Who has helped me immeasurably, who also does some interpreting of the 20 lead for me. Switch easy. That i have beatrice was a graduate student at the university of wisconsin, and last summer when i needed some documents translated into english, my wife and i live in madison in the summer, so we went to the university, and there was beatrice. Should come over to my house any afternoon to translate for me. Then i discovered that she would be here right now in were going to come to kenya. Her family is from 10 minutes from one of the obama homes. So beatrice has been an interpreter, today and tomorrow. This is theres another member of my team, too, who was my wife who came along. She is an environmentalist, terrific environmentalist who i met about seven years ago and is gone on almost every major trip ive taken since then. Im not a growth or anything but i seem like one compared to my wife, who is the best goodwill ambassador any person could ever have. So she makes friends where ever we go. We are going to get to her but ive one question before that. Which is, this is not a cheap trip. Right. You, number one, had to get over here. People on staff, fulltime, for a number of weeks. Right. Does and authors advanced cover all of this, or just a portion . Well, i cant speak for every author, and this is my 10th book, and i get enough of an advance to pay for all of this. I have, my own, as an author i have a corporation which is me and linda, so that has funds that i can use for all of this stuff. And i do spend, you know, why do it if youre not going to do it thoroughly . I couldnt have done this trip without that kind of a team put together. So, you know, its not like you get an advance and then go spend it all on vacation. A lot of it goes into the work of making the book. The family connections, the obama family connections, as a passive observer, my head is spinning. I dont know who is who. Okay. Thats going to be a challenge for me, to come in this book, for a couple of reasons. One, its a fairly complicated family web. And the second reason, which is unavoidable is that kenyan names read by readers in the United States can sound, you know, different and harder to remember who is who, et cetera. So i have to be able to deal with that, ma and thats a challenge for any writer. I get some ways i done in the past. You know, essentially whats important to me is not quoting somebody. When you write a long narrative, youre not putting together a string of quotes, this person said this and this person said that. Youre building a narrative story. So i would take elements from each of the people that i interviewed and weave it into the story that i tell. So some of them will appear and some of them wont. And they will appear in ways that the family tree will become understandable. But youre right, you know, theres a whole obama clan down in one section of come here, the kendu bay area, and theres another one, which the United States knows better in a larger district. And thats where obamas stepgrandmother lives. They are not even blood relatives but shes the one that everybody goes to visit, everyone thinks thats where the obamas are from. Theres a whole nother group of obamas that im going to deal with, probably in a more substantive way than her, in terms of where the story really comes from. It reminded me a little bit of windows during the clinton book, and what people saw was, because he said, it is in clintons convention acceptance, a man from hope. From Hope Arkansas this little town in arkansas. The simplicity of the world life and, in fact, he was from hot springs, a completely different place, much more cosmopolitan and complex, and with a darker side to. The obama store, what people dont know is the real story of barack obama, sr. And his father takes place somewhere else, down in kendu bay, and thats where the african section of this book will start. Final question. You want to introduce our viewers to [inaudible] leo, you could not make up. He belonged to some kind of african john rawl novel. He is 73 years old. He walks around with this menacing sort of club. Hes got a deep rolling voice and laugh, and he seems to know everybody in africa. From the former president of tanzania to idi amin, the dictator of uganda back in the 70s and 80s, to everybody in kenya. And he traveled with us. We met him yesterday, had three or four hours of fascinating discussion, and then he traveled with us today in the morning. He was very close to barack obama, sr. And to obamas patron, onyango, and knows all of the political intrigue in kenya and a lot of the personal promise and flaws of barack obama, sr. Was he valuable . Did you have to listen carefully to what he said . Well, it was not easy to luckily, this is the other thing. You can go on a trip like this unprepared. So i had spent months studying kenya politics, learning everything i could, going to an archive in syracuse that had the kenya archive. A lot of information i got from there. And i really knew a lot of the background. If you just had a conversation cold with leo, you wouldnt have understood a word he said. But i knew where he was going. I knew a lot of the beginnings of the stories, and so yes, i could piece it together, and filled in 100 holes for me. Both of politics and of obamas seniors personalized. Last question. You found and went to the house that president obama stayed at in 19 eightyseven. Where was it . Were going to show the video. You looked really excited about it. Thats one of those moments that i described when we started this interview where you just think, man, i am right here. This is an incredible place to be and 50. Impossible to find just out of the blue. It was in whats called the obama clan compound in a little teeny, sort of, well villager compound in kendu bay, probably an hour and a half from the city of consumer kisumu. It now had a cement floor but we were told would obamas slept they are there was no cement, just rolled much. And he spent two nights there. When he was visiting that area, that part of the obama clan on his journey through africa, his first ever trip there. Just to think, its not like, it has nothing to do with how i feel about obama. And really, i dont approach the book that way anywhere. Is just the main character of my book. And has nothing to do what i like him or dislike him. It has to do with the history of seeing this little place, before anybody, anybody knew who the hell barack obama was. You know, he was 26 years old, making that first journey back to a land that he had never seen before. And i was looking at this little hut on the floor where he slept of those nights back in 1987, and just kind of come it didnt overwhelm the but it made me realize that, to see history as so much more powerful than just sort of think about it or read about it. I mean, ill be able to portray it, but to see it brings it alive for me. And also brings my work to a life. Host that interview was shot over two years ago. Anything you would like to change . Guest id like to change my looks, first of all, and my voice. But theres a couple things that changed. One is the title of the book. You do, determined that out of this, even though it was meant to evoke the fact is a global character, to easily can lead to double entendres or something else, so scrap that. And my publisher asked came up with a brilliant idea, so thats what we did. Im really happy with it. There some of the elements. I in this book, because i got so much rich information about a 10 year period from the time he left honolulu to go to college until he finished his Community Organizing to go to harvard. This time is so important in terms of the evolution of his search for identity, that it really consumed a lot of the book. It was earlier than i expected. There will be in a volume something, but this is the book now. The ark of the book is somewhat different. The title is somewhat different. The essence is the same. Barack obama and how he recorded himself. Host so the book ends in 1989 as he is going off to boston, correct, to Harvard Law School . Guest yes. Host barack obama is filed going to make an appearance in your book, is it about halfway through the book lacks. Guest not halfway through. Its a 580 some page book. Host how did his parents meet . Guest well, his mother was 17. She was a freshman at the university of hawaii. Host i apologize. Take it one step back. How did she get to hawaii . Guest her father, who had been a furniture salesman in mercer island, or in seattle, washington, he got a job selling furniture in honolulu. He was always looking over the next thing. Moving west. He moved from kansas, california, spent time and seattle, seattle to hawaii. So she came along as a family. She was only 17 when she graduated from high school, and Excellent Public School in suburban seattle. Her name is stanley and. His name was stanley. Barack obama had been there since 1969. Also an undergraduate even though he was much older. And they both happen to sign up for a beginning russian class. This was during right after sputnik and the schools all of the country are starting to teach russian. It was the most important thing Public Schools could do, prepare the u. S. For the cold war. So they both ended up in a russian class and thats what the met. Host how long do they know each other before they got married . Guest they knew each other for five months. They met in september. They got married in february. She got pregnant before that. So it was, everything about it was, you know, it was not a normal courtship, normal, let me put it that way than what what were battle and and stanleys reaction to stanley ann bringing home an african . Guest maslin told another biographer, i met before i started this book. David mindel who did the first obama books in madelyn described obama senior to him as very strange. They were not happy. You know, i dont want to say horrified, but it was difficult for them. It wasnt necessarily because of race. There were a lot of elements to. His personality, that he was so much older. Their daughter was barely 17 when they met and when she got pregnant. She was an incredibly intelligent young woman. So this had a very difficult effect on her life. They didnt know, but another element, obama, sr. Was, i noticed in the tape part of that i was reluctant to use the word womanizer. Well, he was, and he was doing that in honolulu to say she was by no means the only American Woman that he had been with. He was trouble from the start. Host barack obama, sr. Married four times. First in 1957. Did they ever get divorced . Guest interesting. They get married the young in kenya, and in their culture, according to obama, sr. , in that era you could just say im divorcing my wife and that was a divorce. So when and im ann dunham married roxy me, she did not know he was married. In that sense he was a polygamist when he married her, and they married in 1961 as you said in february, and legally married through 1964. Barack obama seemed was also married to ruth baker. In his final marriage was to jael. How many children did barack obama seen in the path in . How many have ceilings siblings does the president have . Guest i think i said i didnt know. There were a couple of children i do want to get too far into that but im not sure the number of children. It could be as many as eight. Host back to hawaii. I be worried 1961, barack obama, sr. , ann dunham gets me. The president is born on august 4, 1961, and by the end of that first month of his life, ann dunham is taking into seattle. Guest theres a lot of stuff surrender. Which has nothing to do with birther idea of him being born in mumbai or some other place, which has been fairly documented completely, fabricate untrue. He was born in honolulu. As he would tell the story later in his own memoir, it wasnt until his father left for harvard that the family split up. And even the reasons for that are not what he says in the book. But shortly after he was born, his mother went back to seattle. Parttime come in extension courses at the university of washington. So they really never lived together. When i interviewed all of those people who knew barack senior during the period, before he graduated and left, only one person can remember her at all. The others constantly never saw. So \mr. {|}\mister, what was that . She left. How long was she in seattle . Guest about a year and a half it as a single mother with, yes, and she had babysitters and she went to school parttime. Got herself back together. That first semester at university of wide was the difficult because she got pregnant. So she had to sort of reveal herself on academically, and she did at the university of hawaii. And after barack, sr. Had left hawaii to go to harvard, she and little barrie came back. Host 196219 safety seven they were back in honolulu. Who was her second husband . Guest her second husband was another international guy. He was in indonesia. She met him at the university of hawaii. He was from the eastwest center. Brought americans the honolulu to prepare to go to asia for study. And thats where she met him. He was a tennis player. She fell in love with lolo. Host at what point did the move to jakarta . Guest he went back first. You know, both barack, sr. And lolo were constantly being watched by the ins and different regulations, and so lolo could only stay for a certain amount of time. He kept trying to extend his visa after he married her, and found ways to stay. So we got certain jobs that were related to geography and topography in honolulu to keep them there, but eventually things were changing and very dramatic political ways. He was back in 1966. In 1967, in october, barry obama and his mother moved back to indonesia. Host so the president lived in jakarta indonesia from 6771, ages six through 10 . Guest just about, yes. About four years. Host while you were in jakarta, david maraniss, you found a school where barack obama went to school. Guestschool. This is where barry first attended school in jakarta. [inaudible] is that his exact chair . Yes. Spent this is marty who was there, so he is our witness of the chair, right . So we are getting barry said . Sit . In the corner in the back . In the middle in the back, okay. [inaudible] host guest the statute is outside the Second School he went to. Of little barrie. Shorts, short sleeve shirt. The second coal have much more money than the first. The little catholic school, he actually went to to to enacted, and then the family moved. His father got another job working for union oil and got more money. Host was that put up guest that was put up a couple years ago. Very controversial. They were people there who didnt want that statute to go a. Obama, i think he ran for president of indonesia would win in a landslide. Everywhere in the world theres some controversy about any politician. And so theres some questions about it but not everyone in indonesia is very proud of him than what what was his life like in jakarta . Guest imagine being a sixyearold kid thrown into the place we didnt know the language or the culture and youre just living in sort of middle class, lower middle class section of town, and with alleyways and the exotic sounds and smells of the big city of jakarta. With your mother going to work and your father riding a motorbike to his job, and just being thrown in with the people. And that was his life. The adapter. He had to adapt. And obamas life is a series of adaptations. Host why did he leave jakarta in 1971 . Guest well, he left because his mother community, by the way this International School in jakarta, his mother couldnt afford to put him there. He was there three and a half years. He was learning the native language. She was waking up at 4 a. M. To teach him, with english schoolbooks before that, to supplement his learning. It was very difficult. The whole process was something that she realized she loved indonesia, she was still married, she wanted to stay, but he was coming to a point where she had to make a key decision. It turned out he could get into the best private prep school in honolulu, so he went back in sixth grade. Host lived with his grandparents. Guest yes. By that time had moved to an apartment, which will or five blocks from the school, and he lived there from fifth grade through host so he lived with his grandparents in honolulu. Guest some changes. Theres a period where he never did come back. They lived a couple blocks away, for about two years when she went back there to indonesia. But the bulk of that period he was their. Host and that was 7179, back in honolulu. Guest yes. Host what was his life like . Where did he stay . Ytd study . What kind of grades did he get . Guest by the 19 when he got back, his mother and lolo were separated and soontobe divorced. He was always really very obama. He was a fine student. He wasnt a serious student of any means. He was smart enough to get by. More than get by with his grades without ever really applying himself to hard. Is real love with basketball. Its kind of an interesting twist that the one time he saw his father when barry was of a conscious age was in honolulu when he was 10 years old and his father came back for three weeks during the christmas break and he gave him a basketball. From that point, basketball was incredibly important to young barry. Theres an important theme of his adolescence and his life, because it connected different parts of them. Think about basketball. Invented by doctor naismith, who came down to kansas iraq invaded again. So many great figures of basketball came out of kansas. Obamas great uncle on his mothers side was a very good basketball player. He got his basketball genes from that. But basketball was also way to show a black kid could identify with africanamericans in the way, you, living with his white grandparents. It was a black game so basketball had all these other escapes besides being something fun to play. I think that really was one of the central themes of his adolescence. Host you write, david maraniss, in barack obama the story, barry could not know that perhaps the largest thing that happened to him in his young life was that his father had left. Sparing his mother in him years of unpredictability and potential domestic violence. Guest well, i can write that in a speculative but when you state history of barack obama, sr. , its not, its reality. Its a very difficult reality. It grows out of what happened after. After he and ann had a short time together, he met another woman at harvard. Just like with ann, he swept her off her feet and she became entranced by him. She went back to kenya with him, nairobi, ma and married him. And i interviewed her. I was the first reporter to interview her. Thats the way these things go, and more power to sally and all these biographers who come after me. The story moves on, it grows deeper and deeper. But in any case when i talked to her, she told me the stories of how abusive barack, sr. Was, that he beat her commune, he was an alcoholic. That wouldve been the fate of barry had they stayed together for a while in kenya, we talked to you about ruth baker and i want to show just a little piece of video. Where is she now . [inaudible] is going