Good evening. Welcome to mt. Vernon. My name is kevin butterfield. And it is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight on behalf of the Mount Vernons lady associations and Ford Motor Company which sponsors a free monthly book talk to learn from the greatest historians. Thank you for being here tonight. Were thrilled to have you. To begin the Program Shortly well hear a brief presentation from susan swain, copresident and executive officer of cspan and coauthors of the president s. Shell be joined by brian lamb, the founder and executive chairman of cspan and moderating and esteemed group of historians in discussing the american presidency. The american presidency is as you know a fascinating subject of inquiry in every possible way. In the constitution, theres not as much said about it as you might imagine. Article i is quite long, ii much shorter and the key phrase is about as short as you can imagine. The executive power should be vested in a president of the United States of america. Full stop. Thats the first sentence and the key phrase in the second article of the constitution which describes the presidency. Much of what we know today as the american presidency has come from experience, from precedent, from action and we are thrilled to have an opportunity to learn about that experience, that action. Tonight, from a group of wonderful historians that i would like to tell you about tonight, joining mr. Lamb and ms. William well be joined by dr. Brinkley and edna greene medford. Dr. Brinkley is a president ial historian for cnn and an author of a book im excited about, american moonshot, john f. Kennedy and the great space race. Also on the panel, dr. Medford, president of history, dean at Howard University. Shes the author of of lincoln and emancipation. Richard norton smith, a historian, the author of a wonderful book on George Washington called patriarch and hes served as the director of five different president ial libraries. Tonight these individuals will discuss their new book, the president s noted historians on the lives and the leadership of the best and the worst chief executives. Please join me in welcoming them tonight. [ applause ] are we supposed okay. Good evening, everybody. Nice to see you. Thank you very much, kevin butterfield. I cant think of a more appropriate place to talk about president ial leadership than mt. Vernon. Brian and i talked about this book about a year and a half ago. Our motivation was cspans 40th anniversary but what a week we picked for this book to come out on president ial leadership. Terrific time for us to be hearing from historians to get their perspectives on what makes a good chief executive for this country and also to put some Current Events into some context. We hope to do that tonight. And putting this book together, brian and i have worked on nine of these which are collected works of his interviews and this one we decided to actually bring two resources in to play. First of all, brian has been doing the sunday night Interview Program for 30 years now and we have an archive thats full of his interviews. In fact, the odometer on our archives is about to hit 250,000 hours later on this month. Not all brians, but [ applause ] but among the people that brian had interviewed are these three people who have become great friends of ours over the past quarter century and some of the countrys leading contemporary president ial historians. In addition to having this vast archive of this collected works, about 20 years ago in fact, exactly 20 years ago in 1999 we had done this year long project which each of these three folks who are involved in american president s life portraits. I have some cspan colleagues who are nodding thinking about what a big job this was. We took it upon ourselves to go to a live on location, associated with every president and do a twohour live program on their lives. Almost killed us, but we made it through. At the end of it, we thought we need to put a capper on it. So we talked to the three of them and decided to do a survey of historians and take all of this biographical material that is more anecdotal in nature and try to put data and Science Behind it. So we gathered them together along with from Robert Browning the head of archives, president John Spillane and we got into a wonderful debate you would have all loved to have been there about what should the ten qualities of leadership be and in order to do a survey of 100 president ial historians. So the idea for this book was actually to merge the survey work that we have done three times now of the president ial historians with the collected content of president ial biographers. So the book that youre going to learn more about tonight is actually organized not chronological chronologically, but where they fell in the survey. Youre going through a continuum from the very best to the very worst rated leaders in our country. And you learn more about some of the characteristics and qualities that perhaps put them in that ranking. So let me tell you about the ten qualities that we finally agreed on. The first is public persuasion. The second, crisis leadership and that can come in all sorts of forms and the third, Economic Management. The fourth quality was moral authority. The fifth, international relations, which includes not only diplomacy but also war. The next administrative skills which includes the assembling of a cabinet and the advisers around you. The next is the relations with congress. You can have that and still not a program done. This one reminds of george hw bush, setting an agenda. The next one, pursued equal justice for all and the tenth was the performance within the context of their times. So what we did was send a survey out to 100 historians and we worked very hard to get people of different demographics and people of different political points on the spectrum. So that we could represent lots of different points of view. And this survey is now the first one was so successful that we now do it the president leaves office. So to answer your question, President Trump has not been rated and we will not formally rate him until he leaves office, but certainly it does engender a lot of conversation about the current occupant of the office. So im going to give you a quick overview on the best and the worst and who moved the most so you have some context. So lets look at the top five. First of all, in fifth place from the top, William Hitchcock is the biographer but the historians rated eisenhower in fifth place and he has moved a bit, which maybe speaks to the hidden hand theory thats developing about his presidency. His lowest score is in public persuasion. The next is number fourth place is tr and we have our tr biographer and we chose his wonderful biography called wilderness warrior and well learn more from David Brinkley about why he chose that agenda to focus on. He scored very well but his lowest score was 11th in equal justice pursuing equal justice for all. In third place, Franklin Delano roosevelt. In our book we chose Doris Kearns Goodwins terrific biography on the white house years when they had all of those interesting people including churchill living on the second floor of the white house to help him get through the war years. His lowest scores, number fifth in Economic Management. And eighth which theyre both high scores and pursuing equal justice for all. The next, here we are his home in second place was George Washington, scoring ones and twos by the historians but his single lowest score and im sure the folks in mt. Vernon have been working so hard to help us all understand this, 13 in equal justice for all. And the top winner in not only our survey, but in every survey ever done of president s really is Abraham Lincoln. The top score was 1,000, he won 907 among the historians and he had a terrific rating on every single one and except for relations with congress where he scored a 9. Okay. So who are the bottom five, at the other end of the spectrum . John tyler is at number 39. Tide water, virginia, native. Our historian did argue he has some redeeming qualities so i invite you to read that chapter. The man who ended up not having a party, but he did manage to establish the president ial succession because it wasnt written into the constitution. Okay. You wont be surprised at in number 40, Warren Harding. He scored 360 points out of 1,000. We know so much about the scandals that plagued his presidency. Youll be interested to know the biographer is john dean, yes, that john dean of water gate fame. Actually, he uncovered papers of Warren Harding that were previously unknown to biographers and he argues he deserves better in the place than the historians have given him. Its up to you to decide. Next, franklin pierce. New hampshires only president. 41st place. The kansas, nebraska, enacted him in and he had a drinking problem. If you have known anything about him, he came in with a tremendous tragedy. He had lost two sons and the third one died in front of his wife and himself as their train capsized on their way to washington. He carried his sons dead body up from the accident. His wife really had a very hard time recovering from that and spent much of the first couple of years in the white house on the second floor in the residents writing letters to her dead son. Very tragic song and in pieces case he had a hard time understanding and assembling the cabinet. Next up, Andrew Johnson, 42nd place. David stewart is the biographer we chose for him. The tennessee governor who was loyal to the union, but of course impeached by the republicans using the tenure of office act. Okay, guess who is dead last . James buchanan. Im a pennsylvanian so this hurts a little bit. I love the biographer that we chose for this chapter, named robert strauss. A fun book its called worst period, president period. How bad is he . Hes 30 points below johnson. And all of these people this is something to think about. This is a Point Richard made. All of them are below William Harry harrison who was in office for a month. So lets just take a quick look at how the modern president s fared. Ronald reagan was the only one that made it into the top ten. Lou cannon who covered him as a journalist in california is the chapter that we did. He had a lot to say about reagans command of storytelling as he was in the office. Next, george h. W. Bush, in 20th place. Interesting to see what happens to him now that hes passed, now that more records are available and theres a bit of a halo effect once they leave office. Interestingly hes book ended by the two adams president s. Bill clinton came in at 15. We had david maraniss, really the biography of the chapter. The Washington Post reporter, youre familiar with his work, he writes about bill clintons duality. He could be both good and bad at the same time and that kind of impacted everything that happened throughout his public career. Okay. How about george w. . Just out of the bottom ten i have to tell you. He has his highest score was actually he pursued equal justice for all. Again, thats his first entry into it so it will be interesting to see as time progresses how he will do, but hes got some difficult problems to overcome. Hurricane katrina, the economic crisis and certainly the ongoing wars. So well be seeing what the historians have to see as a little more time goes by. Then how did our most recent president do, barack obama . The historians rated him at number 12. A pretty good showing for a first entry. He got 24th in international relations. And 39th in relations with congress. So i found it was really interesting to look at the scores. What youre hoping that youre going to do to see what the biographers had to say. This is kind of fun, whos up, whos down. All right, Andrew Jackson, which way do you think he went . Down. He in fact went over the course of the surveys from 13th place down to 18th. Woodrow wilson, down. Sixth to 11th. And you folks are going the have to explain this to me, because i have a soft spot in my heart for rutherford b. Hayes. He dropped six points over the survey, from 26th to 32nd spot. And grover cleveland, our only twoterm nonconsecutive president went from number 17 in the survey to 23. So who are the ones that went up . Well, dwight eisenhower. Made it from number nine into the top five. Bill clinton, i told you that he was in the number 15th position but when he first came into the survey he was in 21st. That was in 1999 right after the impeachment process. He moved to 15th by the second time we did it and there he stays in our 2017 survey. And finally, u. S. Grant. Youre a specialist on this, edna, you have to help me understand this one. Grant is the president who changed the most going up 11 points over the course of our three surveys. Id love to hear your perspective on why historians are looking more favorably upon him. Thats an overview and now you have three fabulous historians who have been so much a part of cspans programming over the years who are going to add some context to that. Thanks for your attention. [ applause ] this book is what it is because of susans fabulous editing capability and thank you, susan, for this presentation. [ applause ] Richard Norton smith comes to us today from grand rapids. Doug brinkley from austin, texas and edna medford from Howard University and i would like to ask doug because lincoln is never one, he just got back from the Lincoln Library and in springfield and richard owned it for us all. What was that, 2006 . Yeah. Started off with what did you find there . Why do we think that everybody should go . Everybody should go to visit springfie springfield, illinois, if you can. But hes always number one, lincoln, as susan pointed out, largely because, you know, no matter how bad other president s think they had it, lincoln had it worse. The fact of the matter was he wasnt on seventh states on the ballot to vote for him in 1860. He comes to washington, d. C. Essentially having to have a body double. The executive mansion it wasnt called the white house till roosevelt dubbed it that. So they had very lax security. People could graze animals on the front lawn and lincoln is sitting there so vulnerable. I flew in today from austin and landed in Dulles Airport which is very, very close to the battle of bull run where the confederates won the first battle of bull run and theres Abraham Lincoln sitting in the white house with half the country putting up confederate flags and trying to find a way to keep america cobbled together. He did it in a miraculous way. Im always amazed we were able to hold an election in 1864 and lincolns able to get reelected. But when you think about it, the gettysburg address, lincolns first and second inaugurals are foundational text. Meaning theyre like the declaration of independence, and we arent a full nation without addressing lincolns accomplishment and of course the emancipation proclamation that the original sin of the United States is slavery and lincoln leads the abolitionists crusade from the white house into the and put america on a new and a better course. And then finally, the assassination. John wilkes booth, school kids go to fords theatre and you stu dit. But you realize that when lincolns body originally moved back to springfield, buried there in springfield, the train ride with his casket went across the country at the same moment that the soldiers were laying down their arms and coming home as a kind of homecoming. So lincoln is kind of in a category unto his own. And if you want to also if youre a book lover go to the lincoln book shop, that sells nothing but books about lincoln. All scholars want to write a book about lincoln, i never have, but if i could id write about him going two trips down the mississippi river. Lets pickn c up from what sn asked about u. S. Grant and you can throw in your comments on mr. Lincoln if youd like, but can you explain why general grant has done so well in the survey . I think every generation decides how theyre going to rate and interpret president s and at this time in our history, things that really matter to us are integrity. I know this is a scandal filled administration supposedly. He has surrounded himself with some people that are not always behaving properly, but he always did. I dont think theres any real criticism of him personally, but its also about the fact that during the reconstruction period, hes trying to make sure that the violence thats developing especially in the south is quelled and so hes willing to enforce those enforcement acts against the klan. I think from todays sensibilities, we really recognize how important that was. So i think thats one of the major things with him. We asked each historian if theyd write a special piece for this book and they have one of the chapters from one of the president s. Richard norton smith writes the opening chapter and he calls it the magnificent lion. Would you like to explain that, sir . Along with arthur schlesinger, there was a preeminent Political Science named Clinton Roz Aer the. In 1951, he wrote an essay on the presidency in which he described the president as a kind of magnificent lion who was more or less free to roam around the reservation at will as long as it was it did not egregiously offend congress or the public. That was an essay written in the shadow of president s who were very assertive. Who were some would say imaginative in interpreting the range of executive power but also they had governed in times of crisis. I mean, any reader of this book is going to take away is just how evolutionary an office the presidency is. One of the real challenges that confronts anyone ranking the president , for example, we all agree that Economic Management in the modern context is a determining factor. In the 19th century president s were not expected in any way. James monroe presided over the first Great Depression in history and he was reelected with all but one electoral vote. 100 years later, Herbert Hoover became indelibly personally associated with the Great Depression. In a way that obviously that made the second term impossible. What he changed, the nature of government. During that century beginning with lincoln and certainly with tr, the notion of what the federal government was responsible for, and tr in particular, the bully pulpit, the idea that the Administrative Office had become part of the moral advocacy. Conservation. Protecting consumers against tainted meat and then Woodrow Wilson and the concentration of power during the war. And even by the time that hoover became president , people expected vastly more from the federal government. So how do you weigh apples and oranges, monroes performance as president and hoovers performance . Thats one of the eternal what ifs that i think anyone who plays this game has to grapple with. And luckily, james monroe everybody in the audience would know the Monroe Doctrine which is, you know, a great tribute. What do you have hoovervilles. So sometimes people only remember a couple things about a president and so monroe got the was the beneficiary to being part of the virginia dynasty and having that great connection with washington and the other founders. I think, first of all, you all ought to know there will be some cards on the sides. If those of you who want to ask questions well go that before too long. There will be a 90minute evening being together. So we have some time. But id like to go back and ask why the three of you have devoted your life to history and to the study of president s . Ill start with edna. Mines a long story. Ill try to make it short. So so is history. Absolutely. Absolutely. I grew up in charles city county, virginia, the birth place of john tyler. Okay . And it was a county that was 82 africanamerican when i was glowing up. And i noticed that we didnt really have a lot of authority over the county. We could vote but that was about all we could do and as a child i wondered where i fit in to all of that. And so when i went off to college, i decided that well, actually let me be honest. I started as a biology major and realized that i didnt want to spend the rest of my life in a lab so i switched to history because it was something that i truly loved. But i think just growing up in that kind of environment and not knowing where i fit into the history is what really propelled me into that and in terms of the lincoln scholarship because i sort of front as a president ial historian. Im really not. I mean, i studied lincoln, but i dont study all of the president s like these two gentlemen do. But i think i became very interested in lincoln because of cspan actually. Because of your filming of the reenactment of the Lincoln Douglas debates and that was when i started to become very much interested in president ial history in general and Abraham Lincoln specifically. Mr. Smith, your story. Well, its rather bizarre. Its nowhere near as inspiring as yours. I was a very strange child. Some would say that was a preview of coming attractions, but i was 7 years old on a in 1960. Watching as returns came in and i was that rarity of masochist republican and its rarer now than it is then. I was given a book about lincoln and obviously played to a preexisting interest. Three years later in 1964, that author, no relationship, jean smith published a book about the last years of Woodrow Wilson. And whenever you think of whatever you think of Woodrow Wilson and i know hes slipped a few notches you ought to read this because it humanizes wilson which he wasnt very good at himself. And its ask its a model of smart, scholarly, readable president ial history. In any event, it just so i have been among other things a life long wilsonian, but also someone drawn particularly to the biographical aspect of the presidency. Im not a political scientist. There are a lot of different ways of approaching president ial performance but as a biographer i find every single one of these men maybe more interesting than most people do. And we have to say, you know, even poor James Buchanan the way that David Herbert donald, a Great Lincoln scholar, told about when he went to the Kennedy White house and jfk was obviously he was not happy with some of the days News Coverage and he said to davis, he to david, nobody, nobody should pass judgment on a president , not even poor old James Buchanan who has not sat at this desk and looked at the papers that came across. I think there was a special pleading there and theres only so much you can do for James Buchanan, but its true. The study of every single president is useful and i think will deepen your understanding of appreciation of American History and of this flawed but immensely admirable experiment on which we are embarked. We cant leave you without telling the story of the trips you used to take with your parents as a young man. Well, the Station Wagon from hell as i [ laughter ] people dont do this anymore. There arent Station Wagons, t but well, i must have been about 8. I told you, i was the polite word is precocious. But anyway, i had four long suffering siblings and we used to a month every summer, we would get in the Station Wagon and do a section of the country. The deep south, the midwest, you know . It was guess who got to set the itinerary, so it was all organized around president ial grave sites and civil war battle fields and we found out wilke was buried in indiana so we had to pay our respects, that sort of thing. The only concession that was made to the others was, you know, they got a Swimming Pool in the evening, you know . And that was a form of study. I mean, there is no excuse i mean, nothing quite like being there. I dont know can how you know . How you feel, but, you know, Andrew Jackson who is not on my pit parade of president s, nevertheless, go to the hermitage and youll about way which a much more vivid sense of who he was including his limitations. How did you get into this . Well, i was born into atlanta, georgia and my mom and dad would go to calloway gardens and near the gardens was the little white house of fdr, a state park. I couldnt believe that the president had lived in such a small Little Cottage house and that he had there he died while somebody was waiting his portrait. Only half done. And that the pools there that i saw and i understood polio not being able to walk and he actually considered himself, you know, handicapped but yet he never acted that way. Then we move to ohio and i lived not just down the road from fremont, ohio, where you have rutherford b. Hayes home, but we claimed seven president s. Grant being born down in north bend in ohio. So we just you know, that was a great bit of pride that ohio produced that many president s and like what rich was saying, so my parents my mom was a teacher in high school and well take our car, a Station Wagon, actually, and including 24foot coachman trailer and go all over the country and visiting president ial sites, Civil War Battlefields and parks. So i have photos of president s i visited here in mt. Vernon when i was very young. So i got into it and when i was going into college at the university of ohio, id read biographies of great people and i think they matter. And edna was mentioning grant, well ron chernow wrote of his success with hamilton so there became a new wave of people talking about reassessing grant. My friend rutherford b. Hayes hasnt had that biography and grant, when president obama liked to say im a writer, he was a bestselling writer and is writing his memoir now, he would look at all of the other president ial writings and the one that stood out which is grants memoir which he wrote with the help of mark twain. Its not about his presidency, but nevertheless an enduring book that kind of live on forever. So the stocks of the president s rise and fall. I once was director of eisenhower center. We thought that ike was going to go up, up, up because fiscal conservatives like him and liberals like him because the industrial military complex speech and brown decision with errol warren and the fact of his amiable, i like ike. Its an astounding rise for him to be fifth, you know . It was Truman Holding that fifth spot and seeing eisenhower come very straight up and part of it is also because we have a new appreciation of ike as a person being the supreme allied commander in world war ii. Dday, just as grant was president but he was the great general of the civil war. So while we were talking about lincoln, its id like to hear your thoughts on why it is that Abraham Lincoln at number one is book ended by the two worst. Is that a circumstance of history, character . What contributed to that distinction between those three men . I think that we tend to judge these president s based on how they dealt with adversity. So there has to be something extraordinary thats happening during their administration. And with lincoln, it doesnt get any more extraordinary than the civil war. This is a man who could have done what buchanan did and simply sat there as the country was falling apart. He chose not to do that. He came into office and decided that he was not going to allow the south to secede without challenging that. So we judge him much higher than we would someone who just decided to leave it alone and sort of let things take their course. It really does matter how one responds. Its got to be a person who is decisive. A person who is determined, someone who can communicate well, who can set a vision and pursue it and persuade people that this is the right way to go. I think lincoln more than any other president was able to do that. Richard . Well, you know, the oldest is it the times or is it the man . You know . And in this context, lincoln could not have been the greatest president if his immediate predecessors had not been among the worst president s. Yeah. Now, on the other hand, lincoln the sainted lincoln can be criticized because for rank politics he decided to broaden his political appeal in 1864 and put a war democrat they renamed the Republican Party the union party and they picked a man named Andrew Johnson who certainly did not lack for courage. He was the only southern senator who had not left at the time that the state seceded as a war time governor of tennessee, he certainly defended the union. But he arguably turned out to be after the best president you can make a case for him as the worst president. In so many ways hes the unlincoln. Here are two men who both who were reared amidst incredible hardship and who both overcame that in their own way. Economically. But Andrew Johnson is defined by his resentments. His childhood inflicted psychic wounds on him, resentments against aristocrats, but also against blacks. All you need to know is one word. We talk about reconstruction. Andrew johnson preferred to use the word restoration. The civil war is not thought to restore the prewar status quo. Lincoln was radical enough. Lincoln outgrew the racist society that elected him. You never want the word impeachment swirl about you if youre president and you saw that impeachment had hurt bill clinton but hes kind of he was able to shake it off a little bit. As we went on further polls but Andrew Johnson always has the big eye on him. But yet, he tried to redeem himself, he ran for the senate and he actually became a u. S. Senator from tennessee after he was president to try to build himself back into good graces. But, you know, an argument could be made for George Washington to being number one. Im playing to my home audience here. But you know, we see that how low marks washington got because of slavery and because of the time he was in, its hard to issue on that ranking to be rated high when so it brings your number down. Lincoln being a child of illinois, never having slaves. That brings his number up quite a bit. But the one thing i mean, i dont think there is a presidency without George Washington, with because you know its important not just stock a onetermer. Its a new category when George Herbert walker bush died, people said hes the best one term president and polk was ranked high. Its a good sign to be reelected. Like richard talked about james monroe. Well, he did get reelected so hes a twotermer Herbert Hoover did not and it can make a difference. But with washington, you know, the big thing he did was step down to say i dont want to hold power. Theres something more powerful than being president and thats being an american citizen and coming back here to mt. Vernon and allowing democracy to take root and thats an irreplaceable quality that washington had. He set the tone and tenor of what it meant to be president. Lincolns become the favorite of all recent president s. Barack obama launched his campaign from spring field. Its all about Abraham Lincoln and the team of rivals. George w. Bush will tell you my favorite president is lincoln. All he does is read lincoln books. Nixon during the height of watergate hed drink gin and talk to the lincoln portrait in the white house. And in the love of Charles Darwin and the great science president s, only a cult experience was encountering the ghost of lincoln wandering from the white house. He has a real cast on the imagination, lincoln, because the civil war in the end is the crucible time in our countrys history. But really, washington could be tied with lincoln. Those are the big two. Briefly, to what extent though does his assassination really factor into his popularity . Because he was assassinated, he didnt have that opportunity during the second term to make mistakes. And so what would have happened had he lived, would we think of him in the same way . Let me go to people that are here in the audience and also watching at home. Maybe some young people. What would you advise them to do if they get interested in history . I know it sounds simple, but we at cspan have we wouldnt be doing history if it wasnt for these terrific historians, 44 in this book. And over the years all the interviews they had given us, but what would you advice a younger person to do or as a matter of fact, somebody thats not so young if they want to get started in all of this . Other than come and talk to me . Enter my class . I would tell them to read, read, read. Read everything. Not just the kinds of history that youre personally interested in, but all history. If i live long enough, some day, im going to write the book because im fascinated [ indiscernible ]. But its got to be beyond just the president. Now what youre interested in at the moment. You need to look broadly at history. So i would tell them first and foremost, do that. And also dont necessarily start with the historians. Dont start with the secondary sources. Look at the primary sources thats what will really get you excited. Because you get to interpret what happened in the past. Youre not looking through the eyes of someone else whos bringing certain baggage to the table. You get to interpret, so look at those primary sources first. Doug . Well, i would in addition to all that, major in history in college. Its a great major. Having a humanities education is tremendous. A lot of people are worried about jobs, what am i going to do with a history degree . If you love history, get as in college and then its a spring board for other fields. You go into Public Service or government, you could go to the masters doctorater or go into business. Its a fine undergraduate major and then youll have history with you for the rest of your life. But you dont have to go to history to to go to college. Harry truman never went to college and hes one of the most wellread president s on American History we know of. He would read books and biographies all the time, getting back to your read, read, point. But im just picking u. S. History, it applies to the globe. If you can afford it and get out there, go see places. Come do mt. Vernon. Tour the museums. Theyre always changing the displays at historical sites, get engaged with the local history site and whether its a fort, whether its a cemetery, whether its the home of somebody, become a friend of one of those historical sites so you could thats in your neighborhood or, you know, county or whatever. And so you can start feeling like you can learn from experts and share your ideas with people. Richard, would you tell us where you are at this moment and your research and your writing on gerald r. Ford . Well, the research and writing are different places. Writing, i just finished a chapter on the pardon which was the longest chapter. It took me an obscene amount of time because i kept rewriting it. I have a lot of new material. I have written 600 pages thus far and i have 400 to go. So i think i have about another year and a half or so and the book will appear in 2021. Why should we care about a biography on gerald r. Ford . Thats a fair question. One, ford hes rather like Ronald Reagan in some ways made a career very shrewdly on his part of being underestimated. You know, to most people hes for example, historically hes kind of the coda to the nixon administration. An accident of history who is kind of put there to finish up whatever he could finish and i discovered that his presidency is much more about the future than about completing a nixonian agenda. For example, economic deregulation, its something that we take for granted. Maybe we argue about it. If we have to fly anywhere these days. But nevertheless, its part of our lives. It started under ford. Because ford ford asked the question, do we need an interstate Commerce Commission in 1974, and that led to other questions being asked and ultimately they deregulated the Financial Services and they tried to deregulate the airline. Its interesting because jimmy carter picked it up and he became a bipartisan and then a global Margaret Thatcher gave it a new name, and theres the bottom line is theres a lot of unknown History Associated with the ford presidency. And the nice thing is it turns out to be, he turns out to be a much more interesting, much more complicated person, and i thought i knew him pretty well. And ive learned a lot of things. And ive learned some things i suspect he did not know about himself. By the way, tomorrow morning if youre watching this live, at 9 00 these three folks will be on our cspan callin show to take calls from the audience at large, but susans got some questions. We can stay here for a while. Ive got some great ones. John just asked about kennedy and nixon, the two seminole president s in my lifetime. How do you rank them and why . I rank john f. Kennedy quite high. And i say that after really understanding his incredible leadership. When he came in, the youngest elected president ever, that idea of Public Service thats put in his inaugural, and that he created the peace corps and the s. E. A. L. S and the green beret. And he was trying to inspire young people to for to work in government, but also his interest in science. You know, in 1960, scientists were chosen as times people of the year and science was in the air. So john f. Kennedy said not lets just go to the moon by the end of the decade, and we did it with our Apollo Program under nasa. You had six several mercury astronauts with john f. Kennedy. But he was starting to pursue ocean, mapping of our ocean floors and embraced people like Rachel Carsons 1962 silent spring, which gave birth to the modern environmental movement, and did a lot of the right moves with civil rights at the time of the freedom rides and the assassination of medger evers. Late 72, nixon just beat mcgovern in the biggest landslide in American History and on tape you can hear nixon saying, somebodys got to do a book about 192,72, i am the bes president ever. I just won the biggest landslide. I did the breakthrough to china. He went on all the things he did. The next month watergate is hounding him and his reputations been destroyed by the combination of those tapes with antisemitic slurs and the watergate fiasco. So nixon hasnt been able to strategic track you wont see him ranked so high. The tapes killed his presidency because they were the joking gun and they also are hurting him from rising into history. Whereas kennedy because of the assassination in dallas will always be the great young man, you know, gunned down in his prime. Were never going to see an old john f. Kennedy. Hes in our mind fixed in his prime. Like edna was mentioning with the lincoln assassination and the drama of all of that. What if kennedy had lived . Would we have gone into vietnam . What would our country have been . So there is almost a mythological underpinning to both lincoln and kennedy because of those untimely and ugly premature deaths. Lets go to richard and come back to ed. You know, its interesting, we talk about overexposure. It started in 1960. You know, its not his fault. John f. Kennedy was a Brilliant Television performer. He was arguably the first celebrity in chief. And in some ways he was so skillful, for example, look at the press conferences. He was so good that he set the bar terribly high, and very few of his predecessors could match it. But what he also, you know, unleashed was televisions preoccupation with the presidency. The footnote to that, to get to nixon, we think of jfk as the First Television president , but it was nixon with the checkers speech in 1952 who had this instinctive im not even sure he understood at the time the enormous power of that medium, young, untested. To move people. Overnight Richard Nixon became something Richard Nixons a unique Vice President in that he had a personal following. Because of that speech there were millions of people who before he ever talked about the silent majority, those were the people he was appealing to in 1952. And in effect, he took the decision out of ikes hands about staying on the ticket, which was pretty shrewd. And then later, Richard Nixon Ronald Reagan could in the early 80s, but nixon very skillfully used television in the white house, for example, at the time of the vietnam demonstrations in washington and the Senate Majority speech. Richard nixon was one of the last president s who could assure himself with a phone call that he would have 70 Million People that night sitting in front of you can all remember, an oval Office President ial address was a unifying event. And the only counter to it was, you know offering instant analysis on, you know, cbs. Today we dont see many oval office addresses. When we do, before the president finishes the first sentence there are 20 Million People out there who are selfappointed twittering their own instant analysis. And isnt that terrific for free speech . Its not good for the presidency. Thats more important. Ed, what do you say about nixon and kennedy . Kennedy as certainly more beloved. In my household when i was growing up, the only people whose images on the wall were the kennedys, jacqui and john. Everybody else were relatives, okay . My father was a republican. Dont tell anyone. Became a democrat when kennedy ran for office. But he still had a certain admiration for nixon. He felt that he was a great president until watergate. And he never changed his democratic affiliation after going with kennedy, but he certainly did have a certain kind of appealing for nixon. I find nixon to be much more interesting than kennedy. Because nixon was so flawed. Your book really spells that out. Comes out loud and clear. This is a man who was very insecure, who probably would have liked to have done the right thing but just couldnt because it was just in his background or whatever. But i think that we can identify more with nixon in terms of his flaws than we can with kennedy, who was supposedly perfect. And we now know he was not. I want to make sure you all know that in the 44 chapters in this book there is a different authorize, a different historian writing each one of them. Plus, we have a website set up for a generalist like me reading this book and interviewing these authors, constantly being told things i had no idea about. It sent me to research, the primary sources as you say. We tried to reflect that in our website. Those of you who just want to get on the wecht absite and fin the background on that, you can. The lightning round. Robin s. Wants to know which president was the best writer . I liked theodore roosevelt. I loved t. R. Wrote over 35 box, 150,000 letters and his writings about americas outdoor scenic wonders are just remarkable. He was an avid reader, also. Spoke foreign languages. He may not be quite the intellectual of thomas jefferson, who was also a fine writer, but i put t. R. At the very top. Id say lincoln. Because in a utilitarian way. Lincoln is the original great communicator and he, you know, there were no Public Opinion polls. You know, he was sort of flying by the seat of his pants and what exposure that he had to people, which he went out of his way even in the war time to make sure it was possible. But if you look at the second inaugural address, i would argue its the greatest lay sermon in American History. Absolutely. And i also think maybe the second greatest speech by a president actually is wilsons war speech in april, 1917. When wilson, who had been very, very reluctant to take america into the war, finally decided he had no choice. And once he decided that, he instantly became a crusader. Its just an extraordinary speech. I recommend everybody take a look at it. I have to agree lincoln, hands down. Because of the second inaugural dress. But his publicprivate letters to his friend and to the public and allies were really extraordinary as well. He said so much in those letters to them. And he meant them to be public. He may have been doing this privately, but he knew that they would come out. So i think that theres no other president that was able to communicate as well as he was, if he was able to, just with the word. Its just extraordinary. Sometimes very complex but still very extraordinary. At the front of our book is a picture of peter drummy, who is at the massachusetts historical society, and i took this picture so im very proud of this. It is peter drummy looking looking closely at the John Quincy Adams diary, those of you who have never seen it, it is an incredible thing. Thats the front of your book. Susan. This is from paul brandis in the audience. We know from our work at cspan hes been a White House Reporter for seven years. Hes distressed with the attacks on the press that are happening right now, and writes i fear the anger and stress will endure long after the trump administration. How do we restore trust . One thing that is clear, every president has had a problem with the press. You can find it chapter after chapter. Edna, you talked about that in the podcast we did how these are not new things were going through. Mmhmm. What is the relationship with the press worse than it has been at any point in history . Well, i think the problem is that when we when we deal with alternative fact, when we deal with enemy of the people, when we use terms like that, it does erode trust in a near sacred american institution. And so although weve had those issues in the past with president s and the press, i dont think its been quite the way it is now. Americans have learned to distrust what theyre reading, and thats not necessarily a bad thing. But when you believe that the press is out to get someone because thats what you hear all of the time, that becomes problematic, and i dont know that were ever going to get back to that point where the American People actually believe that the press is working for them as opposed to against them. What about the sedition . I was just going to say about nixon, not just enemies of the people, but had enemies lists, right, of reporters he wanted to put away and do away with, yet reporters got nixon in the end. I dont find when you read this book and president ial history, its usually smart to constantly be warring with the press. Most president s dont like journalism. Meaning, in the sense they dont like the stories being written about him. Jack kenny, who wanted to be a journalist, was one for first newspapers, he wanted to get rid of David Halberstam writing for the new york times. Reagan floated above it. He didnt read you cant read all of the press or listen to cable news and every bad thing and respond to it because you start getting hatred in you and starting going after reporters by name and trying to dehumanize them. Im afraid nixon and trump both do that, which puts them on a bottom ranking on how they are with press relations. Theodore roosevelt would just invite you into the room. T. R. s trick was to tell every reporter how great their recent article was. The best article ive ever read, you know, that was brilliant, and they all kind of floated up with him. Then hed invite cartoonists to the white house and get them all going to write a negative cartoon about his his opponents or the firesides chats of fdr. He would call reporters in and spin the globe around. Its better to interact and have respect for the First Amendment and our great press, but trump and nixon arent alone in hating, you know, certain journalists. Its just the way that both of them responded to it in a try to destructive way. Richard . Well, i would reopened you, the president probably had the best relationship as a former newspaper editor enough said. On the other hand, i have to say, president ford, he is an anomaly. He liked performance. Yeah. He actually liked them. When plans were being drawn up for his funeral, there were two musts. In terms of eulogies. One, he wanted to include jimmy carter, who became surprisingly to a lot of people that didnt realize they had become very good friends. And secondly, he wanted a journalist. Particularly time magazine. Then, unfortunately, mr. Sidy passed away, and so the president called up tom brokaw and said, will you do this as a favor . Tom had started out his career as a White House Correspondent in the ford presidency. So he was one of the speakers in the cathedral. But ford, you know, fords when he lived in alexandria, when he was a Republican House leader, his phone was in his phone number was in the book. And his private number, every reporter in town had it. So he used to call a late, great reporter for the Chicago Daily news, i believe, who said that the role of the reporter is akin to that of a man on horseback who rides down the middle of the street breaking an equal number of windows on each side. Change the tone a little bit here. Someone asked, was a sense of humor considered one of the important president ial attributes . Part two, with that in mind, where did Calvin Coolidge rank . You know, coolidge didnt say much, but what he said was funny. The great grover cleveland, who as you pointed out, true story. Grover cleveland had very few friends on capitol hill, particularly in the talkative guild that calls itself the worlds greatest deliberative body. Anyway, late one night, middle of the night, mrs. Cleveland wakes the president and said there are thieves in the house, grover. And he says he says, no, my dear, thieves in the senate. Harry truman said without a sense of humor a man would go crazy in the oval office, and i think there a lot of truth to that. I once did a little book called notes of Ronald Reagan and he kept this elaborate notecard system filled with jokes. Any speech, you could pick, it could be dogs, hed have them all in order and hed pull a card and put the jokes in his speech and it went over very well. I mean, reagan was all about humor. And i think its a key quality to being a successful president. Like you said, there are exceptions when we dont find the humor there, but overall president s have to show a robust sense of humor because if you take yourself too seriously, you become a bore in the end. Was lincoln funny . Incredibly so, but he sometimes overdid it, and so his cabinet members were a little annoyed because he didnt seem to be quite as serious at certain times as he should be. And so, yes, when he was telling a joke, i mean, i remember the movie lincoln. That was so true. That, you know, in the middle of somethings happening and lincoln decides to tell this story and hes told pretty much shut up, you know, this is a very important time. But i think that had more to do with helping the man than it did with sort of winning political points, certainly with lincoln. You know, he said, i believe, at least hes reported to have said, if i couldnt laugh, i would cry, you know . So its extremely important. Its evidence of hi mental health. Exactly. In a town and a profession where your values can get distorted, it is it is proof that you are, as t. R. Would say, grounded. Two people ask the same question. They want to know from each of you, who is the most overrated president and most underrated. God, most overrated well, i i will just say we mention james monroe. I think hes underrated. I think richard was giving brian a book, the era of good feelings, earlier, you know, but monroe has not had that big seminal bog by the way David Mccullough wrote a book on john adams or one of those treatments. And i think there is an opening for monroe to be understood more as a Foreign Policy president. The most overrated is hard. I have to, you know, because its the most but i just cant quite, you know, because i dont think our top group are overrated. I think theyre all about right. It might be we overinflate modern president s because theyre part of our own time and we lose sight of some of the president s from the 19th century because we just dont know them as well. So there might be a modernity inflation going on here with some president s. Edna, youre in this book and chapter on millard fillmore. Would you like to comment on it . Over or underrated. You know, i dont even remember when i gave that interview. But he thank god you did because otherwise we wouldnt have a you know, he could have done more during that period. Hes in an era where there is so much happening in terms of abolitionism. And like buchanan, he really doesnt do anything. Leaders are supposed to take the lead. Theyre supposed to let other people know where they stand and move country in what they think is the best direction. I dont think he did that. So, i agree, he shouldnt berated at all, perhaps. And if i may say, to me, the most underrated, at least until fairly recently, is Lyndon Johnson. Because we still give kennedy the credit for all of the civil rights legislation, but it really was Lyndon Johnson who pushed that. And we should give him a lot more credit than we do. By the way, milla i would say the most overrated president , and im very specific. Im talking about the presidency, not the entirety of his life, is thomas jefferson. People tend to forget the second term was a disaster. He impose something called the embargo, which was we zined to prevent war. With europes warring powers. And it pretty much blew up in his face and had to be repealed subsequently. Can i ask you about the embargo act of 1807. Yeah. Did they really tie down all american ships in this country for 18 months . In effect they did. The region, new england, was the maritime part of the country and it was already an area suspicious of jefferson. So unintentionally, obviously, but it also actually contributed to some real divisions, fundamental divisions in the union. Most under the most underestimated, in some ways i would say the least known, who deserves to be better known, i would say is william mckinley. Who before t. R. In many ways could be said to be the first modern president. Sort of straddles the 20th century. Somewhat against his will. Took america on to the world stage and not only in the spanish american war, but also sent he the first president without congressional approval to send troops, in this case to the boxer rebellion in china. And also, remember, mckinley was elected in the midst of a depression. He was sold as the advance eight of process parent and it was one of those Rare Campaign slogans that panned out. So, you know, mckinley has a lot going for him. I just have im going to defend thomas jefferson, okay . Because i think the Louisiana Purchase alone in 180 3, doubling the size of our country and the westward expansion with lewis and clark and the like, i think that that act is so large and also you movingly talk about lincoln writings. On religious freedom. I once read a letter he wrote to a nun in new orleans that will give you chills how advanced hi thinking was in that regard on importance of religious freedom. So i get the inflation and some of the problems with jeffersons presidency, but i still would rank him quite high. We have ten minutes left. I know. I have two very similar on lincoln and the emancipation proclamation. Ill use this as the theme. Because lincolns emancipation proclamation freed only slaves in territory he did not control, and didnt free those in areas he did, is it correct to call him the great emancipator, or was it just master propaganda for both his time and the times afterwards . I think one can be tied to emancipation without taking all of the credit for it. There were many people and groups who were bothered and the freedom of enslaved people. Lincoln freed those folk in the confederacy or those areas still in rebellion because he couldnt touch them any place else because of the constitution. So i think we can forgive him for that. Although it took me a while to get there, okay . But to suggest that title, great emancipator, implies hes doing it alone. And he would never even have suggested that he was doing it alone. Certainly the Union Military is very much a part of this. Africanamericans themselves are very much a part of it because theyre walking away from slavery long before lincoln issues the proclamation. The proclamation is extremely important because it does give people the license to leave, but they are leaving before he does that. But to suggest that he is the only person whos involved in emancipation is unfortunate. Good question for both of you. Did a book on jimmy carter. And on this list, he is he gone down a couple, but hes 26. Fair . Fair. Middling president. Great american. One the nobel pry. Expresident. Habitat for human. But when he passes, hes in his 90s and hes confronting brain cancer right now, people will look at the fact over camp david, support human rights, recognizing peoples republic of china, panama canal. Hes the president who initially recognized china. I mean, theres a group of things that carter did that are quite significant, but alas, oneterm president , and there was a reagan revolution in 1980 and for generations there is no such thing, really, as a carter democrat. So he done have the political legs of even somebody like bill clinton did with his wife hillary and projecting decades down line. Richard, you did a book on Herbert Hoover and the chapter is in here. Hes 36. Fair . Yeah, hoover is one of two i would say hoover and William Howard taft are unique in the history of the presidency. Men who were fabulously successful at Everything Else they did except the presidency. No, and thats significant. Herbert hoover saved more lives, fed more hungry people during and after two world wars than hitler, stalen and mao together managed to wipe out. That is not a bad thing to have on your tomorrbstone. What he was not, he did not have a political boeb ne in his body. He knew it. He acknowledged it. Probably if ego had not intruded, he probably shouldnt have run for an office that is quintessential political. On the other hand, you know, we can play games. In 1920, Franklin Roosevelt wrote a letter to a fellow democrat saying they wished that they could nominate hoover for president , you know . We couldnt have a both parties in other words were interested because of hi record in world warrer is world war i and the like. If Franklin Roosevelt had been elected in 1928, you know, its a game, but, i mean, it just illustrates the element of chance. But in the case of hoover, he would always have been burdened by the fact that he was his dna was just absolutely lacking in the political instinct p. M. We have seven minutes left. How would you like to use them . Do you have any more questions . Well, i can find one if youd like. This interesting. Jonathan bruck would like to know would nonincumbent candidates have primaries have as many candidates. Were getting to 17 candidates. Well, again, primaries are a relatively recent, you know, it was part of the progressive era in the early, early 20th century. Starting in wisconsin. And it really i would say in the late 40s or the 50s that primaries sort of became let me ask a question out of that. Did we select better candidates in the smokefilled rooms than we do through the primary process . Sure. Except for Warren Harding. Lincoln, in effect, was a product of the smokefilled room. Would you like to go back to that . As oppose to primaries . Yes. Yeah. I think the problem with the electoral process today is its so its like kabuki theater. Its so stylized, its so scripted, its, frankly, performed with that camera in mind. And that has distorted our democracy arguably more than any other single factor. I think thats the big point, its television. In 1952 they started cover the conventions and then there became the birth of what is a telegenic candidate. Now Everyone Wants to run because its about brandbuilding and name recognition. 20 may become 30 because theyre building their branding, their twitter followers, their lecture fees. Lecture fees, balk advances and all of that. Its unfortunate. We also to be running these president ial elections like, 2 1 2 years long. Its just become a very drawnout process, which i think is a bit unfortunate, but how thats going stop in this kind of media culture we will in today. Can i follow up on that . How do you all feel about historians multimillionaire former president s in this day and age, versus harry truman who didnt even have a pension, how our view of this has changed. What do you think its doing for peoples perception of the presidency. It is more of the celebritification of the office. Its almost inevitable. And, again, its that camera. You want to us turn that off . I dont care. He doesnt either. If youve given up your life for four years or eight years, youve compromised your health, you have angered half of the population most of the time. Dont you deserve something after all of that is over . Youve given up your youth. I mean, look how these people age during their presidencies, so dont they deserve something at the end of that . Not necessarily the millions and millions of dollars they get for speeches, but they deserve something, i think, other than the pension. You know, jimmy carter refuses to sit on corporate boards. And there are examples of. Not wanting to cash in, so to speak, unit presidency. But the amount of money you get for a memoir now. Youre talking over 10 million to get just on your way out for your memoir contract. In your research, have you found why its fairly obvious. Why didingery Forward Start getting money for speeches . Because when he left office he was broke. Why did harry truman go home and stay home . Thats a fair question. People theres a myth that the presidency changes people. You knew that Richard Nixon would leave office, and as soon as he could would spend every breath trying to rebuild his reputation, particularly through foreign affairs. Hed do everything that he did. You knew when jerry ford left office he would play as much golf as he could, you know, and he would sit on boards because he happened to believe in the private sector. And what people didnt pay much attention to, he also he did 200 college campuses, you know, free of charge. Enjoyed, he enjoyed that. No doubt. The first week he was the first week he bad president , he asked someone, when do i get my first check . Because he was literally living from check to check. In the last couple of minutes we have, talking about the same thing. Mount vernon is paid for entirely by private money, run by the mount vernon ladys association. Rutherford b. Hayes has a state library out in the middle of ohio, every other federal library is fund by taxpayer dollars plus the private donations. What is it about George Washington today all paid for by private money . Paw hes George Washington. Its as simple as that. We wouldnt be here. We wouldnt be having this discussion. I think you can make a good case there would not be an American Republic if it were not for George Washington, and certainly making the point that his his presidencys about restraint. Theres assertiveness, but ultimately its about walking away from power. Its about not confusing yourself with the office or the country of which you are a temporary steward. And that example alone, it seems to me, is is likely to generate the kind of venation a and, yes, final support that mount vernon has earned over the years. Why is this the most successful single president ial site in the United States . Because of the mount vernon ladys association. [ applause ] really it. Really is. I think we do have to give them credit for all theyve done. And ive seen this place evolve over the last couple of decades and theyve done a terrific job. They can go a little bit further. Wed like to push them in that direction, but i think that they have done an incredible job. And part of the fundraising for this place is because of them, because of their tedication. Final comment . Virginians, too. Virginians love for history and all that they do in the state, whether its montpelier or James Madison or you go to fredericksburg in washington. Its still a great, great place to do president ial history tourism. Whether youre studying the American Revolution or the civil war or the 20th century, you can go to Woodrow Wilsons home in staten, virginia. Its really an extraordinary state. This is the flagship where historical tumor is coming to mount vernon. Its the crown jewel of what virginia United States. Do you want to wrap it up susan . Id love to. Thank you all for being here tonight. You have been a terrific audience. Special thanks to the staff and management here at mount vernon and the mount vernon ladys association. What better place could we start a conversation about president s and our president s than here at George Washingtons home . So thank you for allowing all of us to be here. Thank these three folks for all they do for us. [ applause ]. So, while i cannot invite all the people watching live tonight on cspan, im delighted to invite all of you here at mount vernon to join us for a coffee and redessert reception afterwards in the lobby. See you out there. Tonight on American History tv beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. More from purdue universitys remaking american political history conference with a panel on the correlation between violence and u. S. Political change. From the time of the American Revolution to present day. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan3. Every saturday night, American History tv take you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who lizzy borden is, and raise your hand if you ever heard of the gene harris murder trial before this class . The deepest cause, where well fine the true meaning of the revolution, was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the American People. So were going to talk about both of show side os of this talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslave people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the American Revolution. Every saturday at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on can tv. And lectures available as a podcast. Find where you listen to podcasts. In his new book talking to strangers, author Malcolm Gladwell details why he thinks people make inaccurate judgements about people they dont know. You can step on out now. I dont have to step out. Step out of the car. Ill going to drag you out of here. Youre threatening to drag me out of my own car. Get out of the car shes imperezened because for resisting arrest and three days later she hangs herself in her cell. You know, a tragic and unexpected result. But the whole that exchange that we saw, which, by the way, goes on and on and on and on, we only saw a small snippet of it. Is that was the kind of when i first saw that online, that was when i realized what a wanted to write about because if you break that exchange down moment by moment, you see multiple failures of understanding of empathy, of a million things. Sunday night at coyote eastern on cans q a. And we continued the conversation on cspans book the president s noted historians rank americas best and worst chief executives, which was published last year. Well hear from historians and book contributor Kevin Ackerman and david o. Stewart. [ applause ] well, good afno
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