he says you can do it? yes, make it 25. i said okay. here's 25. that's one of the reasons we got the performing arts. but those are some stories that happened. you've probably never read about in the providence journal or anyplace else is a matter of fact but you can read about it in the book. .. present a thorough picture of the career and life of barack obama senior. she discusses her findings with veteran white house reporter, kenneth walsh of "u.s. news &

world report." >> host: sally welcome. i have really enjoyed reading your book and i want to just get right to the main question so many authors are asked which is why you decided to write this book and sort of what the genesis of the book is? >> guest: the story of barack obama senior seemed to me to be the untold story of both obama's candidacy and the presidency. i've been a reporter at the globe for many years and i've done many political profiles. i did write a profile of obama senior in october 2008. i spoke to many people in kenya but i never went to kenya. i didn't have that piece of the story. we decided that this was a very compelling story. it was very little known about him. obama junior wrote about him in his book the only go so far and tells what his experience of his father and it seemed to me this

was a book that needed to be written. >> host: in the process he said you want to kenya and i know you describe it that in the book itself. tell us a little bit about what that was like. did you get a lot of access to people? with their suspicion of an outsider? was there a racial dimension i white reporter talking about an african-american family? >> guest: all of those things are true in some way. i want to kenya five times and done many wonderful people they knew obama sr. many will. there were many of them who worked with him and knew him, many family members. some people were very eager to talk. because this was such a high-profile presidency and they are so proud of obama jr. some wanted to tell a positive story. the father is a complex character as you know since he read the book, very passionate person also a very self-destructive person. because of that i think there were people certainly in the family he didn't particularly want the story told her only certain kind. i think i was a white woman coming in to tell it also raised concern. this was their story and i

certainly did run into that as well. >> host: but in the end you are happy with how the sourcing worked and the people you talk to and access you are given? >> guest: absolutely. i found a number of people that knew them well and i also found a number of people in the family that walked me through the village and i really felt like i talked to many many people who knew him. i also was fortunate to find several groupings of documents that revealed a whole other aspect of his life. i think nobody knew about. >> host: let's start from the beginning. give a sort of a thumbnail sketch of barack obama sr.. what was he like? what did he look like? what was his -- and how did he get to the united states? >> guest: obama was born on lake victoria. he was a member of the third largest of the many tribes in kenya. he was a very. schist boy from the very start. his father who was a very controlling, had very high

expectations for him, used to drill him in his mouth psalms, wanted him to be more successful than he had been himself. he did attend local schools and excel. he was known as the brightest boy in the class for many years and with that he began to be a little more cocky and cocksure. he would not take exams and drift off in the middle of the day. but because you were so smart he was accepted into what is known as the repressed urges school largely for luaus. then it was created for the sons of chiefs. and this meant he was going to be made. he would be very successful and have a good career. that didn't happen. obama got into trouble. nothing huge but photos a series of small offenses. obama like to argue. there was nothing he couldn't argue about. it wasn't so much he believed in the point of view but he wanted to cross you. his friend describes how he would be taking the catalog to go graze grayson obama would say you can't go to that field.

you must go to the other one. that is the kind of thing he would argue about. he would argue with his professors which you are not supposed to do. you didn't argue which he always did. he would lay on the grass which was a cardinal sin. this was a trim, green lawn and you were supposed to go around it. you were supposed to handwrite your dishes. he would lay them in the sun. on and on the infractions when. finally a letter shows up at the principal office complaining about all sorts of things from school. the beds are hard in the food is bad. it is not signed but the principal puts two and two together. many people think obama wrote it. whether he did or didn't the principal decided he'd had enough of barack obama. what he did was he decided he would not allow obama to continue at the school and furthermore he would not recommend him for high school. this was a critical blow for obama. it meant he would not have that high school degree. it meant he could not take the cambridge entrance exam which is what he would need to go on to the next that.

>> host: and how does he get to this point of being so interested in excelling? with this in the family for a long time? i mean, was achievement recognized and encouraged or was this something is sort of popped up in his life? >> guest: two things. what one was his father. his father excelled in many ways on his own. he too was very smart. when the british came at the end of the 19th century to england, sorry, to kenya he was curious about them and traveled to nairobi. he worked for the white men man and learn their ways. and really took it upon himself to improve himself and he had high expectations for his sons are class i mentioned he would drill him on his mouth psalms. no dinner if he didn't deal well. he might be sent to his room. obama was sr. was the first boy and poison the kenyan culture were very cherished, very high expectations.

so in part it was obama sr. himself. one of the things he had in common with his son is not only with intelligence but he was very ambitious. >> host: that is another big theme that i'm sure a lot of people will want to learn about from your book, how much of the sun do we see in the father and vice versa? and what comparisons and contrasts there are. maybe we should take this moment to talk a little bit about that. to you see that president obama is barack obama sr. sun? is that very clear to you? >> guest: although they shared very little time together, really the first year of his life in a month later on. that many things in common. the first is there keen intelligence. both are very smart in that define their lives to some extent. both of them are very ambitious and found a way to envision a life far beyond the somewhat prescribed circumstances of

their birth. also they were both very involved in the politics of their day. that defined also their lives although obama sr. was the too self-absorbed into disdainful of public opinion to run for office. the moment that he was a part of, the arrival independence in 63, the transfer of kenya run the british to kenya was huge. defined him and defined his ambitions. lastly, both of them had in common and absent parent. which i think is quite profound certainly for a bomb at jr., the president. he has written about his father and his struggles with identity and what did it mean to not have a father. what did it mean to have this particular father was very important to him. obama sr. was abandoned by his mother when he was nine or 10 years old. she fled from hussein who was quite abusive. and i tell the story if you would like to hear. i feel it is a very defining moment. hussein and young guy was cruel

to his multiple wives of which he had a number and one day he threatened to kill his wife, the mother of obama sr.. he takes out his huge sword and he dugger graves out behind their home and he starts to slit her throat and a neighbor comes by and says you can do this. this is also told to me by one of their daughters. and she is so afraid of so tired of being abused that she decides to leave. so one night she comes to obama and his sister sarah and said i'm leaving and i'm going back home. , and find me if you can. a few days later she leaves. there were three children, sarah, obama sr. and another. one night they leave. this is kenya. this is while. their animals and it is a very dangerous time. they're going to walk from the northside down to the south. their mother has gone in a travel for two weeks and traveled only a night as they don't want to be picked up. they traveled at a time when the animals were out so it is a miracle they made it but they do make it. two weeks they travel and when

they get there, their village from where they were born somebody alerts hussein and he comes than he is heartbroken and cries for the first time and drags them back. they are punished for this. i feel that obama sr. was really defined by this abandonment although he loves his mother and would later know her. hurley being of him i think left him forever in doubt about himself and insecure in very fundamental ways. i think it affected his relationships with women and with children and i think he was not able to trust are really be intimate. >> host: of course, since we are talking about the family circumstances, obama sr. left the family when obama jr., president obama was two years old? >> guest: 1-year-old. not even one. >> host: i guess they only saw each other really once after that. i want to ask you about how that meeting went but also talk a little bit about the marriage of

barack obama sr. to stanley ann dunham and why he left the family. what happened there? >> guest: left the family in kenya or hawaii? host go in hawaii. >> guest: he met her in 1960. she was very taken with him and he with her genuinely. she would write back to her friends in seattle, i am in love with an african and i think they were very struck with one another. she gets pregnant with him and a few months and they get married in february of 1961. together a very short time. i would say because some of the immigration documents of obama sr.'s. apparently, they were not even living together but then five or six months. while she is still pregnant, she is living with her parents and he is living somewhere else. she has the baby in august and he is starting to look around for where he is going to go to school next. he is done very well the university of wai.

he completed his phi beta kappa and three years hence applies worldly schools. he is really smart. he applies to many schools. he gets a full scholarship from the new school in manhattan. he gets a partial scholarship from harvard. he goes for harvard because of course harvard is the best in obama sr. is the best. obama jr. writes about this also in his book and i think he was disappointed because he wanted to go with him but he didn't have the money to take her. >> host: in that circumstance then why did he stay away from the family if he wanted to take his wife and his child, but couldn't but he never saw them for a long time after that, right? >> guest: i don't know that he did want to take them. a babysitter who took care of obama jr. when ann lived in seattle shortly after he was bored said that ann told them

this. obama sr. told her if you go back with me to nairobi you have to realize that i'm going to have to marry another kenyan woman to have full black children to have african children and this is untrue. he didn't have to do that. he told her that and also told her the mixed-race baby might've been looked at i'm kindly by family members that may or may not have been true. i think there were things he put out there to dissuade her from coming. he also had never told her about her family back in kenya. he had two children and a wife. he told her he was divorced. i don't believe he was divorced and i don't believe he thought he was a divorced. that is a confiscated issue but i think he had some ambivalence about it when he left for harvard. i don't know he thought he would be bringing the boy. >> host: when the time that barack jr. was born, there was some question about adoption, wasn't there? i think you talk about this in your book is one of the news elements here. talk about that a little bit. >> guest: as a foreign student

every year obama sr. had to re-up and get an extension of this day, the kind of extension of a visa. immigration authorities and naturalization service would look at how you were doing in school to make sure everything is okay. obama sr. and his paperwork sometimes would say he had a wife in kenya and sometimes would say he hadn't. it is becoming an issue of some concern. so immigration starts to look at his situation because a foreign student adviser at the university of hawaii is worried that he is one icing and he is dating around and she said to him you've got to stop getting so many women. he says while i will try. this is in the document. than they realize he is married to ann dunham and now they are getting worried because they think he is married in kenya and if he is married in hawaii that would make him a bigamist and a polygamist. it is all reflected in the documents. as obama comes up to talk for, to argue for his extension, they realize that his wife is pregnant and he says to them, don't worry about that.

he says my wife is making arrangements with the salvation army to have that baby put up for adoption. that baby of course is the president of the united states. now did she really do that? it is not clear. she had many reasons to do it. she was 18 years old. this was a time when mixed-race marriages were illegal in nearly half the states even in hawaii as culturally diverse as it was. a black person was an unusual thing. what would life be like for her baby? the salvation army won't address this because those records are private. i think are likely obama sr. made it out. a federal immigration officials were looking at him, bigamist with the mixed-race baby that may not go down as well and they could ask them to leave and that would be disastrous for him. my belief is that he probably made it up. >> host: so then take as to what happens then within the obama family. he leaves, his father leaves to go to harvard.

and, ann and infidel bomb are staying behind. what happens to both the mother and child in the father in the next few years? >> guest: ann returns to hawaii with her parents and develops develops a life of her own, takes care of her baby whom she adores. obama sr. heads to harvard it very exciting place but a very challenging place. he went into the economics department trying to get his ph.d.. this was a very challenging period for anybody in economics. it is a time when the field was passively changing from an old-school linear narrative empirical model to something run by a computer and data. was very different and very challenging for obama as smart as he was. many people didn't make it but obama did make it up to a point. he worked extremely hard. he had others help them him with the math which is challenging. by 1964 obama had unbelievably passed all of his exams, his oral sand is written and started on a dissertation.

but he ran into some difficulties. do you want me to keep going? >> host: yes, please. guest: once again the question of his womanizing arose. immigration officials were keeping an eye is that it routinely and it happened he was dating a kenyan woman. she also was a student. she had gone to london without authorization. responses were very concerned about that. obama is making a lot of noise trying to get her situation right in lobbying for her. in the immigration papers they say barack obama is viewed as a slippery character. they don't quite know who he is and what is he doing and why is he is working so hard for this troubled woman. and then they began to wonder about his annual re-upping of his certificate. and i go to harvard and they say what do you know about this fellow? harvard who has had no problems with him start to look at his record. they too become concerned about how many wives does he have. they think he is married to a kenyan wife and his wife in

hawaii which he still was and they look into it. mind you at the time this happens, this is in the spring of 64, harvard has signed off on obama coming back. they had sent a document saying obama will be a student the next year in the fall of 64 to 65 so he was okay. the more they look into it the more concerned again and then they find out he is dating a cambridge woman and they think he is married to her. so now maybe he has three wives. this was not okay. bomb i also had financial problems which they were taking about that he had supporters. within three weeks of the called from ims asking about him harvard has decided obama is going to have to leave. according to the ins records, the head of the international office along with the chairman of the economics department had decided that they were going to come up with something to get rid of him and slip them out. and they began to develop the case. they pretend it is all about financial things. they sent him a veteran say you have to go back to nairobi and finish. obama was beside himself.

this was a disaster for him. in kenya you have to realize at the time only about five and a people had graduates degrees from either england or the united states. not many in this group of 500 were going to redefine kenya. they were going to create the new nation that they were so thrilled to have back in their hands. not only with the exception of a degree but a harvard degree with the incredible. this would have been the cornerstone of his life in here it was. being taken away. now he did want to get a masters degree. he struggled mightily to stay. he called immigration. you can see this all through the records baker of the called and said by redoing this? y. which extend my stay and they never tell him why. they say this because of harvard. harvard has written this letter and saying we don't have the money. you have to go home. so he did. he went back home. i feel he never recovered from maddy there. he calls himself doctor the rest of his life. kenny at the time was a small community of economists. i think some people realize he didn't have his ph.d.. they humored him.

as he got older he called himself dr. obama constantly and had other people call and that's a we live through that dream but the disappointment was huge. >> host: then he goes back to kenya and at that point, does he have any contact with ann dunham and with young barack or i guess barry at the time? >> guest: he has some contact her goi don't know a great deal about that. according to the presence memoirs there are some letters between ann and he although they divorced in the spring of 64. there was some kind of letter writing because eventually he comes as we know to honolulu and 71 but i don't think it was a great deal. >> host: i want to come back to that 71 visit. how many wives did he have? guest: also eska wald told he had four wives. how many he had at any one time depends a lot of who you ask. >> host: that is another question but that was a tradition in his kenyan culture. >> guest: one of the ironies

in harvard forcing him to leave because of all these wives, it was very normal for him to have multiple wives. the difference with obama was in the culture you tend to live under compound. your first wife has a house and you live together as a unit. obama was a serial polygamist. we have multiple live -- lives. how many had at one time is confiscated because it is unclear if he ever divorced his first wife. his first wife who still alive maintains they are married to this day and that she never divorced him. they were married in a tribal marriage. to undo that married you have to go through a process called boro dog which is the return of the dowry and the return of the cow. the couple appear before a group of village elders and listen to the -- the participant should be and it. that did not happen to barack

obama according to his wife. that means they would continue to be married. on the other hand after obama sr. died, all these wives into state children's -- a lawsuit was filed in an effort to figure out who was the rightful heir and how many wives and children were there. in the course of that a judge of nairobi ruled on the legitimacy of the marriage and of her two children she had with him and he found that she was not married to him, that they had been separated and divorced and subsequent marriages were legitimate. >> host: i guess one of the questions is even though in an american context polygamy is not something we accept here, in the context of the luau culture, did he do anything wrong in and being married repeatedly to someone because i mean there is all this it interpretation that he was not only a womanizer but had all these marriages that he kept secret from his different wives and all. >> he didn't do anything wrong in terms of the numbers that he has been how he we treated some

of them. i think some would take issue with partly because he left his wives and did not take very good care of any of his children which is not part of the luau culture but because he also mistreated and was abusive to one of his wives. >> host: but he was a heavy drinker. >> guest: he was a chronic drinker. his nickname was double double because of the number of shots he had. you go to a bar and order a double shot of johnny walker red whiskey. sometimes you to go up to 16. he would have for double shot so he was legendary for his intake. >> host: is interesting because i covered the white house which is my day job and sometimes my job. it is interesting that ronald reagan had a father who was a drinker and who had difficulty holding jobs and so on. bill clinton of course, his stepfather was an alcoholic and he had confrontations with him. and now in the obama family

there is another father with problems and drinking and so on. i wonder, did president obama rebel against this somehow? he didn't really know his father but i guess as he got older he took an interest in what his father was like in must have known this. i wonder how he reacted to this basically? >> guest: yeah. i think obama jr. defined himself in part in the shadow of his father in reaction to who his father was, what their relationship was not. you read in dreams, there's a period what obama is a young man in his early 20s is searching for identity. what does it mean to be a black man? what does it mean to be an american, to be a black man in america? all of that comment he had been told of his life his father was this great figure, this great success. he finds out of worse he wasn't. that he was admirable in some ways but really a very conflicted roque in person. and i feel like he really never went beyond that.

so yes, think he defines himself in reaction to this chaotic figure who leaves behind children and families and obama jr. decided to be just the opposite, to be a very rooted person, committed person at a steady person obviously. >> host: right now even though so many conservatives criticize president obama's policies, he is considered a paragon of our american family values. very committed to michelle his wife, to his two children sasha and bolio. much different pattern than his father had and but you think that is a specific conscious reaction to his dad? >> guest: you know i've never talked to him about that so anything i say as they so much he has written but certainly in reading dreams he feel a person searching for identity, looking for models. what am i going to be? what sort of a person am i? after that. mackey starts to focus and makes decisions. he is a community organizer, lawyer. i think the absence of his

father as with many people who don't have her present parent is quite defining. you fill in that space. i think they both do did that come obama sr. kind of went the other way but he too had the absence of a mother. he never felt secure in that mother love. it is a very primal thing but because he didn't have that i think he always felt uncertain. he talks big. he made himself much bigger than he was but he didn't need to do that. he was a brilliant economist. he didn't need to make things up and he did. he lied about all of that. i think it goes back to the absence of that core affection. >> host: president obama in a recent interview, of which i took some notes on, talked about as he grew up he misses father and his father's presence in the home. and in his early life. and he wondered, president obama speaking out, what his life would have been like if obama sr. had been in the home and i'm wondering what your thoughts are on that? how would it have been different

because the father was a drinker and a piece of it all the mentioned. >> guest: i think he would have been a very unhappy boy and i think he would not be in the white house today. we have some record of what it was like to be a child of barack obama sr. none of which is very pretty. obama sr. had eight children, two of whom he may not have fathered. one of them died in a motorcycle accident leaving five. after after obama became president all told four of them have written memoirs about their father. one of them is mark assange of who lives in china now. he may -- wrote a semi-autobiographical fictional but in it he describes what it was like to be waiting for his father to come home after work and they were all nervous because he didn't know he writes is he going to be drawn? is he going to be angry and as the day goes on they get more and more anxious and suddenly obama seniors back. nine times out of 10 he is drunk and he is angry. he bangs on the door and says why have you gone to bed and not

stayed up and maybe my dinner he shouts. we have witnesses. it is not just her son. we have neighbors, etc., the wife. sometimes he would come in and drink more and he would beat his wife. mark describes listening to her screaming in the other round. it is heartbreaking and i think it really wanted him as a person. taken many years to be able to claim the obama name again because he couldn't do until obama camp resident. not for reasons of fame to attach but because somehow it made it acceptable to claim the name. there was some goodness to it. it was not all pain. the daughter doma obama who lives in nairobi also wrote a memoir and in her book she describes being the daughter of obama sr. now harder was to get them to pay attention, to too look at you and think about you at all. she tells a story of how she goes to a private school in nairobi, which she likes and periodically when the bills were due for the tuition a handful of girls, not many, would be called and told your pills are not paid, you need to go home.

so she walks back home and she goes to obama sr.. he is in a flurry. no problem. i will call my friend and get the check. well he gets a check and she walks back to school and she knows the check is not good. and the humiliation of that wears on her and then she goes back home until somehow she gets i think in the end of school administrators took pity on her and got the money. does a series of humiliations and neglect that they endured. >> host: we are going to take a break now and then we will come back and talk a little bit about this obama story, this meeting of obama, the father, reconnecting with his son in 1971. so we will be back in a moment. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> i've got a whole long list of looks but some are unfinished and some are new. the first book i'm working on is monsoon, which is about i robert kaplan about the whole issue of

central asia, where i think most of the politics of the next 25 years are going to occur. and i have read chapters of that when i've traveled to various parts like indonesia, but i want to read the whole book. i haven't finished it. i started in february. another book that was given to me by a fellow in my office from the american academy of mechanical engineers, who worked with me on the whole question of water. and i said to him, tell me, what problems with water are going to be over the next 20 or 30 years? in this book, he gave it to me and he said i wanted to read it. i never was able to write a perfect report but it is a good up to read about the whole question of water. and it is an issue that in congress we have really do need to think about in the future. george friedman wrote a book called the next hundred years, which is a fascinating book that looks out 100 years and looks at

who our major allies will be, those countries we are involved with that we will have trouble with, and so when he came out with his next book which is called the next decade i figured maybe i better get that one read and see what is going to happen at least from the perspective of people who look at trends. one of the fascinating things in his first book was that he said the countries will be involved with will be turkey, poland and i thought wow, i never thought about that. i thought about turkey but i never thought about poland. and they said we are going to have a war with the next 100 years with mexico. so there was a whole lot of things in a book that were very fascinating. i decided i'm going to read the second book which is really a little more down-to-earth. the other thing is, as congressman, everybody who

writes a book sends one to the office and says you watch or read this book. and so, we get all kinds of books many of which i put in a drawer and send off to my office. but i also get people who recommend books to me and say you should read this book, friends and so forth, and one of the books was sent to me by my longtime secretary nancy james. it is about china and the man who loved china. this is a ymca director who went to china and the late 1800's and chronicled -- this is the most definitive chronicling of china's contribution to science and the world. she said he what to read this if you want to understand where this boom is coming from in china. it is not new. is not like yesterday they discovered science or yesterday they discovered it. they have been there for 6000 years and here's a guy that put it all together in a very good

look. she said, you ought to read it. so i have got a lot of looks. i started this book and i will have to started again because i forgot some of what i read in the first part. but these books will keep me occupied this summer. >> tell us what you are reading this summer. send us a tweet at booktv. >> host: as i had said before the break, this moment when obama sr. comes back and reconnect with his son in 1971. how did that come about? that was the only time that obama, now president obama, really met his father. was the true sense of father left the home? how did that come about and how did the meeting go? >> guest: the details of how it came it that are not entirely clear to me except that he did come back. obama sr.'s own life was

collapsing. he was unemployed. he had lost three promising jobs. his third marriage had fallen apart. his wife had left him or was in the process of leaving him. he was not in a really great place. and he comes back to visit the family. what correspondents lead up to that i'm not particularly sure but he comes around christmas. ann is there back from jakarta and obama's jr. as he describes in his book is very excited. he watches his father and is looking at what his movements are like and how people pay attention to him and for a while it goes well. but pretty soon obama sr.'s habit of telling him what to do, of coral in, being obama sr., began to wear on every one of the. by the end of the visit they get into a fight. obama sr. is watching jr. waiting for television probe graham. i believe it was one of the holiday shows and he said to him, you need to stop watching television and go do your homework. it was a show he had been waiting to see it was very much looking forward to. he was said to his room and the adults began to argue.

obama jr. is wishing his father would leave with sunni does and that is the last time he ever sees them. they do right letters later in his early 20s but eventually even out stopped. >> host: did that meeting, that return, was that something that was pivotal in obama jr.'s life? did he now seeing this man he had known about or did he look back on that it later and just sort of draw some conclusions about his dad? >> guest: i don't feel that that visit was pivotal. i think it was very disappointing to him. i think his image of his father continued to be as a shining hero his mother had prepaid and she did that for good reasons, to give their child something to dream about and believe them. as a bowman jr. begins to look into who his father is in later years he finds a much more complex painful truth. that i think was pivotal role -- pivotal. >> host: i want to back up for a moment. we had all this controversy about this burr certificate with president obama. did you find any doubt at all

that he was born in hawaii? i know you talked in a book about born in you named the hospital and the date and so on. there was this controversy in our political context here about whether he was really born here. there was something sort of confusing stories about some of his relatives in kenya saying he was actually born there. did you get some insights into this? >> i sure did. >> host: i think it was completely wrong but i just wondered what you thought. >> guest: there are records of his birth and honolulu in august. there is no question in my mind in a never was. to me that completely put to lie to any questions about that. it was never an issue as far as i was concerned. >> host: right and is again looking at the father's political views and the fathers clinical history, newt gingrich who is the speaker of the house and is now running for president has talked about, you can understand the president obama

must to understand and this is in direct reference to barack obama sr. what gingrich calls caused the kenyan anti-colonial attitudes and behavior. how active was the father in that kind of anti-colonial movement and is it fair to try to connect the father and a son in any way in that kind of history? >> guest: i think and type colonial is an antiquated and an accurate phrase. the kenyans warned acting in an anti-colonial play per se. they were acting in a pro-kenyan way frankly. it was during mau mau, the rebellion at a different. not. by the 1960s it was about kenyans. the british had agreed to transfer the government that. this was a very exciting time. the british were out. not literally but obama sr. in fact was less engaged in political activity than many. he was somewhat involved with a prominent nationalist.

he was involved with this movement a little bit and worked on his paper. but he was not out there ranting rabble rousing and criticizing the british at all. he was worried about obama. he left in 1959 long before independence. he wasn't even there so some of the critical years building up to the takeover and power so i feel that is very end -- inaccurate characterization. >> host:>> host: when obama sr.s back to kenya, white two things fall apart for him there? is it his argumentative as? is that this overconfidence? what happen? >> guest: i think they're a number of reasons. one was he held it together in the united states and he knew how important was to get this degree. he did get a masters, not a ph.d. but a kind of kept himself together. he did drink. he did have a lot of women in his life that when he comes back, it is the middle of 1964 probably july or august of 64. independence is only 1-year-old.

this is an exciting time. africans are being put in these big jobs that the british have had. they can go into hotels and restaurants that used to say no africans or dogs allowed. now they can go in and order a couple of shots of whiskey. all kinds of things are possible. it was a very exciting time in obama let loose. he was smart. yet a great job when he came back. he had a white wife. he had everything. and he should have been -- gone on to be successful. partly he drinks too much, partly he doesn't have a ph.d.. i think there really was a very large wound, and partly he was a self-destructive character. he argued, he criticized. he complained about the british. they didn't know what they were doing. where were you when i was getting my harvard degree he would say to people. kenyan and british alike and it didn't go well for him. he lost his first job. he was a trainee at shell. he doesn't get re-upped.

he is let go and he goes on to a hugely promising job in the research department at the central bank of kenya. this was the new bank. this to could've been the opportunity of a lifetime. he is let go from there because he drinks on the job. he is late to work. he criticizes other people all the time. he gets one more chance in 1967. he gets a high-ranking job as a senior development officer at the kenyan tourist development corp., the kd d.c.. it sounds like you know a mid-level progressive that this was a big job. this is bringing in tourists etc.. he last four years there. he doesn't just drink on the job. he gets arrested two months after he gets for drunk driving. he starts to lie about what his job is and he travels around the country, developing tourism. he claims the title above him. he always says he is a general manager. he is not the general manager. the general manager didn't really like that. many things began to happen. >> host: you know it is

interesting you talk about this personal habits and is rather messy series of personal behaviors with the drinking and so on and womanizing. again, looking at the sun, what a contrast. i mean president obama very disciplined man and his personal conduct in the in the end the way he does things. he has got the law professors attitudes about arguing a case and seeing all sides of things, but he is not a confrontational person and i wonder if this is another reaction against his dad or to try to be the opposite of his dad. i wonder if he had some thoughts about that. >> guest: i'm trying to think of words to describe the two of them, the differences between them. president obama is a very cool figure, focused and cool. his father was hot. in every sense of the word. is a style derived from his father? i don't know how much he knew about that. my impression of his knowledge of his father comes from family members and someone outside that. i don't know how much he knew

about what happened to him on his job and this constant arguing and crossing so i'm not really sure. i think to some extent that is just who he is. >> host: right, right. tell us about that final car accident where obama sr. died. what happened there? that was the direct result of his drinking? >> guest: there are mixed opinions about what led to his death. certainly was drinking that night. he was at a favorite spot amongst all his friends. they were there for many hours. usually because he was so drunk he had a driver who took them home. that night the driver wasn't there. people offered to take them home and he says no. he leaves and he drives into a eucalyptus tree and is apparently dead instantly. now because obama sr.'s life is so fractured, he had different pieces. his work friends and his domestic life. everybody had a different feeling about it. there are people in his family us where to this day that was rigged, that he was murdered.

they talk about whether the windshield was broken or not. he apparently is frozen in time. his glasses are broken in the windshield isn't. the press clips from the accident say he was wrecked in the accident. there doesn't seem to be any hint of suspicion. some of his friends feel he committed suicide. i don't think he did. i think obama found a place of peace. yet a job again which he had gotten starting in 1976. he just had another baby at age 46. i think he was ready to try to be the parent he had never been. it wasn't a great career but it was good enough so i don't think it was suicide. >> host: he was trying to be the parent he was not or might have been. would he have tried to get closer to his son in america do you think? >> guest: i have no indication of that. >> host: he was backing kenya. >> guest: his greatest love was kenya and that is where he was going to be. here yet this new baby and that was the life he saw ahead of him. >> host: i wonder having done

all this research and you have done an amazing amount of research here with the book, what do you think american should know about president obama's dad and what is -- jumped out at you as the things that stay with you the most about him? particularly inform us about president obama himself. >> guest: i think the father story makes the sun story all the more extraordinary. you know the first african-american president, obama jr. carved a singular path. he is the first. his story is interesting. he created himself in many respects. he didn't just have an absent father. yet a very destructive father who was not a very good parent. you know he says he thought about putting his son up for adoption. now, when i learned that, i thought what must this feel like for president obama now to learn this taxi had not heard this before according to the white house. i feel like it makes the story

really more astonishing, that he has survived this kind of a person and certainly inherited some of his strength but it has been an interesting tale that tells you a lot about who he is. >> host: we talked a little bit about the contrast between president obama and his family with a the discipline and the commitment to family, the really success that president obama has had compared to his father. but what are some of the, the similarities, both the mind i guess in the brilliance of both of them? >> guest: both of them are extremely intelligent. i think both of them had an ambition to get beyond the limitations of their childhood. they both decided they were going to go and make something of themselves. one did dated and one didn't quite do it. i think the engagement in political discourse, being involved in the currents of their time. also they were men who are and were involved who have a stake in society.

one of obama sr.'s difficulties was his tendency to speak out against the government. there was a time in the mid-60s when kenya was deciding what it was going to be or what were its policies going to be. it was drifting to the right. they were deciding what their economy would be. , sr. spoke up very quickly and wrote an article about that objecting to the rightward drift. he wanted more for the little man to share. he wanted not so much foreign investment. he wanted can is to have a stake in the country and they were going in the opposite direction, foreign investment, amassing financial control in the hands of a few. like his son, obama sr. was speaking out for a more just society and he paid a penalty for that. >> host: i wanted to turn a little bit to the idea of religion. was obama sr. a muslim and there is all this chatter and american politics, ever since barack obama has been on the political scene about he is a muslim. muslim.

there's all these myths about this. what is the history of the family as far as religion goes? >> guest: he certainly was a muslim. all of his children are raised as muslims. obama sr. was not religious in the slightest when he went to the christian school of his childhood. he was made to leave his religion at the door. you had to be a christian to go to the schools. his father was not particularly happy about it and obama would say look nobody in my school is a muslim and i'm not going to be one either. he never went to church or synagogue, temple. he was not a religious man. >> host: and then the name barack hussein obama, father and son, was that the dads idea to name him after himself? >> guest: i have no idea to the house with you. i would imagine so. he already had a son who we hadn't been that dessa why he waited for number two is not clear. >> host: what was his relationship with and done him? let's talk a little bit about how they got to know each other

and a quick courtship i guess it would be? and how was their marriage? he left the family, but with the abusive to her? >> guest: no evidence that he was. i think not. again while he was in the united states he was minding his piecing cues and was well in their -- aware of american culture. he knew enough to say he was divorced and never mentioned his children. i think they came together. i think she was very much in love with him. she had a taste for the other, for something different. as a scituate right to her friends back home. i am in love with the african i think he genuinely loved her. in the end it was all about obama though. he was taken with her out to a point. neal abercrombie the governor of hawaii knew him then and i think he really understood and best. he knew ann and barack and he said about women and obama sr., they were always in his life. he was never in there's. obama was always waiting to the back to kenya and that is who he cared about. what he did care about her

enough to marry her which he didn't have to do, remember he also told her i have to marry a kenyan woman and have to had to have all these other children, full-blooded children. i think it is on way he was discouraging her from coming. abercrombie also observed that ann hadron ambitions. he felt that she didn't want to go to kenya because she knew and in and that patrick will culture she would be out of place. she had her own ambitions in the career she wanted so they come together for two months, several months and they began to part. we have some records they weren't even living together around the time. jr. was born. >> host: ann ann was 18 then? then went to the grandparents come into the picture in raising young barack obama? >> guest: since they were part of the picture from day one. these are ann's parents. they took this in stride when she came back mary. they were 100% present. interviewed a number of family members about the possibility

that ann attempted to put the baby up for adoption and none of them believe that was true. ann was deeply committed as were her parents. they were key in raising the baby. >> host: the parent, a lot have been made about the parents being the white grandfather and grandmother from kansas but they have moved around a lot, right? >> guest: they lifted number of places, texas briefly in seattle during his high school years. he was certainly the man on the move. i think in honolulu that they found their place. it was a very diverse culture and i think they were very happy. >> host: did the grandparents except barack obama sr. immediately? i think as i recall, they had no problem with the dating, but then they were troubled by the idea of the marriage. >> guest: both sets of parents were troubled by the idea that marriage. that is what we learn from dreams. hussein writes an angry letter and says don't you marry that

white woman, but i think everybody settle down after a while and accepted the situation. >> host: than the parents were very doting on young mary. >> guest: certainly that is what everything suggest. they were deeply devoted. ann was in jakarta for many years and during their high school years. >> host: looking at the whole pattern and trajectory of barack obama sr.'s life, he came to the states to be educated but you don't think he ever really intended to stay here? he was always intending on going back? guest -- >> guest: he was trying to hasten his career. he writes in a couple of instances, look out for my wife. i'm getting ready to come back and preparing myself so everything had to do with kenya. >> host: did he have any political ambitions for himself or was it always to be a government official? >> guest: he saw himself as an intellect, someone who is going to help shape the culture and

economy certainly. i don't think he had ambitions however he was close to a number of political figures. the current president was an economist and knew him and tom boyette tomboy at who she was closest to. i describe in the book one of the critical events of obama sr.'s life has to do when he is assassinated. tom was a very popular, prominent politician and it seemed like he might he in line to become the next president. the day that he was assassinated, right before he is killed to talk to obama sr.. the talk on the street, nothing of significance. they joke about how badly tom's car is parked. tom went into the drugstore and when he comes out he is killed. it is important because that killing, the assassination was committed as a pivotal advance that polarizes politics and turns many people against kenyatta. obama sr. who could never keep his mouth shut, testified at the trial. now he didn't testify much about what he had done but the mere fact that he did turn -- testify

was very significant. it was kind of an affront to kenyatta. he himself would later say that he had been marked by that, they kenyatta had identified him, that there had been an attempt on his own life and they think he really believed that. you know he was prone to making things up but he certainly lived in some fear that he had been marked by that. >> host: how much was he seen as a sort of a leader at any point in the whole kenyan politics of government? was he considered a rising man for a wild? obama, the father. and then that faded and he sort of came back? >> guest: he was never a leader. he was a smart guy. he was very good at what he did. people wanted him. they saw his potential but he was not a political leader. a legislator from a lego for many years and a good friend of obama describes what he himself was beginning to campaign for a legislator he would take obama

with him. he was smart. obama was not employed at the time that he was a smart guy and he liked to have around. he told about one day when they go to a rally of teachers and union members and he is up there talking about pensions and finance. obama after 60 minutes stands up and he goes come on, man. if they haven't gotten it by now they are never going to get it. i don't think he was going to be much on the political front as a candidate. >> host: it doesn't sound like it. in our closing minutes, what are some of the insights into obama sr. that you true? what were some of the other moments that struck you as being particularly important to know about him? anything about kenya, about the u.s. and again going back to that thread we are trying do we care about what it might say about president obama today? >> guest: well i think we touched on the highlights about what happened to him with his mother sleeping in his rejection from harvard.

i think toward the end he had millet to some extent. he is unemployed and lost for many years. alcoholic years between 71 and 76. he is in a bar of course and 76 and he runs into maui copake and asked -- the president. he goes up and he goes, why don't you buy me a drink? he goes where you appear buying drinks and i'm twice the economist you are? why don't i have the money to buy drinks? and he liked him. he knows about his complex past, his arguing and he says show up in my office tomorrow and i will give you a job. and indeed he does go to his office and he gets a job. it is a low-level job, something he was far more talented band that he had come to a place of some piece. i think ivan, he had found some of his son's serenity on a certain level. he had lost that little bit of that fire. he was in his 40s and it was a different era. >> host: what year was that?

>> guest: that was 1976 he gets a job. some of the huge promise of kenya's early years have become much more complex and the economy is in somewhat good shape but in an up-and-down period. >> host: tell us a little bit about what he was like as far as what he looked like. what kind of a physical figure he was. i mean if you looked at him, which you see president obama or did they look much different? you have a picture of him on the cover of the book, and they look a lot different to me. >> guest: they do look a lot different. obama sr. and his brighter days was a very handsome, attractive guy, dressed in beautiful european suits when he have the money. he went to a special shop in nairobi. he smoked his pipe. he has beautiful shoes. he was very attractive. >> host: at a very resonant voice. >> guest: a deep or a tie in

with snap people from across the room. he was very known for that. there are two pictures in the university of hawaii. one was probably in 1960. he has got kind of the young man's exuberance and he is laughing and he is very handsome. there were photos taken, don't know why, when he was back in 71 and he is a different creature altogether. he is solomon sitting by himself. he is again very neatly dressed but he looks tired and he looks old. he aged very quickly so i think the two men minutes someone is that the different appearance. obama jr.. >> host: have you had this notion about president obama and the charisma? did you see a lot of that in the father? >> guest: absolutely. i wish i could've met him. >> host: i was going to ask you, if you came to like him? >> guest: anybody who spends years researching probably wants to make the figure in the flesh. yeah, he sounded like a fun

person to be around, and exciting person. you never knew what was going to happen next. i would like to meet them but not be married to him. >> host: but the charisma per se, how did that manifest itself? one-on-one, he was not a public figure. >> guest: he was not a public figure but many public figures were drawn to him. columnists, politicians, many people and government. they like him. he told stories and he lied about things. he said he was dr. obama. he wasn't. he claimed to have been taught by an economist at harvard. he wasn't. i talked to one of his bosses who was an economists in nairobi to this day and i said did you know of the stuff? he said of course i knew him -- it but he was a smart man and he did his job. that is all i needed to know. it is different from the american culture. there are community of people who were deeply fond of them and still are defied -- despite all is typical is at work and his

job as cyber. they like the man. >> host: that was true to his whole life? was the drinking and inhibiting him? was he able to control that? >> guest: no, he did not control it. there was a period of years where he was kind kind of colossal. he had a couple of friends to take care of him. i think for a while he didn't have a place to live any drifted from one couch to the next. obama writes about him, close to sister saying he lived in a hotel room by himself for a while. i think until the last year, he still had friends buying him a strings. he could still go to the intercontinental and have maulik a bocce say i will buy you a drink. >> host: i think her time is up and i'm really grateful for your time to do our interview and i heard -- urge everyone to read your book. i was very fascinated with it and best of luck. >> guest: thank you very much. >> host: thank you.