Hello. My name is kai bird. And executive director of the leon leavy center for biography at City University of new york, and we are sponsored by the Leavy Foundation when we do events like this to promote the arts and crafts a biography among other things. We had been a sponsor of the National Book festival for some years, and were here on a session with of the 20th anniversary i chose of the National Book festival and the theme this year is american ingenuity. We are going to be talking tonight with two notable intellectuals, Harold Holzer is one of the countries leading lincoln scholars big is currently the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at hunter college. Ted widmer is himself the author of eight books. Professor is now on the faculty of holy Honors College for today will be discussing his latest book, lincoln on the verge, story about a 13 day train journey that lincoln took from illinois to washington, d. C. , to be inaugurated as president. These are two very different books. I want to hold up each of them. This is literally a mini biography, well, not so many but its a substantial book that it focuses on 13 days. This is the book, the presidency vs. The press. They are very different books but they are both about president s. Both offer deeply versed lincoln and the civil war era. To my mind both books have a theme which is the notion that american politics is always been deeply partisan, contentious and downright toxic. Toxic. So ted, lets begin with you. You give us a vivid description of lincolns dangers train journey, and at one point you refer to it, to the toxic climate of 1860. I wanted to ask you right off the bat, is it worth today . [laughing] no. Its horrific today. Might but it was worse in 1860. Its such an honor to appear with harold because he literally wrote the book on this. Matt, the lincoln president elect wisconsin on my bookshelf as writing this new book, and so hes read every newspaper in statement by lincoln and all of his contemporaries, and i read a lot of them but i think youll has read more of them. It was a nightmare. There was a a presidency fallig apart, the James Buchanan presidency which have not been especially distinguished even in the better years that preceded 1860 but it was having a strange kind of immolation. Buchanan personally was failing. He was having a lot of trouble making decisions. He was trying to please the very angry southern members of his cabinet and then promising things he couldnt really promised to the northerners are getting upset about the southern promises, and the treasury didnt have very much money. There was mounting evidence of very serious financial corruption among his cabinet but also the sending of armaments from northern forks and armories down to southern installations, almost as if the civil war had begun, although it had not yet begun. While rumors sweeping washington about militias who might take over the government buildings at any moment. Lincoln was very far away without that much power to affect anything in washington here so as he got on that train he really didnt know what he is going to find at the end of the journey or if you would even make it into washington. As i tried to show, it was a close call. He made it but only barely. So turning to harold, why do you call in your book complied you refer to the endless battle between the white house in the media . What is it an endless battle . All of our president s go back to George Washington, and even in the founding period winter was a distance between the president and the press, no press conferences, no scrums as washington was ready to build his helicopter to go to the golf course, no press secretaries. There was still a partisan print press that in a way resembled the television dichotomy between msnbc, say, and foxnews news, or the extremes of liberal and rightwing media on the internet. So at the beginning washington established a special relationship with federalist journalists and editors who were friendly to his administration and his policies. And sort of to top anything that we hear about today about leaks, that displease the current president , George Washington had a cabinet member, thomas jefferson, who held the highest rank in the cabinet as secretary of state who actually helped create an opposition newspaper in the capital, philadelphia at the time. And not only encouraged its creation specifically to criticize the policies of George Washington, but gave its editor a job in the state department as the translator in order to help him make his way in the new city. He had to travel to philadelphia to set up shop. That in a way set the example of president s being wary of and sometimes in open hostility against the press. We mention the inaugural journey of lincoln. Within six months of that inaugural journey, a brand lincolns administration was encouraging the shutdown abraham lincolns antirepublican, antivolunteerism volunteering for the military newspapers. He was imprisoning editors without the writ of habeas corpus. He was closing down newspaper offices. The antipathy on occasion in American History become quite overt. As i point out in my book, and as ted said, not as bad as it was then. Today the crackdowns in the complaint are nowhere near as bad as they were under john adams, abraham lincoln, woodrow wilson, maybe even fdr in some ways. So harold, lets keep with you for a moment to follow up on that. Why did you have to, after writing so many books about lincoln, turn to this topic, the press and the white house . Was it because of the Trump Presidency and his particularly hostile relationship with the press . Did you start this book before trump was elected . I started it a bit before, i would say, but ive written a book about lincoln and his long relationship with the press, as an anonymous journalist for the press, as a manipulator of messages, as a Master Technology that helped him get his message across. I i think i was motivated in a y nostalgically by my own courier, which is at least as secure us as teds. I started 50 whingers ago my first job was as a cub reporter, been a reporter, then an editor as the rest of the real professional staff peeled away for want of money of the weekly newspaper in new york run by a very political guy who was very closely aligned to the kennedy family. There i spent years in politics as a press secretary to political candidates, none of them under my watch ever won an election, but thats another story. I have seen this from several angles but this just seemed like a natural subject to tackle, the origins of the pervasive contentiousness between president s and journalists, and the varying peaks and valleys of those relationships. So coming back to you, ted. You described at one point in lincolns journey, you say that this is the first time a president had quote, direct conversations with the voters, unscripted with the Media Standing by. Meaning that the reports, reporters were standing listening to these conversations leak would have along the way on the railroad journey. And then they would telegraph their accounts of these conversations in newspapers across the country. This is really the first time that there was like an instant press conference as such, right . I dont think thats too big a stretch of i dont think anyone used the phrase press conference at the time. It was a very volatile situation, and lincoln understood very well, as heralds work has shown, just how powerful the press was. He had his antipathies and he got unbelievably frustrated and angry but he also was skillfully using the power of the press to his advantage. He knew that reporters were listening and there were reporters embedded on the train within as hes come from springfield to washington, some very talented reporters here sometimes they even helped him get his message out, very famous farewell address at springfield was, he gave the speech and then a few minutes later after the train started, a reporter named henry went to lincoln on the train as it is moving and asked him to write it out, and lincoln, theres a famous document in the library of congress that shows half of the speech written by lincoln and squiggly handwriting because the train is literally moving, if any handed it to his aide who finished it and then they give it to henry who telegraphed it to the rest of the country, an extremely important lincoln speech was made available because of the cooperation of the reporter. But he also got angry and sometimes the message got distorted severely, sometimes reporters wrote things that were not true at all. While hes on this train people on south are running the most hateful things i can think about it. Anything went in the southern papers at that time. Ted, how did you come to write this book . I understand you sort of emerged out of your work for the New York Times in 13 days, 13 essays. Can you tell us about that . Sure. I feel lucky because i had been a pretty academic historian and i thought of serious academic topics which you could almost substitute the word tedious for serious. This story crept up on me at a think it was a better story for that reason. I was working with some friends some were historians come summer journalists who wanted to put the story of the civil war day by day into the online section of the New York Times at a time this was 201011 when he began when the online part was not considered that valuable. Its funny because ten years later it very valuable but at the time it was in a sort of ms significant part of the papers real estate. They gave us some space and it was all like virtual space. It didnt even matter if we could write fairly long pieces and harold contributed to the sears very meaningfully. I think we all kind of spurred each other on and some of the writers were very good tellers of stories and it would not put in that category but i was lifted up by their example and i liked how they were doing it. My friend Adam Goodhart who harold also knows was really writing beautifully in those early months and so i was just looking had a little bit and i noticed that make it at the train trip coming. February 1861 is when it happened so february 2011 is when i was was thinking about writing something. I pitched it to the editors of the times and they said go for it. So for 13 days in a row i wrote essays about what happened on that day. I just fell in love with the story. I had harolds look right at my desk dan and and i read the orl newspaper accounts, some of which i read on the website of the library of congress and it was an immersive experience. It was a kind of adventure and im not really found adventure in history until this project came along. Its a very vivid tale and i have to say i was surprised at your ability to tell the story with such suspense. I had not realized how dangerous the journey was. I hadnt realized there was indeed a very serious conspiracy. To try to perhaps prevent lincoln from actually getting to washington. It reads like a thriller at times. You really learn a lot of the history but its a very narrative driven. I wrote a very long manuscript that both of you could relate to this century both such good historians. I would have published it but fortunately had a really tough editor, alice who is been harolds editor, too, she jumped all of me and made me cut half of it, and if so glad she did. She died in february but i included a memorial page to her, and she was a great editor. She helped me to find that story. Really having a great editor helps so much. Coming back to harold. You actually have chapters devoted to any number of president s, not all of them. You had to pick and choose. For instance, you dont write about eisenhower or treatment. How did you pick out why did you pick the president that you picked to talk about the relationship with the press . Its not a perfect linear process. Like ted come in a World Without editors i mightve written a two volume book with the chapter for each of the president. Because there are things to say. But in the case, heres what i decided to do. For the 19th 18th and 19th centuries, i basically limited the chapters to those president s who had the most consequential impact, relationships between the presidency in the media, if i may call it that. So washington obviously because he sets the tone for everyone. Adams because he was as sound with the press as he was with his political enemies. And because the ultimately side and enforce a sedition law that made it possible for the federal government to consider criticism, attacks against the president of the United States unlawful and he prosecute those cases. The jefferson who stands out as kind of come as much a hypocrite in his pronouncements about the press versus his actions. So i thought it was a remarkable story. Hes one of the great apostles of the free press, famously sang if we had to choose between an effective Government Free press we should always choose the press. But in effect was quite manipulative, quite compensatory about critical journalists, and, in fact, while the opposing the sedition law he did so only because he didnt believe the federal government had many rise in terms of a law that superseded state law. He was also prosecuting the press at the state level for bible and is quite enthusiastic about that. And, of course, he commissioned journalist, mr. Callender, to write pro republican articles and then when he refused to reward calendar with a very small federal job, calendar turned on him and published the Sally Hemmings story that of course did more to haunt his reputation than anything. I chose the more consequential once, jackson because he important to list into his official family and made them speechwriters, advisers, Kitchen Cabinet members. Lincoln for obvious reasons. And i try to get almost all of the 20th century president s if i could. I left out exciting folks like coolidge and harding, and hoover, although hoover held quite a few press conferences. I just did like the fact they had to submit them in advance. Wilson intended press conferences. He invented widescale Administration Propaganda during world war i. Teddy roosevelt who preceded him was, invented the informal back at the white house interview while he was being shaved in the back of the white house. Then i included president s who revolutionize communications in the ability to bypass the press and to speak directly with the people by utilizing cutting edge technology. The most obvious ones and the ones that dealt with in detail for Franklin Roosevelt who used the radio so brilliantly, but also and less acknowledged he also used newsreels. He was the second or third feature at the movie in some of the most popular days of the movies. His first radio address as president elect was also a highlight in movies during the time when i am a fugitive from a chain gang was showing. Franklin roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and obama and maybe i should add trump. Which of those four president s do you think were most effective at manipulating the press . Roosevelt who befriended them ingeniously, who got them to ignore and not write about or photograph his disability. Through what began as a gentlemans agreement because journalists and photographers simply liked the guy and ended with unchallenged white house rules about taking informal photographs of roosevelt in his wheelchair, even taking unflattering photographs, so he was able to censor his administration was able to censor while he remained a good guy. He held 998 press conferences in his 12 years and six weeks as president , so he was remarkably transparent about the wheels of government and decision making, although many things were off the record, reporters were able to ask him to make them on the record, and he often did that. So i would say also, you know, in 30 something fireside chats, which were so such a pervasive part of the culture in the 30s and 40s, that remembered walking in chicago on a hot summer day, during a traffic jam, and hearing a continuous fireside chat from open car window to open car window without interruption. So roosevelt was everywhere, and i think he was a great genius of communication, being out there and yet being somewhat secretive successfully. Along the way, in your story, you talk about how the press in their coverage of lincoln, sort of 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 it is on the verge of what we know becomes the civil war. And lincoln is like he suddenly becomes flesh and blood, and the press does this, and can you describe how this happened . I agree. First of all, the curiosity about him was i would say larger than that that had followed any president on his way in to office. It was overwhelming. Lincoln had come almost out of nowhere, not quite nowhere because the Lincoln Douglas debates had raised his profile in illinois certainly and even in the east, and then with the Cooper Union Speech which harold has written about, his profile went up a little bit more but he was still outside shot of the nomination which he got in may, and i think if that that nominating convention had not happened in chicago, his chanceses would have been much less. He got it. When people realized he bought the established candidates William Seward especially. There was this curiosity, what does he look like and think . What does his home look like . Weekly newspapers in new york are beginning to include illustrations, and thats important. So lincoln is the kind of political celebrity, and that word was being used. It had been used in some other context in the 1850s, and then suddenly, the biggest celebrity that america has ever known is getting on a train to come to the capitol to take charge of a government that is falling apart, and all of these things, the fear, the excitement, the hope, and the criticism, he got all of it, and every newspaper in the story wanted to cover it, and there were tens of thousands of newspapers i mean, this was a very literate society, especially in the north and upper midwest, so if the train was bringing lincoln within any reasonable distance of a small newspaper or bigger newspaper, all the reporters were there watching it, as he came through, and there were a lot of wonderful physical descriptions of a guy who was unusual looking, not only for his height, but his face that changed its moods quickly, from a twinkle in the eye when he was about to tell a joke to a deep kind of melancholy expression, all within a few seconds and back, and all the strange ways in which he spoke. He spoke of western and somewhat southern accent. Hed mostly grown up in southern indiana, and he sounded like it, so to new york audiences, he sounds rustic, but hes capable of all these just as his face is capable of different expressions, his words were also. He could write something very seriously looking into the origins of the problem of slavery in the United States government. Thats the cooper union address. He could give funny speeches. He ran out of material. Hed written about one serious speech per day, and he had to give many more speeches than that, so he had to improvise, and there are moments when it is almost like standup comedy, where he is just there saying whatever he comes into his head. Hes a quick thinker, and the journalists convey that to a huge northern audience hanging op every word. Hanging on every word. Talk a little bit about the conspiracy. Again, this is not my period of history, but i was really shocked by how serious the conspiracy, and harold, you might jump in and i assume you have written a little bit about the early conspiracy too. I did write about the conspiracy in my book, and i thought i backed up the historical understanding of when lincoln and his aides might have become aware of it. Ted backed it up even further and really made some terrific discoveries about how why this trip was so dangerous, almost from the minute he left springfield, and he did a terrific job with that, so i just wanted to say that, ted, before you expound. Thank you. One thing, dont forget, you do write about this, dont forget hes also growing a beard on this trip. Great point. Great point, and thats a remarkable change in the way he looks. I mean, americans barely know him anyway, and then hes really changing dramatically the way his face looks. So a lot is happening, almost like hes girding himself for battle, which i think is or hiding himself from the danger. Right, yeah, right. But kai, the conspiracy has been known. I mean, theres a great book from the early 1950s, lincoln and the baltimore plot. The author used a lot of materials at the huntington library, but alan pinkerton, the famous railroad detective, founder of what becomes the secret service wrote multiple versions of all of this, and there were some controversies, other people in lincolns entourage also claimed that they knew different things, but it was known, even, you know, in the 1860s, it was known that hed passed through something very dangerous, but i was surprised as i looked more deeply into it that most people i talked to knew relatively little about him, and harold certainly knew everything about him, but it wasnt really in the general knowledge, and i found it somewhat uplifting because we all know the tragic end of lincolns presidency and of his life, but the nearness of his escape from death in 1861 allowed me to realize well, we got four years of an extremely consequential presidency, and if we hadnt gotten those four years, we might very well be two countries instead of one right now. Right. So harold, coming back to you, im curious, how was the Research Process different for this book than from your previous work . I mean, i see you interviewed newt gingrich, and you got bill clinton to i guess answer written questions. But i bet interviewing some of these famous reporters was a lot of fun too. Well, i think the obvious difference for me was that ive never written anything about living people before, at least not in a book. And so this opened new possibilities and was a little bit scary. I did ask several expresident s to discuss things, but the only one who 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 lehrer before he passed away, and jim, interestingly, bore no malice or anger about the fact that at one of the more famous interviews that president clinton gave, on the threshold of his, you know, exploding scandal over monica lewinsky, clinton did not tell the truth to jim lehrer, and lehrers conclusion was he was the greatest communicator hed ever seen in his entire career. So that made a difference. My research was certainly aided by the fact that modern president s have written extensively about their own presidencies and their own relationships to the press, and also in the oral histories of several administrations, the carter administration, the johnson administration, and the kennedy administration, are great tidbits from press secretaries and journalists, and the press conferences. I was able to attend all of president kennedys press conferences again, which, you know, was a throwback to my youth, when i used to run home from Junior High School because i knew that there was a kennedy press conference on in the afternoon. So that was fun to do, and all of johnsons press conferences, etc. , etc. , so totally different for me, different media too. I didnt just have to rely on print. There was also video. There was radio, fireside chats, for example. So i was excited about leaving the lincoln period, just as excited as ted was to enter it. It was very easy for me to go back to 1861 and read just about every newspaper in the country because of the chronicling america database that was co created by the library of congress. It is an unbelievable resource. You just drop immersively right in that moment and you see lincoln through the eyes of some reporter, like harold once was, incredibly exciting. Well, i was particularly interested in harolds chapter on jimmy carter because as you may know, im just finishing up a large biography of carter. And harold, youre very tough on him. Youre very tough on his handling of the press. Yeah, i think at one point you said he didnt like reporters. Most president s find them annoying and dont like them. Yes. But also i think carter had a particularly difficult time coming in the right after the postwatergate era, where i can remember the young reporter myself, you know, we all wanted to be woodward and bernstein, we all wanted to unearth some scandal, and so carter sort of was in the brunt of that, and he had these it was also the birth of the style section of the Washington Post under ben bradley and his soon to be wife sally quinn. And sally sort of invented the style section i got ya profile, which in which she nearly made fun of poor jimmy carter, particularly for his southern culture, and so, you know, i was rather sympathetic to your portrait of him. Right. I think he started off on a high. He got the most famous journalist in the United StatesWalter Cronkite to do an exclusive radio interview with him in the white house, but he made a series of miscalculations, i think, even in his greatest moments, not bringing the press, the American Press into more into the camp david story as it was playing out. Although the Israeli Press had enormous access to the story as i discovered to my surprise. Also doing some stunts that were probably illadvised, his retreat to rethink his administration, his cardigan sweater, so called malaise talk which it just didnt work. But also, i go back to the staff level. Hamilton you spoke about the Washington Post. Hamilton jordon and jody powell specifically snubbed martha graham, declining invitations, refusing to return phone calls. That cant be a really good idea for an administration thats supposed to be transparent and a breath of fresh air. It doesnt include icing out the most powerful publisher in washington. So i think he tripped on his own good intentions in many ways, but if you look back at his conclusions about the press, he was he believed that the press negativity and cynicism was the worst obstacle he faced in his presidency. So coming back to ted, were going to wrap this up pretty soon. Ted, you quote john adams at one point saying democracy never lasts, never lasts long. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. And thats a really rather dour statement. Rather dire statement. I can understand, you know, quoting it in a book about lincoln coming to washington on the verge of a civil war, but what is your feeling about our current democracy today, having written this book . I love that adams quote. When i found it, i had seen a few journalists use it in recent months. I just think were all very worried about where this country is going. Were worried on both sides of the aisle. And i dont want to be too partisan in a public event of history, but even though i agree completely with harold about the significance of president trumps discovery of twitter 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 very quick to blame others and very slow to accept responsibility and very hesitant to accept the moral authority of the position of the president of the United States, a job in which you are trying to better the lives of fellow citizens, lift up the idea of what america stands for, to the world, which is a moral idea. Its not just that were a powerful country. Were trying to stand for a better way of treating each other, and all of those ideas are really feeble at the present moment, and i think we need a profound societal change, and im not sure where it will come from. Im not sure if it will come from either party at the moment, but we need to treat each other better. I think we need to get off our social media and talk over backyard fences, if people have them, and try to remember the better america that existed not too many generations ago. I think we have to end this. We have been speaking with ted whitmer and Harold Holzer. Their books are the president s versus the press and teds is lincoln on the verge. They are two very terrific books, well told narrative history, and i urge all readers to go out and find them in a bookstore or online and obtain copies. Thank you for being part of the National Book festival. And thank you for listening. We can nights this month, were featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 2. Our topic is science tuesday night. Research seismologist provides a dual biography of a geologist and scientist and their early studies of earthquake activity in southern california. And then Space Shuttle endeavor pilot gives an inside look at space travel and exploration. And later, author and producer to pro vids a followup to her late husbands study of space. It all begins at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan 2. Election day is here, november 3rd. 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