On the executive director of the center for biography at the university of new york and we are sponsored from the leave the foundation to do events like this to arts and crafts of biography and a sponsor of the National Book festival and we are here with the 20th anniversary of the National Book festival talking tonight with two notable public intellectuals Harold Voelker the leading lincoln scholar and the director of the roosevelt house Public Policy of Hunter College today we will be discussing the latest book lincoln on the verge the story of the journey that lincoln took from illinois to washington dc to be inaugurated as president. These are two very different books this is a many paragraph the and this is harolds work on the president s. And that is the notion that american politics that is contentious and downright toxic. Toxic. Lets begin with you. So with the description of the dangerous train journey and at one point you refer to the toxic climate of 1860 is a worse toda today. It is horrific today. And with the president elect that is constantly on my bookshelf by lincoln and all contemporaries and i have read a lot of them and there is the presidency falling apart that has not been especially that preceded 1860 and having a lot of trouble making decisions having trouble to please members of his cabinet than promising things he couldnt to the northerners who were getting upset by the southern promises and was mounting evidence of financial corruption in the cabinet sending of armaments almost as if the civil war had begun. Wild rumor sweeping washington about the militia that could take over the government buildings at any moment and lincoln was far away without the much power so as they got on the train not even know if it would make it to washington it was a close call with the endless battle between the white house and the media. And there was a distance and many that go to the golf course. And part of the press Event Television dichotomy with the extremes of liberal and right wing media on the internet so with a special relationship with federalist and journalist and editors and then not anything we hear about today with the current president. George washington had a cabinet member of jefferson who had the highest rank in the cabinet as secretary of state. To help create an opposition newspaper in the capital which was philadelphia at the time and not only encourage the creation but with the state department as a lawyer to help make his way in a new city so in a way that sets the example and with that open hostility against the press he mentioned inaugural journey just six months of that and closing down his paper officers. And as a point out in my book today the crackdown is nowhere near john adams or Abraham Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson or maybe fdr. After writing so many books about lincoln with the press and the white house it wasnt because of the Trump Presidency and the hostile relationship with the press . Or did you start the book before trump was elected . I started it a bit before that lincoln and his long relationship with the press and those as a manipulator and a master of technology and to get the message across. And also nostalgically by my own career which is as circuitous 51 years ago my first job was a reporter then editor is the real professional staff from a weekly newspaper in new york run by married political guy who was closely aligned to the kennedys. So then i spent years in politics as a press secretary to political candidates, and then of whom under my watch everyone the election. So i have seen this from several angles. It seemed like a natural subject to tackle. The origins of the pervasive contentiousness and the varying peaks and valleys of those relationships. Coming back to you, you describe in lincolns journey this is the first time a president has direct conversation with the voters, unscripted with the Media Standing by. Meaning reporters were standing there witnessing the conversations lincoln would have with people along the way on the Railroad Journey and then telegraph accounts of these are newspapers across the country. This is the first time there was an instant press conference . I dont think that is too big of a stretch i think the use the phrase press conference at the time but it was a very volatile situation and just how powerful the press was. And then to the advantage and knew that reporters were listening coming from springfield to washington with some talented reporters sometimes they even helped him get the message out with a farewell address and then a few minutes later after the train started and asking him to ride it out there is a famous document in the library of congress that shows that speech went on written by squiggly handwriting and the speech was made available because of the cooperation but also god angry and it was is distorted and sometimes a row things that were not true at all and then people in the south are writing the most hateful things. Ted, how did you come to write the book . It emerged from the New York Times, 13 days and 13 essays. Tell us about that. I feel lucky because i had been a pretty academic historian i thought a serious academic topics you could substitute the word tedious for serious and the story crept up on me and it was a better story for that reason. I was working with some friends some more historians, some journalists come into play the story of the civil war day by day into the section of New York Times when the online part was not considered that valuable because ten years later is very valuable but that was seen with west significant part of real estate so they gave us some space and its virtual and harold contributed. And wheeze spurred each other on very good tellers of stories but i was lifted up by their example and how they were doing it and what is writing beautifully so i was just looking ahead a little bit so february 1861 is where it happened so february 2011 is when i was thinking about writing about something to say go for it so 13 days in a row i wrote essays on what happened so i fell in love with the story and i read the original newspaper accounts from the library of congress and it was and eamer serve experience and i really hadnt found adventure in history until this project came along. I have to say that your ability to tell the story were such defense i didnt realize how dangerous the journey was i didnt realize there was indeed a very serious conspiracy to try to perhaps from getting to washington and you learn a lot of the history but its very narrative lead driven. I wrote a very long manuscript that you can relate to this and you are both good historians and i would have published it but fortunately i had a tough editor she jumped all over me and im so glad she did. She died in february but she help me to find that story having a great editor helps so much. You actually have chapters devoted to any number of president s, not all of them. You have to pick and choose you dont write about eisenhower or truman so with our relationship with the press . I may have written a twovolume book with a chapter for each of the president s. Because there are things to say. The 18th and 19th centuries limited the chapters to those president s who have the most consequential impact on the relationships between the presidency and the media. Washington obviously because he sets the tone for everyone and adams because he was a seller with the president s as his enemies and also signed and enforced of the sedition want to make it possible for the federal government to consider criticism attacks against the president unlawful and he prosecuted and then jefferson is as much of a hypocrite and his pronouncements of the press as his actions i thought it was a remarkable story famously saying if we had to choose between second government and a free press we should always choose the free press but in effect was manipulative and critical journalist and while he opposed the sedition law he did so only because he didnt believe the federal government had many rights and in terms of laws that superseded state law so prosecuting at the state level for libel. Of course he commissioned another journalist to write prorepublican articles and when he refused to reward him with a small federal job he turned on him and published the sally humming story which of course did more to harm his reputation. I chose the most consequential because he made them speechwriters Kitchen Cabinet members and i try to get almost all of the 20th century president s if i could i left out coolidge and harding and held quite a few press conferences wilson invented press conferences and the propaganda during world war i Teddy Roosevelt invented the away house interview while being shaved and then i included president s who revolutionized communication and their ability to bypass the press by utilizing cuttingedge technology in the most obvious is Franklin Roosevelt who use the radio but also newsreels. He was the second or third feature in movies and the most popular days of movies. His first radio address as president elect was during the period of a fugitive from the chain gang is showing reviewing the depths of the depression and the sadness and then kennedy for television and barack obama for choosing the internet over personal relations with the press which i comment on which people may be surprised how obama emerges in my book and for all of his flaws and no matter your position about his politics or leadership abilities, donald trump ranks with kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt and barack obama as a genius of a particular form of communicatio communication, twitter. It is extraordinary but that ability with the morning tweet and the inability. And Ed White House rules about taking photographs in his wheelchair and even unflattering photographs so he was able to censor, his administration was able to censor while he remained a good guy. He held 98 press conferences in his 12 years and six weeks so he was remarkably transparent about the government and decisionmaking although many things were off the record reporters were able to ask and he often did that so i would say also in the fireside chat which was such a pervasive part of the culture in the 30s and 40s they were hearing a continuous chat from open car window without interruption so roosevelt was everywhere and i think that he was a great genius of communication. Along the way in your story you talk about how the press in their coverage humanized him for the first time and this is of course at a very delicate moment in his trying to get to washington to be inaugurated and its on the verge of what we know has become the civil war. He suddenly becomes flesh and blood and can you describe how this happened . The curiosity i would say is larger than that which had followed any president on his way into office. Lincoln had come almost out of nowhere because the debate raised his profile in illinois and certainly even in the east. His profile went up a little bit more but he was still shot at the nomination which he got in may of 1860 when they realized hed beaten these candidates there was a tremendous curiosity what does he look like, what does he think, what is his home like. He is a kind of political celebrity and that word was being used then the biggest celebrity that america has ever known is getting on a train to come to the capital to take charge of a government that is falling apart and all of these things, the fear, the excitement, the hope and the criticism and every newspaper in the story wanted to cover it and there were tens of thousands. This was a Literate Society in the north and upper midwest and if they were bringing lincoln within a reasonable distance they were there watching it not only for his height but it changed the mood quickly from a twinkle in the eye when he was about to tell his jokes to the deep kind of melancholy expression and all the ways he spoke. He had a western and southern accent. He sounded rustic but hes capable of different expressions. He could write something very seriously good looking into the origins in the United States government. That is the cooper Union Address but he ran out of material. The journalists convey that. I was shocked by how conspiracy. You might jump in and some of you have written a little bit about the early conspiracy. I thought i backed up the understanding and they backed it up even further and made some terrific discovery about how and why the trip was so dangerous and he did a terrific job with that so i wanted to say that before. Great point. Thats a remarkable change. The conspiracy has been known. From the 1950s lincoln and the baltimore plot. She used a lot of materials at the Huntington Library with the famous Railroad Detective founder of what becomes the secret service wrote multiple versions of all of this and there were some controversies of other people in lincolns entourage that claimed they knew Different Things but it was known hed passed through something very dangerous. I was surprised as i looked more deeply into it. He knew everything about it, but it wasnt really in the general knowledge but i found it somewhat uplifting because we know the tragic end of the presidency i and end of his lif. But the escape from death allowed me to realize weve got four years of a consequential presidency and we might be two countries instead of one. How is the Research Process different from this book than the previous work . I guess to answer written questions but i bet interviewing some of these famous reporters say lot of fun, tomac. The difference for me ive never written anything about living people before or at least not in the book. And so this opened the possibilities and it was a little bit scary. I did ask several president s to discuss things but the only ones that did im happy to report was president clinton. And i also spoke to a number of journalists. I think i had the last interview with jim loera before he passed away. Interestingly, for no malice or anger about the fact at one of the more famous interviews president clinton gave on the threshold of the scandal, clinton didnt tell the troops and the conclusion is he was the greatest communicator he had ever seen in his entire career so that made a difference. Theyve written extensively about their own presidencies and relationships to the press and also in the oral histories of several administrations, the Carter Administration and the johnsojohnson administration and Kennedy Administration are great tidbits them there were the press conferences. I was able to attend all of president kennedys conferences again. I knew that there was a press conference in the afternoon, so that was fun to do. The media had fireside chats so i was excited about leaving this period. It was easy to go back to 1861 and read just about every paper in the country because of the chronicling america database that was created by the library of congress and its unbelievable resources and dropped in that moment and its incredibly exciting. I was particularly interested in the chapter on jimmy carter because as you may know, im just finishing up a large biography of carter. Harold, you were very tough on it, on the handling of the press. I think at one point you started saying he didnt like reporters. Also carter had a particularly difficult time coming in right after the postwatergate era. We all wanted to be woodward and bernstein and unearth a scandal. He was bearing the brunt of that and it was also the birth of the style section of the post under ben bradley and he is soon to be wife sally quinn and invented the style section which they made fun of jimmy carter for the southern culture and i was rather sympathetic to the portrait. Starting off on a high. To do an exclusive radio interview in the white house there were these calculations into the cam camp david story at was playing out although they had access as i discovered to my surprise and ill advised to retreat to rethink the administration, his cardigan sweater it just didnt work but also i go back to the staff level. They specifically snuffed him refusing to return phone calls. That cant be a good idea for the administration. It doesnt include icing out the most powerful publisher so i think he tripped on his own good intentions it if you look at the conclusions about the press, he believed the negativity and cynicism is the worst obstacle they faced. We are going to have to wrap this up pretty soon. You quote john adams at one point saying democracy never lasts long. There never was a democracy yet that didnt commit suicide. That is a dour statement and i can understand quoting it in a book about lincoln coming to washington on the verge of a civil war. What is your secret in having written this book . Ive seen a few journalists use it in recent months. I dont want to be too partisan but even though i agree could playfully about the significance of president trumps discovery as a very effective means of getting his message out, i totally agree with that. The message is dark and confusing and selfcontradictory and it basically is quick to blame others and slow to accept responsibility and hesitant to accept the moral authority of the position of the president of the United States, the job in which you are trying to better the lives of fellow citizens i think we need a profound societal change and im not sure where it will come from but we need to treat each other better and get off of our social media and talk over backyard fences and try to remember the better america that existed. We have been speaking with ted and harold holzer. Their books are the president versus the press. They are terrific books, well told, narrative history and i urge all of the readers to go out and buy them in the bookstore or online and obtain copies. Thank you for being part of the National Book festival and thank you for listening. Welcome to the commonwealth club. Chair of the humanities