Give a warm welcome to the stage. [applause]. I hope you are having as much fun as i am at this festival. [applause]. I think of students in college a few of you were in college a few years ago as the best thing to do is to take the teacher not the course and here i think of things to take these incredible authors and be in a room with them. Whatever theyre talking about. The only problem is there is someone in every room. That you want to be with. I think you heard from them all at one point or another. They have also done some the other interesting things. American shots. He is the cn and historian. He has a little bit of basement studio and envy of john meacham. Whos got that at msnbc. Of course the great tester in 1919. Just a transformative book that is so important. Many of us know him from his basement with morning joe. The assignment is to talk about who is your favorite historical figure. I want to make that a free and fun thing. Maybe later we would get into other elements. Why dont you start us off. What is your favorite historical figure. Who would you like to have dinner with. We dont want that. Mine is Winston Churchill. I would have to say much. There would be a very good set of cigars. And he was able to it was a genuine renaissance man. He was an able writer. Just a man of parts. The largest human being of our time. And my sense is the lesson i take from him most of all is perseverance. Churchill got about one thing right. If you are getting get one thing right. If churchill had died in 1938. Even into 39 he would have wouldve gotten some notices in the New York Times with the interesting british statesman he was wrong about gandhi. When the crisis of the time came he was right about world war ii. To my mind its an arguable that we can argue but im convinced that we live in a better and brighter world because of this man live and rose to power when he did on the tenth of may 1940. When he became Prime Minister i started walking with destiny and all of my life the preparation. I was sure i should not fail. When they learned about this being appointed. Because of the time difference. It was friday afternoon in washington. They used to keep the cabinet into work all week. The cabinet meetings run friday afternoon. Fdr read it and looked up and said i suppose winston is the best man that england had even if he is drunk half the time. To which i quote our own wartime commander in chief. Is there a particular book where there had been many biographies with ones that want to follow you. One of the reasons he limps a large with me. When i was of an age i was highly impressionable. I actually read an Early High School day and one summer i read the first volume of the last lion. I loved the most so much. I reread both. I was in a Job Interview with evan. I just want to tell you i read the book when i was 13 years old. And then reread it. It was was such a great summer. He mustve been a real loser. Its fair enough. I think the first volume of the last lion is a wonderful portrait of church trails world the other book of churchill that annette enough people read is called my early life. I think its his best book. It was published in 34 or 35. It is dipping in and out of his great contemporaries. He did portraits of various statesmen and writers. Margaret, one or two favorites. I always think that heroes are a bit dangerous because you seem better than everyone else. Do you find that they have those things that they expect to write. To discover how human they are. They are in some very important ways. One of the people i am fascinated by and someone i love is someone i suspect most people wont know much about. They founded that in india 16th century. He came from a very small kingdom in central Asia Central Asia and when he was about 12 his father was very fat was out feeding his pigeons. And it simply broke away. He became prince of this little kingdom. His loving family they promptly took it away from him. He became a neck an exile and think got fed up. We know this because he kept a journal. This is what is so extraordinary. The fact that he was literate is extraordinary in those days. Getting fed up and falling in love. And then he discovers alcohol. He built a beautiful gardens and then he conquered deli and he didnt like the climate but he said ill do my best to build a garden. I sat on the terrace looking at them and then he says i found that my cook was trying to poison me sigh center at a few others to be trampled by elephants. This wonderful contrast but i recommend it. He reaches across the centuries and is wonderful english translation. Its just sitting. It reminds you that are great and human beings in the past essentially what we should do is post these favorite son out online so our readers know where to find the. I can tell you what the book is. Im sure i would like to have dinner with them because i wouldve had to drink a lot and divided it sent me to trampled by elephants but the other person i would to have loved to have dinner with his the french essayist who lived during the worst of the revolution in france as the most civilized and human person coming out of that dreadful situation catholics repelling protestant and vice versa. He writes wonderful essays. He starts off one of the things essays is called on carriages and he starts writing but different charges. Have you noticed how odd it is some people spelt differently to other people . He wanders off into that and then wanders off into flowers and then says i must get back to my subject. Then he wanders off into something else. He is the normalcy supplies and its a time when the new world is being discovered. He keeps saying we keep tons of people over that the people who live there will bring them civilization. Im not sure we bring them anything of the sort. He has a willingness to question. Between the two of them, i think i would like to beat them at some point back. Before return to doug, you had been talking backstage also about the difference between the way these issues are seen by historians versus biographers. Could you talk about that so were all educated . Theres a slight cold war sometimes between the stories and biographers and we would td to look down on the other. Historians say biographers yes, they go on about the people and the feelings at the dont understand the times and the context. Biographers say about historians they are so unimaginative and all the dudes talk about the great historical times and the dont understand the living, breathing, suffering human beings. I think we need to talk to each other and we do both. Good biographers such with the people in their times and good historians understand the peoples who are part of those times. I wish we didnt have we do have cold war i think. Doug, you are in the middle of the cold war on both sides of that particular divide, but who are some people you would love to write about or read more about or have dinner with . I have been doing a lot of panels on president s here so it would be easy for me to say Theodore Roosevelt who i usually say is my favorite president. Franklin roosevelts, they are my stars in president ial history. I just adore reading about both and studying them, George Washington is another one of my personal favorites. But i wanted to pick rosa parks because i think, the reason i pick rosa parks is i was born in atlanta, georgia. We lived there when Martin Luther king was my childhood memories of dr. King in atlanta, i remember why was, i was eight years old when dr. King was killed. I subsequently bounced around i got my doctorate at the top history in new orleans at a had a thing called a magic bus and i would take called students around the country and we would visit history sites. Ive been created one for civil rights to was never went to montgomery and birmingham, selma, atlanta studying the civil rights movement. When i would go to montgomery, and those days there was no memorials for rosa parks. There was one street named after her, Jefferson Davis avenue intersected with rosa parks boulevard and so i wanted to see where rosa parks lived on december 1, 1955, when the montgomery bus boycott kicked in and she became the mother of the movement. It was the most decrepit underfunded Housing Project she was living in, and its a room without exaggerating, her home was a size of this stage. She lived in it with her husband raymond in this impoverished way, enter integrity level was so high. She can go to college but she went to an Industrial School for girls where they taught Home Economics in those days. It was one of the booker t. Washington Industrial Schools in the south. She worked her way, would do things like work as a secretary for the naacp for no money. Ev nixon was the big kingpin of the railroads on the port is union, she would file all those things and keep it all but i couldnt believe that the famous rosa parks there was nobody had written a strict book about it. Theres Taylor Branch on mckinney, 200 books on dr. King. 200. Nothing on rosa parks. I dissent decide is going to wa biography of rosa parks and i reached up because mrs. Parks was still alive and Elaine Steele, her person who work for mrs. Parks said we would like it to be an africanamerican woman with her biographer. Well, im not that. I brought like three of my books to her to get my credentials to interview mrs. Parks and all this and that not as lucky back to the cosmos club in d. C. Where i was staying in Elaine Steele called and some didnt like hearing myself tell you that. Your ago destroyed. You write a lot. Theres nothing wrong with you so were going, according to spend time with mrs. Parks. I started going with her. I went with her when she got a congressional gold medal on capitol hill with a wheelchair. I would stay with the h street and dupont circle, a home in washington. I went out with her to Beverly Hills wishes that time. I went to detroit mercy was a microscopic on history of the underground railroad. Her apartment overlooked the Detroit River and apartment was on the exact spot where john brown had met Frederick Douglass, and i would spend time with her and i would find old montgomery advertise newspaper such over the newspapers because you take that orange soda, we used to drink it. Because she had a frame of mind only to say the same thing when i i read transcripts about december 1, 55. Turned out to be an amazing woman. During world war ii she tried to get africanamerican kids to go into a library and they wouldnt let africanamerican kids amuck, even get a book in the public library. She sued alabama for the right to vote. She did the few reports on women that were raped in alabama by white men and it was covered up in her day. I started realizing this very christian woman everything about her was african methodist episcopal church. Later in life she went to japan and adopted buddhism with her christianity. She used to tell me that i am mixed race i am mixedrace criticism africanamerican. Im scottish, irish, cherokee, creek, you know, and she would battle them all off. Getting an opportunity to write about her and i started in the book when i turned it into my publisher, i got back, you are the biographer, what is her dark side . I i said, there isnt one. She would take care of it. The reason Montgomery Rose because she would do after School Programs and teach people and always addressed to the nines, never swore, and the only agreement ive met, made with ms. Parks was i would let her read my book before publication when the final tally was done just for air but no editorial comment. She called me. She called my wife when her kids are bored and things but you call gets it i have one change you must make. I thought, what did i do . She said you call me has been raymond an alcoholic, and he was a heavy drinker, but not an alcoholic. It was generational. She didnt like that term. I wrote very well i felt about raymond in my book, and so it was one of those things when you get to know somebody in history, there are disadvantages about writing about a living person as a biographer because you dont want to hurt them, but in other cases this experience uplifted my life. I have three kids that are from 11, 11, 13, 14yearold. They all study rosa parks and schools advocate to go to the schools and tell them you can make a difference. Standup would you believe in, stand up against injustice, that great people can be everyday people. I think its important for us to remember that. It doesnt have to be president and world leaders. It can be us, he could be you. Mrs. Parks is a great vehicle for that lesson. Thats a great story. [applause] as i think about the impact on young people which is so important for all of historians, one of the ways they learn is also through whether its through fiction or through movies, there was another panel we will talk about sometimes things are badly disturbed sometimes they are true. Hidden figures, i dont know how accurate it was but it was an inspiring story but none of us knew. Is anything like that what you think theres a figure you think that is been wonderfully displayed for you think that sort of brought the person to life for a world that otherwise would not have known them and it is inspiring . Theres very much an example right now which is Kathleen Graham and the post. Was she come when you were editor of newsweek i worked for mrs. Graham. We all worked for mrs. Graham. The other great story about that is the newsweek used to be close on saturday nights and it would appear sunday night usually in washington. We had an item in the front of the magazine about a sitting senator, not here, that was just woefully wrong, and senator called mrs. Graham on monday morning and let her know that he was not wildly pleased with this. I happened to be in his office, he was a Washington Bureau chief that morning and mrs. Graham got the call from the senator. She hung up the phone and called evan and i could hear her voice on the phone. Now i think its meryl streep. Evan charmingly but ineffectively quoted phil gramm who had said bam, im sorry but as your husband said its just supposed be the first rough draft of history. In that wonderful mrs. Graham voice i heard through the phone, but does it have to be so [bleep] rough . [laughing] so i think they captured her. Several of us here new and she would have been beyond thrilled to have meryl streep i think how much she wouldve loved that portrait. Somebody did a piece which was quite good recently about, she was cut out of all the president s men. Shes not in that movie. This is kind of a needed correction of the record. Margaret, is a somebody think of that sort of got a wonderful historical portrait, whether its a novel or in a movie . Yes. I mean, theres some wonderful im always worried when movies try to do historical figures and decide the historical figure is an interesting enough and try to update the more. I was saying to someone, some of you may have seen the old robin hood with Kevin Costner, and Kevin Costner comes over as a deeply caring sensitive man come which is unconvincing, given the times. Maid marian is a protofeministt who insist on women having an equal share in whats going on in the woods around nottingham. Im a bit worried when we try and recover people and tinker with them to make them uptodate. One of the good things thats been happening in history is, i guess we are always doing it, finding people we have forgotten never knew about. One of the very great things about womens history, for example, which is not a subject when i was at university and now is, through that found women who shouldve been celebrated but were not. The women codebreakers codebreakers. The black american women who worked at nasa whose contributions simply were not recognized. Thats one of the useful things has to can do. It can uncover lost heroes and heroines or loss people who really made a difference that which is for some reason there were not paid attention at the time because of who they were, it were not important enough for there were the wrong gender or the came from the wrong social class. Thats something we doing a lot of. I do think, theres some wonderful, wonderful biographies being written, and whole generation of people and understanding of tudor england and of this very complicated and very difficult, difficult and think in the end utterly ruthless man, scrabble. I think she has unlike a lot of perhaps some historical novelist and filmmakers she skipped very much to the historical record. She has used it and just imagine it beyond it but she skipped to the record. I think the books almost always better than the movie. I will say with williams diagrams so please choice come a book in the were both tremendous. I thought also with something like, mockingbird of harper lee in the movie are both tremendous. It does happen and thats a very happy moment. The right stuff with tom wolf, i thought the mood was good and the book both. But were talking but Hidden Figures in history at a think with all which you this, and youre working on a book you do discover under sung figures. Youre working on the big person come theater roosevelt and then you realize wow, the person i should be writing about is gifford and show. Like pinchot is doing eason in a but he should know. I recently found out trying to build up the woman figure of Rachel Carson silent spring what i found that the undersigned person was Supreme CourtJustice William o douglas was feeding her documentation on dvd and all of this stuff from the Supreme Court and julie wow, you have he was an environmentalist but how was he getting this information . Because he was a member of the Wilderness Society which was great in 1935, 80 80 story goig all over the country writing these two books called my wilderness as after essay on then and then everybody would come through him. He became the leading stopgap environmental figure yesterday i got into a debate with carl wrote about the Arctic Refuge in alaska but it was douglas went camping in the refuge, Supreme Court justice come back and didnt tell eisenhower, they were not friends, bill douglas with demographic he told him we have to say the spot. Using those kinds of things behind the scenes all the time. But the person that a think we have an obligation to once in a while like Scott Bernard toles and his wonderful introductory, talk about the library of america volume on writing in world war i or chance to give voices to others. In my life the book that influenced me as a boy growing up was jack care wax on the road. When i became part of the establishment i would be at the century club in new york or something with Arthur Schlesinger junior, they all, jack, a bomb, hes never going to be in the pantheon of great. The whole council on Foreign Relations people what you gaveling in him for . It just to annoy me to know and because i knew on the road was a special novel and not just that, other of his books, big sur. I started a campaign to get it in the library of america, and it did. Its the road novel. Weve got now two volumes in their with whitman and with Frederick Douglass because i thought he belong in the american pantheon, and so i would like to do that with thomas wolfe of North Carolina who is being to ride of time but out of fashion now but will is still a very potent voice. Im wondering if each of you could talk for just a minute about who you would like to write about now. I know you writing about James Madison right now. Do you have a thought beyond that somebody like him im particularly interested if theres somebody would like to write about but you know what your publishers as nobody would care . No publisher would ever say that. [laughing] thats cynical california, academic view. The ivory tower people. I dont have a person there are any number of event that a think would be lovely. I have a fantasy bucket list. Im fascinated by the six days between the attack on pearl harbor and hitlers declaration of war on the United States. Fdr did not move against germany until germany moved against us. On the 11th of december. The longest five days of Winston Churchill slight because he was suddenly terrified that the republicans who are specifically oriented were going to keep fdr from find a european war and just focus on the pacific. Hitler made that mistake. One of the three mistakes from which he never recovered, allowing the pdf to escape from dunkirk, invading in june 41 and a clean clean were of the United States unilaterally. My sense is, if this is a biography wandering into history without a pass, is if you take any one of those mistakes away, and the outcome of the war mightve been different. He could have made two making me three. John has made a great contribution i think by writing these very focused books. His five days in london is the base is really of the darkest hour movie that is out right now. You go to margarets point about screenwriters sometimes one to make characters were interesting. The great achievement of that film, which i think was nominated thats out now, is they have the good sense of getting out of church is way in terms of his language. Churchill. About 75 of what i heard watching it is actually from his letters, from his speeches, from him. A lot of screenwriters came to want to make it their own. When youre dealing with the churchill, handled the language as well as anybody since shakespeare, did you get out of the way. There was conversation the other day about this and sally was talking about one part of it that just didnt happen and does it matter it but theres hope for those using darkest hour. Remember the focus group in the underground, that never happen. If you said thats all that Johnny Walker red is he might have found it. But even then probably not. I think thats come is a little bit like the bible. I think thats true but not accurate here i dont want to get in trouble with any biblical lets say thats a point of view. Margaret, anybody he would love to write about if you were deciding you wanted to be a biographer instead of a historian . Yes, there are several people but the trouble is they already had very good biographies done. Thats never stopped me or dog or maybe youre right. I may rethink it. Ive always been fascinated by Eleanor Roosevelt who seems a complicated intelligent unhappy and very important person who made a a real difference here n the states but theres a wonderful biography. I do find it fascinating person. Fdr must in one of those Difficult People to be married to. He was complicated self but i think she is fascinating. I wanted to do a bark of the some of the most people have heard of, he wrote a few bad victorian homes who was an absolute road come have many affairs, traveled around the world, wrote a diary which was published but his wife got all the bits out that she thought all the good parts. What we would think of as the interesting part but nobody knows about it but i but i once mentioned to a publisher and he said no. They have the weird looking, thinking, you can see them, dollar signs going to the mites and basic know, we just dont think it would sell. They were absolutely right. I dont know if i would do a biography. Im apprehensive. Which it is so collocated and chip to live with the person. Thats true. What someone told me once, a very nice woman i knew who did a biography of the Great British father was equally strange who threw up being a british citizen can win up to live in saudi arabia and worked for the saudi king in the 1930s. There is the family there in saudi arabia. He had this whole second life there and this very nice woman called Elizabeth Monroe did a biography and she said i can taken so much that it was absolute misery. It was a painful to write because i couldnt bear to spend any more time with him. The choosing of our trip is bit like choosing a partner. You have to be careful. Im curious what doug and john come your experience is. Have you ever had an experience of someone you writing about efforts all you want to find something totally new so how do you do that . Secondly you find something that is totally new that youre not really happy you found but you have to do with . Let me before just comment on this. I do think that, for example, it is intimidating to do a president. But t. J. Stiles one of the great biographies, i hope you know his books and i think hes amazing. Hes doing a new biography on theater roseville. Theres been so much written on theater roseville that its easy to be intimidated that is not a role for me, but you go for it. I would encourage you to do Eleanor Roosevelt. Blanche cook has this amazing three volumes both are still a lot of material in a way to do a very powerful biography of hers. I tend to think of what figures dont have the big biography that need to be done though. With that said a couple right at this compass may be think about a few we still have a big biography of. Ive done so much president ial history here. James madison, thats the big want to do. James monroe, nobody has done the big book on james monroe ousted president. He couldve won a third term. He oversaw the era of good feelings with John Quincy Adams and the Monroe Doctrine and a lot that could be done with monroe and nobody has done a ag popular biography of him. I am aghast theres not a big part of cesar chavez. There is cesar chavez boulevards, parts, highways, National Monument here in california, everything, and yet nobody has invested in the life and times of cesar chavez. Those are examples of i think about sometimes wow, thats wideopen, or forget it, i was up to write on George Washington but im intimidated. Theres so much. I would have to do what im doing with space and what margaret did with china or something. I would take off like George Washington at valley forge just what is valley forge in american memory . Because im not so good in the revolutionary war period even though i wish i was. Can i Say Something about straight observation to see you all agree. Doug is talking about we sometimes call them slice books or the full meal. Soup to nuts or do you do a piece of it. I think the biggest threat to what, i do want you to drag all into my thinking that we do broadly put is netflix. Let me explain. Tv is now so good, its the case of the regulation working. We broke the monopoly of the networks and technology and it turns out that yet theres enormous amount of talent that needs to be unleashed. My sense is, since i dont write, i try to write short books but its like bush 41, worry about mission creep. The 20 hours how little it takes people ultimately to read a single book, that time is by and large being used watching really good British Crime dramas. How many of you are watching really good British Crime dramas . Australia, acorn tv, anyone of you subscribe to acorn tv . Public of you find yourself more often talking to friends not about what youre reading but what youre watching . Thats a really good point, john. That is definitely happening. Let me try this out since evelyn focus group. , and you find yourself listening to books as much as or maybe more than reading books . Thats another phenomenon let me ask you of this review as writers, because you all that books that are now red and accessible that way. Do you care whether somebody read your book rather than listens to it . I dont. No. My work is done once you pay for it. [laughing] ive got children to feed. The funny thing about the book, i write the book and its like a child. I send out into the world and what makes of the world, its on its own. Ive done it. I send out. Whatever happens to the book what a loving mother. Jack london but instinct for i knew what she means, its done. You cant do anything more with it. You to get people and all the females of letter saying you should have done this and you shouldve done that, and its too late. The book is done. Were not going to change it. I think very few writers go back and rewrite after they published it. Largely in agreement with that but the still if i had a choice between someone brings me books on tape to sign or the book, i like to sign the book. I went into the book world, used to work as the night manager of second storybooks in washington, d. C. And ran houston according books and then i worked for great novelist. I was a book collector. I would go to estate sales and even now thats my hobby, first editions, book collections, building an american library. As a book man thats what i like so the books on tape understand. I i listen to them sometimes, usually memoirs of people and books on tape when i commute from austin to Rice University where i i teach but to me thers nothing like the tangible book in hand. It does make the choice of the narrator hugely important. Injure contracts do you have any provision have to do with the choice of the narrator of the book . I dont. I have to talk to my agent. We have the same editor so we can fix it. [laughing] my arrangement on my last book was that they would, that i couldnt choose from but i got to consult. They actually sent me four possible maybe thats what it is. I listened with a focus group of students to the four readers, and we all agreed the one we like the best. Is that i had a dream narrator for the bush 41 book. I wanted san waterston to read it because i thought lets raise one wasp with another, you know . You want connecticut, ill keep you connecticut. He couldnt do it. I was lucky, ed herman read one of mine thomas jefferson, and tragically died. He did all of macola so i hope i was confusing people. Very nice person came up and told how much she loved michael countryman and the young theater roosevelt. Its hard being Doug Brinkley and nobody calls you david brinkley. I dont want to hear your complaint. What were sam and cokie really like . Im not lying. My first book was on dean acheson and somebody i knew in madison avenue of the bookstore. Anyway they threw a really nice party for me enter new york penthouse. I was young kid, my first book city at this desk with my signing pen on dean acheson and lo and behold in a tuxedo was Walter Cronkite in line. I thought wow, the guy i watched in ohio is coming to my book signing on dean acheson. I kept an eye on, talking to other people and he came up and we cut up to me he said, that was a wonderful time we had sailing together. [laughing] he thought i was davids son. I was, you are always put in the position to say oh, well, you know. I corrected him a little and i watched him slink out. Thats good. A whole category of this. I was on stage with a very prominent person in issuing him and he kept asking me about, as you wrote about grant, your hamilton point. Jesus christ, he thinks on ron chernow. How did you handle it . I just rolled with it. Yes, i like my rap musical, to. How many of you that somebody walked up to an airport or something and theyre convinced your some of the person . I used to be somebody who nobody pays attention to anymore, which is filled donahue. Such quickly become filled donahue. Nobody but you really cared when his show went off the air because i think a good treatment. A great jim baker story. Baker ran for attorney general in texas in 1970, early time he was on the ballot and your loss. He was on his way out to his ranch outside after the election to lick his wounds. He studied at of this truck with gas and an old my walks up to me and says, anybody ever tell you you look a lot like jimmy baker . Baker said yeah, sometimes. Doesnt that just take you off . [laughing] we will never be tiktok by this terrific panel. Please join in thanking this wonderful panel. Thats a great story. [applause] cspan is unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events. You can want all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free review at and be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily washington journal programs or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas cabletelevision companies as a Public Service brought to you today by your television provider. Big ten conference president s and chancellors voted tuesday to postpone all fall sports seasons including football due to the coronavirus pandemic. Last month the Senate JudiciaryCommittee Held a hearing to talk about ways to protect the integrity of College Athletics. Part one featured ncaa president mark emmert focusing on College Athlete compensation. Part to look at the Impact Sports betting has on College Athletics and on student athletes. This is two hours and 20 minutes. Thank you all. This is the world in which we live in now, distance testimony and technology and masks but were going to get through it and rep our former colleague here from georgia. Glad to have sex be involved. Im going to make a opening statement. Also senator booker and senator blumenthal. The title is protecting the integrity of College Athletics. Like most americans one of the