Transcripts For CSPAN2 Robert Caro Working 20240713

Watch the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan2. [background sounds] hi everybody. Im glad to see you. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming to tonight news program. Featuring robert caro and conan obrien. [applause]. Im andrea grossman, the founder of Writers Block. Now la to the end of our 23rd year. [applause]. If you are not yet on the Writers Block email us, sign up Writers Block events. Com. We just got it senator a meat sure, Writers Block presents. Com. After tonight, we are delighted to welcome back to Writers Block. The last time he visited wasnt 2002. The master of the senate. It was unforgettable. Bob story is about the genius of the johnson political machine painted a picture of a powerbroker extraordinaire who simply had no peer. Like his subject, he has no peer. Over the years bob has spoiled us with his fortress of robert moses and window johnson and entreated a slide left turns another narrative. His diversions into fascinating bystanders and diversions so rich in detail and character, that they might forum the basis of future studies and of themselves. To consider his notebook working a sneak companion piece to his great moses and johnson book. And today, and 2019 it is more resident than ever about power used for good. And power is against the greater good. As book answers for questions, it raises more. As carol gives a steep background into the ways and wise he does what he does. With such graceful shorthand. As these books werent physical and intellectual evidence enough why you take so long to crank out the next volume, kerry gives us the background and the reasons he goes through every sheet of paper and every file. He gets to the through truth and that essence of political power. And well but caro goes to libraries far and wide about political power, his success and a lot of media power. It is like night comedy speaks to his c own drop and he is with no question as one of the funniest guys in the planet. If that werent enough, hes also an armchair president ial scholar therefore and here will take. And over the years no matter what hundred offered, and heres the guy who calls the johnsons series our harry potter. [laughter]. Heres yvonne who offers national airtime to others. And they said no. So then i ran a great piece in the New York Times not is it too long ago which reiterated on his lingering sadness that carol is the one who got away. Until tonight, everybody. [applause]. Heres whats going to happen. Conan bobble chat and would they are through, feel free to ask gary brief questions. Like, one sentence. There are mics that will be in the aisle, and afterwards signed copies of working in my he of another book of his but do you get that in the book side, yet have a he working. If you havent purchased this book already, i do know i havent. Do it tonight. You know that he doesnt come to la often for book signings. Remember the last time he visited Writers Block was in 2217 years ago. A sneak dont wait another 17 years. I know all of you want do you get pictures of conan and bob together. You have been my white whale the New York Times said youre the white whale to my ahab bed tonight i have cornered you there is no getting away. This is a thrill of a lifetime thank you so much for sitting down with me. Really. [applause] it didnt take any cornering is going to Fort Lauderdale you did just what i did because i read your story reading my book since college. My roommate and i skipped spring break to read your book and then backstage you said you idiot. I went to spring break. [laughter] also thank you for writing a book that will fit on my night table. Thank you. There is so much to talk about. But i will start with one demand i am the moderator and i will make us strict and simple demand there is no question no one is allowed to ask when is the next Lyndon Johnson but coming out i forbid that question. People are constantly bothering this man when that book will come out i find it rude and i talked to a friend of mine and he said he will be speaking so use the phrase that would have been enough. And i maintain had he just written the powerbroker it would have been enough. [applause] the written just past the power it would have been enough but any single one of these books it would have been enough. So he will start with that. Im just in a talk im not going to let you talk at all ff i finally got you and i will not let you speak. Im really doing well. [laughter]r] i loved the book working. I will tell you i. I knew as a researcher and a writer i had no idea until i wrote this book to you so many words dedicated compulsive or committed and you have a phrase about Alan Hathaway at newsday told you when you do research turned every page. You took it literally and i thank you have taken it farther than any biographer in the history of the written word. Tell us about that. I was a young reporter still doing very short stories through an accident i was thrown to go through a bunch of files that a federal agency i came back and wrote a memo for the reporters would write the story. We hadju an editor his hair was very red he started drinking veryry early in the day. [laughter] we never knew he graduated from college or even went but he had a prejudice against people from prestigious universities they hired me while he was on vacation as a joke on him. [laughter] so he would walk by my desk every day and he would never talk to me for guy would say good morning mister hathaway. He would never even answer me. So this one day i had to go down because everyone was on a picnic very early the secretary said allen wants to see you right away. I said see i was right not to move them about to be fired all the way into the office i was sure i would bee fired the secretary said to me go in so i could see this big head bent over reading something very intently and then i saw it was my memo he was reading he waved me to a chair and after a while he looked up and said i didnt know somebody from princeton could do files like this now you can do investigative work. So i have great savoie fair and i said but i dont know nothing about investigative work. [laughter] he looked over at me as i remember a very long time and said just remember one thing. Turned every page. Never assume anything. Turned every god damn page for i cannot tell you how many times in my life that has stuck with me and resulted in me finding something. So many times you say in the book urine immediate document away in these massive rooms you dont think youll find anything and it is the next box this is a waste of time you do it anyway and thats where you find thehe document that blows everything apart. Bad has happened a number of times one example is when i was doing johnson he comes to congress at the age of 29 you cant go through every page and the Johnson Library but i said i really want to paint a picture of the young congressmans life in the first year. I said i will do every page in this boxes and going through these things you think i am wasting another month of my life. And all of a sudden at a certain point october 1940 before that he was a junior congressman and said can i have five minutes of your time after election day all of al sudden going from Committee Chairman can i have five minutes of your time quex i said to him what happened he said money, kid. Money. Hughes to call me kid but you can never write about that, kid. He said because lyndon never put anything in writing. So i am going through one innocuous letter after another lew all of a sudden is a Western Union telegraph about 1940 from george brown which is the texas firm which is financing and he is getting increasingly big federal contract and the telegraph says the checks are on the way. He replied himself on the bottom i am not mentioning or responding to these people so you think them. Six names were in there so i could cross reference to their letters to find out who they were and then as that happens you say i will keep going and then i found what to me was one of the most remarkable documents it is a list typed and six pages long and secretary of treasury both told me this is what it was they are two types of columns in the lefthand column there is the name of the congressman and in the second column how much money he wants and what he needs it for. The amounts are so small by todays standards like 450 for lastminute advertising so he needs 600 but in his own handwriting he said he would give the person the full amount of money that he asked for and wrote okay he would give him part of the many he would write okay and the amount but for some of them he wrote none and then none and out. Why did it mean when he said none out he said that guy would never get any money from Lyndon Johnson. He never forgot and he never forgave. So in this one month so congress became aware if you wanted money from texas you had developed a junior congressman now he wired had National Power. Was fascinating to me to touch every document and turned it over to Read Everything even if you have to go through 50000 boxes just in case. The flipside which is completely unprecedented is you need to have a sense of place when you are writing about these powerful men. So you decided that you could not write about him unless you lived in the hill country and we need to give a shout out right now to your incredible wife who is here tonight. [applause] stated that. There she is. You said to your wife we need to move to the hill country in texas and live there year or two to write about Lyndon Johnson and she gave you a very different answer than what my wife would sayane. Hes sad lets go. Thats not what she said. [laughter] she said why couldnt you write a biography of napoleon quicks. [laughter] [applause] but she moved to the hill country because a lot of people were reticent but not until you were living there to understand the people and they grew to accept to you and people started to talk about Lyndon Johnson who had not spoken to you before. I always think you are the best interviewer but i was a good interviewer but the people i couldnt get to talk to me and then to go on for 300 miles and then to say you drive 47 miles watch for the cattle barn and then turn left then you might go 30 miles on this rugged unpaved road and then at the end of the house and now you suddenly realize i havent passed a house in 30 miles so what you said before they believed it was wrong to say anything derogatory for the president of the United States remake even if they really didnt like him and grew up with him they thought it was unpatriotic you dont say bad things about president s. Man have times changed. [laughter] there is a striking moment where one of johnsons relatives are trying to explain his father was his idol and he had a ranch and it failed and the family was a laughingstock you are trying to understand that failure one of the real one relatives may do kneel down to put your hand in thes soil it was only soil for an inch or two but then it was rock. You got the right things out of this book because it looks so beautiful when you come to the ranch but there was so little soil on top of the rock as soon as you tried to do anything with it the grass was eaten down and washed away. I thought his father was a great legislator and then his favorite cousin really didnt like him. She said now get out of the car with the seed that you just described. Kneel down and stick your fingers into the ground and thats what she said i couldnt even run my fingers and because his father didnt realize this and made this one mistake the family was ruined. They were ruined he was humiliated. So now there is a change in Lyndon Johnson and the problem between the father and the son any other biographer wouldn say im putting a few accounts here and there but you wanted to understand it you went to Lyndon Johnsons brother sam and you wanted to get back to the moment to understand with that. Disillusionment so you did what an acting teacher might do, you took sam to the actual dihouse and had him sit at the table that was recreated and you sat behind him where he could not see you and you prodded him over and over in and intense way what it was like then suddenly he did and he started talking. Talk about those conversations. Yes. Can i go back quick. Say whatever you want to. It is your show. [laughter] i went to go see sam houston he was his little brother and he had a reputation as a very heavy drinker full of bravado and i true but when you check out the stories they were all true so i spent enough time with him im not going to talk to him anymore so then i heard he had a terrible operation with cancer and that he stopped drinking and then iy was Walking Around i just used to walk around this little town and then he was coming towards me. It was a different man he. And when i started to talk to him i said this is a different guy so i decided to try again so i knew whatever the secret of the desperate ambition it had to do with the relationship of his father that he idolized his father was a legislator the happiest days of my life was going with my father on the campaign trail that his father loses to johnson they live in the house they were literally afraid every month the bank would take away theres also no food in the house because his dither was sick and neighbor had to come for charity. And it was a real hatred but i wanted to get the picture of what it was like so i got the National Park service so i thought of an idea that might get him to remember accurately i got the National Park service to say i could take hoem into the johnson boyhood home after all the tourists are gone and we are alone i decided to take him at dinner time which was 6 00 oclock so there would be as much light as possible and i can say i asked him to sit at his place at the table his father sat at one and the mother at the other with on the bench on one side with the three sisters. So i did in fact sit behind him i didnt want to distract him so i said tell me again about these arguments about lyndon and your father had had. It was really slow but then suddenly it was going fast and then he was shouting the conversation you are a bus inspector. I felt he was back in his boyhood i said now sam tell me again all those wonderful stories that you told me before that everybody else has told me just give me a few more details and there was a long pause finally he said i cant and i said why not and he said because they never happened and then without another word he just started to telling me a different story about s the johnsons growing up with the path to power but this time but i went to the otherwh people they said yes that is what happened and they gave me more detail. The story on johnson before your book the rags to riches Everybody Loves him he was popular and through this process which is unusual and takes a lot of time you got a completely different picture even down to noticingns when you are looking at his old yearbooks and high school you figured out the same pages were missing from all the yearbooks because they were unfavorable and johnson had themth removed. Who does that collects. [laughter] that is the level and it took you a long time to figure that out and then people really did not like him. No. But also when someone said to you why are you bothering me with these questions is all they are black and white and i said where quick they said the yearbook i said list those pages. She had a copy with the faces still in there and then when i turned to them they were gone. So what sort of individual and my dealing with clicks who takes the trouble to have these pages cut out of almost all the copie copies. He knew it 21 he had to give it of those pages. Am it was amazing. I wonder if its a coincidence you have chosen to men moses and johnson to devote your life to write about and both of those men took two grade extremes more than anybody to hide their past as they were living it almost as if they knew you would be coming for them one day. [laughter] and you did you didnt choose two guys who were leaving notes everywhere but two guys who went to grade extremes to not write anything down one at the age of 21 is cutting out unfavorable pictures from his yearbook. You chose incredibly Difficult People to write about. Not deliberately. [laughter] maybe there is a connectionon maybe you had a sense there is a line in the book i wanted to bring up you said you look at your work and people think of history as dry but your lifework has been you dont believe it should be dry it should be alive and the question that you ask yourself a lot is the desperation on this page is their desperation on this page . And you ask yourself every time. You read this very carefully. [laughter] i apologize. [laughter] is something that i always did feel that to be successful has to have the same quality as a novel and a sense of place what you are talking ndout johnson thinks its his last chance he loses his political career and thinks it will be over and he gets a kidney stone and has to stay in the hospital i think a month and when he comeset out he cannot think of a way and so he thinks of a tactic of helicopters were brandnew thing in 1848 to come around to all the smell small towns in the helicopter the machine that standstill in the sky. And said he had three helicopter pilots that will probably have nothing to say to me but you never know. And one of them told me is that he was so excited he would be now as the helicopter was going across as if it was a horse. [laughter] so i said you have a picture . This is his last chance and i did exactly what you said. I dont think i succeeded but i tried. You succeeded. [laughter] tremendously you are fearless as an interviewer so could i do this and i think know i could not do this. One of thehe things i found that Lyndon Johnson had a mistress and you have proof in shortly after you find that out you get a call from the office of Lady Bird Johnson and she says she would like to speak to you and talk to you. And you know that she knows that you know. And you went to the interview andan you said, because you are never interested in his sex life but now there was something that was relevant to his career because she was pivotal. And you went to. And i thought that i go and sit with the former first lady if she knew what i knew . It is terrifying to think about. What was that like . And i go back quick. Do whatever you want to do. I wasnt going to write about all of his affairs because if not a one night stand but a two night stand and they did not have any significance. Im reading all the letters during the world war you were allowed one call back to the United States and i know roosevelt had said to him if he needed any advice he could call the white house. All of a sudden as i go through this is ath telegram it says lyndon everybody else has turned down the white house everybody says the senate and says i thank you should run for the house. Nobody knew the same alice. Shortly after its just she or love. When you sit up in the reading room at the Johnson Library if there is a call that has to go through her. I go up to the desk the reception desk says there are two women here who would like to speak to you will you come speak with them . They said to me we read the powerbroker so we know you will find out about alice. [laughter] and we want to tell you about her because alice was not another did though she was important in his life. So to find out about her, she came from a little town in inxas she was a great hostess in washington she came from this little town i never knew i would go trying to get a picture of her talking to the friend she grew up with. I hope theres no one here because nobody would ever go there. [laughter] for any other reason. I got a call from a mutual friend who said everybody called lady bird bird. Bird knows you have been in marvin so she knows you know aboutt alice. And i was interviewing her through her office then all of secretary was standing at my desk and says she would like you to come to the ranch and do the interview they are. Now im talking too long. [laughter] no no no. She sat at the head of the table and i sat at her right hand with my stenographers notebook and then she starts to talk about alice and talks about how beautiful and elegant she was and she said i remember her in a series of the most beautiful dresses and me in dresses that were not that beautiful. But would alice had in him he followed for the rest of his life. So she said turn them toem your advantage where fresh cufflink one french cuffs and cufflinks and also said at various times in his life she saved his political career one was particularly dramatic because herman brown who was a very fierce and bad tempered ruler came to a collision point not long after johnson came to congress and then getting contracts but at the same time he wanted to build low Income Housing project it was mostly mexicanamericans who were in this poor neighborhood he owned most of the houses. And he was enraged by this. The chief lobbyist said he was about to turn on Lyndon Johnson and when he turns on you he never turns back. And he really needed herman. He could not afford this collision. Know. They were providing the money to give the finances for his career. And she sat them down at the table and said theres an easy compromise. You give him the dam and let him have theha land. At all the various times in his life it wasnt like one night stand it was over 20 or 25 years i dont know the sexual part of it but even when he was Vice President years later he would drive down to her estate in virginia to spend the day with her. So youre with Lady Bird Johnson and it just goes unsaid that it was a sexual relationship even though undoubtedly she knew it was. I didnt ask that question. It is pretty dirty and im embarrassed now. [laughter] im trying to think of another journalist or biographer who have sat with the former first lady and discussed, it is a captivating moment not that you talk about that aspect i dont think it happens i tell you its the only interview i ever had that i couldnt bear to look at the person i was interviewing even wants. She talked and i just kept taking notes. I didnt want to look at her for you talk about hold the documents and turn every page you go t there and experience with those people experience. Another part of your processes you write everything out longhand before you go to the typewriter you use an electric typewriter. Now i feel like a prosecutor. [laughter] so why does that help you to ride it out longhand first . Why did you never graduate to a computer . Thats a really good question ive always been too fast at princeton the incident that was formative i was in the creative writing course and was taught by a southern gentleman. And every two weeks you handed in the short story. I thought i was fooling him i was always doing one doing the short stories. The night before we called pulling all nighters. I pulled a lot of all nighters i thought i was fooling him how much work went into it. The very last session he handed back my short story and he said something complementary about it and then he said but you kno know, you will never achieve what you want to achieve unless you learn to stop thinking with your fingers. Sometimes in your life you realize somebody sees right through you. It was too easy i didnt put any effort into it i was a fast rewriter. So with the powerbroker i started to realize how complex so i tried how to explain how robert moses got his power i have to make myself not only think about this so i decided to slow myself down thats why i write longhand. Then you go back and type and then you do revisions and put it up on the board. You are slow. You are a craftsman and veryme methodical. Thats very complementary called me a craftsman to call me slow. [laughter] so your standard for a biography is so high you will spend years working on one phase of the book. So it must be difficult to read other peoples because you must be hearing aboutut a great biography that this person could have gone farther but the standards are so high can you sit down to enjoy somebody elses biography or do you say you blew it and threw it across the room . [laughter] i dont have to say thats right i dont have that feeling there are a lot of terrific biographies out there. Okay. That was not fun. [laughter] i feel im out of my league. [laughter] teeseven there are so many times where you describe moments in your career how important you feel imagination is for a biographer brick at first blush i would think know, a biographer doesnt need imagination you get the documents and talk with people and then you construct the narrative. So imagination doesnt come into it. And then you spend a lot of time that in moses life where he was trying to imagine what he could do with the west side of manhattan when it was just a dirty train coming through. And then to go stand up there and then to recreate in a novelistic way it is biography and it is compelling. That is so key. Imagination is key that its a biography. And how robert moses envisioned the whole west side highway with the public works project is because i read one day that francis was roosevelts secretary of labor but when she was a young woman her and robert moses shoes to walk around. She wrote in her oral history one day they were going to a picnic in new jersey. So at that time new York Central Railroad were taking cattle and pigs to the slaughter houses. And with that whole shoreline in manhattan and the city could not get near the waterfront. Suddenly she heard robert moses saying francis couldnt this waterfront be the most beautiful thing in the world . We will have a great highway running up along the water i will have to tear down zonewa buildings on 77th street we will have a marina over here and a baseball field should be there. And as im reading that is exactly how he build it 25 years later. So then you could put things together that people had told me how many afternoons he would come back to work. He lived in Central Park West he would tell the taxi to take him to Riverside Drive when he would standid there he like to wear suits. A lowlevel municipal staffer and is envisioning something thes largest public works of that type ever done in america. It took him 25 years but he did it. So you have those group of facts. Then you canou say. And you need the big bricks. Thats a good way to put it. Right for great terrific writer. You talk about something bad is very personal in this book that you did not grow up in house of books. That was something important to your dad your mother became ill when you were young and she had a dying wish to change the trajectory of your life. Yes. My mother got very sick when i was five. In those days she had Breast Cancer and it came back there was really nothing they could do for you. So she died when i was 11. But my father spoke english he came here from poland he taught himself but his language with his friends was yiddish. Nonenglish. That before she died my mother made him promise to send me to Horace Mann School therefore that became the center of my boyhood. I think of that more than my home. And it was there that you got your first taste of journalism. And to this day with two or three guys so the remarkable thing is were all still alive. So if we get up from the table and have not said a date at the next meeting and said you did not set a date because thats whats keeping us alive. [laughter] and that you have snagged every prestigious prize everybody can get in your field that you think the biggest honor was going back to horace mann. Somebody at npr says who iss it today . Robert caro . [laughter] so thats a big deal. [laughter] so some years ago horace mann like to name prizes after me so i said that would really be great if it was for something that i believed in. I said its very important not only to be understood if a biographer you need to endure the level of the writing has to be at the same level and if you say why do people still read gibbon read his sentences he such a great writer. So they named it the horace mann prize for literary excellence and writing of history. And that is the biggest thrill and now they say each year the number of submissions increases and this one professor but now theyre more interested to line up here so that makes me feel great. And also to come full circle like that and re see it. To be A Horace Mann and then come back now and in your name these kids are getting thiss prize. Sometimes i win an award and they say why arent you excited and i will say i will act excited if you want but as like it happens to somebody else but this happened to me. Reading about these men that you write about those that you devote your life to and to have something in common with you that people used to say about Lyndon Johnson that they never saw anybody work that hard. That your book is called working work ethic. To be at this for years at a time bears some similarity. Is that fair to say quick. Is that a complement . [laughter] i think that is very inspiring about you in this book to live in the era of attention Deficit Disorder nobody can Pay Attention they n. E on theirir phone and you and your wife took a vow of poverty practically to work on the moses book and disappeared for eight or nine years with no real evidence this would be a success. That is counter to the entire culture that we are in today with this devotion to i work and to doing your work and doing it well. And i know you have found unfavorable things about these people you have written about in both of them were incredibly hardworking people. That is very perceptive. The quality that they share that the unbelievable amounts of work they are the same. You do lots of things as a writer my publisher is wonderful they never ask me when will you deliver. I would never be asked when this book would be done. It takes me so many years its easy to fool yourself that you are working hard because nobody is checking up on you. So i do everything i can to remind myself it is a job so i wear a tie and a jacket to work but its because people wore ties and jackets to work. I would write down every day how many words that i wrote just to remind yourself it is a job. You have to produce. Look at the cover on this book. And i was thinking you dont really have a boss you were in this room and a working it is a very strong work ethic what time are you writing in the morning . It varies. You like to see you get up at 730 now im telling you the stuff i. Dont usually talk about. [laughter] you cant wait to get to work my wife said you know what time it is i said dont tell me i dont want to know. Hemingways technique he would say i would stop before the well was dry in the evening so that i knew i could have a beginning in the morning. She wouldnt exhausted the fuel tank in one writing session. Do you think about that quick. Youre the first person thats ever mentioned that. Fantastic. [laughter]d i am wasting my life. I could be doing some real shit here. Youre asking terrific questions. I wrote my senior thesis on hemingway and one of the things he said was i know one i stop at the next sentence is going to be and i tried to do that. So just stop a little shy. And then my other question is you are in there and you are in the office, its 3 00 oclock in the afternoon , you know youre supposed to do more work but do you ever think imu up here i could pop out and to see a movie . Do you ever just sneak out and see a movie and nobody has to know about it . Avengers . [laughter] never in my entire life. [laughter] its a good movie. I want to take you want to come by your office at 3 00 oclock with prepaidh tickets and take you to the movies. Would you go . If i dont answer its because im so deep in the work. Thats what they all said to me. [laughter] i will open to questions fromom the audience. How long can we do for questions . Fifteen minutes . I just lovely one love your work and im a huge fan i remember mentioning him at dinner parties i read the New York Times piece as a kindred spirit. How did you and up working on this piece and then finally how did you end up to wait tse his place . You are asking the wrong guy the question. I did not write the piece. He heard about the rumor with mister caro and he wrote that story. And then we ended up. I gil ted him i use the New York Times guilt in human to talk to me and is the greatest thing i have ever done. [laughter] aside from work ethic either from moses or johnson that you found inspirational or applied in your own life or how to be or what not to do or what not to be . Is there anything you feel that you learn from their personalities you have applied in your own m life . That such a good question. With both of them i guess i didnt ever put it in these terms before you feel the most important thing is to keep working at something moses envisions the westside highway in the yearr 1912 didnt build it until 1937 and waited 25 years. It all seemed by impossible. To say hes passing all the social welfare legislation medicare, medicaid, Voting Rights act, and then working all the time to change the votes in the senate. Its very impressive to me i dont know if i took anything from it that how hard they worked and never stopped. Thank you so much for coming here and doing this. I remember reading the book about the senate it seemed like the next book would cover the whole presidency i will not ask the next question but what point did you realize it had to be tne divided into two books . Yes. Before his youth for example there was a time i started seven johnson biographies and they all had a chapter or two th his youth but none seem to have enough color or detail for me but then i realized there was thisen incredible story if you have read the nok and if you havent. [laughter] to tell the stories johnson is ruthless as a young man but then would say no matter what linden wasno like we loved him because he brought to life. It took a while for me to say what did electricity mean . I am a city boy that means turning on the lights. But then you think this is incredible. That he could transform the lives of these people by doing something impossible which is bringing electricity to this area. Andct then somebody will have to pay thousands of lines to thes isolated farm houses. And then say i will tell that story. I also told my wife, you know, its very hard tosa show what government can do for people. I think we have forgotten that. The great power of Social Security what it was like to be old in america if you lost your job and had to retire with no money there is Social Security. Im working right now on a section what it was like old and sick before medicare for they revolutionized its hard to show that. Its hard to talk about a city project because there are these cross currents. So here we have a Congressional District in this isolated hill country cut off from everything the only thing that changes is they get a new congressman Lyndon Johnson. If i could examine what he did for these people i can show the effect how government can help people. So i constantly come across to do this. At the end of the most recent volume passage of power you write about vietnam. And a lot of people have speculated that had president kennedy lived he probably would not have got all the domestic legislationla that johnson got that maybe we would not have gotten mired in vietnam. What do you think of that speculation . His legislation was not going anywhere. Kennedy wases a great president. But the fact is on the day he was assassinated the civil rights bill was going nowhere. So johnsons legislative genius pick that up. So i will take a pass on that question because i havent written it yet or i havent thought it through yet completely. So as it turns out it is a horrible story with vietnam. But im not ready to answer you yet. What led you to select robert Moses Stanton Lyndon Johnson for your life work . It was an incident in my youth i was a reporter i got rather interested in politics so i was doing investigative work. I had one couple of minor journalistic awards. But when you are very young you thank you know everything. So i really understood how political power worked but then robert moses wanted to build another bridge across long island sound. He built the triborough bridge i was assigned to look into it it was a terrible idea but it generated so much traffic that the long island expressway i believe it needed 12 extra lanes just to handle the traffic from new england the bridge would have to be so big that peers would cause pollution. So i wrote those stories newsday sent me up to albany i talked to rockefeller and his counsel, the secret assembly of the state Senate Everybody understood this is the worlds worst idea and i said the bridge was dead and went on to something else. I had a friend in albany and two weeks later he calls me and says i thank you better come back up here. I said i dont have to bother i took care of that bridge five he said robert moses was appear yesterday and i thank you want to come back up. So it was the biggest revelation of my life i spoke to ten people they thought it was all the worlds greatest idea. The state was financing it preliminary. So you thank you know everything really it is baloney you thank you live in a democracy and a powerhouse in here is a guy who was never elected but he has more power than anyone who is elected mayor or governor or put together and 44 years. And he shaped the whole metropolitan area and you who are supposed to know about olpolitical power, you have no idea where he got this power and neither does anybody else. That was the moment where i started to think about that but i didnt really have time to think about it as a book because as a reporter you are running every day to do another story. You dont get a chance to think. But then i became a nieman fellow at Harvard University see you go there for one year while you study. Hat was the first i remember that year. My wifes mother was sick that year she had to stay home and take care of her i was alone a lot of the time and they had a lot of social event satellite to go by myself. So i spent a lot of f time and i thought of the idea of the powerbroker. Im trying to cut this short but that i finished robert mosess i thought that was a book not about him but power and cities i wanted National Power so i picked johnson. You mentioned at the end of the interview that you met once metu or saw Lyndon Johnso . The one time i saw him i never talk to him but i was a substitute political reporter when he ran against goldwater. He came along the press line and i think we actually show cans but that was only time i saw him in the flesh. This is more than an honor. In the first couple of johnson books it was hard to get the people closest to him to talk but then you were attacked a lot but then jack did an aboutface and praise due to high heaven did that make it easier for you to get interviews subsequently . Is asking after the early books came out you took a lot friendsfrom johnsons especially jack valenti. So that he is curious that he turned around and started to praise you and then the question was . A lot of the johnson people wouldnt talk to me. Not in the beginning. They almost all came around i was in austin last night. Really . I was to. Where were you . [laughter] quickly are your books i always heard they are not sold at the Johnson Library. Is that true . They werent for a number of years but now they do. In fact i had a wonderful dinner at the Johnson Library last night actually the president of the Johnson Foundation said that they ilregretted the hostility towards me. [laughter] thats fantastic. That is amazing. [applause] do you have a new addition of powerbroker the 300,000 words that your publisher forced you to cut . You live and hope. [laughter] ll publisher would like to publish. But its not so easy to do that. You just dont put it back into thehe book. Its a lot of work to do it but i do hope to do that, yes. If you worked on a word processor or computer. [laughter] [applause] you could hit one button do with that what youh will. Please comment on operation in texas and johnsons reverence for judaism. Are you familiar with that . No. Thats okay. [laughter] i am a retired history teacher. Hnread powerbroker and all the johnson books twice you are the finest biographer. [applause] i hope you heard that. Did you hear it . [laughter] johnson had a number of important mentors along the way. Men and women Franklin Roosevel roosevelt, Richard Russell is the one that you thought was most pivotal . Those three which you mentioned roosevelt, rayburn and russell the three rs were equally sharing to characteristics they were both bachelors, both incredibly lonely men. Hjohnson was a professional son to them he would invite them to his house for sunday m unch, dinner. Ladybird would make them feel at home. He spent as much time with him as they could and they would raise him to power. Roosevelt was different. Roosevelt never made proteges of young congressmen. But i started to realize there was one exception to this. Lyndon johnson often he would say come have breakfast with me he would still be in bed and johnson would have breakfast with him. And i said what made this different for Franklin Roosevelt . He said he was a political genius almost nobody understood what he was talking about. Johnson understood it off from the first minute and roosevelt saw that. It was two geniuses and roosevelt once said, if i had gone to southwestern state Texas College i might have turned out like that to. When you were doing interviews how do you decide what to believe what they are shading or not . I never believe anything thats just told to me once. Youu interview people over and over again. I think i have 22 interviews with one of johnsons aids. Several hundred pages of typed notes. Then you go to the other people who are involved in the story and you ask them the same questions. Then you go back to the first person and you said soandso said this how do you reconcile that . Its very laborious and then of course so much of johnson because he is theof president he never allowed minutes to be taken because somebody had to take notes on them so then you have to check the notes. So one way or another they are not trying to mislead you they have just told the story so many times they think its true but often its not. [laughter] in who was the most important influence . Ill tell you the most important influence. I remember i was captivated. Es be such a great writer what makes history in dewar . It has to be written really well. So there are a lot of historians who have influenced me that he stands alone. Thank you for being here. I have aspirations of writing like yourself and can you speak to your relationship in the beginning of your career . I read a story you had to sell your house while finishing the powerbroker. Was doubt present . Its a really good question because i was going to bring it up. She is asking you sold your home to pay for the powerbroker. At one point your bat goes out and you are telling your wife you have no money she is getting the records for you and you are telling her take a left and take it right. So the questionti is did you doubt it . How did you deal with that as you lie there with noth money you are writing a book you are not sure how long it will take. I believe your wife had to go to work to support you. How do you fight that doubt oh my god what have i done . Y i didnt fight it very successfully. Worry is a big part of my life for a long time. The first editor i had was not the same Publishing House. Used to say i started the powerbroker worth the worlds smallest advance which is 5000 i had 2500 i had no savings. I got a grant for a foundation that got me through one year i thought i would be done in nine months. [laughter] but then we were really out of many i came home one day and we had to sell the house and fortunately before the real estate boom we bought it at 45000 and resold it at 70000 so that 25000 got us through the year and then finally i wrote half aon Million Words i gave it to my editor it took a long time to return my telephone calls and took me to a very inexpensive chinese restaurant. Hehe said we like the book and they said can i have the other 2500 . He says no. You didnt understand me we like the book and we want you to continue were not prepared to go beyond the terms of the contrac contract. Nobody would read that. So that was very bad. So i didnt know where to turn. So very luckily for me the editor left this Publishing House i did not have an agent. So now i knew i had to get one. So i got one. She called and said to me come and see me like your manuscript i want to represent you. But you have to tell me something. What do you look so worried about . I said i didnt know that i lookoki worried. Is that i worried i will have enough money to finish the book. She said how much are you talking . I dont remember the number it was enough to live onmb two years she said is that what you are worried about . You can stop worrying right now. I can get that for you by picking up this telephone everybody in new york knows about this book. So financially my life turned around. [applause] we only have time for two more questions. Thank you both for tonight. You were very prescient in 2016 it with ken burns to assemble a group of historians before the election. Knowing johnson as well as you do, is that what makes this president more excruciating for you or do have a feeling this too shall pass . Its too early to tell. We dont really know if he is an aberration. We had a discussion backstage if he is an outlier who just has a crazy set i dont want to say skills but characteristics that allow him to thread this needle in this moment at this particular time and once he is past this is it , or is he a side of something to come . We were talking about that backstage. Just like the first of the crazy roman emperors. I dont know the answer. Thank you both for your passion and your scholarship. I would like toto know what advice you would give to a room full of writers where Attention Spans are wandering what advice would you give to new writers. I dont have any advice to give other writers. Everybody has to find their own way the best way is my way its a very tough time for writers but i believe it starting to turn back to say the Attention Span is shorter and shorter. So David Mcculloughs book on truman was 1100 pages. Doris kearns team of rivals. I could name others. The proof is everywhere around us. The Attention Spans are all getting shorter. I think i happen to think there is always a desire of how things really happened. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. The free cspan radio app. My name is adam cook and i my 2018 cspan winner. Im here to encourage you to continue to wrap up this competition as the deadline is getting pretty close but dont worry, theres still time. By the time i started filming my documentary the first year. Im going to tell you that its a credit credible opportunity about climate. State leaders in political office. Im extremely excited you all are interested in pursuing this because its a onceinalifetime opportunity. Im excited you are all here. Theres still time to enter the competition. You have until january 20 to create a documentary. If its an issue you want the president ial candidates to address during campaign 2020, we are giving away 100,000 in cash prizes. For more information, go to student cams. Org. Next on book tvs afterwards, American University professor eva candy argues america must choose to be antiracist and work toward building more equitable society. Hes interviewed by perry, author and princeton pro studies professor. Afterwards is a weekly Interview Program with relevant guest hosts interbank top nonfiction authors about their latest work. Its wonderful to be here with you to talk about this extraordinary book, how to be antiracist. I have so many questions about it but the first one is why this book now . Im excited to sit down and talk to y