Michael korda, former editorinchief of simon shuster. His latest book is called alone britain, churchill, and dunkirk defeat into victory. Thats where the title comes from, its necessary for years, its necessary alone. And alone is precisely the point. The british got the army off but as churchill said, we got the men but they have to leave their luggage. They got off, most without their rifles because they were ordered to throw them overboard by the naval officers and most without the boots, but we got off 2,000 men of the british core of the army without which we could defend ourselves. We could not have resisted the germans had they invaded without them. Rose continue with nancy koehn, historian at the Harvard Business school, her latest book is called forged in crisis the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times. I was in the midst of a great crises when i started on lincoln. I got ill, had cancer a couple of times, my husband walked out on me, my father dropped dead, so partly i was looking at lincoln to help me. It took me a while to get back on my, so i didnt do a lot of work. And i lot lost in blinken and decided that the world did not need another book on link everyone and then went searching for another stories. And in each of these stories is a different kind of animal. So to do this right and discover what was takes a while. Rose rucker, korda and koehn when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with politics. Robert muellers investigation into potential collusion. After months of projecting calm and confidence muellers probe could would not affect the president , there is growing concern within the oval office. The unease heightened yesterday afternoon when it was revealed George Papadopolous, an unpaid foreign polilicy advisor on the Trump Campaign pleaded guilty to making false statements about his effort to forge a relationship between candidate trump and vladimir putin. Followed indictments of Paul Manafort and rick gates. Michael korda cowrote todays article for the lead paper, entitled upstairs at home with the tv on, trump fumes over russian indictments. Pleased to have phil rucker back on the program. These are reports of the white house yesterday. He was up reading your presentation of the indictments coming down. Describe for the viewers what this day was like for president trump. Well, as you said, charlie, the day began early in the morning. The president knew, like all of us, that there was some likelihood, some strong likelihood that the first indictments related to the muellerrussia probe would come down monday morning. So the president turned on the tv and sort of stayed tuned. He apparently, according to sources, did not have any inside information about what was happening. He was waiting to see what would happen with all of us and got increasingly agitated and frustrated with what he was seeing. He did not like the fact Paul Manafort and rick gates were being so closely identified in the media as Trump Campaign officials, even though the indictments spelled out alleged misdeeds that occurred before they were working for trumps campaign. Trump was on the phone, calling his lawyers repeatedly, sort of trying to understand the legal analysis here, what was at stake, what kind of exposure he miffed, listening attendantively to the Television Commentary on cable news as he is want to do. Then he was late getting to work. He didnt show up in the oval office till well past the allotted time when his staff expected him and it became the subject of some discussion among the staffers in the west wing. Rose is the white house alarmed about this . Alarmed is a strong word for the entire white house. I can tell you some people are quite concerned about this, in part because they dont know where mueller is going to go next. Its not clear. The special counsel has not really revealed very many clues here. You know, clearly, the indictments of manafort and gates came. Papadopoulos is a figure nobody in the administration expected to come up in the separate indictment monday and theyre not sure whats going to happen next. There is a lot of concern and general flynn. Rose do we know there are any other closed indictments that have not been opened . Not that we know of. There may be but not that were able to report or know about. Rose and when you look at yesterday, the white house is saying this is about ten years ago, this had nothing to do with us. Yeah. Rose is that simply putting on a good game face . It is. Its one thing for them to say that the manafort and gates indictment had nothing to do with the campaign because, in fact, they spelled out sort of years of International Business that these two men did advising different foreign governments and gosh politicians and Political Parties over the years. That predated the Trump Campaign. But the papadopoulos indictment, George Papadopolous, that is directly pertaining to the campaign. Now, the white house line from Sarah Huckabee sanders, the press secretary, has been, look, this young man was basically a volunteer Foreign Policy advisor. He had only one meeting with the president , he was not a senior figure on this campaign, and any activities that he might have done to try to broker contact or a channel with the russians, he did on his own, he did not do that as an official on behalf of the campaign, but you have to look back at the history. It was here at the Washington Post in 2016 where then candidate donald trump revealed George Papadopolous on a list of advisors for his Foreign Policy team and, during that same trip to washington, trump was actually photographed in a campaign, but he certainly was involved in the campaign and a Foreign Policy advisor by the candidates own announcement. Rose well, the other question that comes up frequently, other than about flynn and where is the case about Michael Flynn stand, it is this notion of whether this will become so tough for the white house that they will reconsider firing bob mueller. Yeah, thats an interesting notion. Ive not heard white house officials speculate about that, at least not in our conversations with me, but it certainly is something to think about. I know theres a great deal of concern not only in the white house but around the white house and sort of the broader trump political orbit about flynn. There was a sense of relief, frankly, monday that the indictments were for manafort and nonflynn because there was a feeling indicting flynn would be a much more heavier political blow for the president because flynn actually made it into is it government and served in the government at a very high level if only that first month. Rose and he was with trump a lot. Thats correct, and at his side throughout everything from debate prep to rallies to the convention to the transition planning. General flynn was a key figure on the president ial transition, helping advise the president on who to hire for a number of senior roles. Rose what do we know about general kelly in the white house yesterday . I can tell you general kelly is trying to keep things running when it comes to everything not pertaining to russia so thats th the tax cut agenda, preparing for a highstakes, 12day trip to asia, the president will be leaving friday on that trip and kelly is preoccupied with that. He also did an interview with fox news channels laura laura m and stumbled into comments about the civil war. Rose are we going to have the people at the white house closing the wagons in a circle, understanding this is now warfare . Based on my reporting today, i can tell you there is actually some disagreement within the president s broader political circle. Some figures including steve bannon, the former chief white house strategist, have been privately urging trump to take a much more combative approach with mueller to try to discredit the special counsel, to try to point out that a number of lawyers and investigators working with mueller have contributed to democrats in the past and are, you know, by the white houses account partisan figures, to just do everything they can to muddy the waters here, and what the president has been doing so far at the urging of his lawyers is to actually cooperate with mueller to try not to provoke him or be too antagonistic publicly but to provide the documents when hes asked and kind of do what he needs to do with the expectation or hope, at least, that this investigation comes to a close pretty soon. But there are no indications that this investigation is going to be over anytime soon. By all accounts, mueller seems to be just getting started. Rose ty cobb seems to be arguing, whenever he makes a statement, were cooperating in full with the committee, we want to help them reach a rapid conclusion. Thats right, and i think they are cooperating in full, certainly with the document production. They are hopeful that there will be a rapid conclusion and, in fact, Sarah Sanders at the White House Press briefing podium repeatedly over the last few weeks said this white house expects the investigation to be over soon because they dont believe there is any collusion, but there is no indication from mueller and his team and the investigators that they are on that same time frame and this very well may stretch well into 2018, which i think will be a real headache for the white house. Rose the general consensus is, correct me if im wrong, so far, no ones seen hard evidence of collusion . Thats right. Theres a lot of smoke. There are a lot of different moments that we know mueller is investigating including that meeting at trump tower in the summer of 2016 that donald trump, jr. And Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were a part of with the russian lawyer. But there does not appear, as far as we know, publicly, to be any direct evidence of collusion, but tha that does tht isnt to say it doesnt exist. Rose whats the biggest question for you . Frankly, what mueller knows and what does he have and if there is any harder evidence of collusion. I mean, its been very difficult to trace muellers steps throughout this whole process. Weve talked a lot about the russia probe and there have been a ton of news reports about the russia probe thanks in part to the great investigative reporting thats been going on, but we have really no visibility into what the mueller team is finding, and they have access to documents that we as journalists cannot see and dont have access to. So were trying to piece together the puzzle without knowing all the pieces mueller has, and mueller has been very discreet in terms of not signaling anything publicly. Hes done no interviews, no public comments, and were sitting here trying to basically read the tea leaves and report facts as we learn them and piece it all together in public. Rose we assume hes seen the income tax returns, dont we . I think thats a fair assumption. I dont actually know whether he has or not. Rose philip, thank you so much. Philip rucker of the Washington Post. Back in a moment, stay with us. Rose Michael Korda is here. He was the editor in sheaf for sinal shuster for over 40 years. Political author and historian. His latest book is called alone britain, churchill, and dunkirk defeat into victory. It is both a history of the evacuation of dunkirk in may 1940 and also a memoir of his familys experience in wartime london. Pleased to have Michael Korda back at this table. Welcome. Delighted to be back is that you are looking fine, my friend. Thank you. Rose my great grief and sympathy over the loss of thank you so much. Rose who suggested this book . Barbara suggested this book after i wrote a biography of robert e. Lee, a very long biography, she asked me if i would consider not writing another long biography. I said, what would i do instead . She said why dont you write a short book about something you know . Its three or four years saying you will never guess what i just read about t. Roberts or robert e. Lee and it gets boring after a year or two. I said, what . Do yodo you have any idea aboutt i should do . She said, dunkirk. I said, shes right. I had no idea at the time anybody was going to make a movie about dunkirk. Rose a movie you said good things about. I loved it. I think it is not only a good movie. I think its the best war movie youve ever seen. Rose best war movie. Absolutely. Rose not just about world war ii or dunkirk, the best war movie . Because its a new way of making war movies. Rose why . First of all, it doesnt have scenes in which you have a lot of generals sitting around a table explaining to the audience the germans are here or here. So it has no explanatory scenes. Secondly, you see everything through the eyes of just four people, and they never meet each other. Theres no connection between them. And you see whats happening through their eyes. So you see through the eyes of the fighter pilot, through the eyes of somebody on the sea, through the eyes of somebody on the beach, and thats a quite revolutionary way of making a war film. I have to say tha that that als exactly the opposite of this. I have to explain what led the british army to a beach in dunkirk in the last week in may and why they ended up there and how we got them off. So the film, which is wonderful, is really the last section of my book, and my book is an explanation of how it actually came to pass. Rose churchill, you have a quote from churchill speaking to the house of commons, june 4, 1940, on the completion of the evacuation of dunkirk, quote, i have myself full confidence we all do our duty, if nothing is neglected, we shall prove ourselves able to defend our island home. Ride out the storm of war and outlive the menace of tyranny if necessary, for years, if necessary, alone. Yes. Thats where the title comes from, if necessary, for years, if necessary, alone. And alone is precisely the point. The british got the army off but as churchill said, weve got the men but they have to leave their luggage. They got off most without rifles because they were ordered to throw them overboard by the naval officers and most of them without their boots. But we got off the 200,000man corps of the British Regular army without ich we could not possibly have defended ourselves in 1940. They could be rearmed, they could be given new boots, but without them we could not possibly have resisted the germans, had they invaded. Rose whats the significance of it . Huge asking, i think huge significance, i think. First of all, had we not gotten the army off, i think churchills hold on the war cabinet and the house of commons and his own party, which was very weak then he had only been in office for the best part of two weeks might have faltered, might have slipped from his grasp. Rose his reign in part was built on hope. Halifax already opened discussions with the italian ambassador in london about the possibility of mussolini inquiring of hitler what the terms might be for peace. And there is actually, in the book, which is like the centerpiece of what i wanted to write about, there is a moment when halifax reveals to the war cabinet of nine people that he is talking to the italian ambassador about what the german terms would be for a british surrender. And churchill is dubious, is against it, but is not at that moment able to squash it. And he goes down to a meeting of the larger cabinet of 30 people and, in a room behind the house of commons, a small room, he stands on a desk and speaks to them and, at the end of it, he says, if our long island stories end, let it end with each of us lies on the floor choking on his own blood. And the entire cabinet applauds, claps him on the back, cheers him and, as hes returning to ten downing street from the house of commons after this, a naval officer, an aide, comes up to him to say that i believe 17,000 men have been removed from the beach on dunkirk that day. With these pieces of news, churchill goes back to the war cabinet and says to halifax that he must break off any negotiations with the italian ambassador, that we are never going to surrender, that to start or inquire about german terms is to end, as he put it, on a slippery slope. So it is the moment at which the decision is taken that whatever happens, britain will fight on. Rose well fight on the beaches and everywhere else. Everywhere. Rose i thought hi might say anyone who dare considers negotiating with the italians shall find themselves on the short end of a hangmans noose. He would have liked to have done that but he knew better than to go too far with his own war cabinet andd halifax at the time. He sent halifax to washington the rest of the days of war as our ambassador in the days before air conditioning. Rose this is about dunkirk but also about churchill because you know this history and i also want to get to your own family. In your judgment, what was the genius of Winston Churchill . Was it brilliance . Was it rhetoric . Was it connecting dots . What was it . All of those things are, of course, important, but he had the one thing without which nothing great can be accomplished, which is courage, and thats the basic core of his beat, he was never afraid, even as a young man in cuba, in the 19th century, and the cubans were fighting. Churchill said, it is exhilarating to be shot at without result. Rose right. And although he had layers of phobias and problems beneath, but he had a fundamentally courageous outlook on life and on politics, without which nothing can be accomplished. Rose courageous and optimistic . Courage gives you optimism. Its difficult to be optimistic if youre not courageous. But i think courage is the distinct churchillian quality, an absolute lack of fear. I think second to that, he was wise. He understood absolutely that the channel is wider than it looks and the germans would not have an easy time, if we could put together another army and arm it, making that 21mile crossing to england. Rose we just had jen ette conant here whose father had a very significant letter einstein wrote to the president saying you have to develop an atomic apon because if you dont the germans will get it. Rose history depends on these moments. I think the moment in which first of all, the moment in which einstein wrote the letter is of extraordinary significance, but also the extraordinary significance is the fact that roosevelt took the time for somebody to explain to him that the letter was important and that he must read it and think about it, and he did. And churchill, for all that people accuse him of being bombastic, argumentative, and he was all those things, was capable of listening to advice, of taking it, of changing his course, when he needed to. He was a man born for the moment. Rose and, so, your family of the theater my mothers side, yes. Rose on your mothers side. She was a significant stage actress, and my father was a very significant actor. He won an oscar for thief of baghdad in 1940 which i have on my desk. Rose is that right . I have two things on my desk to give me inspiration. One is a bronze bust of Winston Churchill which was a gift from David Mccullough for whom i edit for decades and a very kiir friend, and the other is my fathers Academy Award for the thief of baghdad. I look at those every once in a while and say, well, if they did what they did, i could surely do something. Rose just tell me about the family and how they evolve. They evolved because my uncle alex, my fathers elder brother, he had three brothers, born as jews in the austria hungarian empire in a small hungarian farming village. My father made his way to budapest, changed his name to korda and became a film critic at age 17 and directed his first Motion Picture age 21. He drew his brothers into his orbit, as it were, because my uncle went on to become a very famous director. He did among other films cry the beloved country, the four feathers, jungle book, and my father came an academyawardwinning art director and the three brothers together, when they made movies with the three of them working on it were a formidable team. Rose you wasnt to hungary at the time of the uprising . I did, 1956. Rose and were given the Great National medal from hungary. I was. Rose is that on your desk, too . That is on my desk, actually. Its a little flashy for daily wear, but every once in a while i like to look at it . Whats this . That merely signifies i was in the Royal Air Force. I wasnt worn my full getup. Rose when . National service in england and served in the Royal Air Force two years. Rose did you maintain your love of flying . Were you a pilot . No, i was a wireless operator or a Radio Operator on aircraft and i hoped always when i was a boy, despite poor eyesight, i would have a lot to do with airplanes, and two years in the Royal Air Force not only fueled that desire but ive never looked at an airplane since without any feeling whatsoever except wanting to sit in first class and having a glass of champagne. Id just as soon never go in the cockpit of one again. Rose robert e. Lee. Monuments to him have been torn, crashed down. What dont we know about robert e. Lee or what should we know about robert e. Lee . The argument being made, obviously, as you well know, is that robert e. Lee rebelled against the country in order to save slavery. Thats an unavoidable conclusion. I think its certainly right for people to be taught to condemn rebellion and that they should be taught why that rebellion took place, how it grew to the size that it did. All of that is perfectly justifiable. But on his own terms, we look to robert e. Lee because hes arguably one of the greatest american generals. He was a man of great dignity, great honor, great spirit, and his surrender in 1865 is one of the great moments in american history. Rose why is that . Because both men carried it off with dignity that is truly amazing. When lee had signed the surrender agreement and he walked out on to the porch and was waiting for his horse traveler to be brought up, grant raised his had hat and all the Union Officers raised their hats to lea, lea mounted and raised his hat to them. They begain to fire a 100 gun salute to victory and grant with great annoyance said tell them to stop that, were all great americans now. It is in that spirit we have to view lee. Yes, he chose not to command the American Army di. Rose which he was offered. Which he was offered in 1861 and said he could not raise his sword against his state, his children or neighbors, and absolutely he fought with unbelievable skill for five years, but he managed to bring off a surrender which i think made it possible to join the two parts of the country together again, whereas we could have had, had he not done that, guerilla warfare going on between ourselves and the confederates for years later, we did not. Rose what is the biographers art . Well, first of all, to tell the truth, which is always difficult to do, and secondly to get at the facts. Rose the truth is not always easy to find. I mean you cant write a biography of someone with your mind already made up about who they are or what they thought or what you think of them. You have to go into a biography and open yourself up as you would to the other person and learning who they are and what theyre about. And thats one aspect of it because, without that, theres no excitement and suspense. Youre discovering that other person. The other thing is that the ability to get out of them what the greatest moment in their life and the most important moment in their life was. It very often isnt the big thing, necessarily. I think that it sometimes is but there is no question having written a biography of eisenhower that, for eisenhower, the major moment was not being elected to the presidency of the united states. Rose it was normandy. It was normandy. June 25, 1944, the night before dday was the most important moment in his life. Rose where he that did to make the decision to go or not to do. Despite the weather. That was the great moment in his life. With lee, it is, i think, because it was a tragic mistake, with lee, it was the decision to fight at gettysburg. Rose gettysburg, to join the battle at gettysburg. Yes, big mistake. Had Stonewall Jackson been with him and not dead, lee would have gone around meads arm and gotten between mead and washington. But stonewall died in johnsonville and lea made a costly mistake. Rose is it fair to say had jackson not been killed on his horse as he was that the war might have been different in some way . It might have been we never know, of course, what happens if. Stonewall jackson actually died off his horse but shot riding his horse. Rose died a few days later. Yes. I believe had Stonewall Jackson been with him on the day before gettysburg, that he would not have attacked meade and gone around meade. Rose the irony of this, and correct me history, Stonewall Jackson at the time the war began was not considered a great general. No, he was teaching artillery. Rose yes. And was regarded as clumsy and something of an oaf. But he was an enormously skilled general. Rose general eisenhower. General eisenhower i think comes in for a bad rep as a president and general. I think he was a very, very good president. I think he was a great general. He understood that the germans would be defeated by getting on to the continent of europe and pushing them back because we had more men and more weapons not as good weapons as they had, but more of them, than if we kept pushing, they would break. And he was right. Rose are there ten things the germans might have done and they would have won the war . One is going too far, but i think if dday had failed and we were unable to mount another invasion for another couple of years, that its not impossible to imagine that stalin and hitler might have made a deal that enabled nazi germany to survive in some form or another for a long time, and who knows what would have happened after that. We know, of course, that since we had the atomic bomb, we might have used it on the germans, probably would have, but, yes, thats the critical moment. The critical moment was the first day of d. Day. Rose and the breakthrough that took place. Absolutely. Rose and the mistakes of romney. laughter romle. Romle. Had he been there earlier that day and hitler been willing to release to him the fort pander divisions, d. Day could have been a much bloodier event than it was. Rose and such are the means of which history is made. The Little Things that have huge consequences. Rose let me talk about books. A number of years, 40 . 48 years. Rose and ho so here we are,e amazon revolution. Has the significance of books changed . No, not in the least is that the power of books, no matter how theyre read and its my impression it said some people turned back to wanting to read books like this and not ebooks. Thats possible. Yes. You have the one in your hand and i dont but there is a certain tack tile fascination to a book. Rose you cant carry them where you can take kinding. Cant make notes. Rose right. But if youre going to read, say, the new book on leonardoda da vinci. Rose Walter Isaacsons book. Yes, doesnt matter whether you read it on the kindle or the book but the main thing is you read it. The number of people who will read a book is not i think smaller than it ever was before. They are reading it in a different way, now, and they will read it in different ways in the future. I mean, eventually rose its the same way you read your newspapers. Because there was a time at which the book was thought to be a revolutionary object and people said its not nearly as nice as a scroll, and its not as pretty as opening parchment, and the book was seen as an ugly, technological change that disassociated you from the pleasure of reading a scroll. But now the book is becoming a rather outmoded object, although were still fond of it, but two generations from now, dont you think that the people who invented the apple phone will invent something you take out of your pocket like a pocket handkerchief, open it up, put pt where you want and you read it wherever you want to and the whole contents of the worlds libraries will be contained in a cube like this. Rose its a glorious day. It is. People will always want to read books but that doesnt mean they have to read them in the form that you and i are familiar with. Rose alone britain, churchill, and dunkirk defeat into victory. The magnificent story of what happened there and how it was inspiration for Winston Churchill and inspiration for a nation and how it was a powerful personal story of people who wanted to make sure that they brought their boys home. Absolutely. Rose thank you, michael. Thank you for having me. Rose back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose nancy koehn is here. She is an historian at the Harvard Business school. She holds a jaiment e. Roberson chair of business administration. Her latest book examsens the life of five historical figures who triumph after insurmount upable obstacles. Its called forged in crisis the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times. Im pleased to have her at this table. Welcome. Thank you so much, thank you for having me, charlie. Rose perfect title, forged forged in crisis. Crisis is a crucible. Its an opportunity to get braver, find your muscles of moral courage or get smaller, bitter, angry, and the five people chose the form course. Rose how did you choose them . They chose me. Im an historian. We work conductively. I have a nose for 25 years after doing this at Harvard Business school, so part of it was thats a good story. Parsons battle with Breast Cancer, shackletons attempt to save his men. Partly i realized early on because, as you know, as student of lincoln, i started with lincoln. Rose yeah. And i was interested in how did he deal with this emotionally . What was the engs persons of living inside that ambitious, humorous frame like . And i thought, i want to understand the experience of living in the perfect storm. So the second way i chose them was i needed documentation that could help me reconstruct the Emotional Experience of these people. So lots of people i would have liked to write about. I couldnt because i just didnt have that. Last but not least, i wanted five very different people because, in the end, charlie, the insights of these stories are absolutely universal. So i didnt want to choose just political leaders or just american leaders from the 20t 20th century, so i wanted, if you will, like a tappest bar of people and experiences we couldnt deny as a way of finding our best selves. Rose what questions are you asking . How coz a crisis make or break a leader . What do they learn about themselves in that moment that forges them, that allows them to have really significant, worthy impact, worthy of decency and moving the boulder forward, so im asking how dud their experience and the lessons they learned of navigating through the high winds and big waves help move a big Mission Possible and change the world . Last but not least, how in the heck are these stories from history relevant right here, right now . Remember the book took 15 years to write, so i wasnt planning rose 15 years . From start to finish. Rose why did it take 15 years . Youre a busy person, thats why. Thank you for the graceful excuse, charlie. Thats not what happened. I was in the midst of a great crisis when i started on lincoln. I got ill, got cancer a couple of times, husband walked out on me, my father dropped dead, so i was looking to lincoln to help me. But it took me a while to get back on my feet, so i didnt work for a while. Then i got lost in lincoln and decided the world did not need another book on lincoln, then went searching for other stories. And each of these stories is a different kind of animal. So to do this right and discover what was takes a while. Rose how did you come out of your own crisis . Well, a combination of saying, kind of shaking my fist at the ceiling like scarlett ohara. Rose raging. There was a lot of raging, why me, how could this be happening, and then kind of with god as my witness, im going to make something good of this and the book is partly response to that. Rose so the good that came out of your struggle with divorce, illness, loss of parent. Losing all my money, lets add that in, too. Rose how did you lose all your money . Nasty divorce. It was the harvard retirement, but all i had, kid from a lowermiddle class family. Rose yeah. The good that came out of it, what i learned from these people and the fact rose what did you learn about yourself . Oh, i learned that im stronger than i know, im too easily frightened im very, very easily frightened. Ive got an little braver, and these people have taught me something. And i spent too much time asking why this was happening. Yeah, exactly. Way too much time with why. Thats what i learned. Rose and secondly, any amount of time seeing yourself as a victim is wasted. Absolutely. You know, il like these people who all of whom failed many more times than they succeeded, part of the reason they could be successful in crises like lincoln is because they had so much mileage with failure, charlie. Rose mileage with failure. Thats a great phrase. Mileage with failure, thats one part of the lincoln story that is new in this book, and as a result of all those failures, right, you learn that being a victim, getting brittle and defined by a crisis doesnt serve your and it certainly doesnt move the boulder of goodness forward in any way. Rose did they all have different mental makeup, meaning not intelligence but emotional stability and Emotional Intelligence . They did. They all had different emotional makeup. They had had different degrees of emotional stability. What they shared in common was an understanding relatively early in their lives that using what today we call emotion ail wareness, lincoln wouldnt really have known what that term meant, was an asset they could harness and get better at. The most important aspect of that awareness, charlie, was a decision each of these people, again, pretty early on, if you would initially by narcissistic ambition to get better not only in terms of the things that they were checking off on their ambition list but to get better in terms of what they could make of themselves inside, everything from learning to read, but also lincoln, developing the extraordinary powers of emotional discipline and forbearance as president. Rose were they all what gift did they have . Take bonhopper, a man who gave his life to help people survive nazis. So i think his gift was a combination of building you know, Angela Duckworth would call his muscles of grit and resilience. Rose wrote grit, saying grit makes more difference than any other individual factors, how much you warrant and how hard you are prepared to get it. And these people developed plenty of grit and big muscles. Rose they probably had it before then, didnt they . They had some but got better and better. Bonhoffer, by the time hes been on the gestapo watch list for five years, has gotten much better, less fearful, much better at showing up and dealing with his life under watch, under the threat of arrest, and even in prison, he grows exponentially in terms of his levels of cowrming and what hes willing to face and write and do in an 8x10 cell. The gift of evolving like that when the stakes are so high, thats a gift is that you bet it is. And they all have some of that. He has it in a way that to me is quite poignant because, in the midst of trying to assassinate hitler, he never loses sight of the serious moral consequences, right, of taking even the life of such a tyrannical and terrible man, in the interest of a higher good, save more people, because he had inside information about the final solution and, yet, he never shies away from both the moral consequences but also from the ability to see life from all kinds of perspectives, great empathy, perhaps, is a way, a roundabout way of answering your question. He has extraordinary reserves of empathy and, remember, you know, hes born to this privileged family. Its not like he was born a slave as douglas was. Rose im interested also in the idea of courage, whether thats something you acquire by do you acquire courage because you simply are presented with a situation and either you have it or dont in or do you learn how to be courageous . Well, its a great question. Im in the latter camp because these people, and theyve inspired me, theyve taught me that you can get braver, you can get more courage, just like, you know, grit or resilience muscles. Resilience is a muscle you develop. I think courage is not so dissimilar, but its interesting with douglas, hes the best example of this, although lincoln is pretty scared the first month in august, he can hardly make a decision about fort sump at the because hes so fort sumpter because hes so frightened. Douglas gets braver by taking a little step into his fear. Rose tell them who Frederic Douglas is. Escaped slave, becomes an important member of the Abolitionist Movement in the north. Doing a book without douglas seeing the political ground and political will for the proclamation of emancipation rose he was essential to the emancipation. As essential as linken. Theyre book ends. Rose they are. Theyre book ends of the transformation of america. Rose Rachel Carson is also in this list. Shes my favorite. Rose not because of gender . No, because partly because she had Breast Cancer and it killed her. Shes outrunning the clock. All your viewers an listeners wont know that he had metastasizing Breast Cancer and she discovered it midway through the writing of silent spring and knew she was on to something very powerful, dangerous and important and trying to outrace the clock. Her brave ri, the fact that shes this quiet, shy, retiring person, charlie, i mean, and the fact that she changed the world in that book, that she did her homework so carefully, that she does it with such grace and dignity and that she shatters our myths, our current myths of that leadership. Shshes an introvert, a retiring person, a writer, and you can argue shes been more powerful and influential than many president s. So i have a very special place in my heart for her and i have a sense of how difficult this was for her to do. Rose she informed your life as much as linker or anybody else . And her brave ricalls to me as much as lincolns. Rose and shackleton, we know the story because of documentary films made about him. Yeah. But i start the book with shackleton because its so dramatic i want in an attentionstarved age for people to keep reading so i start with the most dramatic story, charlie. You cant stop once you start, right . Rose you want to know what happens. You want to know what happens. Because as well as i know the story, and i know this as well as the wrinkles in my face, it still is jawdropping. His ability to overcome so many obstacles for so long and, as you said early in the top of the interview, against seemingly insurmountable odds, you know, it speaks to our age. It speaks to each of us to find our, you know, better, stronger selves and get to. Rose did all of them have doubts . Absolutely. So that was something i didnt expect to discover. They had not just doubts, they had crippling moments of doubts and, on many occasions, each of them when theyre in the thick of it. One of the things that fascinate me is these people get to the edge of the qasem of doubt and theyre about to do a dive in and give up. And then by a hairs breadth, they step back and dont plunge over and as frost would say, that has made all the difference. Rose the road not taken. Ight. I was fascinated by how they, inch by inch, got back from the edge of cliff of doubt over and over again. So, yes and yes and yes. Rose where do we teach leadership best in america . Is it military . Is it its probably in the military. There may be some theology schools rose i was going to say that. Schools of divinity where were teaching leadership with moral purpose and the obstacles of bringing goodness to the world so that we train people to be ready for those obstacles. It was Oliver Wendell holmes who said derricks scribing the civil war, injured many times, oh, our hearts were touched by fire. I think in places, like in schools of divinity, we touch the students with fire, and we need leaders who are touched by fire and Public Interest and putting others first. Rose putting others first is a pretty essential quality. But all of them are narcissistic, you think . Thats another interesting thing i didnt expect to discover. They all start off like many of my students and myself in my 20s and 30s, like ive got to accomplish this. Its about this next thing, checking this off the list. And then somehow in different moments in each of their journeys, the i gives away to what martin buber, the 0t 0th century philosopher would say, the thou, serving others, where they discover their own identity and true power serving others. Hearts touched by fire. Rose when you look for the best definition of leadership, where did you find it . I stumbled on this from David Foster Wallace no less. Rose one of the favorites on this program. I know those interviews well because im such a student of David Foster Wallace as an individual as well as writer. He wrote a very interesting article about the first john mccain president ial campaign back in the Rolling Stone and rips very wallacelike on leadership and writes this, real leaders are individuals who help us overcome the limitations of our own weaknesses and laziness and selfishness and fears and get us to do harder and Better Things than we can get ourselves to do on our own. Rose boy, i like that. Arent we longing as a citizenry for leaders that can do that for us . Rose i think thats a big question in this moment our history. Where are our leaders and what are we expecting out of them . Were not seeing enough of what most of us want and need when we think of courageous leaders. Rose i think a great leader how in present times or in past, they have to have some sense of the ability to define the moment so that it becomes a paramount concern. Thats a great thats a very astute observes vacation. Its about frame observation. Its about framing the mistakes of the moment. Were gathered on the battlefield, the final resting place, heres what we the job of the living, is right, the great task before us is to keep renew our dedication and heres whats at stake, the government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth. Every courageous leader owes it to the followers, to boulder of goodness, to frame and follow that moment, to give us our role in it, what are we called to do . To do harder, Better Things. Whats at stake and finally what are the tradeoffs we must lac make to move to Something Better . Thats the fundamental challenge with which we find ourselves. Rose do you teach leadership at harvard . The history. Rose beyond the history. The history of leadership is in fact teaching leadership. Well, for an historian, its about as good as we get and i think its pretty good. I proudly say that. Rose forged in crisis the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times. Nancy koehn. Thank you. Bless you. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. Steves salzburgs cathedral, constructed in the early 1600s, was one of the first grand baroque buildings north of the alps. Its sunday morning. The 10 00 mass is famous for its music, and today its mozart. Enter the cathedral, and youre immersed in pure baroque grandeur. Dona nobis nobis pacem since it was built in only about 15 years, the church boasts particularly harmonious art and architecture. In good baroque style, the art is symbolic, cohesive, and theatrical, creating a kind of festival procession that leads to the resurrected christ triumphing high above the altar. Nobis dona nobis nobis pacem pacem music and the visual art complement each other. The organ loft fills the church with glorious sounds as mozart, 250 years after his birth, is still powering worship with his musical genius. Nobis nobis pacem nobis pacem anno ncer a kqed television production. Sbrocco another umami bomb. Obrien umami bomb