I know she still loved him why didnt you do it . But for him i would want to understand why he could not him share himself more fully with anyone the most charming and thoughtful personality but underneath there was such reserve in him and i want to understand why he couldnt give himself more to the people who loved him. And to understand not only franklin and eleanor but in many cases to understand the whole extended family that surrounded them in the white house and that these two characters really needed other people to meet those needs left over at the end of their troubled marriage so the second family quarters of the white house was like a hotel and there was about seven People Living there all intimate friends that was new and fun for me. Cspan if you had ask a question about personal relationships that theyve had with other people, who would you be most interested in . Frankly it would be franklin. Not just because he had an affair with her and almost broke up eleanors marriage but there is another woman had an even more central role to play in his life and that was his secretary. She started working for him at 20 years old she never married and loved him for whole life she was known as his other wife when eleanor traveled like 250 days per year she took care of roosevelt she would bring him the cough medicine she would arrange a poker game at night a cocktail hour every night she really was on a daily basis the closest in the world to him thats what i would like to know more about. And you talk about the second floor scenario well get a closer shot on some of these names why did you put this in the book . I hope that they would get a sense of what it was like to be in the white house and because each of these were occupied their closest friends or romantic friends i wanted everybody to see how close they were and actually talk to one another so these men depict that at that period of time. On the one and you have Eleanor Roosevelts bedroom and right across the hall is hickok who is she and what was their relationship . This is the second floor of the white house. Former reporter for the Associated Press and in 1933 considered the leading female reporter in the country she smoke cigars and was really smart she came to interview franklin and then she and eleanor became really Close Friends and she fell in love with eleanor and then helped eleanor become the active first first lady that she did because she came up with the idea to hold press conferences a whole generation of female journalists got their start and she was the one who came up with the idea of the syndicated column that eleanor wrote every day and really helped eleanor to transform the role of the first lodi one first lady and then she did follow love with eleanor i dont think she reciprocated after she was close enough friends she wanted her living nearby she lived in the white house the entire time during the war. Also with the second floor schematic is a room in which Harry Hopkins lived in. Who was he . He was roosevelts chief new deal man part of the head social work project but when the war broke out in europe in may 1940 he stayed overnight that night at the white house roosevelt decided he wanted him nearby he needed somebody to talk to first thing in the morning and late at night and made him the chief advisor on Foreign Policy he went to see stalin before roosevelt met him and that was unprecedented and makes kissinger look mildmannered and he was incredibly loyal to roosevelt. He was there 1940 through 1942. Eventually he stay there six months with his new wife but then she wanted a house of her own. Cspan other bedroom called the rose room speaking to mr. Churchill and roosevelts mother and martha. That is an interesting room. Whenever the mother came she wanted the best bedroom suite that was the rose suite maybe she would come once a month with her maids and servants and then process martha was an interesting character she would come to washington during the war years in exile from norway her father and i was the king of norway and her soninlaw is now currently the king of norway now she was beautiful and i think she had a spirited conversation that she just enjoyed and eleanor understood he needed that companion set one companionship so she would visit on the weekends and then this would be her sweet but when churchill came nobody stay there he was an incredible character during this period of time he would say three or four weeks at a time it was so exhausting nobody could sleep he would have soda for lunch and brandy at night Smoking Cigars until 2 00 a. M. And then finally after being in the suite for three or four weeks the entire white house staff would have to sleep 72 hours just to recuperate from churchills visit. You mentioned the relationship between process martha and fdr was romantic . Some of the people who lived in the white house at that time suggested she was his girlfriend that there was a real flirtation between the two it wasnt a political partner or girlfriend or companion it was a flirtatious relationship whether went beyond kissing and romance i dont know but it was that. Cspan also you show that anna stayed in one of those room she is in this picture next to her father. What was their relationship . Its interesting in most of the moving moments. Originally she was her mothers daughter when she was a young girl in adolescence eleanor told her about lucy mercer long ago and anna had taken her mother side and over the years they had grown so close they would each other letters two or three times a week and saw each other for five times a year even when anna was on the other coast but in the middle of the war after eleanor rejected franklins request to stay home and be his wife again he got so lonely he asked to take her place even though in her early forties and had a stroke could never speak again it was devastating because he was so lonely his mother had also just died he asked anna to come and stay in the white house and then what happened she became her fathers daughter she was tall and loves cocktails and all the things that eleanor never found it easy to do so it was a very complicated set of relationships developed during this time. Cspan where do you live . Massachusetts on main street. Why. As a compromise i love the city i grew up outside of new york and my husband loves the country he prefers main so that was near enough the city life in the country he feels outside of the suburb. My husband is richard good when he is our writer also just recently hes was and involved in the scandal movie because he was to investigate so hes having a great time right now being portrayed as a 27 yearold actor so it has been fun. Cspan where did you meet . Harvard i was speaking at harvard on the presidency and he came to finish a book and i had a one from the Kennedy Institute and his office was next to mine. Cspan the book is dedicated to three people. The most important people of my life. My three sons. The youngest one is still at home in a school i dont want it to and i wish they were four and six and eight again. Cspan honey of your written . Three. The first one is Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream that came out of the experience that i will forever treasure being 24 years old working for president johnson in the white house and then helping him with his memoirs i still keep thinking hes around that this book on roosevelt the 700 pages how can you do that but that was the first book it was a great experience to understand that giant of a man and in his retirement at the ranch like he had nothing else in his life once politics was taken from him so that is seared into my mind forever and then stuck it was called the fitzgerald and the kennedys a three generation history of the Kennedy Family in fact partly made possible i was given access to the private papers that had been in the attic over 50 years so one of the reasons why the roosevelt mean so much is because as an ordinary historian without the advantage of knowing johnsons or the Kennedy Family. Is there new information in the book . Yes. By choosing this period of time and focusing on the American Home front, for all the thousands of books written world war ii very few focus on what happened here at home. Most of been a chapter on civil rights for women in the factories but very little time to understand about leadership to mobilize democracy that is the greatest contribution how we got our country to produce the lessons of the war ended isolationist economy and somehow to make it so productive. Cspan where did you find white house ushers diaries . This is an incredible tool for anybody to see they are on microfiche in the Roosevelt Library at the end of the day the white house i sure would record everything that happened during the day and then to record who had lunch and dinner with and then uses that and say though go to their diaries to find out what they talked about at lunch or the record that eleanor and the look at her diary so it was like a detective to old there for everybody to see but they hadnt been used before. Cspan harold was the secretary of the interior and he was called the old curmudgeon at the time. Henry work and thought was the d oh mr. Speaker roosevelt wins again total manipulation so then morgantown reads in the newspaper that they adjourned at 930 and he was so angry he resigned and all roosevelt charms him back into it but there was a real camaraderie. Cspan i remember somebody else resigning at one point and fdr wrote him a letter. He resigned several times and then we get upset about policy issues so roosevelt wrote him a very gracious later you cannot resign i need you you are right but when i read your letter i got flattery all over and couldnt believe it. [laughter] it just shows the are of this man of their president. He gratefully replied makes me feel fluttery to have you write about me as you did it is an accolade to my spirit. [laughter] how did you go about this . I work in terms of research at the Roosevelt Library and in hyde park makes you feel like you are going back in time because the house roosevelt was born it all looks exactly as it looked when they were there but sometimes you take a walk around these environments you can feel your back 50 years in time it was so wonderful with little motels in the area you do feel that this is right at the place for your subjects were. So for me from concord massachusetts its a half hour drive its a beautiful drive with the hudson river far below the house was just a few feet from the library it was beautiful with a line going down far below and with oldfashioned research. The cottage that roosevelt built for eleanor and typically it was not a small Little Cottage it had 22 rooms but in the twenties they decided to Stay Together they gave eleanor the freedom to go outside the marriage to be involved with feminine she became involved with women who were activists child labor laws in franklins mother and then the people that they were used to so she didnt feel comfortable bringing the political friends to the big house. And the mother in the middle it when franklin and eleanor got married they said one is for her and one is for them so what happened is roosevelt sees about having her friends in the big house suggested she would build her her own cottage and she filter this 22 yearold lord 22 room house for the first time in her life had a home of her own she actually lived there until she died herself. Cspan the somebody and never been to that part of the country, how far from new york city . A couple hours by train it is along the hudson river. In those years your writing domestically where did they spend their time between the white house and hyde park . Hyde park was the most important place he went to hundred times during his all presidency that the most important place made blocking ten or 11 at night and reach hyde park in the morning. He loved to travel by train because of his polio he didnt like fastmoving transportation he hated airplanes. Eleanor was the opposite she like to get places fast that she would go with him by train as well. What year did he die . April 12, 1945. What year did he contract polio . 1921 he was almost 37 years old. And one thing i understood more is how much that paralysis was a part of his everyday life. People had assumed he had it was left lame but he was a paraplegic he could not get out of bed without being helped into the wheelchair to get to the bathroom he couldnt walk he had the braces and if you lay him on the arms of two strong people he could appear to be maneuvering himself forward with the most extraordinary moment she said she asked him once in the middle of the war how we slept at they with the burdens and said i knew it was a huge part he would imagine he was a young boy again at hyde park but then he would imagine he was a young boy again and then at the bottom of the hill would do it over and over again as soon as i heard that i thought he is the most powerful man in the world to think he can walk again that things that was denied him at the height of his power. Cspan we have to get the lucy mercer story down to someplace but at one point you talk about when he would go from washington to hyde park figured out a way to stop and see her in new jersey. She had an estate in new jersey he figured out the Railroad Lines if he went along a different pattern he would have to convince the secret service when he can spend an afternoon with her but that was until the last year of his life some people assumed he did this throughout his whole life that i heard this and 1818 i knew he had seen her and with her when he died i thought happen all through the period of time but the truth was he kept his pledge to eleanor not to see her again and then after anna had come back into the white house and after he was diagnosed with congestive Heart Failure so than in the last year he knew he was dying he would go to the plantation in march or april of 44 to recover and there he saw lucy mercer for the First Time Since 1918 and she had just lost her husband who was a very wealthy businessman and so she was widowed i believe when he saw her there and awakened memory of him when he was young before the polio he knew for three years before the polio attack and now his heart was giving out he decided he wanted to see her regularly. Cspan the original affair . Eleanor social secretary and eleanor moved to washington and she was worried about the whole Social Circle of invitations to go to so she hired this young woman from a blue plaid family and needed money because the father was an alcoholic and somewhere in that period of time the relationship developed between lucy and franklin. As far as we know it was two or three years between 14 and 18 but it came to an abrupt end when eleanor happened to come upon a packet of love letters. She said when she opened the bottom fell out of her world she offered franklin a divorce immediately but i dont think he ever meant for the marriage to be over but part of lucys confident wires happy and gay but eleanor was still haunted by the insecurities have her own childhood her mother said she was ugly in her father was an alcoholic and it was hard for her to develop a sense of herself. So i think franklin felt attracted to this young woman and when confronted with the thought of losing eleanor. Did they know about polio in the braces on his leg and Princess Martha of norway . This is the most interesting thing in the world they knew they were in the unconventional set of relationships they certainly knew roosevelt was a paraplegic but there was a sense the president s life was a private life whatever hes doing with the Public Impact i talk to a reporter that said who are we to judge we are not angels ourselves that we are not reporting on his unconventional white relationships so the majority of the people thought that not a single newsreel ever showed him in a wheelchair or being crippled it was like the unspoken code of honor that he was not to be seen that way and if a photographer tried to snap a picture of the president sometimes reporters would see him being carried into a building like a child but they never took a picture one tried to do that and they almost knocked the camera to the ground so there was that dignity to the office that i think is missing right now roosevelt understood the importance to hold his private life secure he never wouldve thought about his mother to be domineering or his feelings of lucy mercer. And you also talk about mrs. Roosevelts daily column did she write it herself . Absolutely in fact if you read them you can say its only possible to write it was a recording of what she did during the day the only reason it worked because it was so warm and full of activity because her schedule was more extraordinary than his her daily life would be three times as long as Franklin Roosevelt she traveled to Migrant Worker camps in the minor said here comes eleanor. The blacks in the south and the camps in that kind of traveling gave her experiences she could recount in her daily column what she was thinking and feeling meeting so many americans. What would happen if you check the roosevelt presidency to modern day america . Call in everyday radio show . Handicapped and affairs . Thats so scary to think about because if eleanor and franklin were not allowed that network of friendships in the white house allow them to sustain themselves through the depression in the war they would not have been as strong leaders as they were im convinced roosevelt needed relaxation that she could provide when eleanor wasnt there they said who is this woman whats going on at one point can you imagine saying carry lives there too . At that time if we didnt have that kind of space in their private life they would not have been with looked at as political leaders that roosevelt you almost wish he had the courage to go to the public and say im crippled and its okay because they loved him so much but only at the very end of his life does he ever give up each sitting down because he was so tired and excused himself he sat back down and for some reason that made them an enormous emotional impact because they saw he was conquering this disability but nobody thought you could tell them you were a paraplegic for they would allow you to be there president. How long did he spend in georgia . During the last president ial year he was only there are three or four times prior he went down every thanksgiving he had an annual dinner for the patients. He originally created the whole Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center in the twenties. Initially the hot springs that came out of the ground naturally was thought to help people with polio and created a whole rehab center. And somehow his contagious confidence helped him to get through his own polio. It is such a primitive setting look at the little white house was a tiny living room and dining room and his bedroom is like a small boys bedroom and then one another and to imagine much more luscious surroundings but cant abella was the place was his mothers estate and it was a beautiful summer home as part of the early romantic days where he got polio so he didnt travel there much longer after those early years in the early 19 twenties and then didnt go back after that. That critical impact. That father was a sickly man. And then have other children after franklin was born. And then to be focused on this child she gave him the greatest asset that because he is so important to her she never allowed the freedom that she could stand apart had the feeling he hovered over her and one of my favorite quotes by churchill when we met that he had such confidence and sparkle like opening the first bottle of champagne and thats a great gift and mother gives a child if only she knows when to separate. Going to the hyde park residents to big chairs by the fireplace no chair for eleanor. But in the hopes they say wherever you can find a chair the look at the dining room but then i had to find a place where she could but that reflects that sarah remain the mistress of the house even after she died there is a moment and to change the house around a little now make it hers now that she was dead and franklin cannot make the thought. Cspan and then to get a closer shot it shows the bedroom on the second floor. And Eleanor Roosevelts bedroom that is where his mother stayed. Sarah but always be there and whats astonishing and to be large and spacious and eleanor has a single bed in between the two of them. She have to take a smaller room and then to those conditions and then used to those as a child. Cspan Harry Hopkins died at age 55 lucy mercer died at 57. Eleanor secretary died at 61 Princess Martha died at 53. Lorena hickok died at 75 and anna died at 64. She was pretty young. Cspan how come . Harry hopkins at the end of the new deal. Somehow public life and Public Service gave him a lease on life to get the most people would die from and his body was being eaten away so after roosevelt died in with a room for him in public life and so full of fire and energy he kept him alive and so to understand what happens to Princess Martha she also had some illnesses during her forties and died relatively young in her fifties tuberculosis somehow spread and thats really strange especially as we get older who wouldve thought when i was younger. Fdr was 63 and eleanor went from 1882 through 1961 so she was 70 something she lived an extra 17 years after fdrs death. Cspan how many kids. Thats not a happy story there were five children and i was the oldest. Jimmy elliott john and franklin junior. I think what happened it was hard for the five of them to grow up in the shadow of their parents. The five had a combination of 18 marriages between them they had a hard time to become people in their own right and then to run for governor and then they never got their own confidence on their own. Cspan and mary twice the second jumps out of a hotel room in new york city . He was a manicdepressive. And for the psychological illness that he was always troubled even during their marriage. And then to cling to each other and then to no longer have the platform and couldnt make his way in the publishing world anymore. Cspan did you interview john junior . And Curtis Roosevelt is a second child. Died at age 68 and was only when it became a republican. Fdr married four times . He did have his fathers charming people said and with that smart on sparkling personality he did have some success in politics and in the Kennedy Campaign and in the time of the 60 election so one of the things that turned the tide. Married five times died at age 80. And that twinkle in the blue eyes i give you a memory that he had a tough time finding himself and had a little bit of success in politics and that eleanor was the detective and rode a series of tellall books. Dying at age 83. And had four marriages then was never able to hold onto his career or to his family very easily. Jump to the and and tell me as much as you can remember the last couple days of fdr. After we came back from the conference and the latest speech to Congress March 1945 everybody can see his health was failing. Something about the air and the beauty and the simplicity sought the end of march he went down to warm springs and there are characters and they kept him company so for the first week he may be getting his bounce back and then at a certain point invited to come stay with him and then arrive two or three days and then brought a painter friend and with that portrait of roosevelt. And then to see the whole valley. And then with the world and the idea what it was over but then on a certain morning on april 12 people thought he looked better than he had for weeks and then the embolism that later killed him was being dissolved he was a wonderful storyteller. It was a portrait of them. And then suddenly in the middle talking to them and just that i have a terrific headache and one of the cousins went over to him thinking he dropped his cigarette and then she realized she had become unconscious and immediately they call for doctors and help and carried him into his bedroom. She knew she shouldnt be there so she left and then what happened he died an hour and half later and never regained consciousness and called eleanor she was in the middle of a speech in washington when she found out she said she knew the minute the phone rang something had happened and they said you have to come back immediately. She just finished giving a speech and somebody was giving a piano concert and said ill be back in and they told her that she immediately called for harry truman to come so she could give the news that the celebrated moment the first responses there is anything i can do for you you are in trouble now that was that at the call to use a government plane to see her husbands body and bring the body back you cant imagine somebody asking that todays or she goes down to warm springs georgia and everything that happened on the last 24 hours and so she maliciously hours and so she maliciously decided to tell eleanor that was fighting them all through the war. And she kept running more than she could provide but now the country was indeed a better place. And that women had the great sense of mastery was 60 percent of the workforce and then going to college on the g. I. Bill of rights and she began to feel a sense how much they owed to Franklin Roosevelt and was somehow not able to forgive him for what happened. And then to go to that reconciliation and as a biographer that my heart felt so full. And then that meant the rest of her life instead of harboring bitterness she loved him even more than than in life and she could incorporate and that always said thought about what could be done. And then to become more like him so it was an amazing and. Look at the story from the outside in and what i may do today to accuse of infidelity and harassment and that betrayal of her mother and i am absolutely convinced they were never meant to hurt one another they were trying to get to their lives and it seems to me that challenge to expose and stereotype to extend empathy why they needed all these relationships and not to judge them partially. And to stand by his body than the ashes kept everybody out and then when she asked him to close the door inside the room and he wrote in a memoir she opened the casket one last time so she could say goodbye privately and he wrote that in a memoir. The people in the warm springs wrote about the last minute everybody kept a diary during that time knowing how important it would be for history between lucy mercer and anna where did you get that letter . It was in annas papers at the fdr library. Having a little book about my fathers death and is a first time it ever seen a letter published so its a wonderful is after fdr dies nfl draft because she that both her father and her mother called lucy maybe three or four weeks after her death rights back a fabulous letter with that comment here is a man that she cannot even express publicly or ultimately about the relationship that in that letter she says i want you to know how much your father loved you. And she tells her how many times fdr had talked to lucy about how much he loves his daughter and then to hear that confirmed that he kept that letter in her bedside table the rest of her life and confirm not how much her father loved her but it shows what a wonderful woman this he was. To live with these characters for six years it was almost too embarrassing i wish they were still alive you really feel their presence you feel it. Thats only way you can do it when you get so absorbed. I have a study on the second floor of my house we live on the main street in concorde and so i fill it with pictures of franklin and eleanor and the women going to work in the factory so it felt like world war ii i got all the books i could find on the era. I love libraries but in this case i want to have the book and for the whole world i write in longhand. I cannot think on the typewriter. But then to copy that all over and then i type it up on a computer and i didnt look at it all and then finally at the very and then i have to edit it we put on my husbands computer im not sure if i can still write on it at least i learned how. What time of day do you write . Early in the morning both get up really early waking up at 530 or 6 00 oclock in the morning sometimes we work out if we are in that mood. Even before the kids go to school. And then to go play tennis. And how long did it take you to write that quick. Me be for research and to writing even the last three years of writing is still needed to do more research because i come upon something. And then within weeks of finishing the book. My favorite part of the book is a discovery and that conventional wisdom and then those that could hurt each other those were yearnings. When you could feel that love between them. I knew the family pretty well. With the closest you got to roosevelt . I never saw franklin or eleanor personally the closest were the two sons i interviewed before they died and then all the children of those children who were very helpful. Of all these who is your favorite . And it was such an experience and then not had how to get through the day with the politics and which cows were given which medicine or which tractors. It was almost like a crazy setting. And how many people come to the lbj library they were going through their more than the kennedy. Free donuts or coffee or anything. And the man who was so sad but he cannot even be alone. He would wake me up at 530 in the morning to talk to him and 22 years old the most exciting thing in the world is to become president of the United States and somebody not discussed with friendship or love somewhat less tim one left him so bereft at the end but that success that it would not be worth it and not long after that experience so one reason take so long to make these books i wanted to be those kids when they were little i ever went to be left to 700 bucks but not when it has an impact when president carter asked me to be head of the peace corps i would love to do that at some other time but the kids were little and i remember Lyndon Johnson and i was sad not to do it because i knew they would grow up too quickly i do not want to end up that way. Cspan where you born . New york. Originally came from Brookland Brooklyn have a real love of history started with baseball. But then we thought maybe we never knew what happened to the brooklyn dodgers. And as i started to love histor history. Cspan college . Nina nanette phd and harvard my thesis was constitutional law. Each one will illustrate different power of the presidency and each one will be told as a story. I want each one to be a dramatic moment in that presence like so young person reading it in college would get a history of the presidency but through these great decisions. Cspan what do your kids think about this . Guest the interesting thing is because weve been home so much we may work they havent seen the end result until now as teenagers. They see this book out and their father in the movie being played as a 270 now. One of them came out and said dad you you are a stallion agaid somehow that sense of pride so it isnt like a career where they they are confronting daily who their parents are. We have been much more quiet and at home. I do television at home so people are more aware because i do local commentary for an affiliate in boston. We make on the street people know me from that so the kids are queasy about getting sapolis and as far as the writing goes and all the baptist things that combined with family live is where home almost all the time. Cspan when you go to fdrs home and you see the library and the home and where Eleanor Roosevelt spent a lot of her time we which are thought about what kind of the family feeling without a 10 with she over there in him at another place . Guest the thing is so striking is to see a different they are. The big house is so perfectly put together the furniture is gorgeous and allenders house has mixed mismatched china and every chairs a different side. You know how opposite their temperament was richie was he liked to make people feel at ease and he he loves thats on some ways they were good for each other but thank god for the country. They had enough to keep them going through this long marriage. Cspan really have a minutes ago but how about the relationship explain her women friends. A lot has been written about that. I think its mostly a relationship where eleanor was loved by someone especially at the time she felt at the center that the sender somebody cypress some people claim that means she was a. I dont think that is necessarily so pretty think the most important thing to understand that this woman left her and she helped her to become a better first lady. Historians dont know whether they went beyond hugs and kisses and sometimes people try to appropriate eleanor one where another. A loner would be the first person she came back today new if she were considered a role model to younger people making them feel better about themselves should be the first to say thats fine but i dont think she would have defined yourself that way. Cspan an ordinary time no ordinary time is the name of this book. In depth thank you very much. Guest you are so welcome. Host youre watching the tv on cspan2 and we are taking the next several hours to show you some programs with awardwinning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. She has appeared on cspan a booktv over 60 times and coming up next from 2015 she sits down to talk about her book on our in depth program. Pulitzer prizewinning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has written about such political figures as Lyndon Johnson, the kennedys and roosevelt. In wait till next year in wait till next year she looks back on her child in her latest book team of rivals about resin lincoln so relationship with three powerful members of his. Next a threehour discussion with author and historian in depth. Host in depth at