Andrew, tell us about your book, which focuses really on two days in the kennedy presidency. June 10th and june 11th, 1963. Why did you decide to write a book focused on only two days of the kennedy presidency and why did you pick those two days to focus on . Well, thank you, colleen, and its a great honor to be here with you and the White House Historical association, particularly meaningful to me because as was just said, it was founded by Jackie Kennedy and in the white house 60 years ago. I had been looking for a way into the Kennedy Administration for some time. Part of this may be hard to believe, but one of the most seminole days in my life was november 22nd, 1963, where as an 8yearold, i learned of the assassination of president kennedy. It isnt unusual for someone like me or anyone of my generation to remember where he or she was, but it did seem to me to change something. It developed for me a fascination. As i grew up, my friends were interested in captain cook and the final frontier. I was interested in jfk and the new frontier. Through my career journalist, and as a student before that, i had been looking as a washington correspondent as well for a way into the kennedy stories. Of course, colleen, there were monument alibiographies and and memoirs and Academic Studies and scarcely a part of jfk legacy that had not been dissected and inspected and examined. I wondered if there was something new to say. And then i came upon in a sense these two days in june. Were on the eve, incidentally, of the 57th anniversary of june 10th and 11th 1963. What could i say that was new. And when i thought about it,ib said to myself, my goodness, two extraordinary speeches, one on the june the 10th, 1963 and one on civil rights, the evening of june 11th the evening of 1963. Those would be two of the most extraordinary speeches of what was a rhetorical presidency. Between them, and they are the pillars of this study, but theyre also the parenthesis. Because in between i saw an opportunity to explain, litt illuminate the presidency hourbyhour in an atmospheric way to try to give a reading who didnt know much about jfk, like the students i teach for example, who are from another generation, what it was like to be jfk, what it was like to be president of the United States and what it was like to make the decisions he did on the two pivotal issues of not just his presidency, his decade or his generation, civil rights and nuclear arms. And when people ask me what do days did you pick, they talk about the missile cuban crisis or the bay of pigs. These are the high noon of the kennedy presidency. So when the book begins, krend kennedy is waking up on air force one and flying back to washington, d. C. From hawaii, where hes just given a speech. And only a few hours later he will be at American University giving a monumental speech on foreign affairs. Could you tell us about the substance of that speech and why kennedy wanted to give it at though moment in time. Well, to give us some context, colleen, this is the spring of 1963, john f. Kennedy has been in office two and a half years and i think it is fair to say his record was mixed as president. His first year in 1961 he authorized the disastrous bay of pigs. He a difficult meeting in vienna where he was bullied in a sense when it meant something different. He watches the berlin wall go up in august of 1961. By the end of that year, when a reporter said to him, i would like to write a history of your first year in office, kennedy turns to him and said why would you want to write a history about disasters. By 62 things are changing. He faces down the executives of what we call then big steel that were trying to raise prices. He faces down kristoff in what is famously the cuban missile crisis and by 63 hes feeling confident about his presidency but he also knows america is in a water shed turning point, both in the height of the cold war around nuclear arms, around civil rights. But lets deal with nuclear war. I just mentioned the cuban missile crisis of 1962. 13 perilous days in the autumn of 1962 when historians still say today we came as close to Nuclear Annihilation as we have before or since. Kennedy was shaken by that and so was nikita kristoff and kend into the spring is looking to change the channel. Both of them felt that america and the soviet union having come to this near nuclear apocalypse, ar armageddon, having to get through. The pope is involved and the editor of saturday evening review is involved and there is an attempt by both parties to come to some conclusion or to begin some process that would lower the temperature and begin a certain process of disarmament. Kennedys big gamut in the spring of that year is a speech. It will become [ technical difficulties ] over four to six weeks. It isnt a secret but done by a tightly and a tight circle of trusted aides. Kennedy does not share what hesing to propose because it is almost subversive. He doesnt share it with the joint chief of staff or go the state department or department of defense or consult the cia and he leaves out the joint chiefs of staff and congressional leadership. All people who he might have consulted giving what will become the major Foreign Policy speech of his administration. He is dealing with it that way because kennedy is going to say things about the russians that no american president has said since the cold war. Now, 18 years of cold war. And he will, in that speech, arrive at American University at 10 30 a. M. , as you said, colleen, having flown across america, across the pacific, nine hours, having left hawaii the night before, touching down at Andrews Air Force base at about 8 50 a. M. Getting on marine one, choppering to the white house, and within 100 minutes of landing on that tarmac, he will be dressed in a gown and mortar, or he wont wear the cap, before an audience at American University in northwest washington where he will make a speech in which, for the first time, hell talk about the russians in very human terms. He will compliment the russian. Humanize the russians and talk about their achievements in industry, in their economy, in science and americans are very familiar with what just happened. Very familiar because sputnik has gone up in 1957 and there is a great sense that america has fallen behind the soviets. Hell talk about the soviets or the russians contribution in the second world war, 20 million and i think it is higher than that and we learn later. Of all of the russians have done as a society, hell put aside the rhetoric of the cold war, of soft yet treachery, of the gulags, all of that have become the standard, the staple of american politicians. So hell do that in very carefully worded and carefully worded address under prepressive heat. It is 98 degrees at American University that day. And people are wilting and they set up triage stations because people are fainting, and there hell make an iefr offer to enter into negotiations over a comprehensive test treaty. This isnt comprehensive in the end, it would be limited. But kennedy is proposing that as we as the cold war goes on and we both stockpile weaponry that could kill us many times over, why dont we simply stop testing. No no tests in the atmosphere, no tests under the ocean and no tests in space. And it is a radical idea that kennedy knows is not going to go down well with many elements in congress and elsewhere who are hardline communists. Now it is important for that jfk is no slouch when it comes to communism. People always said dont judge john f. Kennedy by his inaugural address, judge him by what was to be called the peace speech. So the rhetoric, the tone, when kennedy says in the final analysis, we all inhabit the same planet and breathe the same air and cherish our childrens future, were all immortal, hes almost universalist in his appeal. This kind of language had not been heard before the mouth of a president since Franklin Roosevelt was dealing with stalin in 1944 and 1945. And when kristoff hears this several hours later because while the speech is broadcast live in the United States it takes longer to make its way to moscow, he cannot believe what he is hearing. There will be a negotiation and six weeks later, just to show you as you know as a student of rhetoric, sometimes things do happen from speeches. There will be the limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty, the most important Foreign Policy decision and achievement of the Kennedy Administration. And almost a few hours later, after this really transformative Foreign Policy speech that kennedy gives at American University, your book details about how hes pivoted two hours later to another major pressk National Issue concerning governor George Wallace and desegregation at the university of alabama. How does kennedy begin to prepare himself to handle this crisis and why does he think that it might be a Pivotal Moment in civil rights history . Well, in the velocity of the 48 hours i called on this feverish 48 hours, he does pivot. He pivots on both issues. And he has to pivot within the days. So he leaves American University, it is about five or six miles from the white house, jumped into the Lincoln Continental that the kennedys have designed and kreennedy is using and roars back to the white house. Where, as you say, his thoughts turn from diplomacy and the cold war and nuclear arm to George Wallace and civil rights and the university of alabama. Because down in alabama, George Wallace, the bantamweight small man with a big complaint has announced, has more than threatened, has announced that he will refuse to integrate the university of alabama. He will refuse personally to admit two black students, james hood and vivian malone, who the court has ordered admitted to the university of alabama and George Wallace said he will stand at schoolhouse door and prevent physically those two from entering. Now the court has ordered this. The kennedys know it and so does wallace. But wallace is determined to make a spectacle of this and the kennedys realize they have to allow them to do that. They will not bring the two students to the front door. Will admit them through a side door. But there will be a confrontation. Which will also be carried live, not necessarily on american television, but certainly on radio. And the kennedys have been preparing for this for some time. And as the roots of the peace speech are the cuban missile crisis, the roots of the civil rights speech are seven months earlier at the university of mississippi when ross barnett, the governor of mississippi, like George Wallace is refusing to integrate the university of mississippi. These are the last of the great big public universities in the south. All others have been integrated at this point. And these are and in 1962 the kennedys have to send in the National Guard, shades of today, have to send in the National Guard to preserve the rights of james meredith, the rights to enter that university. It does not go well. It is actually quite a disaster. There is a 15hour riot, two people are killed including a french journalist, hundreds are injured, ross barnett has not done what he said he would do. The kennedys feel betrayed and they are not going to let that happen again. So before the showdown on the door of the university of alabama, the kennedys, led by the attorney general of the United States, jack kennedy, his closest adviser, Robert Kennedy has been working at the Justice Department to ensure nothing goes wrong. They are gaming scenarios. How would they remove George Wallace if he refused and what would happen if she does refuse, and should they hold him in acontempt of court, how will they handle that and preserve the dignity of the two black students who, after all, just want an education. And so the kennedys have been preparing for this, they have studied maps provided by the United States forestry service, they have even positioned a boat on the Black Warrior river in the end of campus in case a lynch mob chases those two away. There was a threat of tens of thousands of klansman outside of the gates of the university. So this is happening that day. Kennedy on monday is preparing for this. The confrontation wont take place until tuesday. But on monday, hes gaming this. And one advantage, colleen, i had in writing the story, is, and i didnt know until well into it, there was a documentary film team filming kennedy in the white house let by robert drew, one of the early filmmakers and i had access to that, to the raw footage which is held in hollywood, and there i could see, i could watch the negotiations, the consultations, that were going on both on monday after the peace speech, which is june 10th and in the morning of june the 11th. So you see how serious the kennedys were taking this and preparing for that confrontation with George Wallace. In your book, as you explained earlier, it is about two days but you use those two days as a lens into some of kennedys most intimate and personal and most political relationships that he maintained. And one person that you feature in the book, quite extensively, is ted sorenson. Could you tell us a little bit about ted sorenson and why you decided to heavily profile him and include him in your book. Well ted sorenson, who deserves a diography of his own, and i had put aside and hope to return to, he is kennedys speech writer. Ted sorenson leaves nebraska and arrives in washington and jack kennedy leaves the house and goes to the senate in 1953. Sorenson doesnt know kennedy. Hes interviewing with Scoop Jackson, Henry Jackson the senator from washington and interviewing with jack kennedy. The speech writer is interviewing the senator. Ted sorenson was considered so good, out of nebraska, he led his law class, he was young at the time, in his early 20s, that he is advised to go with Scoop Jackson but chooses jack kennedy. And there begins an association of 11 years, which i would argue is the most Extraordinary Partnership between a president and an associate in the history of modern presidency. There isnt anything that ted sorenson wont do for jfk. He reveres him. Hes a master craftsman and a word smith. He works for jfk, who himself is a writer and values writers, had written with ted sorensons help, profiles and courage, but had begun his career after the war and admired writers ab called them his friends and made eloquence and rhetoric a center piece of the style of the Kennedy Administration. With ted sorenson, with kennedys sense of occasion and ted sorensons facility with a pen, they were magic, the two of them. And so at this time ted sorenson is not just writing the peace speech, hes writing a number of speeches, including the speech that jfk will give in berlin two weeks later and hell be writing under different circumstances, which im sure well get to, the civil rights speech that jfk will deliver on june the 11th. They are an extraordinary combination which doesnt mean theyre friends. They dont socialize together and ted sorenson is devoted to jfk. It comes at some cost. It will destroy his marriage and ravage his health and shake at times his selfconfidence and he will never recover from the death of john f. Kennedy five and a half months later five and a half months later. But while their together and on the particular two days is the height, in for me looking at this administration, where words mattered, the height of the rhetorical flourish. Another major player that you highlight in the book regarding jfks decision in the university of alabama. Well ted sorenson used to like say he was the third most powerful man in washington because r. J. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy was the second and nobody could display bobby. Bobby is a lot younger than jack. Bobby has been drafted by joseph p. Kennedy, the kennedy patriarch, to serve his brother. Bobby didnt want to be attorney general in 1961 and joe kennedy said to jack, will you make bobby your attorney general and he introduced bobby saying, i see no reason not to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law. This is the chief Law Enforcement officer of the United States. Bobby was a wonderful attorney general and Kennedy Justice is a extraordinary combination of passionate affect and drawing some of the leading lawyers and legal thinkers in america. He is more than a lawyer and hes more than an adviser to jack kennedy, particularly, colleen, over these two days. If he was a Prime Minister on other days, today hes a field marshal. Hes almost a copresident. Because what it comes to handling what is happening in mississippi, bobby is executing the moves through the department. One of his trusted colleagues is the person, the gangling and tall Rhodes Scholar who appears in the pictures, towering over George Wallace who kept in the sun while George Wallace