Susan Harold Holzers is our second hour about your new book the president s versus press. While i invite people to find the first hour, for those who havent seen it, whats that the jist of your new book . Mr. Holzer the thesis is we may believe we are living through the most chaotic and unpleasant confrontational era ever between a president and the media. But in fact, its a long tradition in American Government and American Media history that president s and the press do not share the same interests and have been out war, and a sense, ever since george washington. Susan from the time you started this project, was it always it versus the press . Mr. Holzer im glad you asked. No. Originally it was the president s and the press. In my research about president kennedy, i found that he gave a very defensive speech in 1961 for the American Publishers Association in new york city. And during the speech he said, i wanted to call this speech the president versus the press because you are not always living up to your responsibility to protect the american interest. And i have to be talked down so i will call it the president s and the press. But i like the first version better, he put it all out on the line and kennedy says our interest and theirs are incompatible. Susan is that why he also earned the photo on your cover . Mr. Holzer well, i went back and forth on that and did my wonderful editor in team and team. There is a great shot of Lyndon Johnson looking sour. But the kennedy one, which had photographers and newsmen writing appealed to me. I must admit that i have a soft spot for jfk. I was 11 years old when i was elected. And his vigor, as he himself would put it, is what really interested me in politics when i was a kid. A little bit of payback time. Susan its clear from your index and your notes that you did Extensive Research for this book. It was interesting to me that one name kept popping up again and again in your chapters. That is a longterm White House Correspondent helen thomas. She had i think i counted 34 citations in the book. Who is she for people that dont will the name . And why was she so important in your storytelling . Mr. Holzer i picked a few people who lasted for several president s and could look at ahead and back. And another groundbreaking woman reporter who was known for her cute questions, that often triggered a laughter when president kennedy responded. She started out in the roosevelt era and faced pretty sexist comments and teasing. She fought for her place and helped establish the right of women to be at president ial press conferences. Helen thompson was the upi correspondent who was sent to cover the birth of the kennedys son in 1960. She covered mrs. Kennedy and earned her way into the white house beat. She lasted, as you know, until the obama administration. She was 90 years old, being helped up the stairs from the press room for press conferences and still reporting. She was feisty and she wrote some very funny and revealing books about her experiences. Those of us who have been watching press conferences for a long time know her as the woman who always got the first question because she was in the front row and was the senior reporter. She always said thank you, mr. President during those formal structured briefings. In the book she asked very, very tough questions. She was the woman that president s loved to hate. A cabdriver once picked her up and said, are you the woman that president s love to hate . But she kept asking those ferocious questions. She undid herself at 90 by giving an answer to someone on the white house lawn about the middle east. She was of arabic heritage herself. Something that did not become known until later in her career. She basically said to this father who had come for jewish history day to the white house, she said, the israelis should go back where they came from, to germany or poland. By then she was not working for the upi, she was a hearst columnist. She lasted a long time. Susan we will start this conversation with fdr, about whom you write few president s were more gifted and better prepared in the art of pr. How did that play out . Mr. Holzer he had been a governor of new york for two two year terms. He mastered the art of the press conference and radio address as governor. He then, on election night, in the absence of a victory speech in 1932, in the absence of a concession from herbert hoover, and this was not a closed election, was wheeled into the second floor parlor of his home. Where i should state very proudly that i know work. It is now the roosevelt public house policy institute at Hunter College in manhattan. But in 1932, it was the roosevelts family home. He gave an address to people in front of the fireplace. It was, in essence, the first of a series of brilliant two dozen speeches not speeches, but conversations he held with the American People during the depression and during world war ii. It revolutionized president ial communications. Susan the big issue with him was the press willingness to hide his disability. How does that look to us in the rearview mayor . Mr. Holzer it looks like an abdication of responsibility. He was certainly capable of doing the job for 12 years and a month. So his inability to walk did not hamper his mind or his heart, although he did suffer from heart disease, literally, at the end. At the beginning, there was a gentlemens agreement between photographers and the president elect and the president. No formal rule, but they said, you know, he is a nice guy, he is trying to help us, hes trying to help the country, why should we add to his burden . There was a news blackout, or a photography blackout. Roosevelt aggressively pursued the blackout. He got a magazine to do a story about his health. It sort of reminds us of what donald trump did when he produced his doctors alleged record that he was the healthiest patient he had ever treated. Roosevelt got doctors to go over his medical treatment and say he was healthy as a horse, with no mention of his enduring paralysis from the polio he suffered in 1921. So what began as a gentlemans agreement and a little bit of nudging from the president , continued when it became the rule of the white house and the very tough press secretary stephen early. The photographs of him in the wheelchair were not permitted. Photographs of him being lifted into a car or using his braces were not permitted. By then, photographers had violated that code they could have their film ripped out of their cameras. Colleague photographers would purposely jostle a photographer who was trying to take a revealing picture. It shows that there was a connection between roosevelt and the press thats unique. Susan we learned in our first hour from you that adams and lincoln and wilson all cracked down during war. When world war ii broke out, what was the Roosevelt Administration supposed to the press . Mr. Holzer he enjoyed hiding a little bit. He went to a conference with Winston Churchill in canada, but he did not tell the press he was going. He said he was going on a vacation and his son reported that he loved the idea that he fooled them. Winston churchill arrived to this conference with his own press contingents. The American Press was mightily annoyed by that. He also exercised loose lips sink ships policy once the war began. He reduced the number of press conferences he had hosted. By the way, its worth noting that no president in American History met the press as often as fdr. He held 998 press conferences over 12 years. Those who claimed that he would diminish to a point where he can no longer lead by the end of his life should look at his last press conference a day before he died and see how he manipulated the press. How he did not allow a guest, the president of the philippines, to say a word. How he reminded everybody everything is off the record and said i will see you back in washington. We have a transcript for every one of his 998 press conferences. He was a master of that form. Two days a week, tuesdays and fridays. Access, plus, withholding access was the perfect formula for control. Susan he was famous for those fireside chats. We will listen to 30 seconds of one from 1939 and then talk about how he used those. [video clip] will the people of this country, while receiving news through your radios and your newspapers at every hour of the day, you are the most enlightened and best informed of people in all the world at this moment. You are subjected to no censorship of news. And i want to add that the government has no information which it withholds, or which it has any thought of withholding from you. [end of video clip] susan what is your reaction to that big statement, not withholding anything from you . Mr. Holzer it was generally true up to that point. He answered questions. They were off the record, but he would relent and put things back on the record or issue a mimeographed news release with a statement of the day to conform with the news he had made. The fireside chats were amazing. He assumed a confirmation of power. A new deal activist who traveled the country to officially measure the impact of recovery programs, all took note of the fact that americans throughout the rural area of the country thought of roosevelt as a friend who entered their parlors every so often, and whose voice was perfectly textured to the radio microphone. He did not bray. He did not shout. He did not speechify, he talked. The way that geniuses of this new medium converse. They considered him a family friend. They laugh with him. They cried with him during the awful news of world war ii. They prayed with him when he wrote a prayer for the dday invasion force and recited it. His voice was everywhere. Whats remarkable is he did 998 press conferences that he only did 28 fireside chats and people could swear he was always on the radio. Always a part of their lives. Part of it was because he did speeches on the radio. But there is a great story i think my favorite story in the book is a recollection by the person working for the government in a writers project and would later go on to win the nobel prize in literature. He remembered being on a big avenue in chicago as a young man and there was a terrible traffic jam during a fireside chat. He could not stand the heat of the summer even with the windows down, so he decided he would get out and walk the length of this boulevard. But every place he went, every car window was rolled down and every radio was tuned to president roosevelt. So as he was walking a mile along this promenade, he kept roosevelt with him the whole time and the voice never stopped dominating the space that he was traversing. Susan if fdr used radio to his advantage, john kennedy you write about television, he all but weaponize the medium that help elect him. Mr. Holzer he did. The big experiments that propelled him into using television that way were the Nixon Kennedy president ial debates, which from the moment they began, gave an advantage to kennedy. Not just because of what he said, but the way he said it and the way he looked. He used great makeup. Nixon used that makeup. He was emaciated. Those who watched on television believed kennedy had won by a wide margin. There was no polling, but that was consensus. Once he became president , he used the same team of makeup artists and set designers who had collaborated on the background of the first triumphant political debate to design a place for him to hold press conferences. Now, eisenhower had introduced the live press conferences, but he was clearly annoyed by doing it. He did it in the Old Executive Office building, which was cavernous. He stood at a desk and said, lets see if this works out. He fought with reporters. It was not successful, even though he had a brilliant press secretary. The kennedy set was the new state department auditorium, which had theater style seating, professional lighting, they installed a blue background, built a famous podium with a president ial seal. They had a place in the back for cameras, and they had 400 people for those press conferences. They needed the space to accommodate them, and they simply darkened the lights on the outer reaches were people were not seen. The other innovations were that he was introduced ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. That had never happened before. With fdr, the doors flew open and reporters filed in and stood at the desk. Kennedy was brilliant. I listened to all of his press conferences again and watched them courtesy of the Kennedy Library archives. They were as masterful as i remembered them from my afterschool viewing in junior high school. He was informative. He took responsibility for mistakes. Success has a thousand followers and failure is an orphan he famously said after the bay of pigs when they failed in cuba. He was funny. He was witty. And again, i mentioned may craig earlier. By this time she was an elderly reporter and she wore flowerpot hats to distinguish her. Kennedy could always find her. When things were getting a little tedious, he would call on her and she would inevitably ask russian that was almost as funny as the answer. She had a way of doing her questions that got people giggling. Maybe it was a little patronizing, but the giggles were there. And he would giggle when he answered. These became so popular in their own right as cultural phenomenon, that they inspired a record album. If anybody remembers what a record album is. A comedian did an uncanny impression of president kennedy, or as jfk said, of teddy kennedy. It was more like teddy. It became a big bestseller. They were theatrical events. The press was dubious at first. They did not like the idea of the theatricality of it. But one reporter said it was like getting president kennedy practically do the equivalent of making love in carnegie hall. They realized they were getting called on and getting airtime and they were going famous themselves, so they signed on. They like it. Susan we are going to play a brief clip so people can get a sense of it. We dont have too much more time to talk about kennedy, but lets listen to how he sounded. [video clip] the democratic platform on which you ran for election promises to work for equal rights for women, including equal pay, wipeout job opportunity discriminations. You have made efforts on behalf of others, what have you done for the women according to the promises of the platform . President kennedy im sure we have not done enough. [laughter] president kennedy i must say i am a strong believer in equal pay for equal work. I think we ought to do better than we are doing. Im glad that you reminded me of it. [laughter] [end of video clip] susan i will just let that stand. One aspect of the relationship with kennedy and the press is that they were willing to cover up his medical issues. His reliance on medications to deal with some of those medical issues. And importantly, his philandering. Why were they willing to do that . Mr. Holzer it was the last gasp of the Old Boy Network. Kennedy had been a journalist after world war ii. He was a writer of sorts. We can debate whether he wrote the book for which he won the Pulitzer Prize or if he just supervised the production. He was a charmer and he has lifelong friends in journalism. Ben bradlee and others, he played golf with reporters and gave them scoops. He was very clever about keeping his friends in his orbit. Giving them stories, giving them exclusives, giving them tips. So they were willing to overlook those things that the Old Boy Network overlooked at the time. The prevailing idea that the president s private life is offlimits if it does not interfere with his public life was still prevalent. And years later, the man who had turned the other way defended that practice because they insisted it did not interfere with his conduct of the government. Susan and in the close to his chapter you recognize the fact that television also canonized john f. Kennedy in his death. What were you thinking about as you wrote that . Mr. Holzer i was thinking about my longtime studies of the lincoln assassination and how the images of his funeral, assassination, and deathbed all contrived into a secular sainthood. The same could be said about kennedys funeral. It was an elaborate affair in which his body was taken to where Abraham Lincoln was buried. On live tv of his little boy saluting his coffin. Of Jackie Kennedy and his brothers and the leaders of the world slowly walking across the bridge. No one who saw that will ever forget it. It is seared into the National Memory and made people forget the successes and failures of the administration and fall in love anew and permanently with john kennedy. Susan the chapter in your book on Lyndon Johnson is important because of the vietnam war, that we dont have enough time to talk about it. I hope it will interest people in reading it. Moving on to Richard Nixon. Lets start with a piece of video and then we will talk about it. This is from 1962. [video clip] you had an opportunity to attack me and i think i have given as good as i have taken. I leave you gentlemen now and you will now write it, you will interpret it. That is your right. But as i leave you, i want you to know, just think of how much youre going to be missing. You dont have nixon to kick around anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference. And i hope that what i have said today will at least make television, radio, the press recognize that they have a right and responsibility if they are against the candidate to give him the shaft, but also recognize if they are giving the shaft, put one lone reporter on the campaign who will report what the candidates says now and then. [end of video clip] susan what was the source throughout the campaign . Mr. Holzer he always believed he got the shaft, as he so charmingly put it. From the day he was a crusading congressman and senator, he felt he deserved lionization for intensive attacks. And he never got it because the press did not like his tactics and did not like his anger. It persisted into that moment when he was conceding the 1962 comeback bid for governor of california. But i will say that, although he did say it was his last press conference, he famously did have many, many press conferences after that. And most of them were brittle and tense affairs because he did not like press scru