Its free thanks to the generous contributions of patrons. And for us to continue to offer this we need your support so if you can, if you will, you can go on line. You can go by the tent and help us continue this great tradition into your 27, 28, 29, 30. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] coming up next on encore booknotes Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace author of character talks about what he considers to be notable acts of presence encouraged. This is about an hour. And the point to the book is that a lot of what we understand ouhe pre cspan Chris Wallace, why did you name your book character . Guest because thats what it is about. And i think theres a point to the book. And the point to the book is that a lot of what we understand about the presidency i think is wrong. I think a lot of people think the presidency is an exercise in intellect or an exercise in cspan Chris Wallace, why did you name your book character . Guest because thats what it is about. And i think theres a point to the book. And the point to the book is that a lot of what we understand about the presidency i think is wrong. I think a lot of people think the presidency is an exercise in intellect or an exercise in ideology. And i covered Ronald Reagan for six years. And if you want to discuss it some more, i can tell you what i learned in those six years of covering the presidency because it was a lot different than what i thought it was going to be. But it became clear to me that, to a large degree, it is a test of the president s will and purpose, to believe in a few big things, to stand steady against the swirl of political controversy, opinion nowadays thats certainly not true for the all the president s in this book polls, advice from counselors, all kinds of things that would drive a president away from his core convictions to not necessarily do what he believed in or what he really believed to be best for the country. This is a book about character, about 16 president s, from George Washington to george w. Bush, who all, in a moment of national crisis, did what they in their hearts believed was the right thing for the country, who showed character not necessarily what turned out to be right i think theres some of the decisions they made that i dont know i agree with and you can certainly argue about them, but that they were not the popular thing. They were the brave thing. And thats what this is, character profiles in president ial courage. Cspan how long ago did you get the idea . Guest about a yearandahalf ago. And it was a kind of collaborative effort. My a fellow, an agent, bill adler, came up called me up and said, have you ever thought of writing a book . And i said, yes, but i never have had an idea. And he kind of had some ideas, and we sort of put the idea together and then we went to got a publisher, rugged land, a small Publishing House with a relationship with random house, and also, talked to richard neustadt, the great president ial historian. And its a funny quick story there. I was a kid going to a private school in new york back in the 1950s. And there was a kid in my class named rick neustadt. And it turned out ill never forget. He told me one day that his dad was a professor at Columbia University and that theyd had champagne for dinner the previous friday night. And that seemed quite glamorous to me. And i said, why . And he said, well, he just finished a book called president ial power, which, of course, became a very famous textbook, kind of the definitive book about the power of the presidency. So i got in touch with professor neustadt, retired and it actually was shortly before his death and talked over the idea with him. And i guess the basic idea was, by this point in a campaign, as we get closer to election day, people are fed up with the candidates. Theyre fed up with the negative attacks. Oftentimes i can remember as a kid, sitting around with my parents, during the first kennedynixon debate, and then saying, i cant believe this is the choice weve got. These are the two guys running for president. And quite frankly, thats been true every single four years. Im sure youve experienced that, too. People say, i can believe these are the two best people america has to offer. And so i thought, lets write a feelgood book about american democracy. Lets write about president s who dont do the polldriven thing, who dont do the popular thing, who, you know, dont do what sometimes seems a little craven but who stand up and do what is in their core conviction, what they believe is right for america. Cspan just a quick thing. Rick neustadt met an untimely death, the son. crosstalk cspan . Carter administration and all what happened . Guest he was in a i mean, we had really lost touch with each other, but i certainly was aware of this incident. He was in a Whitewater Rafting trip, and his raft you know, ive been fortunate enough to do it and fortunate enough to walk away from it. But his raft flipped over, and he got caught underneath it and he drowned. Cspan do you remember how many years ago that was . Guest i would think at least 10. Cspan so 16 president s. That leaves out there are 42 men that have been president. It leaves out a bunch. No eisenhower, no john adams, no john quincy adams, no james polk. How did you pick the 16 . Guest well, it you know, its somewhat arbitrary, and you certainly could make cases for some of them. I suppose, in the case of john adams, my feeling was hed been pretty well covered recently. And one of the things that intrigued me about the book was to find people who dont get a lot of publicity, who arent well known. I mean, George Washington is in here. Abraham lincolns in here. But one of my favorites is Grover Cleveland. I love the Grover Cleveland story. Can i talk about it just briefly . Cspan sure. Guest Grover Cleveland 1894 he was a tremendous friend of labor. He had been a reform mayor in new york state, in buffalo. Then he had become the governor of new york. Then hed been elected president. He was the president who helped create the federal arbitration system. He was also the president who legalized labor unions. And on his watch in 1894, there had been this Big International exposition in chicago. And it was right around the time when there was a strike, a Railroad Workers strike that started in pullman, chicago. Pullman George Pullman was the fellow who developed and built the Pullman Railroad cars, which was the very great luxury Railroad Cars that you could sleep in. I was fortunate enough as a kid, i remember, to sleep in a pullman on the 20th Century Limited going between chicago and new york. And you know, they were the height of luxury. And he created a town outside just outside chicago, which he called, modestly enough, pullman. And it created a kind of a classic company town, where people had to you know, it was quite nice, quite nice housing. But people had to live in the housing. People had to shop at the pullman stores. And there was a considerable economic downturn in the late 1890s, and he started cutting back the salaries of the pullman workers, but he didnt cut back the rent or the cost of food that all these people so as a result, when they deducted all of that before theyd give people the paycheck, these guys sometimes ended up owing money, or if they got any money, it was just, you know, pennies. And so they decided they were going to strike. And it happened in the context of lots of people coming to chicago for the international exposition, and it became riots and tremendous civil disorder. And they counted, the labor people, on their friend in the white house staying out, or if anything, caving in to their demands, Grover Cleveland. Cleveland, who, as i say, was a huge friend of labor, felt that the nations security was in jeopardy. And he really went against the constitution because at the time, there was you president s were not allowed to send troops into a state unless the governor asked for the troops, and governor altgeld of illinois didnt want them because he was a he favored labor. And so cleveland went against the law, went against altgeld, sent in federal troops, restored order. Of course, the labor you know, the union types, debs, all the organizers felt that he had betrayed his back ground, his history, certainly. The popular will at the time. And his feeling was, im going to protect and save the security, the civil order of the country. And you know, it was a profile in president ial courage. Cspan you did point out that Grover Cleveland had been a sheriff, a mayor, a governor, and now a president. You think the fact that hed been a sheriff had anything to do with it . Guest absolutely. Absolutely. No, i think there was there was a kind of conflict between the lawyer and the labor advocate, on the one hand, and the sheriff who believed in public order. And let me just, if i can, read the first paragraph because im one of the things we try to do i try to do in the book is that i wanted to not write about it as a historian. I wanted to write about it as a journalist, take you, to the degree that its possible to take you, into the moment and what these politicians were president s were feeling and thinking and what the various currents of opinion were at the time that were swirling around them, and but to keep it very immediate. And so i begin the chapter on him, called constitution be damned. Grover cleveland once killed a man. Two, actually. Of course, theyd already been sentenced to death. As sheriff of erie county, new york, to avoid wasting government money on a hiring a hangman, he simply hanged the men himself. So i you know, i just love that story. And it frankly and there are a lot of stories in here that i didnt know. And i got a lot of help in research from this Wonderful Team at rugged land and, you know, that helped me to tell the stories. And i learned a lot in writing the book. And one of the things that i hope anybody who reads it is that they will learn and things that you sort of that you sort of have heard of, the whiskey rebellion, the berlin airlift, lendlease. There are these sort of words that i was aware of in american history, but i must, as no great president ial historian, i didnt really know what they were, what they meant, what were the circumstances that had led to them. And as i, you know, read the research and started writing about these president s, you know, learned about the great dramas involved in all of it. Cspan what about rugged land . First time weve ever done a book from that publisher. Any background on them, who they are . Guest well, theres a fellow named sean coyne, whos the publisher, and another fellow, his partner, who is the editor, a wonderful named web stone. And they started this. Its a small house on the Lower West Side of new york. As i say, they got a relationship with random house. And theyre very good. And it was it was a very interesting process. As a firsttime author. I didnt you know, id always read about the role of an editor. Boy, a good editor im sure a lot of authors have told you that can make all the difference in the world. And this fellow, webster stone, is just a terrific, very inventive, very creative but also very solid, serious man. And he helped me in just countless ways in putting this book together. Cspan you were doing this book, though, in and around your move to fox news. Did you finish it before you got there . Guest no, no. I was writing it in fact, the heavy writing was done since ive come to fox news, some at abc, but primarily at fox. And people say to me, when did you have time to do it . Given the fact that i do Fox News Sunday, i have sunday afternoons off, all day monday, all day tuesday. And it actually works because all the kids are out of the house. My wife is off doing her life. So i really had a lot of time to myself, twoandahalf days a week. And did the heavy work then. Cspan the other thing you did after each of the 16 chapters is include some primary source material. Where did you get that idea . And what kind of primary source material were you looking to put in the book . Guest well, something that, again, would take you back to the moment and how president s you know, with Ronald Reagan, we talk about how he decided to build up weapons, against tremendous opposition, so that he could try to pressure the soviets into ending the arms race. And we take the specific speech in which he talks about proposed for the first time sdi, the Strategic Defense Initiative. And with george w. Bush in iraq, we take a very powerful speech he made at the military academy at west point. Some of the the emancipation proclamation is the actual proclamation. But you know, some of them are are documents, some of them are president ial speeches. And its just anything that can take you back to the moment. I talked about how we tried to make this as historic as journalistic as possible, to take you as much into the moment as we possibly could. And the source material is, you know, how they were trying to these various president s, to make their case, how they were trying to persuade the public, which in almost every one of these cases was going against them, how they tried to persuade them, you know, this is the right thing to do. Cspan Andrew Johnson. How did he get in here . Guest well, i have to say this. Theres a certain amount of perverseness to this book. I you know, i wanted as i say, there are the greatest hits in there. Theres fdr and theres washington and lincoln and reagan. But there are certain president s that i was kind of intrigued by who go against the popular Richard Nixon is in here, and you wouldnt think necessarily a book about character and Richard Nixon would be a good fit. Andrew Johnson Andrew johnson becomes the Vice President and again, you know, i think most americans now, youre a great president ial historian, so you probably knew all about Andrew Johnson. But you know, most people Andrew Johnson, impeachment. Thats about it. You know, the Vice President when lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Andrew johnson was one of the very few i think he was the only correct me if im wrong southern senator who stayed in the senate during the civil war was chosen, i think, to help as a kind of as a Vice President for his bravery and the idea that he could help the healing, help bind the wounds at the end of the civil war. Didnt want to come to the inauguration, was scared of it. Finally was convinced by lincoln, direct order, get your tail up here to washington, on his way to the capitol, stopped off and got loaded and proceed to deliver at the inaugural ceremony a drunken rant. Of course, very shortly thereafter, lincoln is tragically assassinated, and a lot of people had questions, real serious doubts as to whether johnson, as a southerner, had been involved because booth had come to his boarding house wasnt it the day before or the day of trying to remember and had left a message, you know, inquiring to see if mr. Johnson is at the boarding house. And this became knowledge after the assassination. Cspan let me read that so Everybody Knows what youre talking about. The note from john wilkes booth, dont wish to disturb you. Are you at home . Guest right. And of course, we now believe that it was, in fact, because the effort was, lets kill the president and the Vice President and throw the union into real disorder. But at the time, some people thought that there was a conspiracy going on, and this was wilkes booth looking to work out with johnson the assassination of lincoln, and that they were, as i say, in cahoots together, in a conspiracy. In any case, the official the office of tenure act is passed because they become so upset, the senate does, with johnson, that would prevent him from firing any member of the cabinet without congressional approval completely against the constitution. And he decides to go ahead and fire stanton. And you know, its just it is a remarkable profile in courage, that he was sitting there, fighting for the constitution, fighting for president ial prerogative, and came within a vote of being removed from office, and prior to bill clinton, the only president to be impeached. As i say, these arent all stories about guys that did the wise thing or the thing that, looking back with you know, from the Vantage Point of 100 or 200 years later was the thing that was the best for the presidency best for the country. But it was at that moment he stood up, risked his political future to do what he believed was right for the country, and certainly right for the presidency. Cspan and then you have this note in here that Mary Todd Lincoln wrote to a friend. And it combines the drinking of Andrew Johnson and also the card that we read from john wilkes booth. Ill read it. That miserable inebriate, johnson, had cognizance of my husbands death. Why was the card of booths found in his box . Some acquaintance certainly existed. I have been deeply impressed with the harrowing thought that he had an understanding with the conspirators, and they knew their man. As sure as you and i live, johnson had some hand in all of this. Guest thats right. Cspan when do you remember when that was made public, that note . Guest i dont. I dont. Cspan it doesnt say. But i wonder if that. Guest no. I think it was i think it was. Cspan at the time . Guest yes, i think so. I mean, if not, it certainly was the case that this thought was out there, that he had been in a conspiracy, because the note from wilkes booth was certainly made public