Founder of Writers Block now sailing to the end of our 30 third year. In. [applause] if you are not yet on the email list, signup. We just added senator amy klobuchar. So, www. Writers block. Com. The last time he visited was in 2002 for the master of the senate. It was unforgettable. Bobs story is about the genius of the political machine. Painted a picture of the powerbroker extraordinaire who simply had no p or. Like his subject, robert caro has no peer. Hes treated us to slight left turns in the narrative. His divergence into fascinating bystanders. Divergence so rich in detail and character that they might form the basis of future studies and of themselves. So consider his new book, working them as a companion piece to his great moses and johnson book. Today in 2019, its more pleasant than ever about power used for good and power used against the greater good. As the book answers for questions, it raises more. Into the ways and wise he does what he does with such graceful shorthand. As the smart more intellectual evidence enough as to why he takes so long to crank out the next volume. He gives us the background on the reason he goes through every sheet of paper in every file to get to the truth. The essence of political power. While bob holmes libraries are in wide, its conan who possesses a lot of media power. His latenight comedy beats to its own drum and hes one of the funniest guys on the planet. Hes also an armchair president ial scholar and therefore, achingly ardent robert caro the vote. Heres a guy who calls the johnson series, our harry potter. [laughter] heres a guy who offers national airtime to offers and they say, no. Then i medicate these in the New York Times not too long ago which reiterated conans lingering sadness that robert caro is the one that got away. Until tonight everybody [applause] so, heres whats going to happen. Conan and bob will chat and when there is, feel free to ask very brief questions. Like, one sentence. There are microphones that will be in the aisle afterwards, bob will sign copies of working and one copy of another book of his. To get that other book signed, you have to have a copy of working. If you havent purchased working already, i dont know why you havent. Do it tonight. You know that he doesnt come to la often for book signings. The last time he visited Writers Block was in 1992. Dont wait another 17 years. I know all of you want to get pictures of conan and bob together. But we want you to put your cell phones away and enjoy the program. When i bring these two great guys out, i want you to stand up and take pictures for 30 seconds. You can take all the pictures you want and then you put your phones away. [applause] it is such a great pleasure to introduce robert caro and conan obrien. [applause]. [cheering and applause] my answer to them is had he just written the powerbroker, it would have been enough. [applause] had he just written path to power, it would have been enough. Had he written every single one of these books enough, okay . We will get this next book when he stammered please damn well ready to give it to us. Are you cool with that . Im just going to talk. Im not going to let you talk at all. I finally got you and im not going to let you speak. This is amazing, i am really doing well. I love the book, working. And i will tell you why i have read all of your work and im a huge fan. I knew that you were thorough as a researcher and writer. But i had no idea until i read this book that you were that i could use so many words dedicated, compulsive, committed that you were taught very early. A man, i think it was Alan Hathaway at newsday. Told you when you were doing research, turn every page. You took it literally and i think youve taken it farther than any biographer in the history of the written word. Tell us about that. Well, i was a young reporter at newsday. Still doing very short stories. So an accident, i got thrown into an investigative. I had to go down and go through a bunch of files out of federal agencies. And i came back and wrote a memo for the real reporters who would write the story the next day. And we had a managing editor was an old guy from the 1920s. He was a guy with a big head. Just hair around the back. The head was very red because he started drinking very early in the day. We never knew that alan whether alan graduated from college or even went to college but he really had a prejudice against people from prestigious universities. I went to princeton. They hired me while he was on vacation as a joke on him. So he would walk by my desk every day on the way to his office and he never talked to me and id say, good morning mr. Hathaway or hello allen. He would never even answer me. So this one guy, i had to go down. Everyone was on a picnic and no one could be reached. I wrote a long memo. The next morning his secretary called me and said allen wants to see right away. I said, you see i was right not to move. Im about to be fired. All the way into the office, i was sure i would be fired. His secretary said to me, go in. He had a glassenclosed office and i could see this big red head, bent over beating me something very intently. And i saw it was my memo that he was reading. Waved me to a chair he said i didnt know someone from princeton could go through files like this. From now on, you do investigative work. I have [indiscernible]. I said i dont know anything about investigative work. He looked at me for what i remember as a very long time and said, just remember one thing. Turn every page. Never assume anything. And i cant tell you how many times in my life that stuck with me and really resulted in me finding something. You say in the book where you are maybe a document away from this great discovery and youre in these massive rooms. Rooms the size filled with documents and you dont think youll find anything. And its the next box anything, this is a waste of time but you do it anyway and thats where you find the document that blows everything apart. That happened a number of times. One example of it. When i was doing Lyndon Johnso , he comes to congress at the age of 29 in 1937. And you cant go through every page in the Johnson Library. I really want to paint a picture of what a young congressmans life was like in the first years. I said ill do every page in this 1011 boxes. Im going through these things. Very innocuous letter. Your thinking as you always think, yourewasting another month. And, all of a sudden i noticed there was a change. At a certain point and the point was october 1940. Before that, he had been the junior congressman writing to senior congressman. After that, after election day, november 5, 1940. All of a sudden, a lot of the letters to this junior congressman or lyndon, can i have five minutes of your time. So i was then interviewing an old dont think anyone is old enough to remember him. An Old Washington fixer. Named tommy. I said to him, so what happened in october 1940 . And he said, money, kid. He used to call me money. But he said youre never going to be able to write about that. I said why not . I said linda never put anything in writing. But im going through these things and im going to want a nokia was letter after another. All of a sudden, the next document is this Western Union telegraph from october 1940. Its from george brown which is the texas firm which is financing Lyndon Johnson and hes getting them increasingly big federal contracts. And the telegram says, lyndon, the checks are on the way. Lyndon replies himself on the bottom of it in writing. Im not responding to these people were telling anyone about them so you thank them. The six names were in there and because they were there i could cross reference to their letters and find out who they were. When that happened you say, im going to keep going. I found another thing which to me is one of the most remarkable documents that i ever came across. Its a list, its tight. Six pages long. Both of johns assistance, John Connolly. And walter jenkins. They both told me that they had typed it. Whoever typed it, this is what it was. To type columns. In the lefthand column there is the name of the congressman. In the center column, how much money he wants and what he needs it for. The amounts are so small. By todays standards, yeah. Like 450 for lastminute advertising. Those of the rates i get today by the way. But go ahead. [laughter] in the lefthand column in Lyndon Johnsons own handwriting, he wrote, if he was going to give the person the full amount of money that the guy asked for, he wrote, okay. If hes going to give them part of the money, okay 500. For some of them, he wrote, none. For some of them he wrote, non , out to be i asked John Connolly what did it mean when Lyndon Johnson wrote none out . He said i can still remember his tone, that guy was never going to get any money from Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon johnson never forgot and he never forgave. So in this one month, somehow congress became aware that if you wanted money from texas. You have to go through this junior congressman and all of a sudden he was on the road to National Power. Whats fascinating to me is the tenacity there to touch every documentary to turn it over. To read everything, even if you have to go through 5000 boxes. Youll go through all 5000 boxes just in case. The flipside to that which i think is completely unprecedented, is ready to have a sense of place. A sense of place when youre writing about these people. These powerful men. But you couldnt write about him unless you lived in the whole country. You went and you lived there. And we need to give a shout out right now to your incredible wife. Why think is here tonight. Rina is here. [applause] stand up, rina. Use it to your wife, we need to move to the whole country in texas and live there for possibly a year or two in order for me to write about Lyndon Johnson. And she gave a very different answer from what my wife who is also here tonight, would say. She said, lets go. That is absolutely incredible. Thats not what she said. [laughter] [applause] she said why should she write a biography of napoleon. [laughter] [applause] but she moved to the hill country and it worked as there are a lot of people who were reticent that they wouldnt talk to you but once you were living there, you could understand the people and they grew to accept you and people started to talk about Lyndon Johnson would not have spoken to you before. You know i had tried. I always think you are the best interview but i always thought i was a good interviewer. The hill country starts started then in the west end and went on for 300 miles. There were hardly any people there. You drive 47 miles out of boston and watch for the cattle guard and you turn left. You might go 30 miles and at the end of the would have been a house. And you suddenly realize, i havent passed the house in 30 miles. These people were so lonely. They just werent used to talking to people. And what you said before was such a perceptive remark. They believe it was wrong to say anything derogatory about a man who became president. Even if they really didnt like him. They thought he was unpatriotic. The man became president and you dont say bad things about president s. And man, how things have changed. [laughter] theres a really striking moment where one of Lyndon Johnsons relatives are trying to explain. Its so pivotal in johnsons life. His father was his idol and his father had a ranch and it failed. The family became a laughingstock. You were trying to understand that failure. And relatives made you kneel down and put your hands in the soil of that ranch and you realized it was only soil for an injury to an inch or tw , and then it was rock. There was so little soil on top of the rock that as soon as you try to do anything with it, the grass was eaten and washed away. I didnt realize as i sort of thought lyndons father was this wonderful legislator for this wonderful man. Really didnt like the way i talked about johnson. She said now, get out of the car. She said kneel down and stick your fingers into the ground. And it looks so beautiful. Just what you said. Because Lyndon Johnsons father. So there was this change in Lyndon Johnsons bitterness between father and son. Any other biographer would say, im getting a few accounts here and there. You went to Lyndon Johnsons brother, sam. And you wanted sam to get you back to the moment. During that period of disillusionment. She did her thing and acting teacher might do thats very unusual. You took sam to the actual house and had them sit at the table. That was obviously, we created. You had him sit at the table where he would sit and you sat behind him where he could see you. And you prodded him over and over again in a really intense way to remember what it was like to remember what he did and he started talking. When i started, of course one of the first people i went to see, his name was sam houston johnson. He was lyndons little brother. He has a reputation of being a heavy drinker and full of bravado and braggadocio. I found that was true. Most the stuff he told me i said ive wasted enough time with them and im not going to talk to him anymore. In the interim, the next year or so, i heard he had a terrible operation for cancer. And that he had stopped drinking. One day im Walking Around because i used to do that a lot. Walk around this little town to get to know the people. And there he was coming towards me and he was a different man. He had a cane. He was hobbling. When i started to talk to him i said, this is really a different guy. I knew by this time that whatever the secret of Lyndon Johnsons desperate ambition. Has to do with his relationship with his father. Who he idolized until he was 1213 years old. He said the happiest days of my life, his father was a legislator. Then his father next this one mistake. He loses the johnson brands. For the rest of Lyndon Johnsons boyhood, they lived in a house that every month they were afraid would be taken away from them. Theres often no food in the house because his mother was sick. Neighbors had to bring cover dishes for charity. And Lyndon Johnsons feelings toward his father changed from idolization, love, to a real hatred. And i really wanted to get a picture of what it was like. So as you say, i got the National Park service. So now he was a team player to me. I wanted to try him again. I thought of an idea that might get him to remember accurately. I got the National Park service to say i couldtake him into the johnson boyhood home. We created in johnson city. After all the tourists were gone and we were alone. I decided to take him around dinnertime around 6 00. Much like dinner when he was a boy as possible. As you say, i asked him to sit in his place at the table. His father sat at one end and the mother at the other end. A bench on one side with the Three Sisters and the other side was lyndon and sam. So i did in fact sit behind them because i didnt want anything to distract. I said tell me again about these arguments that lyndon and his father had at dinner. At first, he was really slow i remember. It was going fast. Suddenly he was just sort of shouting a conversation. Lyndon, youre a failure. You will always be a failure. I felt it was back in his boyhood. I said to him, now i want you to tell me again all those wonderful stories about lyndon growing up that you told me before and everybody else has been telling me. Only give me a few more details. There was a longer pause. Finally he said, i cant. I said why not . Is it because they never happened. And then without another word, i didnt have to do anything. He just learned telling me the very different story about Lyndon Johnsons growing up thats in the path to power. This time when i went back to the other people who were involved, they said yes, that is what happened and they gave me more details. It was the story on johnson before your book was the typical rights to riches, everyone loved him. He was popular. And you went back. And through this process which is very unusual. You got this completely different picture of johnson. Even down to noticing when you are looking at his old yearbooks in high school. It took you a while but you figured out pages were missing and the same pages were missing from all your books. Because they have been unfavorable. And Lyndon Johnson had them removed. Who does that . [laughter] that is a level it took you a long time. When you found the pages, he found people really didnt like him in school. No. He had the nickname in college, met just what you think it meant. But also, when you came across and someone said to you, why are you bothering me with these questions. I said we are in black and white. I said in the yearbook. I said i must have missed of those pages. When i turned to those pages, they were gone. You say, what sort of an individual am i dealing with here . Hes 21 years old and he has these pages cut out of almost all the copies of his college yearbook. He knew at 21, he had to get rid of those pages. Exactly. Amazing. Its interesting and im curious if it was a coincidence or not. You have chosen to men, moses and johnson, to really devote your life to writing about. Both of those men went to great extremes more than anybody would, to hide their past as they were living it. Almost as if they knew youd be coming for them one day. [laughter] you didnt choose two guys who were leaving notes and memos everywhere. You chose two guys who went to great extremes to not write anything down. One of them is at the age of 21, cutting out unfavorable pictures and notices from his yearbook. You chose incredibly Difficult People towrite about. Not deliberately. There might be some connection there. You may have had some sense. There is a line in the book, working, that really struck me. You say you look at your work. I think a lot of people think of history as dry in your lifes work has been, you dont believe it should be dry. You think it should be alive. Its very important to you. And one of the things you think about the you wrote in this book, working, a question you ask yourself a lot is there desperation on this page . Is there desperation on this page . That is something you ask yourself every time you write a page. Yes. You read this very carefully. I always felt, and its something i always did feel. If a work of fiction or biography is going to be successful, its going to have the same qualities as a novel has. Its got to have rhythm, a sense of place and that sort of thing. What you are talking about is Lyndon Johnson, its his last chance and hes running for senate in 1940. If he loses, his political career will be over. Hes decided to leave politics. And he gets a kidney stone and hes behind the polling when he starts and he has to stay in the hospital for i think, its a month. When he comes out, he so far behind that he cant think of a way of getting ahead. He thinks of this tactic. Helicopters were brandnew things in 1940. He says if i Campaign Around to the small towns in the helicopter, people will come out. And it was but they all called it the machine that stands still in the sky. I spoke to his you only find out these things. He says i will talk to them and they will probably have nothing to say to me. But you never know. The thing was, he was so excited. He would lean out as the helicopter going across texas and with the sides of it as if it was a horse. [laughter] i said you know, you have a picture here of a desperate man. This is his last chance. And i did exactly what you said. I put a note on this lamp on my desperate is there desperation on this page, i try to do it in rhythm. I asked dont think i succeeded very well but, i try. No, you succeeded. [laughter] you are fearless as an interviewer. I was trying to sometimes what if i was robert caro, could i do this . So many times i thought, i could not do this. One of the things i found you talk about in working, issue uncovered that Lyndon Johnson had a mistress named alice glass. You uncovered that. You have proof and shortly after you found that out, you get a call from the office of Lady Bird Johnson. She said shed like to speak to you. And that shed like to talk to you. And you know that she knows that you know. And you went to the interview and you said you were never interested in his sex life but now there was something relevant to his career. And you thought can i go sit with the first lady if she knew what i knew . Its terrifying to think about. What was that like . Can i just say . You can do whatever you want to do. [laughter] i wasnt going to write about all of Lyndon Johnsons affairs. Because all if not most of them were one night stands and most didnt have significance. What happened, cant remember if its in this book are not. Im reading all of the letters. Johnson was in australia during the second world war. You are allowed one call back to the united states. And i knew that Franklin Roosevelt were taken johnson as a protcgc said to him if you need any advice you can call the white house. And all of a sudden as im going through this, theres this telegram and the telegram says, lyndon, everybody else turned out at the white house. Everybody else thinks you should run for the senate. I think you should run again for the house. The last line was hope we can have that birthday party. Alice. I had no idea who alice was. Nobody really knew this name. And shortly after you say, its just sheer luck that happened to me. When you sit in the Johnson Library, the archivist desk. And if theres a call, it has to go through her. The phone rings and she says, its for you. The hostess and reception desk in the lobby says there are two women here who would like to speak to you. Would you come speak to them. I said sure. They said to me, we read the powerbroker, so we know youll find out about alice. [laughter] and we want to tell you about her because alice wasnt another bimbo. She was really important in lyndons life. So to find out about her, she came from a little town in texas. She was a great hostess in washington. She had a grand salon. She came from this little town in the middle of nowhere. I never knew i would go to moreland and talk to her friends that she grew up with. Trying to get a picture of her. And i have to say, i hope theres no one here from portland, texas. No one would ever go to moreland except for any other reason. And i got a friend a call from a mutual friend who said, bird everyone called lady bird, bird in texas. Bird knows you know about alice. I was interviewing in her office. All of a sudden, her secretary was standing at my desk saying, this saturday, shed like you to come to the ranch and to the interview there. So we sat down and im talking too long here. She sat at the head of the table. I sat at her right hand with my stenographers notebook that i take notes in. Without a word of preamble, she starts to talk about alice glass and she talks about how beautiful she was and how elegant she was. I remember she said, i remember alice in a series of the most beautiful dresses. And me and dresses, well, not that beautiful. She said whatever alice taught lyndon, he followed for the rest of his life. When she met him he was a 29yearold congressman and had long gangly arms. She said turn them to your advantage with very nice cufflinks. But she also said, at various times in his life, she saved his political career. One was particularly dramatic to me because, herman brown who was this very fierce, very bad tempered ruler of they suddenly came to a real collision point. Not long after johnson came to congress. Johnson was getting them contracts but at the same time, he wanted to build a low Income Housing project in austin. The low income, it was mostly mexicanamericans. This poor neighborhood. He owned most of the houses and was getting a good income from it and he was enraged by this. His chief, lobbyist said to me, herman was about to turn on lyndon. And when herman turned on you, he never turned back. And johnson really needed herman. He couldnt afford this collision. No, they were providing the money to give to other congressmen and to finance his own career. And alice said, just have them down to my estate. She sat them down at the table and she said theres an easy compromise. Give herman the dam and have lyndon, the land. There were various times when he went to her for advice. It wasnt a one night stand. It was sort of a 2025 year the sexual part and it is in 23 years 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 in a room with Lady Bird Johnson and it just goes unsaid. That it was a sexual relationship. Even though she would undoubtedly have known that it was. I didnt quite catch that question. It was pretty dirty. [laughter] im embarrassed to now. Im embarrassed now. Im trying to think of another journalist or biographer who sat with the former first lady and discussed its really a captivating moment that doesnt happen much. I dont think that happens. I have to say, its the only interview i ever had where i couldnt bear to look at the person i was interviewing even one spin she talked and i kept taking notes. I couldnt look at her. You talk a lot about your process. Weve talked about your need to hold the documents. Turn every page. Go to the actual place whether its the whole country or capitol hill. An experience with those people experience so you can really feel it. Another part of your process is you write everything out longhand and you really sit with it for a while before you go to the typewriter. Use an electric typewriter, is that right . I feel like a prosecutor now. To use or use an electric typewriter . What is it about that process. Why does that help you to write it out longhand first and why did you never graduate to what everyone else is using which is a computer . Thats a really good question. Its because im too fast. Ive always been too fast. When i was at princeton, the incident that was formative in this is i was in the creative writing course and was taught by a southern gentleman so i took this course for two years. Every two weeks you handed in a short story. I thought i was fooling him because of was always doing the short stories. Always very easy for me to write fast. So id write some the night before. We used to call it pulling all nighters. I thought i was fooling him about how much work went into it. And then in our very last session, he handed back my short story and he said something complimentary about it which he usually did. And then he said, but you know mr. Caro, you will never achieve what you want to achieve, she stop thinking with your fingers. Some times in your life, you realize someone has seen right through you. He knew i never put any effort into it. That it was too easy for me to write. Then i went to newsday and i was really a faster rewrite man. But when i was to do the powerbroker and i started to realize how complex this was. Im a member thinking, have to make myself not only think about things but think about them all the way through which was really hard for me. So i decided to slow myself down. Thats why i write my first drafts in longhand. And then you type into revisions and look things up on the board. You are sloping you are a craftsman. You are methodical about it. You are very complementary. You called me a craftsman, in other words calling me very slow. [laughter] one thing i was curious about is your standard for biography is so high. You will spend years working on one phase of the book. It occurred to me, it must be difficult for you to read other peoples biographies. Because you must all the time be hearing about a great biography and you read it and you realize, this person could have gone further. This person didnt put in as much work. Can you sit down and enjoy someone elses biography reducing, you blew it and throw it across the room . There i have to say, i dont have that feeling about other biographies. There are terrific biographies out there. Okay, that was no fun. [laughter] maybe im out of my league here. No, thats me. There are so many times in the book, working, this struck me. How important you feel that imagination is for a biographer. And at first i would think, well, no. A biographer doesnt need imagination. You get the documents and you talk with the people and you do the legwork and then you construct the narrative. So imagination doesnt really come into it. But it was clear when i read working that you have really employed imagination. He spent a lot of time when you find out about a moment, say in moses life. Where he was trying to imagine what he could do with the west side of manhattan when it was just mud. And a 30 train coming through and you describe, you needed to feel what it was like when moses and his white suit would go up there and look at that spot. You recreated in a novelistic way. But its why with the and its compelling. Imagination to you is so key. Well, imagination is key but its a biography. Unless you have the facts. The reason i was able to talk about how moses and vision the whole west side highway. That great public works project is because i read one day, Francis Kirkland was later roosevelts secretary of labor. When she was a young woman, she and robert moses used to walk around new york. One day she wrote in her oral history, one day theyre going to a picnic in new jersey. So the ferryboat at that time, the new York Central Railroad trains were taking pigs to the slaughterhouses. There was this coal burning and constant smog hung over the whole western shoreline of manhattan. The smell was bad and the city couldnt get near its waterfront. And all of a sudden she heard she wrote in her oral history. She heard robert moses thing francis, couldnt this waterfront be the most beautiful thing in the world. We have this great highway running along the water. I will have to tear down some buildings at 72nd street but we will have a marina over here. A baseball field should be there. As im reading i said, thats exactly how he built it, 25 years later. Then you could put things together because people told me how many afternoons he would come back to work until the taxi to put them over to riverside drive. Hes a lowerlevel municipal staffer. And he is envisioning something thats the largest pop public work ever done in america. When you have that fact or those groups of facts. Then you could say, this is what he was thinking. , otherwise i couldnt have done that. You need the bricks of fact and this order of imagination but youre putting yourself there. Thats a great way of putting it. You need the facts first bricks first. Im a great writer. [laughter] ive never felt so stupid in my life. You talk about something thats very personal in this book. You say you did not grow up in a house of books. And that was not part of something that was important to your dad. Your mother became ill when you are quite young. And she had a dying wish that change the trajectory of your life. Yeah. Well my mother got very sick when i was five. Those days, if you had Breast Cancer and it came back, there was very little they could do for you. So she died when i was 11. But my father, he came over here from poland and taught himself to write. But he, his language with his friends before he died my mother made him promise to send me to the harvest mans school. It became the center of my boyhood. And it was that horace mann that you got your taste of journalism. To this day and i have dinner with 23 guys who worked with me 60 years ago. So the first remarkable thing is we are all still alive so if we get up from this table and we havent set a date for the next meeting. Someone said, joe you didnt set a date. This is whats keeping us alive. Whatever works. You said you have snagged every prestigious prize one can get in your field. You think the biggest honor is the one that horace mann has given you. No ones ever asked me. Someone at npr was like [laughter] wind it out and then send in the next hippie. This is a big deal. So some years ago, told us that theyd like to name a prize after me. I said that would really be great if there was something that i believed in. They said what do you want . I think i said earlier in this interview that i feel its very important and not sufficiently understood that if you want to history or biography to end the war, the level of the right thing has to be the same level as the novel. I believe that. Try reading his sentences, he such a great writer. So they named the prize the harvest man prize for literary excellence in the writing of history. And thats the biggest thrill. To go up there. Now they see each year, the number of submissions, you have to do an independent essay. Increases. This one teacher, barry weinstock. He said the faculty is talking. That makes me feel totally great. I would think so. Also to come full circle like that. To have been that horace mann and then come back now and theyre in your name, these kids are getting this prize. Sometimes i win an award or something and says to me, why arent you excited . Its like it happens to somebody else. But this is me. It occurred to me reading about these men you write about that you have devoted your life to. They have something in common with you. And theres a line that people used to say about Lyndon Johnson. That they never saw anybody work that hard. And it occurred to me, your book is called working. Your work ethic youre honestly born with these incredible talents but your work ethic to be at this and to be in the harness for years at a time. Bears some similarity to these people you write about. Do you think thats fair to say . Is that a compliment . [laughter] it is. But i believe thats something, one of the things i find inspiring about you and this book. As we live in the era of attention Deficit Disorder and apps and everyones on their phones and no one can pay attention. And you and your wife took of our poverty practically, to work on the moses book and disappeared for 79 years with no real, you know, evidence that this would be a big success. That is counter to the entire culture we are in today. This devotion to work in this devotion to doing your work and doing it well. I found that to be there are elements. I know you found unfavorable things about these people youve written about. But theres also amazing qualities about them. Like you, both of them were incredibly hard working people in that much resonate with you. The quality they share. In many ways Lyndon Johnson and robert moses are opposite. There are unbelievable amounts of work. I tried you do lots of things as a writer to try to remind yourself. My publisher is really wonderful. He never asked me, when are you going to deliver . I have never been asked. So it takes me so many years that its easy to fall yourself that you are working hard. Because no one is checking up on you. So i do everything i can to remind myself that its a job. People make fun of me because i wear a tie and a jacket to work. Its because when i was young, people for ties and jackets to work. I write down every day how many words i wrote. Just to remind yourself, its a job. You have to produce. You look at the cover of this book and i think a lot of you have it. It you posing in your office where you work and i was thinking, you dont really have a boss and are in this room and youre working. You have this very strong work ethic what time are you writing by in the morning . Thats where it varies. You like to say you get up at 730 or whatever. But the truth is im telling you all the stuff i dont usually talk about. [laughter] you get worked up. As the chapter goes. Said do you know what time it is. I member, i said, dont tell me. I dont want to know. Whats interesting is, 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. He would exhaust the field thank in one writing session. Do you think about things like that . Yes. Youre the first person thats ever mentioned that. [laughter] why am i in comedy . I have no idea. Wasting my life. I could be doing real here and im not doing it. You ask terrific questions. I wrote my senior thesis at princeton on hemingway. One of the things he said was, i always stop when i know what the next sentence is going to be so i can start the next day. I do try to do that also. I think this the best piece of advice ive ever gone. Just stop a little shy of what you have for that day. My other question is the human question. Youre in that office and its 3 00 in the afternoon. You know youre supposed to do more words. Do everything, im up here near the west side i can pop out and see a movie . Do you ever do that . Do you ever just sneak out and see a movie . Rina doesnt have to know about it. Never in my entire life. Youre missing out. I want to come by your office one day. Knock on the door with prepaid tickets and go to the movies. Would you go with me . If i dont answer, its because im so deep in the work. Thats what they all say to me. Thats what every girl said to me when i asked her out. If i dont answer, im deep in the work. Im going to open it up to questions now from the audience. And we will take it from there. How long overdue for questions you think . 15 minutes . [inaudible] we will figure it out. [inaudible] yeah. Thanks so much for flying down here. Im a huge fan. I read the New York Times piece and i finally found a kindred spirit. Im wondering how you ended up writing or working on this New York Times piece and finally, how did you end up getting the youre asking the wrong guy a question here. I didnt write that hes been a very good writer whos here tonight. John. He heard about this rumor that i was obsessed with mr. Caro in an unhealthy way. And he wrote that story. And then we ended up making this happen. I tilted this man. I used the New York Times to guild them into talking to me. Besides from work ethic, is there anything in the life of moses or johnson that you found inspirational or have applied in your own life . Either what to do or how to be or what not to do or how not to be. Is there anything you feel like youve learned from the personality of moses or johnson that youve applied in your own life . Thats such a good question. Let me just think a second. With both of them, i guess i didnt ever put in these terms before. You feel the most important thing is to keep working at something. Like i just did moses envision the west side highway whatever year that was. I think it was 1912. He didnt get the bill until 1937. Youve been trying for 25 years. Johnson, the book im writing right now. You say hes passing all of this social welfare legislation. The civil rights act. Headstart. You say, hes working all the time to change the votes in the senate to get these things through. Very impressive to me. How hard these two men worked and never stopped. Yes sir. Mr. Caro, i remember reading and it seemed as though the next book would cover the next presidency. At one point did you realize the presidency of johnson had to be divided into two books. He was wondering at what point did you decide that johnsons presidency would require more than just one book . Oh, yes. He thought his youth for example, the time i started, i think they were seven johnson biographies and they all told a chapter or two on his youth. None of them seem to have enough color and detail for me. But then i realized there was this incredible story. Those of you that have read the book, those of you that havent. [indiscernible] [laughter] they were telling you the stories about johnson, really as a ruthless even as a young man. But then they would no matter what linden was like, we loved him. It took a while for it to sink in that they were talking about electricity. What did electricity mean. Turning on a light switch. You thought this is incredible. That hes managed to transform the lives of these people by doing something impossible. Theres no dam to create the hydroelectric power. Then somebody will have to lay, not thousands, but tens of thousands of lines to these isolated farmhouses. As soon as they do, women didnt have to do everything by hand. The water and all. I remember i also told i said its very hard. I said i want to show what government can do for people. I think weve forgotten that. The great power of social security. Was it like to be old in america. When you lost your job and you had no money coming in. Then there is social security. Im working right now on a section that you could call what it was like to be old and sick in america until medicare. I said its hard to show that if youre talking about a city project. Social programs and other immigrants, etc. But here we have a the 10th Congressional District in the middle of these isolated hill country, cut off from everything. Your thing that changes is they get a new congressman. If i can examine what he did for these people, i can show the effects of how government can help people. I constantly come across i never thought of this, i want to do this. So thats what makes my book longer. At the end of the most recent volume, passage of power, you start writing about vietnam and a lot of people have speculated that had president kennedy lived, he probably wouldnt have gotten the Domestic Legislation that johnson got but maybe we wouldnt have gotten hired in vietnam. What do you think of that speculation . I think, his legislation was not going anywhere. In many ways, kennedy was a great president and that he lifted our ideals up and he could enunciate the best of america. But the fact is, on the day he was assassinated, his civil rights bill was never going to get so johnson, a legislative genius picked that up. As far as vietnam, im going to take a pass on that question because i havent written it yet or even really thought it completely through yet. So certainly the vietnam thing as it turned out is a horrible story. Would it have turned out the same way . I dont think im ready to answer you yet. Would you share with us what first lead you to select robert moses and Lyndon Johnson as the subject of your lifes work . Sure. Could you all hear that question. An incident in my youth. I was a reporter on newsday and i got interested in politics. So i was doing investigative work. So i won minor journalistic awards. When youre very young and you win anything, you think you know everything. So i thought i understood how political power worked. Robert moses wanted to build a bridge. A bridge between and oyster bay. So newsday assigned me to look into it. I found out it was a terrible idea and would have generated so much traffic that the long island expressway would have needed 12 extra lanes to handle the traffic to come down from new england. It appears it would have caused pollution in the long island sound. I spoke to rockefeller and his counsel in the speaker of the assembly. Everyone understood this was the worlds worst idea. I wrote a story that said the bridge was dead. I had a friend in albany then and about two weeks later, he calls me and says you know bob, i think you better come back up here. I said i dont think i have to bother. I think i took care of that bridge. But robert moses was appear yesterday. So i drove back up and it was one of the revelations of my life. I spoke to the same people. They all thought it was the worlds greatest idea. The state was financing the preliminary work. I said, you think you know about everything ive been writing, it sort of baloney. You think you live in a democracy and power comes from being elected. Heres a guy who was never elected to anything. But he has more power than anyone who was elected. More power than any mayor or governor put together. And hes held this power for 44 years. With that he shaped this whole metropolitan area and you who is supposed to know about political power, you have no idea how he got this power and neither does anybody else. So that was the moment. When i started thinking about that and 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 what was known as a nieman fellow at Harvard University which means you go to harvard for a year while you study. That was the first i remember, that european mother was sick and she had to take care of so i was alone a lot of the time. The Nieman Foundation used to have a lot of social events and i dont like to go by myself. So i spent a lot of time in this Little Office that harvard gave me and i came up with the idea of the powerbroker. When i finished doing robert moses. I really thought that was a book not about him but about power and cities. I wanted to do National Power and thats why i did Lyndon Johnson. You mentioned at the end of working in the interview that you once met or saw Lyndon Johnson. I was curious the circumstances behind that. He was asking about the one time in your life that you actually saw in the flesh, Lyndon Johnson. The one time i saw him i never talked to him or anything. I was a substitute political reporter when he ran against goldwater. And he came along the press line where i was with the line of reporters. I think we actually shook hands. But that was only, ever saw him in the flesh. Hi. This is more than an honor. More of a fan boy question. In the first couple of johnson books, it was hard to get the people closest to him to talk. When the book came out, you got, but nobody more than jack valente. Then he did a real aboutface and praised you to high heaven, rightfully. Did that make it easier for you to get interviews from the people closer to johnson, subsequently . He was asking, after the early books came out, you took a lot of heat from johnsons friends, especially jack valente. And then he said that valente turned around and started to really praise you. I think your question was, did that mean a lot to you . Its not just valente. A lot of the johnson people who attacked me and wouldnt talk to me at the beginning, they almost all came around. And really, they are very helpful. I was in austin last night. [inaudible] [laughter] guards, remove this man. [laughter] i just want to jump in quickly. I always heard that your books are not sold at the Johnson Library. If you go to the gift shop, they are not sold, is that true . They were not sold for a number of years. At a wonderful dinner the Johnson Library had last night. The president of the foundation sort of said that they regretted the hostility towards me. Thats amazing. [applause] is there any chance a new edition of powerbroker would be published that restores the 300,000 words that your publisher forced you to cut . You live and hope. [laughter] my publisher would like to publish. I would like to publish all of those words. But its not so easy to do that. You just dont put it back into the book. So its a lot of work but i hope to do that, yes. If you had worked on a word processor or computer, you could hit one button and it all restores immediately. Do with that what you will. Yes . Will you please comment on operation texas and johnsons reverence for judaism. Theres something called operation texas. Are you familiar with that . Okay, thats okay. Im a retired history teacher. I only read history. I read all the johnson books twice and i think i speak for all the people here that think, youre the finest biographer i have ever read. A [applause] i hope you heard that. Good. My question is this, johnson had a number of important mentors along the way. Men and women. Alice, Franklin Roosevelt, sam rayburn. Is there one you might point to that you thought was most pivotal. It was the most pivotal or important of all his mentors. Those three that you mentioned. I called them the 3rs. They were all equally, russell and rayburn shared two characteristics. They were incredibly lonely men. Johnson made himself a people called a professional son to them. Hes inviting them to his house for sunday brunch. For dinner. Lady bird would make them feel at home. He spent as much time with them as he possibly could and they were instrumental in raising him to power. Roosevelt was different. Roosevelt never made protcgcs of young congressmen. He just had a role. He didnt help. I started to realize there was one exception to this. It was Lyndon Johnson. Johnson would have breakfast with him. I said to a man named james rowe who was a friend of johnson. I said what made this different for Franklin Roosevelt he said, roosevelt was a political genius. Almost no one understood what he was talking about. Lyndon johnson understood at all from the first minute and roosevelt saw that. It was just two geniuses. And roosevelt once said to dickies, he said if i had gone to west texas, i might have turned out like that too. Yes sir. When youre doing interviews, people are aware theyre talking about history and they care how they look. How do you decide what to believe . I never believe anything that shows told to me in an interview once. You interview people over and over again. I think i had 22 interviews. Several hundred pages of typed notes. Then you go to other people involved in the story. And you ask them the same questions. Then you go back to the same person you said so and so, how do you reconcile that . Its very laborious. And then of course, for so much of johnson. You have written notes. He never allowed minutes to be taken at meetings but somebody had to take notes on them. One way or another people are not trying to mislead you. Theyre just told so many times, they think its true. But often its not. [laughter] who were the most important influencers as far as biographers as far as your its given. I member i was captivated. His sentences what makes history and door . You know . To me, it has to be written really well. And there are a lot of historians. But he stands alone. Thank you for being here and for your work. Im a journalist with aspirations of writing nonfiction books like yourself. Im wondering if you can speak to your relationship to especially at the beginning of your career. You have to sell your house for instance to cover your living expenses. Im wondering if was present for you or if thats a chip thats missing. Its a really good question and one that i was interested in bringing up. Shes asking basically, you had to, you sold your home to pay for the powerbroker. At one point, your back goes out and youre telling i need to go. You have no money. Shes getting the records and youre telling her take a left, take a right. The question is, how did you deal with doubt. Youre lying there and you have no money. Youre writing a book that youre not sure how long it will take. I believe your wife had to go to work and support you. Doubt. How do you fight that doubt that a lot of us would have. Oh my god, what have i done . I didnt fight it very successfully. It was a big part of my life for a long time. The first editor i had was not i used a i started the powerbroker for the world. The advance was 5000 but you got 2500 in advance. So i was a reporter and i was basically didnt have any say. I got a grant that got me through one year. I thought i would be done in nine months. I told we would finally get to go to france. Then we were really out of money and i came home one day and said we sold the house. Unfortunately it was before the real estate boom so we bought it for 45,000 and we sold it for 70,000. That got us to one year. I just remember at times being broke. I finally wrote half 1 million words. I gave it to my editor who took a long time to read and return my telephone calls. Then he took me to a very inexpensive Chinese Restaurant on broadway. And i remember he said, we like the book. I said basically, can i have the other 2500. He said to me, no bob, i guess you didnt understand me. We want you to continue with it but nobodys going to read a book on robert moses and you have to be prepared for very small printing and we are not prepared to go beyond the terms of the contract. Which even i got. So that was a very bad period. I didnt know where to turn. I had run out of places to get money. Luckily, very luckily, the editor left to this Publishing House so i could leave. I didnt have an agent. I knew now i had better get one. Im a member she called and said to me come and see me. She said i like your manuscript and i want to represent you but you have to tell me something. Why are you what are you so worried about . I said, i didnt know i looked worried. I said im worried i wont have enough money to finish the book. She said how much are you talking . I dont remember the amount but it was enough to live on for two years. She looked at me and she said is that what youre worried about because this other editor many feel no one cared about this book. She said is that what youre worried about . You can stop worrying right now. I can get this for you by picking up this telephone. Everybody in new york knows about this book. So financially my life turned around then. [applause]. Do you have a feeling of this too shall pass an we can get on with the next one . I dont know i think its too early to tell you. We dont really know if its an operation. We had a discussion wondering if he was an outlier, crazy set of, im not going to say skills but characteristics that allow him to thread the needle in this moment at this particular time and once he pass, thats it or a sign of things to come. What do you think . Yeah, crazy roman emperors. I dont know the answer to that. I dont think we know the answer to that yet. Hi, thank you both for your passion and your scholarship. Id like to know what advice youd give to a room full of writers in an age where perhaps peoples Attention Spans are wondering, maybe in not in this room but in the rest of life. What advice would you give to new writers . In this age of wandering Attention Spans, what advice would you give to writers now when things can seem a little dire for the process that youve dedicated your life to . I dont have any advice to other writers. I think everybody has to find their own way. I dont think that my way is necessarily the best way. Its just my way. I think its a very tough time for writers but i happen to think the time is already starting to turn back, books have leveled off. I feel people keep saying, Attention Spans are shorter and shorter. Well, i will tell you the only field that i know anything about the president ial biography, so davids book on truman was about 1100 pages, that sold many more copies than other president ial biographies up till then. I think the proof is everywhere around us that not necessarily our Attention Spans are shorter. I think people want, terrific writers, i happened to think theres always a desire to find out how things really happened and i dont think you find that out by very short time. [applause] [applause] rob will be signing books, we will see you soon