I shouldve gone on a little longer perhaps. Would you mind if i came in again . Its about to say how special this night is, but you wont beat me to it, which is great. Welcome. My name is steve rothstein, executive director of the john f. Kennedy Library Foundation and on behalf of other colleagues in the foundation and jamie roth and all the colleagues in the library, we are pleased you can be here. All of our forums are great, but tonight is a treat because the speaker here is also the beginning of the john f. Kennedy centennial weekend and we plan this month ago when we had data entry literally thought who would be the best pair are both speaker and moderator we could get for this historic time. This is what weve gotten, so we are thrilled they are both here. [applause] before he introduced them, a few brief announcements. First i want to thank our underwriters and sponsors is the lead sponsor, bank of america. The Lowell Institute including andrea wohl who is here tonight commend media sponsors and their media sponsors for the centennial to be cvp tv. We are kicking off the centennial and there are information when you information when the lever may be on your chair about what we are doing over the next few days. Over the next few days, there were opportunities from seeing a new exhibit with 100 items including 40 never seen by anyone publicly before opening tomorrow. On saturday in this room a special peace corps day. On sunday, we have an astronaut here is part of our tribute to nasa. On sunday we are having bands and music the navy to honor president kennedys service in the navy and at 3 00 p. M. , exactly 100 years to demand that president kennedy was born, will have to f18s flying overhead to honor president kennedy. And then we will be eating the cake. We need help doing this. The cake will serve 1000 people, designed by the same company that did take further engagement many years ago. I hope youll join us for some of those activities. But tonight we have a literally standing room only. We also have an overflow in her other auditorium. We are also thrilled we are streaming this and they are watching parties in places including the john f. Kennedy museum and others in cspan are here. We appreciate all of you here are those participating online. We have many to many distinguished guests and im not going to list them. I do want to highlight that the risk of forgetting some. We appreciate their leadership throughout the year and what they do. Because it is our centennial, we invited our colleagues at president ial colleagues around the country and we have representatives with us from the president ial library or their Accompanying Foundation from harry truman, jimmy carter, george h. W. Bush and bill clinton library. Former United States senator paul kirk here tonight. Former ambassadors alan solomon, Nicholas Burns and several members of the new england general quarter. John mccain followed them. [applause] so after the first hour of dialogue, there will be a chance for questions and if you can get up and ask us. If you dont want to get up or fewer in the other room or if you are streaming, you can also tweet us at jfk library. Stay in your seat, someone will read the question for you, get up in line. We will do as many as we can. After the event, if you have them come agree. If not the bookstore has them. And go out at the end, my left, youre right. Just to help the traffic flow goes smoothly. If you havent read this yet, this is a treasure. The american spirit who we are and what we stand for there are so many featured here. I promise i wont do that. Charlie gibson. [applause] based on the applause, i think i speak for most people who feel we know him even though we may have just met him in much of what i know i learned from listening to him on the news for 34 years the both anchoring the bbc world news and cohosting Good Morning America he interviewed everybody, including nine u. S. President s. We are honored he and his wife are here tonight. David mccullough. He hasnt been recognized very much in his life. Everyone has two pulitzer prizes. In two National Book awards in the Francis Parkman prays twice in the president ial medal of freedom from the nations highest civilian honor. Everyone i know has been recognized by 54 honorary degrees. Thank you very much. [applause] so we are going to do just a colloquy for an hour. If people are going to treat questions from outside the room, those are pretty concise questions i must say. The most famous tweeter and the world probably is not watching. I doubt they will get one of those and i shudder to think what it might be. But we do look forward to this and it is a treat for me as somebody who is a very distinguished history major in college to have a chance to talk to david or something of a legend as stephen mentioned. Im so pleased their representatives hear from so many different president ial libraries and we do gather in the kennedy library, which leads me to wonder, can i ask you, how many books do you think it would be a veteran president ial library . [laughter] [applause] as you sought in an interview with the washington post, said hed never read a book about a president or a book about the presidency. He might someday he said. He doesnt read books because his mind reaches beyond not. I began to think about the great president down the years who have been avid readers of history, many of them wrote this including john kennedy. Even those who didnt have the benefit of the College Education may carry truman read history all their lives. He realized it is essential to the role as the leader, whether it is the presidency or leadership at any time. History matters. If i have one message code like to get across in my work is History Matters a lot. [applause] we are slipping in the responsibility of teaching history to her children and grandchildren. Its been going on a good long time. A number of us become evangelical preachers of the importance of history. I have lectured colleges and universities agreed deal and i was astonished at how much these wonderful young people dont know about our country. I had one young lady, to me to talk and she said she wanted to thank me for coming to the campus because until she heard my talk that day, she had no idea that the original 13 colonies were on the east coast. Then another one asked, which may be my favorite. Does the university of california. Aside from harry truman and john adams, how many other president s have you interviewed . [laughter] so they may not be many books in the trunk president ial library, but therell be one of an edifice. With the name in big letters. That leads me to a second question. As an historian, what specific steps could enter jackson have taken to prevent a civil war . A week ago all night. Up we are not going to stick our questions are our questions on not come im not going to have any more. You could be interviewing president douglas tonight. Can you believe it . Really, well, i would restore our recognition of who we are and why we are the way we are and what we stand for. I think more and more debt as important as great school, high school, college of the university, all of that is essential, that may be as important as any of it is how we are dried up, how were we raise to behave, telling the truth, that treating people with kindness, tolerance, empathy and hard work. Picture up in pittsburgh, pennsylvania where people probably worked hard, but if youre a hard, good worker, that was hiding how you appreciated by other people. My father used to say charlie, he drinks too much, but hes a good worker. Or fred, hes a terrible exaggerator and tells stories i dont quite believe, but hes a good worker. If you are a good worker, that forget all of their failings. And that is how we got to where we are, by working very, very hard. I was doing my right rather spoke. Two young men who never had the chance to go to college. Never even finished high school, but theyre a product to have purpose in life. They were brought up with values at home to learn to use the english language on paper so that you read the letters that have survived in the library of congress. They are humbling in the quality of their vocabulary to express themselves superbly. The ferry to boast about yourself, never to get too big for your britches. One of the things that so impressed me at the time it impresses me even more, given the situation we are in now is john kennedy almost never talked about himself. Is the firstperson singular. Almost never use the firstperson singular. Commander couldve gone on and on to say the least with justification and what hes accomplished. You mentioned not actually in the book. You mentioned for 50 years since the age of 50 you have been giving a lot of speeches, many extemporaneous but you must have record of speeches you have written down. I am curious why you wanted to do a book of speeches now and why you chose these 15. When writing my book about harry truman i love that he went for a walk every morning. I thought maybe i should try that as a way of tuning up your head, not necessarily your body and you start thinking in a way that if you are not walking and so last summer with comments by the republican candidate for the presidency where to me, not only appalling but unimaginably out of place. I thought what could i do to provide some Counter Point of view to this . I started thinking about some of the speeches i gave at national occasion such as the 200th anniversary of the congress, the anniversary of the white house, kennedys Memorial Service in which i was asked to be the speaker and commencement speeches and speeches i have given at particular occasions of importance to the history of other organizations and found there were a great many where i was voicing what really matters to me and why i think history is so fascinating and how essential it is as a means to enlarging the experience of being alive. Why should we limit our lives to this little bit of time that our biological clocks offer, provide, when we could have access to the whole realm of the human story going back hundreds of thousands of years and so i set to work to take a look at which of these speeches might be appropriate and had the help of my daughter dori lawson who arranged all these talks that i gave and the records of what i said. When i read the book the first time, finished it and put it down, i thought he is writing in the times, making these speeches because they might be apropos to the current time and i have heard you say before historians basically dont have a role in talking about current politics but you are talking about current politics with these speeches. I was before current politics came on the scene, none of these speeches was written i went back and read them a second time thinking what is the sentence, what is the paragraph, the point he is trying to make that might be taken to heart by people in politics right now so i went back and read it a second time and each time i was looking again, what is the one point he is trying to make here that might be taken to heart by somebody who might be elected president , who knows . So let me pick out a few. I wont to each one but i think 12 out of 15 i found pertinent. First speech in the book, from 1989 you quote Margaret Smith of maine who had the guts to rebuke joe mccarthy. She said i dont want to see the Republican Party and she was a republican ride the political victory of the four horseman of fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear. Smear is the interesting word here. Why did you think that had application to the current times . [laughter] if you only had a sense of humor. Could you imagine somebody reading that in the current Political Climate . It would be wonderful. A republican to stand up and she did and she is a woman, one of the rare cases of women in the senate at one point in history and most people have no idea who Margaret J Smith is. One of the bravest, most admirable political figures we ever had. Not many republicans are standing up now . Not enough. 1998 speech quoteing benjamin rush, not as wellknown as other patriots of that time, one of the original signers of the declaration speaking of good nature mattered most in human relations, he said and you quote him in the book, this is his quote, i include candor, gentleness and disposition to speak with civility and listen with attention to everybody, then you added in 1998 words to the wise then but perhaps in our own day. Benjamin rush is one of my favorite characters from our past and absolutely remarkable man. Polymath of 18thcentury, interested in almost everything and an accomplished physician, one of the first people to encourage the fair and humane treatment of people with Mental Illness and not to just stuff them away in a cell as if they were animals. He was extremely courageous in his ability to go into places where plague was rampant, the yellow fever epidemic. Over and over. He was one of the signers of the declaration of independence was when he signed the declaration of independence he was all of 30 years old. We forget how young those people were. Different than when he wrote the declaration of independence was 33. Imagine. Washington when he took command of the Continental Army was 44 years old. We see them later on when they are whitehaired, weeks and old early statures and so forth, they werent that way then. They were very very young and i think that is an encouraging fact of that part of our story. I dont think we can ever know enough about the American Revolution. By the way, the new museum of the American Revolution just opened in philadelphia, is a must for all of us. It is marvelous, particularly as a place to take your children, your grandchildren to get them hooked on history. It is brilliantly organized, spectacular building by robert stern, excuse me. And right in the center of where all the historic neighborhood is. Only a few steps down the street from independence hall. We who live in the boston area sort of think reality of the miracle of that era is part of our environment, part of our world and that is good, that is great, but i love kennedys profiles encourage, still not really aware yet of what i want to do with my life. I love his regard for john quincy adams. What i like and that quote im not here to comment on anything but what i like is the word civility which is a lost art in Public Discourse of America Today and the sense of comity that existed among people who share a common goal and know that there needs to be a common end. It is gone. It is gone. You write that it has been evers us. We have many instances of deep chasms of division in this country but we come out of them. What is going to bring us out of this . The two sides seem so unalterably opposed. When politics trumps policy, when the sense of a National Goal is gone and party goals matter more than National Goals what brings us out of this . Leadership. Leadership of the best kind. Leaders who have the courage to stand up to their convictions, have the backbone to do what is right irrespective of what it means to their political future or their chance of being reelected and it has to come mainly from the people. We talk about three segments of government, legislative, judicial and executive but there is a fourth, the people, all of us. When we stand up and say no more of this. We dont take this anymore. When we stand up and say there is a person right there saying the right thing and doing the right thing and we are going to get behind her or him and make sure that attitude becomes potent and maybe even decisive. When someone reads about Margaret J Smith and says that is what i am going to do, somebody in the government it will happen out of the necessity to survive, we are going to expect that. We are, i believe, you actually write we are a centrist nation. We are basically a country where 30, 40, 50, 60 of the people once government to get something done. We are not doing it. That doesnt mean we wont which we have come through very hard times, very pessimistic times. Inappropriate behavior at times in the part of leadership but we have come through them all and very often when we do come through them, these difficult times, these dark, clouted times and we do come through, we are better off having done it. People talk about that was a simpler time back then, no it wasnt. There never was a simpler time, things have never been so bad, so dark, so foreboding, yes they have. If you dont understand that you dont understand the reality of our story. I like to point out the influenza epidemic which my parents and your parents probably went through, 191819, 500,000 americans died of that disease. The disease they didnt know where it came from, didnt know if it would ever go away at all or how to cure it. If that were to happen today given the size of our population, 1,500,000 people would die in less then a year. Imagine if that were on the nightly news every night, we would be even more terrified, who would be next in our family to die and just as the depression and the civil war, horrible times but we came through them because among other things we had the faith that we would and could and because we understood the nothing of much consequence is ever accomplished alone. It is to be a joint effort. That is what we have to understand. In the introduction to this book you write the fundamental decency, tolerance and insistence on truth and goodheartedness of the American People are there, still, plainly, you added a 2004 speech you assert that 90 of americans share those values. How does that square with what we did in the election last november. This isnt an answer, this is part of the answer. Lets not forget the popular vote, Hillary Clinton won by almost 3 billion votes. It isnt as though it were a landslide and donald trump really won by a very narrow margin. I think we have several major problems. One is the poisonous effect of big money in politics. The ideas that people, members of congress are dialing for dollars every day, half their time. The fact we are inclined to become or have become a nation of spectators. We sit around and watch things all the time, watch television, watch athletic events, let somebody else do the performing to amuse us, to entert