding of the remarkable life and work of arthur arthurlessingier schlesinger jr. [applause] thank you, boss. [laughter] i want to say quickly our three guests and all of you who have taken the trouble to come and the time at this our to talk about tease issues may represent these issues may represent the greatest gathering of insight and talent at vanderbilt with the possible exception of when nick zeppos dines alone. [laughter] moving on. First you call him boss with, and then you suck up to him. [laughter] purely outrageous. As an episcopalian, we find the middle way, tom. [laughter] 53 autumns ago in the 1960 general election for president , john kennedy said this if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people their health, their housing, their school, their jobs, their civil rights and Civil Liberties someone who believes we can breakthrough the stalemate and suspicion that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by liberal, then im proud to say im a liberal. As andrew and stephen write in their introduction to their fathers letters, Arthur Schlessinger jr. Helped kennedy craft those words. The letters, which are a marvelous book, chronicles the late historians views really from world war for through the world war ii through the second iraq war. You can read letters from adelaide stevenson, john kennedy, robert kennedy, Henry Kissinger, william f. Buckley jr. , al gore, gore vidal, Jacqueline Kennedy and naturally given arthurs interest in American History groucho marx, sammy davis jr. And bianca jagger. Alexandra, arthurs wife, is not here, so we can mention that one. To a detractor who accused arthur of being a communist sympathizer, he wrote the facts i have cited should relieve your mind. If not, i can only commend you to the nearest sigh psychiatris. [laughter] i should note quickly that arthur had a keen appreciation for two tennessee exports, Andrew Jackson and jack daniels. [laughter] as John Seigenthaler and tom also appreciate, arthur did not believe that white wine was sufficient unto the day given difficulties of an afternoon. [laughter] andrew is the author of veritas, the Harvard College and the be american experience, and with stephen is coeditor of their fathers journals, 19522000. At the abc news documentary division, andrews films won two emmys and a Writers Guild award. Stephen has served as director of the World Policy Institute at the new school and was publisher of the world policy junior. Hes been a staff writer at time and been a speech writer to governor mario cuomo. Hes also the author of act of creation the founding of the united nations, which received a harry s. Truman book award. And our friend and arthurs friend, tom brokaw, play a key role in this discussion. Toms career is one of the great sagas of american journalism. Hes a little like wayne gretzky. [laughter] have you been compared to gretzky . Very little. I can still stand on skates, but thats as far as i can well, gretzky once said he always skated to where the puck was going to be as opposed to where it had been. Brokaw has done that from generation to generation. He covered civil rights in atlanta early, he was an early reporter on the reagan b story in 1966, he was as anchor and managing editor of nbc nightly news the critical figure for a quarter century, the only man in the history of nbc to host the trifecta, toed show, nightly news and meet the press. In new york media circles thats, in fact, the holy trinity. [laughter] the Divinity School is off on that. [laughter] he was the only American Network anchor in berlin for the collapse of the wall. Its unclear whether that was positive. [laughter] is he laughing . As an author hes captured the sacrifices of the greatest generation, coining that phrase and moving it into the culture. Hes grounded, generous, kind and wise. This is a great man. He proves that grace and skill are not incompatible. He played a valuable role inning [inaudible] and large swaths of american viewers still turn to him. Hes just finished work on a landmark documentary, the assassination of president kennedy, which is a to to found piece of work, and were deeply grateful that he is here. So an to arthur, who would want more air time. [laughter] you know, i think this is absolutely true. In ways this book is a mini history of the liberal movement from 19452005, and it reflects his commitment to liberal ideas, an activist government, the idea of public expenditures, civil rights and diplomacy other war. And one of the profound things that i think both my brother and i found in going through thousands of these letters is his continuous and his almost, you know, demanding commitment to this idea that if were going to change American Society for the were better, we have to be willing to fight for these ideals. And as a result, you know, he had feuds, he had breaks with his friends, he had real confrontations because he kept this faith irregardless of the time or the crisis that he was facing. So, yes, he was that issue of activist government is, i would say, summarizes his notion about what liberalisms all about. I mean, i think my brother probably covered that pretty well. [laughter] no cain and abel problem here. [laughter] especially from the sons point of view was the consistency and tenacity of his point of view, that he could not be moved. Well, one of the things we discovered in collecting these letters was the theme of promoting the liberal agenda just was the obvious theme of all his work. And once we got put out the totality of the letters together, it totally defined his life. We were within we were in the bubble, you know . But once we collected the letters, we could see that his letters to his friends, every letter is somehow trying to influence either a writer, why dont you write a book about this or make that point or all tease letters to democratic politicians, democratic president s from i dont know if he advised harry truman, but he did have an they had an exchange, actually. Yeah, he did. Because my father wrote a book about the mcarthur connecticut, and harry wrote him a letter and said i didnt want to write you before your book came out, because i didnt want anybody to think i was influencing your attitude on this controversy. As opposed to a president today. Was the now, talk about the beginning of the liberal sensibility. Was it genetic . Yes. If you read the introduction to the book, my great grandfather, my grandfather, my fathers father was a professor of American History at harvard who came from zien ya, ohio, and was educated at ohio state, and his he had, he gaunted, i think, around 1910. He had a couple of sisters who were teachers. His my great grandfather was a german immigrant, and they just and theres an interesting speech that my grandfather gave at ohio state in 1926 where he said even back hen in 1926 he said then in 1926 were being overwhelmed by uniformity. You know, the corporations and the banks and everything like that, theyre trying to squeeze the heart out of you. And this was and also my i was going to say one more thing and thats my fathers theory of the cycles of of American History, that you have liberal periods followed by conservative periods roughly every 30 years, that was my grandfathers theory. And so he picked up a lot of his, even his historical academic structures from my grandfather. Stephen . Both our relatives on my mothers side and my fathers side were all from the midwest, so there was a kind of prairie populism that they brought to the east when we were growing up. And it was genetic. It was almost, you know part of the thing, jon, thats important especially given the current Political Climate in which were so sliced and diced in so many ways that, in fact, in the postwar years although there was a very strong conservative current running through the country with mccarthy and bob taft from ohio and so on, a lot of the young people who came back from that war were very much in the jet stream with arthur about what liberalism should and do because they had been witness, obviously, and they were fighting in europe and japan about what happens when it goes the other way. So there was an entirely different climate about the place of liberals. In 15 seconds ill tell you the story i was just telling stephen. Right after the war, our family moved to a are remote part of south dakota where they built this enormous hydroelectric dam in the middle of nowhere at extraordinary expense and changed the lives of everybody who went through there. The first can kids who were going to college, went to work there, theyre now coming back at doctors and engineers and other things. And that was very much a part of the currents that were running through america in those days. I especially want to Say Something just to about the importance of historians who get out and touch and feel their subjects as well. One of the first accounts that arthur gives in his book is that hes working for the office of war information, thats what it was called. Right. Uhhuh. And he was assigned to the south. And hed not been here before. Hed grown up in ohio, then he went to harvard. And he was help me out, guys but he was completely taken with the whole idea of being called an egghead. [laughter] and if anybody were going to be called one, it would be arthur in those days. He was a classic harvard professor. But he said he was stunned by what he saw when with he came down here when it came to race. And frankly, that was very hopeful to him later on when he was writing about the place of government and liberalism and the Civil Rights Movement and how important it was. He got onto it a lot earlier than john f. Kennedy did who came to the subject much later, frankly s. And that also comes through. And just the other thing is what i think is sad for me at least as not a historian but as a student of it is that we dont have people keeping journals and writing letters anymore the way that arthur did. When i was working on the greatest generation and subsequently my continuing interest in that subject, we love the british because everybody wrote it down. [laughter] well, you know, i think that he, his idea of liberalism was such that he started right after the Second World War sort of prohotting the idea of liberal anticommunism. And this was a great movement. Eleanor roosevelt, john kenneth galbraith, many liberals who wanted to make clear that liberalism did not mean communism. It meant its a social change that was within the democratic process. And thats why my father in 1949 wrote the book vital center which is a kind of Landmark Book talking about how democracy is the centerpiece for his philosophy as between the extreme of communism on the one hand and fascism on the other. And i think that philosophy became such a part of his life that if you read the letters that he had with various Democratic Candidates starting with adelaide stevenson and john f. Kennedy and people, bill clinton, walter mondale, i can list practically every president ial candidate on the democratic ticket for those 60 years, they all turned to him because they realized he was kind of serving as a kind of liberal conscience to that generation of political people. And the a way they needed in a way they needed his validation to be able to appeal to the liberal constituency that he tended to represent. But a hardheaded kind of liberalism. Thats right. Which is where he was so close to stevenson and did not make the transition to kennedy overnight. Could you talk about that transition to shift from libertyville to hyannis . Well, thats very interesting because you used the word hardheaded. He was very disappointed he, obviously, adored stevenson, e worked for him twice. But be at the same time, he felt that stevenson seemed rather passive on the issue of civil rights. And he was very, as tom points out, he had woken to that issue from having that visit in the mid 1940s to the south. And he tried to urge stevenson to make a commitment to protecting black Voting Rights in the south and also to the issue of desegregation which had arisen after the 1954 Supreme Court decision. And he just couldnt get p stevenson to move on it. You know, stevenson, while very much a liberal idealist, felt politically he couldnt take positions that would possibly upset his president ial ambitions. Or and so i think that was a very, that became the hallmark of the way he related to john kennedy and others. Even while he worked with them, he felt incumbent on his role as a political adviser to present difficult and hardheaded issues to these guys and see if he could have any impact on them. He called up president kennedy an idealist without illusions. Meaning that kennedy wanted the right things, but he knew how hard it was. Well, the other thing, its striking because i assume most of you in this audience know how very close he became personally to the kennedy family, and i think its the first reference that i saw in here at least he writes about bobby, and he later wrote the great book about bobby after his death. But he said to the editor of the New York Times in ten of 1954, Robert Kennedys letter is such an astonishing mixture of distortion and error that it deserves comment. [laughter] and the times for arguing that the trouble lay not with yalta, but with the subsequent violations. Mr. Kennedy suggested the agreement gave man