Transcripts For CSPAN2 Richard Aldous Schlesinger 20180113

Director of the john f. Kennedy president ial library and museum. On behalf of all of my library and foundation colleagues, i thank you for coming this evening, and id like to extend a warm welcome to those who are joining us online as well. I would also like to acknowledge the support of our underwriters for the Kennedy Library forums. The lead sponsor is, bank of america, the Lowell Institute and our media sponsors, the boston globe, xfinity and wbur. Richard aldous has kindly agreed to sign books after tonights forlumbar. Our bookstore has forum. Our bookstore has Copies Available for purchase. This year marks the centennial of john f. Can kennedys birth. As we honor his life and legacy during this centennial year, we cannot be more pleased to explore the life and work of arthur. Lettingier ger jr. In more detail tonight. I am delighted to introduce the participants in tonights program. We are so pleased to welcome richard aldous, author of the new biography schlesinger the imperial historian. He is the author and editor of 11 books including mcmillon, eisenhower and the cold war and reagan and thatcher the difficult relationship. I am also delighted to introduce our moderator for the evening, an old colleague of mine, timothy naftali, professor of history and Public Service at new york university. He is an awardwinning author, a cnn president ial historian and also served as the director of the Richard Nixon president ial library and museum. Please join me in welcoming richard and timothy. [applause] thank you, warren, and thank all of you. Richard, youve written a wonderful book which you will all have the opportunity of purchasing. [laughter] and take it. Why did you decide to write about Arthur Schlesinger . First of all, can i just say what a real pleasure it is to be here at the jfk library, and im very grateful for the invitation. And also wonderful to be interviewed by such a fine kennedy historian. I think the answer to that question actually in some ways, maybe the real answer lies in my childhood that Arthur Schlesinger was one of the first historians, proper historians that i read. And i can still see the gold spine of the british edition of a thousand days on my fathers book shelf. And i i only realized this fairy recently that when i look back at the very first newspaper article i wrote quoted schlesinger, the first academic article that i wrote quoted schlesinger. And i think for me kind of more recently i realized that he is the very epitome of the historian as, if you like, the action intellectual, the public intellectual. And i was fascinated by the way in which he traversed those two different worlds; excelling in both but also controversial in both. What were the surprises for you as you did your research . I think that, i mean, in some ways the first surprise was as a historian that this is a man who kept everything. He knew what a historian or biographer, people like us, could do with this material. But im fairly sure looking through the papers that he doesnt destroy any of the material there. Theres some very personal things in the or archives that hes kept. One of the slightly disconcerting things is that very often because he wrote his own memoirs you can actually see him having already read the papers that me as his biographer is reading too. But i think that the real surprise in some ways the best quality about Arthur Schlesinger, the man, is that quite clearly he is the same in private as he is in public. Hes not saying things in his private or correspondence that he isnt prepared to go on the record and say. So theres a kind of integrity about him that rereally does say what he believes, and very often that means speaking truth to the power too. Were at the Kennedy Library, and tell us how you understand now, having written this fine book, arthurs relationship, Arthur Schlesingers relationship with john f. Kennedy. Its a fascinating relationship, isnt it . As warren said in his introduction, you know, this is the centennial of kennedy and schlesinger, both born in 1917. Yet in a curious kind of way, they almost dont seem like contemporaries, and in many ways they actually werent. Because schlesinger was fast tracked through school, it means that although he was at harvard, he wasnt in the same year as john f. Kennedy. He was actually in the same year as kennedys older brother. And, you know, i think that that relationship always has a kind of curious quality of both being an insider, but not part of the kennedy circle. And ultimately, i think the thing that brings them together is not some of the usual things throwing a football at hyannis port and so on it is actually the relationship as a historian, that kennedy loved history, was a writer, thought of himself as a historian. And so where they really bonded was over history. Were going to talk a bit about this, i hope, over the course of our conversation and during the q a, but to what extent do you think president kennedy was comfortable sharing his thinking with Arthur Schlesinger . I think thats a really interesting question. I think hes very comfortable in company of Arthur Schlesinger, that schlesinger is somebody who inside the white house he would quite often just drop by at the end of the day. Kennedy would beckon him in to the oval, whoever was in there, and invite him to join those conversations. He quite often liked ruminating with schlesinger about, well, you know, what was this like with in the days of Grover Cleveland or polk or truman or whoever. He likes those aspects. But you know as well as i do, tim, that kennedy was interesting in that he was never really close to anyone. Robert makes this point in his book about the kennedy court, that he uses people where theyre useful. He enjoys peoples company, but even the characters like dave powers not really, nobody really gets close to him. And this is something that ive come to realize over a number of president s that ive looked at and worked on. Reagan was very similar. Its almost a characteristic of those who serve with distinction in the oval office. There is actually something unknowable about them. You make very good use of the entirety of arthurs diaries. Theres an edited version, but it actually a lot of the the most interesting materials are not in the edited, published version. You used the whole version. To what extent do you think Arthur Schlesinger felt he got the elusive kennedy . Because he understood this too about kennedy. To what extent did he, does he believe he actually understood the president some. I think the president . I think that in some ways, as you say, he understands the elusive quality as well. And actually, one of the things that he faces once he starts writing a thousand days is how to reconcile his own relationship with kennedy. You know, lets not forget that in 1959 and 1960 he was unsure about kennedy. Ultimately he thinks, well, stevenson who hes close to probably doesnt deserve another shot. But he kind of flirts with the idea that maybe stevenson should have another go. Hes not part of the inner circle. And one of the reasons why and what he has to confront again after kennedys assassination is that in his heart of hearts he knows that kennedys not a liberal in the sense that he understands it, that kennedy in many ways, hes a conservative president with a small c. And so part of the intellectual job that he does more kennedy is almost for kennedy is almost reconfiguring him as a more progressive figure, trying to reconcile him not being a liberal with his conservative instincts and instead recasting him as a progressive kind of a president. Well, lets step back for a moment because this might be surprising to some of the people listening. How would arthur have described liberal . What did it mean to be a liberal in arthurs era . And thats, you know, in some ways thats a kind of an interesting question and difficult question to answer because schlesinger himself is constantly parsing what it means to be a liberal. But i think that, you know, in particular he has this kind of sense of politics as an educational process. He likes the educational president s, most particularly roosevelt who sees politics as a way of kind of, of identifying things which are in the public good. Not just kind of efficient things that can be improved. And thats one of the things that he has to deal with with kennedy. Kennedy is more of an efficient, technocratic president than schlesinger necessarily would have liked. Well, why dont we lay out for people who kind of decisions would fit in this category of being technocratic rather than a schlesinger liberal . For example, when schlesinger when kennedy, rather, deals with the whole question of civil rights, its not something that he comes into office seeing as a kind of a burning desire to address an injustice. Instead, its when he sees, for example, the events of birmingham and he recognizes that within a kind of Democratic Society he is an ill that needs to be addressed, that this is something which is, yes, its wrong, but he comes to that, he comes to that realization not necessarily through a kind of a, as i say, a burning desire to correct something or a burning kind of inner belief. Its because its inefficient within society. And thats why he moves incrementally on it. So are you saying that for Arthur Schlesinger, a liberal had to be passionate . I think thats right, yeah. And also a kind of a sense that, as i say, that politics is about more than efficiency, that its about this kind of sense of looking at society, a kind of understanding how you fit within this progressive arc that runs through as he would conceive it, through characters like Andrew Jackson and president roosevelt, fdr, and then kind of someone like Adlai Stevenson who he did see as a more progressive liberal character. Although interestingly, when he was working for stevenson in the 1950s, he had many of the same reservations about stevensons liberalism. Would you say that Arthur Schlesinger had this idea of the perfectibility of america, that it was always Getting Better . Yes, absolutely. And theres a kind of an underlying whig notion to schlesingers history, very much something that he gets from his father. I mean, Arthur Schlesingers genius father is somebody who develops the kind of notion of progressive kind of history, is somebody who looks at history through the idea of cycles that america has gone, goes through this progressive and conservative cycle, and thats something which arthur jr. Kind of then subsequently picks up and writes a book about. What does he think the role of the individual is in creating a more perfect america . Well, certainly for himself this is one of the reasons why he thinks that historians should participate in that process, that its not enough for Arthur Schlesinger just simply to be writing books, that the historian has to apply the lessons of history in a direct way by participating. So even in his own individual case, yes, he does believe in the individual. And then you look at his books, i mean, the age of roosevelt, the age of jackson, kind of very much looking at the role of the individual, but also just think of the title of those books, the age of, theres a kind of a sense of a generation grappling with these kind of problems and a generation as a cohort kind of moving forward too. Now, before he writes because hell have this crisis of confidence about this when he writes the imperial presidency. But what role does he see the president playing before the 70s in achieving sort of these august ages . Yeah. So, you know, you could make an argument and, in fact, i do in the book that, you know, actually almost his entire frame of reference is governed by one individual and one president and, of course, thats fdr. The age of jackson in many ways is a book about roosevelt as much as it is one about the 19th century. And then, obviously, the age of roosevelt itself is trying to take those lessons and to apply them in the specific context to stevenson and to kennedy. But, yeah, he believed that, the use a churchillian phrase, that the president is the person who sets the weather, you know, the person who can, who sets the tone for policy but also one of the lessons that he learns from roosevelt is that its not enough simply to be the weathermaker. Did write down into his administration, has to file decisions through, not just talk to someone from the state department about issues, you might have someone from agriculture and you just asked him about some matter that youre constantly driving your agenda by making sure at every level of government there something understood. This book is also about people as well as ideas and one of those people, of course, is arthur. The book has a number of these examples appear arthur struggled to think of him and those have read about him as a success, man who enjoyed success after success, but in your book its clear that was not the case nor did he see it hit see life that way. Tell us about the human side of him. Its one of the things he aligns in his own memoirs that he does tend to to smooth over the struggles which he has had and on one level it was a very smooth life, Pulitzer Prize in his 20s, harvard professors professorship. Special assistant to the president , another Pulitzer Prize. He has a record of success thats enviable, but he is in a very Nice Public School doing very nicely when he is a boy, but his parents are very ambitious and they shift him up to years and he goes from being someone who plays baseball and is kind of one of a normal kind of boy to suddenly being the little squirts. He talks about how at the age where he started wearing glasses and he struggles at school. He goes to his parents to pull him out and send him off to another school where again he struggles, not just because of his size and age, but because hes a surrounded by people who are much much wealthier than him and so its that kind of struggle. He goes off with oss, the forerunner of the cia during the Second World War and find it very difficult. Hes unable to really make close friendships. He makes some very important enemies who to a large degree persecute him while hes there, but the one thing that always was the constant in his life, something very local kind of here is harvard, so that when hes at school he realizes the person us to become become a harvard professor so much so that he changes his name from arthur bancrofts less injured to Arthur Schlesinger junior because he wants to become his father. When hes there he is able to pull at various times context to provide favors to smooth things over for him and even the way in which parthenia is able to monitor maneuver things to get him to make sure he gets his fellowship at society for fellows or the office from harvards forthcoming even on very private, his father is influential, so there is a sense in which he is an outsider and insider, but ultimately the harvard connection even with jfk the harvard connection is something which is kind of a unmoving parts and very awesome often rescues him. Someone coming to your beaucoup hasnt spent a lot of time at the Library Might be surprised at how Arthur Schlesinger was not in the inner circle of the Kennedy Administration and from your book i get the sense he was frustrated by the. He was frustrated on one level because, i think, once he goes to the white house doesnt feel that hes able to influence events as much as he would want to, so there is a sense of frustration that is personal, but in some way that frustration is born of realizing as a specialist system without special responsibilities, once its muted that perhaps he will become the National Security advisor and thats something that would have had real kind of authority that went with it, but so on the days the kennedy wants to speak see him or his amused by him or even taking him seriously he can have an impact, but other times he fills frustrated because hes not able to make that kind of influence, have that influence with the president seem iconic asian he has impact so lets talk about where he does have an impact on policy. I think in many ways theres a learning curve for him because events that you have written about and demonstrated that during the bay of pigs he writes that the bay of pigs. Hes one of the few people in the lead up to the bay of pigs that says you shouldnt do this. He first of all he doesnt say this face to face to kennedy and the curses himself when he goes back to his office and writes a memo saying to the president quite cream cleanly dont do this and then tells kennedy this and then goes to seeing dean rusk and eventually Bobby Kennedy said him enough, stop. So, that point he has to do that the lesson he learns is that its not enough to be writes. You have to be heard and is so on the things covered once he gets to berlin hes able to be heard and have an influence that someone like dean is taking a very hawkish line on this. s less injured or says to kennedy you have to learn the lesson of the bay of pigs trick you have to widen your circle. You have to get all kinds of opinions for example ringing in hendry kitchener Henry Kissinger and he writes a series of memos to kennedy making clear what his policy should be and hes able to be heard and influences kennedy and you could make an argument thats a stretch, but you could make it are you in doing that he establishes the kind of the way in which kennedy deals with the cuban missile crisis, so on the outside their the actual way in which kennedy is successfully held with berlin using schlesingers model has longstanding ramification. You talk about his role in shaping policy towards italy. Italy is a good example of one of his major frustrations. The state department and in a thousand days its one of the few things he does wear dean rusk is kind of sliced and diced. He believes in something that he has written about the need to encourage the noncommunist left when he sees the emerging italy, something called the opening to the left. He wants kennedy to encourage a Broad Coalition that takes in the noncommunist left and pushes the communist out in its wake, so that is a good example of something he takes an interest in and can see. In a sense its really a followon to the vital center, i mean, if building and not being afraid of social democrats knowing full well they are as anticommunist as conservatives. Yeah, and that in a way is all part of the context of the younger schlesinger. One thing we have to remember is that he corrupt in the 1930s and to some extent he has this monarchy and worldview that sees the rise of fascism and autism on ones died as i come a stalinism on the other side and kind of roosevelt in democracy as a beacon in the middle, so by the time it gets to the 40s having worked in seeing penetration by people he worked with whom most certainly was a soviet agent he recognizes that you have to find a way for the noncommunist left in the non fascist right to Work Together in a way that excludes extremes and i think its one of the reasons that there has been more interest in that Center Recently because theres a sense in which it resonates because it seeks so strongly about the democratic projects. When you get the sense of arthurs white house, arthurs thousand days, he also tell stories most people wouldnt know about ted sorensen and Ted Sorensens strain during the thousand days strained relationship with arthur. Ted sorensen is one of the greatest speech writers sport president ial speech writers of all time and actually schlesinger and that him become a better friends. There is no case in which they werent rivals during this period. It starts interesting allows kennedy since the dropped to less injured schlesinger who goes through with his blood red pen making suggestions and he speaks in a way that is entirely appropriate to speak to senator kennedy. Its sorensen who has written so much of the initial draft. Sorensen feels resentful and effectively feels humiliated in front of senator kennedy, his boss, at that stage. That follows through into the white house. Sorensen would do almost anything to stop schlesinger from getting his hands on speeches so very often kennedy will slip a speech issue schlesinger and say dont tell ted and schlesinger would make these changes and kennedy will maybe write them out or make sure then sometimes kennedy would put the two of them into direct competition saying work it out. The interesting thing is that something happened immediately after the assassination, though because during the white house years theres the question sorensen is more important more influential than schlesinger. Hes the president s of voice, but after the assassination its schlesinger who becomes more important to the kennedy project because he is the one who will define the legacy, so hes more important for the family. Hes more important for Robert Kennedy. Hes more important even for the current president , lbj. Sorensen is a brilliant speechwriter. He writes a good book on kennedy and hes up against schlesinger, Pulitzer Prize winner, harvard professor, someone with much more experience in the process of actually writing and producing a book, so sorensen struggles with the process and that inevitably because of the press focusing on the rivalry even when they left to the white house within weeks of each other the white house staff through a party and they produced a cake with sorensen and kennedy kind of on the cake racing towards a kind of the big pot of gold and it said on the cake may the best man win. So, there was a sense in which this rivalry was stuck between the two and they felt it very intensely. I think its about five years ago the library released schlesingers interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy on those states and you should listen if you havent already is very at ease and your book explains why. What was the origin of this close relationship and partnership in the kennedy project . You are quite right. I think this is a good example of that its available in book format and also with a cd or through kind of audio or something thats worth listening to because the ease and in the fact that sometimes you hear the clink of ice with the drinks poured and so on. As i think is well known Natalie Portman kind of listened to those interviews when she prepared for her role as playing jackie kennedy, but i think the relationship comes about initially in the 1950s because the answer to the thing were talking about before that is less injured is outside of the circle. Kennedy has his own team and one of the ways in which he says to schlesinger, if you want to get things and vice versa let go through jackie, so they kind of become almost like a Political Partnership right from the beginning and they do enjoy each others company. He suffered the humiliation of being moved from the west wing to make the east wing, which he is quite cross about, but the advantage of that is that hes in the east wing with jackie and so they are always sitting there kind of talking and if you have the ear of jackie you have the ear of the president , so they have this close relationship. They work on projects together like for example the establishment of the white house library, but then where that also pays dividends is immediately after the assassination where she doesnt like sorensen. She encourages schlesingers in the project. They work and a very closely together, but i think its only that relationship that means in this shows kind of almost what does tug about before how schlesinger relentlessly said what he thinks and on the nights that kennedy is assassinated he writes to Jacqueline Kennedy a very moving letter about the president and his legacy. The day after on the 23rd, he writes again to Jacqueline Kennedy and says immediately you have to start thinking about the papers. You have to think about the president s legacy. Thats a very hard letter for someone to write, but it shows, i think the close was of the relationship and also what was understood in their relationship thats he is the historian who is going to be involved in that legacy project for all of the advantages and disadvantages involved in that. I have heard from a number of people, what was left of the inner circle in the last 15 years who would describe Arthur Schlesinger as not as jfks friend, but as bobbys friend and it was body that brought him into the white house. You argue that bobby is the one who ultimately tells him about his job, but to what extent did the relationship between the Robert Kennedy and Arthur Schlesinger manor matter in the white house period. To it extent did it matter then . I think youre right to express what i sense that in Robert Kennedys involvement in the campaign, in the Second Time Around and 56 and schlesinger finds him a slightly odd cold fish in many ways and i think that the sense in which particularly an utterly period Robert Kennedy is both volcanic and distant at the same time and schlesinger doesnt really quite know what to make of him. There is a sense of pragmatism in the relationship. He is the president s brother. Marion kennedy who as many of you know sadly died although spectacularly great age, wonderful character, she was not enamored of Robert Kennedy and when she accompanied Robert Kennedy with arthur to berlin and italy was not impressed with his behavior, but as you say its really after the white house that the relationship blossoms and becomes important, so theres a pregnancy pragmatism to it that later turned into something much closer. To what extent is a thousand days in your estimation as a historian a history of the kennedy presidency . Or is it imagining a beautiful imagining of a liberal presidency that arthur had hoped would happen . I think its both and i think its important to say and one of the things that often gets forgotten and brushed aside by schlesingers critics is that he says at the very beginning actually the first sentence that this is a personal memoir that is written in heat of the moment that documents will be released at the jfk library and other historians will come and write a more balanced account, but what he says in the introduction is that what i can give is that sense of what it was like to be in the room and inevitably this was the balance because i was not in the room for everything and he said that explicitly that i will inevitably give more emphasis to things that i was involved in. Thats inevitable, so i think there is that and the words you use, a romantic imagining kind of behind this book because its still written i supposed to date we would say posttraumatic shock about it, an element of trauma to the work that this is a man who kind of the year previously had resigned. Had a fully expected he would serve out the third term. Barry goldwater was already like to be the candidate the kennedy people were competent they could be cold water, so he expected to be in the white house for the full eight years and then almost as not a retirement project, but this would have been kind of 1968, 69 by the time he would have gone, so it would have been his last big book it wouldve been the age of kennedy, may be multi volumes, but it becomes something different. Its his memories and written in that kind of heat of the moment with this kind of rivalry with sorensen has be done quickly. You describe the physical toll that it takes on arthur. He writes it in a year. Just over a year and im sorry we can say this. Hes basically putting the rest of us to shame. He describes how he writes shes writing 3000 words a day , getting up at 7 00 a. M. Finishing at 9 00 p. M. At night and basically hes writing and drinking whiskey and smoking cigars. You quoted someone writing that he writes directly to galley. John a balloon. Which means he doesnt need editing. John bloom tells his graduate students that that the only people he knew of who could write almost directly for galleys was church l and Arthur Schlesinger. Hes a wonderfully fluent writer they now 3000 words a day and that was actually something that made him very politically useful talks about how when the two of them were speechwriters, so again schlesinger was the person who would walk into the elks club as they were called and take off his jacket. He would sit at his desk, light a cigar and just bang out a speech and pull it out of the typewriter and it was ready to go, so there was this kind of wonderful fluency about the way in which he wrote. All of that energy and excitement, he doesnt have about the rfk book. Hes not sure he wants to write it. I think he realizes that inherent in writing that book the faults that are in the book, that by the time he gets to writing that hes too close to the project. Again, personal dimensions. He has lost one president s, someone who he was close to in a kind of professional kind of a way and by the time you get to 1968 as we discussed he is friends with Robert Kennedy. Kennedy is assassinated and also he is worn down by the time this you know, hes writing in the context of kind of the polarization of american politics, the watergate crisis. This is a time when hes in kind of minute cinema for example watching a movie and someone would just turn around and say when revolution comes you will be taken and put against a wall and shot. Just when hes out literally doing his business for example he would walk his son to the bus stop, walking the dog of people would just start shouting at him in the street, so i think when he writes that book hes writing a kind of a sense of america that is lost. There are also technical problems. When he writes about rfk during the white house years it becomes who is the hero of the book because so much of it is talking about jfk and Robert Kennedy almost becomes secondary in his own biography. There are things hes never able to reconcile. Perhaps theres one other thing, which is that between the writing of a thousand days in the rfk book arthur learns things about the kennedy presidency he did not know. You have had these revelations about from the Church Committee about an attempt to kill castro. Theres more about the president s health. Rfk is the one who told the world that there was the secret deal that ended the cuban missile crisis. The president s health, arthur may have known something about, but the other things he did not and he did not know about the tapes. Hes a historian and he wasnt told about the best source of information about this presidency. John f. Kennedy did not tell him. And jackie who also know about it did not tell him, so to what extent do you think some of the rfk book, the different tone is a product of his disappointment because he has to redo a thousand days a little bit and as a result i think has a very defensive tone. As you say, its defensive disappointments and hes having to try to square the circle anyways that he doesnt do very successfully that things Like Operation mongoose as you say, its like the missiles kind of the revelation about kennedy indiscretion and weve are often described as the darker side of camelot and i think that you are correct about the defensive tone because whatever you say about the thousand days theres a sense in which is a genuine book and there are things that may not have turned out to be right and things work his judgment may be wrong, but as a historian you can say things and by large to romanticize things does theres an authenticity to that book and as you say with rfk even as a historian he has written about some of these things in the imperial presidency he talks a little bit about kennedy kind of taking things, but in many ways things like the turkish missile or kind of mongoose are the things hes criticizing in the impregnable presidency and so to some degree he wasnt exactly humiliated, but his analysis in the earlier book and so as you say having to write about it. I think as a historian if we step back its a very popular book and there are parts that are very effective, but as a historian you would have to say that its not as effective in a way that earlier books like the age of roosevelt or the agent jackson or thousand days are. Before we go to question and answer, volume four i guess it would have been on the age of rosin that roosevelt was like the holy grail of this book. I dont know how many times you have arthur saying to someone the book is the next thing im going to do. Sounds like a little book about kennedy that i will finish, actually, but why do you think because there was some pop psychology about why Arthur Schlesinger didnt finish it, had too much fun at parties and as his biographer as his intellectual biography why do you think he did not finish volume number four . I think there are number of reasons and youre right, he constantly referring to and there is some part of you that wants to say arthur, let it go because even when he takes up the white house job he says here i only want to do this for your because i want you back to the age of roosevelt and all through his life hes constantly talking about it. We know its not laziness, i mean, because he writes the imperial presidency. He writes the Robert Kennedy book and he writes many more kind of what you might describe his oped type books as well. I think its two things, first of all we all know that when you write a book theres a kind of intellectual energy that is behind the original idea and if you dont see that intellectual energy, then the fires tend to dim and you move on to other things and its difficult to reclaim, but i think there is another reason and the clue is in the 1950s when actually he is still in the process of writing kind of the earlier volumes of goes to london and gives a series of yesterday lectures, which is own father had given in the 1930s. The reason he changed his name to arthur mayer junior was because at the passport to go on a round of the world trip with his father, so this had been kind of a seminal trip for him. He does lectures in the 1950s and they are basically about volume four and when he is there he almost cant write them even then. Turns out he has not done them properly and he sees and rushes back to his hotel to kind of filling details, so i think that even then he knew there was a problem and why is there a problem in answer to your question cracks in some ways its almost like the rfk thing where the problem is hes written about a good bit of fdr. He stops in 1936, but he will have to deal with the Supreme Court catastrophe. You will have did deal with the holocaust. He will have to deal with isolationism and by this stage he reveres roosevelt so much. Im maybe its been a good historian and realizes by now hes the wrong man to write the history of fdr in that third mac Arthur Schlesinger was very good to me and i would have had the opportunity to ask him and im sorry you cannot write the book when he was alive so we could ask him, but i would have wanted to ask him whether having been in a white house because you see most of us who write about president s none of us are president s, but most of us havent worked in a white house and even the ones who worked in white houses have not been close to the present. Given he was close to the president and learned what he didnt know about that presidency, how confident could he be of writing about a presidency that occurred when he was 20 years old and far away. Did he lose some of his selfconfidence about the ability to recreate an Administration Given his experience . I think thats a fascinating question. This notion of keyhole history or the historian as participants and all of those things and i think the other thing we have to remember is when he was strictly an academic historian writing with his first book coming out and then Andrew Jackson, he is writing about the 19th century, but thereafter is actually always writing about contemporary history and hes writing about roosevelt in the 1950s when roosevelt only died in 1945, so that would be like as writing a book about president george w. Bush or maybe bill clinton, so theres a sense in which this is kind of contemporary history and as you say maybe its also by the time he gets back around it to roosevelts its not really contemporary history anymore, so maybe they contemporary side of that is the animating force and as i said earlier even age of jackson in some way is a book about the age of roosevelt. Lets take some questions. Seems like schlesinger was a very very unique historic figure in the United States presidency and has there ever been another person who is his equivalent in the 20th century and i will even ask in the 20 century because it seems like there and never has been and probably never will be and it appears that really what we see when we look us lessons are is the respect that president kennedy had for history and for learning from history. I recall reading once that during the cuban missile crisis he made some statement about a book he recently read and he said i wish the generals had read this book. I would send them a copy but they probably wouldnt read it anyway. Is that how unique lessons or is that we can say he doesnt have unequal in the history of the american presidency or is there someone else who is his equal that survey president . I think thats an interesting question because floss injury himself said when he comes into the white house there had been no one like me before. There have been other people who had written about president s within the circle, but no one brought in quite that way and in some way he sets kind of a president s come precedence, so for example when bill clinton becomes brought president he is a great admirer of Arthur Schlesinger. He wants someone like schlesinger there, so he talks to taylor, very distinguished historian and said i want you to be my Arthur Schlesinger and he says mr. President , im not sure thats a good precedence, but he does eventually edged you know does go into the white house. He does have these conversations with the president and other examples, Teddy Roosevelt is given access by Ronald Reagan and writes actually controversial biography of reagan, so there are ways in which writers command, but i think your question is writing 1 cents. There is no one who really is brought in the same way as someone whos influencing policy and understanding whats going on and involved in decisionmaking, but who write from day one i think is understood and believed by kennedy that actually you are here because ultimately youre going to have another task that in some ways you will be writing or involved in or helping in the age kennedy projects. Thank you. And wish you would enlarge a little bit about the statement you made earlier with regards to the fact that schlesinger had progressive proclivity and so once a week sensibility in regards to history and i was struck in reading some of schlesingers essays by the fact that he seemed to have been influenced profoundly by ronald lieber. He a centerpiece of believers thinking had to do with the human nature that was manifested historically and it seemed to me that when schlesinger would reflect upon different historical periods, he would always be mindful of the fact that we are moving piecemeal, every situation is inherently flawed and its always a work in progress. Some people like when he would address the historians like William Appleman williams, he would always impute the fact he had this grand design conception so that people engineering these huges spacious plans for decades and decades and said he would talk about the Second World War and said talking about men who are beleaguered, tired, old, sick, exhausted and said they are making piecemeal arrangements irreconcilable to the history. You are quite right to identify him as a mentor both personally and intellectually to Arthur Schlesinger. One historian has written and i think this is correct that effectively what schlesinger did was to take reinhold liebers conservative analysis and apply it for progressive ends, so he takes on board of this idea even kind of quoting and in fact i will misquote here so i apologize to everyone for this, but he quotes the words of pascal in one of his books and the gist of which is one of the problems for mankind is that not just because we always went to act in a way thats evil, but very often because we want to act in a way that is good and so hes kind of very wary of this kind of sense of has you say preceding kind of carefully, but what schlesinger does is to take that and to say, well, because of this we can look at these kind of the trends and have these progressive ends and move in that direction, but always being aware that we have to test these things, for example, against history and beware of our our own privity and so on. Reinhold lieber is a great influence. The two men were great friends. s lessons are schlesinger was very kind to meet him after he had his stroke, kind of organizing people to get it together and to buy into television, so its personal, but absolutely as you described is intellectual. Thank you. Do you have any comments on the potential release of the jfk papers . What youre looking for. I have to say that i am probably the wrong person to ask that question. We have someone who is a real expert sitting next to me. I would say that two things that for any historian the release of documents is always exciting for all of the reductions that will be there, maybe some of the best material. It will probably take years for people, historians to work through and pull out the implications, but i have no doubt it will feed some conspiracy theories around this event, but any documents released is a boon for historians, but as i say heres the expert and you should probably ask him. Tim . We are all oddly enough in the debt of oliver stone. I said ill be enough because he created a cockamamie conspiracy. Donald sutherland is one of my favorite actors. I was a big fan of the Baseball Team he would come up anywhere anyway, Donald Sutherland in the jfk movie is the personification of that conspiracy that involves everyone, which i found funny because most americans and its a thing the right much share, most americans understand our government is inefficient. Some people like the government, but we know its inefficient, but everyone who is a conspiracy theorist assumes the government is super efficient in that one instance the government not only does this perfectly, but no one talks. Now, the long and short of it is that because of the confluence of several different conspiracy theories in the 90s jfk was killed because he was going to pull out of vietnam. Jfk was killed by castro who found out that count the kennedys were going to kill him and he wanted to kill them first. Jfk was killed by soviets. Jfk was killed by southerners who were not happy about civil rights. Jfk was killed well, each of those jfk was killed by the mom. Each of those entails a series of documents and the jfk act created a collection called the Jfk Assassination collection. Its huge, 5 billion pages and includes each of these possible series. Its a boon to historians. We have been mining that war since 1998, but the review board, a series of very honest sober minded nonpartisan people got to see it all and some agencies and the fbi said to them, this document, which you can read, its not relevant; is it . By the way, the goal of this process was not to tell americans what happened, but to let us decide. This was not a Warren Commission readout, but they said would this allows to know anymore about half the house well that they said no and they said well lets not release it, so theres a bunch of that stuff, according to the National Archives website about 50000 pagers and portions of 5000 pages were withheld out of 5 million. Of the law written for historians, but badly written for government officials with the section that says everything in the socalled assassination collection must be released 20 years from now unless the president , at the time, decides not to. That kicked the can forward so the review board did its work well. Disestablish itself in 1998. These were people chosen by bill clinton, but the act was signed by George Herbert walker bush so the can was kicked and kicked and kicked and who would imagine in 1992 [laughter] that a manhattan developer would be the one to decide and thats what this is all about. These documents, ive not seen them, but i know something these have to do with the murder of trujillo, some us policies for vietnam though not many, but policies towards cuba because in 1998 castro was still alive and so there were war plans that were closed and also cipher stuff which again you can read this, but you have to be a nerd like me. Its a long report, but the National Security agency found things that were responsive and then argued is this really helpful and they said no. About stuff is in this collection. I think what happened today and i dont have any inside info is that the agencies, which have been screaming no one ever expected this to come out have been making their case to the white house and thats why the stuff has not come out yet. I would be surprised, but never predict i would be surprised if it changes any top wine narrative issues regarding Lee Harvey Oswald and the conspiracy and i dont think it will change that many tough lines, but it might and it will give us details about covert actions. I will give you an example of something close the. I dont know the detail, but the name of the cia guy who took the poison to congo to kill lumumba is closed. It would be opened if this goes to repair the cia does not like to open those kinds of things. Would it affect your knowledge of whether Lee Harvey Oswald killed kennedy are not . Now, but thanks to oliver stone every possible conspiracy got thrown into the pot and 5 million pages were the results , so thats my understanding of what happened. [applause]. The thing we both know as historians is that documents reveal things that no one could have predicted and what, i mean, by that is 12 of the agencies going through this material, for all the review boards looking at this material there will be things in there that some historian will say actually you thought this was a relevant, but really important and it may not actually deal with Lee Harvey Oswald. Heres the thing about it, which is our government, i mean, i think i have worked in enough archives to tell you i did work for the National Archives, so i may bias, but our government has the best archival system in the world. Great britain has a beautiful building and its very very efficient, but britain has a system where the government can destroy documents before they go to their National Archives. Im not saying our system is perfect, but we have a different kind of system and so we can demand documents, we may not get them for a while, but we can demand documents in a way that no other country permits of their own material. Because we have this right we put a burden, a good when i think on all the agencies to review the documents in this gets to richards point, who would use them. Sometimes their retirees who dont know anything about the story. Its not that they were working on. They dont know anything about it, so they might be told a list of code names they cannot reveal, but other words its there decision and thats why those of us in the business know you can have a document thats redirected at the same time because it depends on who did it hurt its an art, not a science, so exactly there are documents that would be keys to a big argument that the reviewer would not have a clue about, so thats why its always worth taking the time to go through the documents one by one. Its a great benefit of the system that there will be some phd student focusing on some very narrow area and will have to go through some of those well, millions of pages, but will identify some of those and they will have a moment and they will be phd students around the world and together something will happen that we simply cannot predict, so as i say its a great day for historians when documents are revealed. Its a pretty good profession we are lucky. I would say. Sir . I have a question about a question candidate kennedy was asked and i dont know where i read this or who rotated, but the question kennedy was asked from what i read, a reporter asked him, mr. Kennedy, what is your greatest qualification to be a candidate for president of the United States and reportedly kennedy responded i have a sense of history and my question it to you is do you know if that was an accurate account of something at that time . So, did kennedy have a sense of history . Yes, absolutely he did. I mean, i think even the fact that you go right back to his time at harvard when he wrote his sis about the munich crisis and subsequently published that as a book, the fact that he has the impetus to write, which he writes with ted sorensen which wednesdays pulitzer and he just have to look at simple things like he reads the book for a few pages of newspapers and circles books and sends out to his local bookseller from hyannisport to kind of order these books then. Hes reading all the time and one of the previous question is referred to i think probably the Barbara Tuchman book on the guns of august about the origins of the First World War which is very much kind of on his mind kind of around the time of the cuban missile crisis, so he is a great reader. He has this genuine sense of history and coming back to what we were talking about before, ultimately thats really why i think likes he had me she likes having Arthur Schlesinger around. He dislikes talking history and thinking about things in that kind of Historical Context and as the cuban missile crisis demonstrates a dozen permits policymaking. He is thinking in this kind of broad Historical Context. He does think about other president s particularly why he doesnt like president s like wilson and theodore roosevelt, because they are to use roosevelts own words, bully pulpit. He preferreds president s like truman because they are practical, improving president s who are looking in a very technical way something that is wrong and to make it better, so thats a historical reflection, so absolutely he is a president with history on its mind. Yes . Yeah, as historians how do you feel like here we are in the age of camelot, everything is looking fine we are looking at jfk. Everyone is feeling great. Its 1963 in the spring. Things look wonderful and a couple shots rang out and changed history forever. Now, when you guys look anything like that as historians, i mean, what goes through your mind because everything has just changed completely and now you got to go from kennedy to johnson and from johnson to nixon and eventually to tromp. I dont believe i said that, but when you guys look at this stuff and you are not expecting it. None of us was expecting november 22, and i lived in new york and it was the first time in my entire life that in new york city i could not hear a sound on november 22, 1963, not a sound, not a bird, car, nothing. It was that dramatic. So, how do you all deal with that . I mean, you have the initial shock and now you have to go through what the heck happened and what is going to happen because you have to kind of like for lack of a better term instead of being a historian, now you got to kind of like the a soothsayer. Whats going to happen next, you know. Petty deal with that stuff. Thats a interesting question on all kinds of levels, one of which is that the kennedy assassination is different for you than it is for me because im a generation later and so didnt i had not been born, but when kennedy was assassinated, so for me its all history. Its not lived experience and in the same way i see with my own students now, not only do they not remember the cold war or the berlin wall coming down which is kind of a seismic moment for me, they are a generation that are now coming through and dont actually have memory of 911 either because they are 17, 18 years old so they experienced Something Like that differently, but i think the question of how you write history like that i think there are two different ways of thinking about it that first of all as historians we recognize the importance of in this case tragic what we might describe as serendipity. Events happen that change the course of history that if we believe in the age and the individuals make a difference and i do as a historian then the death of a president means something. The transition from one president to another means something, but then we also think about the broader context and these are the kind of things we debate, the vietnam war, for example which is a huge factor in americas history, subsequent history and the reason why historians argue about from which kennedy had done the same thing and was here on the verge of pulling back. Historians have argued about that. The question of civil rights. You know, there is example that Lyndon Johnson the great political operator is able to take this kind of National Tragedy and turn it into Political Capital by getting civil rights legislation through by effectively even though he might have been opposed this will be John Kennedys legacy, so yes, absolutely this matters. It matters in all kinds of different ways and of the ways in which it would have changed history we can debate, but ultimately history is what it is. There is a great debate that richard alluded to, how much are we fish swimming in a stream and the stream is going a certain direction and we have colleagues who talk about forces, whether economic or cultural beyond the power of one person. One person can delay half a generation but it is moving in that direction anyway. How important we want our president to become a moment we want our president to be really important and moments when we went this period to move beyond another period and one of the things arthur looked at in the 70s, because nixon, whether the concept of the president too much, whether he had created if you will a literate monster and the core of this case, and the importance of the president , had defied ages of the president , and the context of this republic. And shared it with us. We are having it again. Also an example of him thinking of the historian as you say, engaging with that block, and the long period, and engage in debate quite acrimonious, and bernstein and other historians writing about Foreign Policy like walking with a fever, and going to george cannons graduate seminar, for the fever, lloyd gardner, and to engage in these debates, which is arguing with them arguing with himself and the way history is understood. We are starting with history and apply to the current one. To the same history, different people at different. And learning from history, different point of view did you say Police History . My question, studying history dangerous . [laughter] should we leave this job to experts like you . Anything you can teach everyone so we can avoid danger . We know you see this, you can tell the people so you dont handle the problem in a nonscientific way, just shut up and tackle it. I am a slogger you can give us so you dont get misled . That takes a long way from shut up and calculate. I certainly think not to study history, when you think about regimes throughout history that have been totalitarian or fascist regimes and authoritarian regimes, one of the first things they come for is history and try to rewrite history in that kind of away. You are right even in the historical profession theres a debate about the appropriateness of applying history and one of those characters was aware of the dangers and swam in dangerous waters and was aware he was doing it but also to use your example, science doesnt happen in a vacuum either, rutherford split the atom but that process can be used either for medical science, radiation, to treat cancer but it can also be used to drop an atomic or thermonuclear bomb. These kinds of decisions, if you think of the decisions we are facing about medical ethics surrounding our dna and so on, history is the same, a sense in which these are important questions, many of them are toxic questions but actually historians debating them in a way to talk about things that are coming out, or maybe coming out today, that is what is important, when you think to when Arthur Schlesinger was in policymaking it is also true in his history, his great friends have it right that it is all about pluralism, diversity and approaches and something in that process, the things we do shakes out a kind of answer to these things. I believe that freedom comes from skepticism but not it is a fine line. I dont think you will hear you would never hear anything we did definitive. We dont use that term because we debate with our colleagues all the time but we accept facts. Just as science would accept things and so if you have respect for facts i dont see the weaponization of history that you are talking about. I know how history can be weapon eyes. Lots of cultures have use of the past that include hatred of their neighbors and that is weaponization of history but if you permit skepticism and have real access to data im not sure it leads in the direction that you suspect. A little like churchill with democracy, a terrible system but the best we have, tell me the alternative of not studying history where every day is groundhog day, every mistake we ever made in the past, i am not saying my professor taught me a lot about how analyses are rarely useful for policymakers, they are great for questions but not prescriptive but if you dont study the past how could that be good . It would make you vulnerable to stupid, by stupid i dont mean, based on nothing, silly, incoherent and polemical views because you dont know any better, you have no data point to say what about that, to question it. History has problems, dont expect definitive history whatever that is. I cant imagine the alternative. I like quote attributed to mark twain because it captures what we are talking about. The idea history doesnt repeat itself but it often rhymes and that is right. As always even if he didnt say it, it has a ring of twain, he deserves it but if you think about mark twain, very much, he was friends with president grant. There is an element in which we are not looking at things like what happened then is what happened now but looking at residence, coming back to the point, this is why the footnote, as boring as it sounds is so important to the things we are writing because you can read Arthur Schlesinger and if you dont agree with something you can go to the footnote, if that doesnt sound right, you can go to the New York Public Library and find the document yourself and say he has got this wrong, he misunderstood this and that is why we dont just have one book on roosevelt and one book on kennedy. Someone else will come along, hopefully not too soon, and write another book about Arthur Schlesinger because theres always more to be said each generation, something new to be said. Are there any other questions . There is one, there is another one. I didnt realize you ran the nixon library. Since the question is we are supposed to learn from history, what can we learn . Because it is true. Our parents told us learn from your mistakes, dont make it again. I have been told by some learned friends one reason we cant impeach the current buffoon is he hasnt done anything illegal and historians, not sure where they quoted from, felt the republicans finally said yes we have to impeach nixon because what he did was criminal, abuse of power and all the things we come because we are right now in the middle of what you will be writing about in 10 to 20 years. Im with scott through the evening. Even as the question was asked okay. I have done some writing about it and i have a couple questions for you. Im proud of group i worked with at the National Archives. If you go to the nixon website and go to the section on the watergate exhibit we digitize and scan materials that are the footnotes for the watergate exhibit and we try to have evidence of all abuse of power by Richard Nixon. Documents and tapes and oral histories that we did. Familiarize yourself with this. It is on a government website and the perils of an abusive president. There is no doubt, i believe, the American People believed in 1974 that Richard Nixon deserved to be impeached, it means indicted, the house impeaches the senate removes. Bill clinton was indicted, he was impeached, Richard Nixon was told by senators of his own party that he would be removed. When you go down and see the extent to which Richard Nixon used power to hurt people you will understand why he abused his trust. That is a good standard for impeachment or removal. I am just one american. Look at that and make up your own mind. I want to say thank you, timothy naftali, for presenting a point of view of integrity on cnn. It is wonderful to hear from historians and many commentators bringing a sense of logic. I was really young during kennedys administration but as i have gotten older and learned about the way the press reserved information, didnt disclose everything about kennedy especially things that would be harmful and deleterious to his presidency and i realized there was a lot of reserve. I wonder if you would comment on freedom of the press, the future of freedom of the press in this climate under the pressures of this president. I would like to know your point of view where you think freedom of the press and freedom of information is going . As you rightly say during the Kennedy Administration it is almost the last gasp of a particular kind of media environment. Edward heath went from the british Prime Minister in 1970, cabinet minister at that time, the early 1960s, until then there was respect and the specific example he gives is when journalists start following him home. There is a sense in which the press was much more respectful. Eisenhowers private life in many ways not quite as colorful as jfk, but there were indiscretions their too, none of which were reported. Once you get into the 1960s everything begins to change. Television changed that and that is the trajectory we are on now because in the current Digital Media environment and the other thing i would say seems to be very different as someone who moved to america from a different system is in the early 1960s there was still within the American Media a sense of impartiality. Whichever network you reported for, your first duty was to impartiality, something enshrined in law, Television Companies achieved impartiality for which they can be fined if they are in breach of that. But i think theres a sense in which who today in the American Media stands for detachment of that kind of impartiality . You could argue things like npr and pbs and so on have that, but it seems to me they interpret that in a way because of the environment has to be very careful. Impartiality doesnt necessarily mean that you cant say one thing is right or wrong, you have to give equal to both sides but it means you have to be able to back up your analysis with data, evidence, facts. That is the thing i would worry about going forward. Where was that going to come from . When we want to know what is really true, what are the arbiters of that . That has as much to do with the new technology, working out how as a society we deal with that, that is very complex. Thank you for those nice comments and cnn is an opportunity to say what i i should and contextualize it. I want us to have time for last question. Two questions. Only one question. I would like to have your response on what seems to be a changing in our history with so many statues being removed and taken out of view, like we want to disassociate ourselves with all of this history and yet that is part of our history whether we like it or not. It has been there. I would like to have your thoughts on it. That is a very controversial topic. My view about it is that it seems entirely justifiable to me that statues which quite obviously would give offense should not stand without context. What i mean by that is what we have been talking about, some of these would be removed but i wouldnt wish to see them destroyed. I would wish to see them put into context that recognizes they are part of the history of the United States because the controversy is not something just from today. These things have been controversial and born out of controversy throughout the history of the United States. In some ways, maybe my response is precisely that as a historian, we dont want to wipe these things from the record but need to understand them in the context of history to contextualize them because ultimately by contextualizing, we understand the man that we are able as a society to move forward. I want to thank richard and you for a splendid conversation. You have an opportunity to purchase richards book and enjoy it your self. Thank you. Thank you so much. [applause] here is a look at the best nonfiction books of 2017 according to the Christian Science monitor. The Japanese Naval codes, the japanese army, they are reading signals all over the world including some that were coming out of north africa so it was a massive effort to recruit collegeeducated women secretly so women at the 7 sisters schools were tasked secretly, called into private interviews with astronomy professors, asked two questions, do you like crossword puzzles and are you engaged to be married . A number of them lied at the second question and said they were not because what they were being invited to do sounded quite a bit more interesting than waiting around while their fiance was fighting and risking his life in the war so the women came to washington, those women joined the navy and ultimately would be joined by enlisted women as well who did not have the benefit of a College Education who came from california, oklahoma, all over the country and they were routed into these code breaking compounds, the army was recruiting for codebreakers of its own and they had a strategy to send some young Army Officers recruiting schoolteachers because they wanted women and as a women in the 1940s if you had a great liberal arts degree, the only job was teaching school. And they were luring them to washington with recruiting them. A lot of these women were getting out of hasty engagements they were pressured into. Those women packed up their suitcases and came to washington and the reasons this was told for so long was the women were told they would be shot if they talked if they were in washington. They all had security clearances and it would be treason. They were told to tell people they sharpen pencils, empty wastebaskets filled ink wells, that they were secretaries and that is what they did and continues doing after the war and because they were women people believe them, they were the ideal Intelligence Officer because people believed whatever they were doing couldnt be important. All of these authors have appeared on booktv, you can watch them on our website booktv. Org. Often the illusion of information is more dangerous than ignorance. The way, a gentleman called diego will say trust has two enemies, not one. The first is bad character and the second is poor information. The question i started to ask in my research was how could a technology address these problems. Is technology making us smarter about who we trust or is it encouraging us to play trust in the wrong people in the wrong places . Are we giving our trust away to the wrong things and is technology play a role in that . Why is this an important question . Lets do a quick exercise to see where this is going. I will give you a blue that will sound loud in this church and you can use it for the person you think is the least trustworthy. When i say the name, you only get one. If you think Harvey Weinstein is the least trustworthy person on this slide, cebu now. If you think donald trump is the least trustworthy person on the slide say now. Now i dont know if you know who this is, sophia the robot, the first robot that has citizenship, she has been made a citizen of saudi arabia. If you think sophia is the least trustworthy person on the slide say boone now. So the robot is more trustworthy than the president of the United States but we dont need to worry about that right now. Lets do it in reverse, clap. I would like you to clap for the company you think is the most trustworthy. If you think google is the most Trustworthy Company clap now. [applause] that was tepid. Facebook, who thinks facebook is the most Trustworthy Company on this slide, no one. Amazon. I think amazon and google, maybe amazon was slightly ahead. A rubbish exercise but made you do it because i thought one of you might say trust them to do what . This is an important point, something i find hard when i open newspapers, the way we talk about trust is in very general terms. We can trust that donald trump will tweet something ridiculous at 3 am but we dont trust him to negotiate with north korea. We can trust even Harvey Weinstein can make a great movies but dont trust his behavior around women. Amazon is really interesting. When they say they trust amazon, they say they have confidence when they make an order online they will show up. Dont necessarily trust him to pay taxes or trust their employees well. This is something i would like you to think about, and leaders and individuals, trust is highly contextual. You can hope you can trust me to write an article, do not get in the car with me because im a terrible driver. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. In the information aid, the renaissance in 1969 to 1976 in the space of 35 mi. There was a big bang in silicon valley, the valley was the epicenter of the most significant burst of technological innovation in the last 150 years, quote, 5 Major Industries were born, personal computing, video games, Semi Conductor logic, modern investor capital, the valley brought to life new Iconic Companies incng