definitive of china's contribution to science in the world and said you ought to read this if you want to understand where the boom is coming from in china. it is not like they discovered here is a guy who put it all together. and said you ought to read it. of i started this book and i will have to start again because i have forgotten some of what i read with the first part but these books will keep me occupied this summer. . .

asked which is why you decided to write this book and what the genesis of the book is. >> guest: sure. but the story of barack obama senior seemed to be the untold story of the candidacy of the president's. i've been a reporter for years and have some political

profiles. i wrote a profile of obama senior in 2008. combine never went to kenya, didn't have that piece of the story. we decided this was a very compelling story, very little known about him. obama jr. wrote about him in his book but he only goes so far and tells what his experience at his father it seemed this was a book that needed to be written. >> host: in the process of working on the book he said he went to kenya and you describe that in the book itself. tell us a little of what i was like. did you get a lot of access to people, was there suspicion of an outsider for a racial dimension talking about an african family? >> sure. all of those were true. i went to kenya five times and found many wonderful people who helped me who knew obama senior many well. many family members. some people were eager to talk because this was such a

high-profile presidency they were proud of obama jr they wanted to tell a positive story. obama sr. is a complex character as you know since you read the book. a very passionate person, also very self-destructive. because of that there were people who didn't want the story told or only certain kind. i think i was a white woman coming to tell which raised concerns. this was their story and i did run into that as well. >> but in the end you were happy with how the sourcing worked and the people you talked to and the access you were given. >> absolutely i found a number of people who know him well. i also found a number of people in the family that walked me through the village and they took me into klayko and i felt like i talked to many people that knew him and i was fortunate to find several documents revealed another aspect that nobody knew about. >> let's start from the

beginning. give a thumbnail sketch of barack obama, senior. what was he like, and how did he get to the united states? >> sure. obama was born near the village and was a member of the affinity group, the third largest of the tribes in kenya. he was a very precocious boy from the very start. his father who was a very controlling, had very high expectations for him, used to natural him wanted him to be more successful than he had been himself did attend local schools and excelled and was known as the brightest boy in the class and with that she became a little more cocky and it didn't take his names or drift off in the middle of the day but because he was smart and accepted into the very prestigious school largely that was created for the sons of the chiefs and this meant he was

going to be made. he was going to be very successful and have a good career. if that didn't happen. obama got into trouble and nothing huge but it was a series of small fences obama left to argue. nothing he couldn't argue about. it wasn't so much she believed in his point of view but wanted to cross you if his friend describes how he would be taking the cattle out obama would say don't take them to that field you must go to the other one. that's the kind of thing we would argue about. you were not supposed to do. it was top-down at that point and you didn't argue which he always did. he would play on the grass which was a cardinal sin. this was a green lawn and you were supposed to go around it and hand draw your dishes at the school she would leave them in the sun and on and on. a final letter shows up at the principal's office complaining about all sorts of things at the school, the teachers. it's not signed the principal puts two and two together many

people think that obama wrote at principal there was decided that he had enough of barack obama. but he decided he wouldn't allow obama to continue at the school and furthermore he wouldn't recommend him for a high school the next step. this was a critical blow for obama and it meant he wouldn't have the high school degree and that he couldn't take the cambridge entrance exam which is what he would need to go to the next step. how did he get to the point of being interested in excelling was this in the family for a long time, was this encouraged the pot in his life. >> guest: his father exceled many ways on his own and was very smart. he had with the white man, when the british came at the end of the 19th century england he was curious about the travel to nairobi. he worked for the white man and

learn their ways and took it upon himself to improve himself and had high expectations for his son as i mentioned he would draw him on his math sums. you might be sent to your room. obama, sr. was the first boy and they certainly the time were very cherished, very high expectations. at one point he had two daughters with the same life, the mother of obama, sr., wouldn't talk to the girls, but we talked to senior and say you're going to get married and go away. i'm only going to talk to him, in part the seed was planted there but was obama, senior himself. one of the things he had in common with his son not only was he intelligent, she was very ambitious. >> that is another big feeney and i'm sure a lot of people want to learn about from your book and it's sort of how much of the sun do we see in the father and vice versa, and what comparisons and contrasts meaning we should take this moment to look at that.

d.c. that president obama is barack obama senior's son is that clear to you? >> guest: absolutely although they shared a little time to cover only the first year of his life and a month later on. they had many things in common the first is their intelligence obviously both men are very smart and defined to some extent. but of the more ambitious and found a way to envision a life far beyond the somewhat prescribed circumstances of their birth. although obama, sr. was too self-absorbed and disdainful of public opinion to ever actually run for office. the moment that he was a part of the irrelevant dependent and 63, the transfer of kenya from the british to the canyons was huge. it defined him and his ambitions both have in common an absent parent which i think was quite profound, certainly for obama,

jr., the president. he's written about his father, struggles with identity. what does it mean to not have a father president, what does it mean to have this particular father? it was important to him. obama, sr. was abandoned by his mother of nine or 10-years-old. she fled from him who he was abusive. he was very cruel to the multiple wives and one day he threatened to kill his wife, the mother of obama, sr. and takes out his huge sword and dug a grave behind their home and he starts to slit her throat and the neighbor comes by and says you can't do this, this is told by one of the daughters and is so afraid and tired of being abused so one night she comes to obama and the sister and says i'm leaving and going back home but come find me if you can and a few days later she leaves.

sarah, obama senior and the two older ones decided they are going to follow their mother so one might believe. there are animals and it's a very dangerous time. they are going to block from the north side of the lake on to the south with the mother that is gone and they travel for two weeks only at night because they don't want to be picked up. they travel a time when animals are not so it's a miracle they need it but they do make it. two weeks they travel and when they get their, the village from where they were born, somebody alerts and he comes and is heartbroken and cries for the first time and drugs them back. obama, sr. was defined by this abandonment and loved his leader the lead to mother and leaving it left him for never in doubt about himself and insecure in a very fundamental way. i think it affected his relationship with women and children and i think that he wasn't able to trust or really

the internet to become intimate. >> host: since we're talking about family circumstances obama, senior left the family when obama, jr., president obama was 2-years-old ha. i guess the only sell each other once after that, right? i want to ask how that meeting went, but also talk a little bit about the marriage of barack obama, sr. and why he left the family, what happened there? >> guest: welcome he met her in a version class of 1960. she was very taken with him and he would hurt, genuinely. she would write to our friends in seattle i'm in love with an african. and i think they were struck with one another. she gets pregnant within a few months of that. they get married in february of 61 and together a very short

time i was able to get some of the documents at obama, sr. and all the wood is believed they were together for about a year they were not even living together with an about five or six months while she's still pregnant she's living with her parents and he is somewhere else. she has the beebee in august and he is starting to look around where she's going to go to school next. he's done well the university of hawaii and completed phi beta kappa and applies to all these schools. he is really smart. he's an african at a time many people wanted africans in their schools. he applies to many schools. he gets a full scholarship from the new school in manhattan. he gives a partial scholarship from harvard, will he goes for harvard of course because it's the best and obama, senior is the best and obama, jr. writes about this in his book devotee was disappointed because she wanted to go with him but didn't have the money to take her. he chose not to.

>> host: and in that circumstance then why did he stay away from the family if they wanted to take his wife and child but couldn't but he never saw them for a long time after that? >> guest: i don't know that they did want to take him. a babysitter that took care of obama, jr. says that ann told her this. she says obama, sr. told her if you go back with me to my robie you have to realize i'm going to marry another kenyan woman to have sold like children, african children. this isn't true, he didn't have to do that unkindly that may or may not have been true. there were things he put up there to dissuade her from coming. he also had never told her about the family he had two children and a wife and that he was divorced. i don't believe he was divorced

we had some ambivalence about it and harvard. >> host: at the time of that barack obama, jr. was born there was question of adoption was in there? and to talk about this in your book as one of the news elements. talk about that a little bit. >> guest: every year obama, senior like other foreign students he had to get an extension, kind of an extension of your visa, immigration authority and was then the naturalization service what looks how you're doing in school, just make sure everything is okay. obama, senior would sometimes say he had a wife and kenya and that he hadn't it was becoming an issue of concern so immigration starts to look at the situation because the adviser at the university of hawaii is worried that he is womanizing and says to him you've got to stop dating so

many women and he says i will try. this is in the documents. then they realized she is married and the enemy and now they are getting worried because they think that he's married in kenya and he's married in hawaii does that make him a bigamist or polygamist it's reflected in the documents. as obama comes up to talk to argue for his extension they realize his wife is pregnant and he says to them don't worry about that. she says my wife is making arrangements with the salvation army to have the beebee put up for adoption. the baby of course was the president of the united states. did she really do that? it's not clear. she had reasons to do it. she was 18-years-old at a time when mixed races were illegal and nearly half the states even in hawaii as culturally diverse as it was a black person was unusual. what would life be like for her baby. maybe she did. the salvation army won't address this because they are private. i think more likely to obama,

senior made it out. if a federal law immigration officials were looking at him a bigamist with a mixed race be that might not go down so well in getting the extension they could ask him to leave and that would be disastrous. so my belief is he probably made it out. >> seven, take us through what happens then within the obama family. the father leaves to go to harvard and obama stays behind. what happens to both the mother and child and father in those next few years? >> guest: she returns to hawaii in the lives with her parents and develops a life of her own and takes care of her baby that she adores. a very exciting place but for a challenging place she went into the economics department to get his phd. this was a challenging period for anybody in economics from the field was changing from a sort of old school linear

narrative and empirical model to something run by computers and data. was very different and challenging for obama as smart as he was many people didn't make it, but obama did we get up to a point. he worked extremely hard and others helped him with a matter which was challenging. by 1964, obama had done believably passed all of his exams, his oral and written and he had started on his dissertation, but he ran into some difficulties. do you want me to keep going? >> yes, please. >> immigration officials were keeping an eye as they did routinely come and it happened he was dating a woman having difficulty. she also was a student who had gone to london without authorization. her sponsors were concerned about that. obama was making a lot of malaise to get her saturation right lobbying for her in the immigration papers the saber dhaka, is viewed as a slippery

character. they don't quite know what is he doing why is he working so hard for this troubled woman, and then they began to wonder about his annual real thing of his certificate and they go to harvard and say what you know about this fellow who's had no problem with him start to look at his record and they come too, become concerned how many wives has he had? to think that she's married to his canyon wife and his wife and why he which he still was and they look into it. mind you at the time this happened this is in the spring of 64, harvard has already signed off obama combat and a sign the document saying obama will be a student the next year, the fall of 64, 65, so he was okay. the more they look into it the more concerned they are and he's sitting in cambridge woman married to verso now she has three wives. this was not okay. they also had financial problems they were not keen about the had supporters and within three weeks of the call asking about

him, harvard has decided that if the international office along with the chairman of the economics department decided they are going to come up with something to get rid of him to slip him out. dividend to defer lowercase its about financial teams and send him a letter and say you have to go back to nairobi in finish. obama was beside himself. this was a disaster for him. in kenya and you have to realize at that time only about 500 people and graduate degrees for meeting or the united states, not many and this could a few hundred were going to redefine and create the new nation of they were so thrilled to have back in their hands not only the exception to have a degree but a harvard degree would be incredible this would have been the cornerstone of his life in the year it was being taken away to read he did go on to get a master's degree he called immigration you can see this all for the record he calls and says

why are you doing this, why would you extend my stay and they never told him why. they say it's because harvard has written letters saying we don't have the money, you have to go home and said he did come he went back homecoming and i feel she never really recovered from that either pete he calls himself dr. max the rest of his life. kenya was a small community of economists and some people realize he didn't have his ph.d., the humor him as he got older he called himself dr. obama constantly and head of the people call him that so he kind of lived through the disappointment was huge. >> host: she goes back to kenya and at that point does he have any contact with his -- ann dunham and barack obama at time? >> guest: according to the president's memoir there are letters between speed and he

although they divorced in 64 there was letter-writing because eventually he comes as we know to honolulu in 71 but i don't think it was a great deal. >> host: i want to come back to the 71 visit. how many wives did he have? >> guest: all told he had four wives. how many at any one time depends on who you ask. >> host: that was the other question. that was a tradition in his culture. >> guest: one of the irony is forcing him to leave because of all of these wives was they were polygamist then and continue to be in there was normal to have multiple wives it would be odd if you didn't have multiple wives. the difference with obama you tend to live on your compound and you live together as a unit. obama was a serial polygamist, he had multiple wives. how many at one time is complicated because it isn't clear if he divorced his first wife. the first is still alive and maintains they're married to

this day but she never divorced him they were married in a tribal marriage to undo that marriage you have to go through a process which is the return of the dowry the couple became to the cut here and they listen to the reasons marriage falls apart or the participants think it should be ended and they weigh in on should it or should it not it be. that didn't happen to barack obama's wife. they would continue to be married to be on the other hand after obama senior dhaka all of his wives and children a lawsuit was filed-year-old to figure what was the rightful heir, how many wives and children were there and in the course of that a judge in nairobi ruled on the legitimacy of the marriage and the children that he had with him and he found that fae -- she was not married but they had been separated and divorced and the subsequent marriages were legitimate. >> host: one of the questions is even in the american context

polygamy is not something that we accept. in the context of the culture did he do anything wrong in being a married repeatedly? i mean, there's all this interpretation of the states that he was not only a womanizer but have all of these marriages he kept secret from his different lives. >> guest: he didn't do anything wrong in terms of the numbers he had but how she treated some of them i think some would take issues with partly because he left his wives and didn't take good care of any of the children which isn't part of the culture but because he also mistreated them and was abusive and one of his wives. his nickname was doubled because of the number of shots he would order a double shot of johnnie walker black whiskey followed by another double shot so now you have for, sometimes he could go up to 16. so he was legendary for his

intake. >> host: it's interesting because covering the white house which is my day job and sometimes my night job i've covered five presidents now. it's interesting that ronald reagan had a father that was a drinker and had difficulty holding jobs and so on. bill clinton of course the stepfather was an alcoholic and he had confrontations with him and now in the obama bears another father with problems and drinking and so on and did president obama rebel against this somehow? she didn't really know his father but as he got older she took an interest in what his father was like and he must have known this and i wonder if how he reacted to this basically. >> guest: i think obama, jr. defined himself in part in the shot with his father in the reaction of who his father was, what the relationship was not. you know, you read in dreams

there is a period win obama as 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 she's been told all his life the father was a great figure and a great success he finds out he wasn't, that he was admirable in some ways but very conflict and broken person and i feel like he never went beyond that. so yes i think that he defines himself in a reaction to this cannot give a figure that leaves behind children and families and obama, jr. decided to be the opposite to be a very rude person and committed person in the steady person. >> host: right now you have even though so many conservatives criticize president obama's policies, he's considered a paragon of our american family values committed to his wife, to his two children. much different pattern than his father had come in and you think

that is a specific conscious reaction to his death? >> guest: i've never talked about that so anything i say is based on what he's written but certainly in reading dreams, you feel a person searching for identity, looking for models, what am i going to become what sort of a person and on and after that period she makes decisions and becomes an organizer, lawyer, political, yes i do i fix the absence of his father as with many who don't have a present parent is quite defining, you fill in that space. i think they both did that. obama, senior went the other way but he was defined by the absence of a mother. he never felt secure. this is a very primal thing that because he didn't have that i think that he always felt uncertain. he made himself much bigger than he was which he didn't need to do. he was a brilliant economist. he didn't need to make things up and he did, he lied about that and i think it goes back to the absence of that core affection.

>> host: because president obama in a recent interview, which i took some notes on talked about as he grew up he missed his father's presence in the home and in his early life and he wondered, president obama speaking now, what his life would have been like if obama, senior would have been in the home and i wonder what your thoughts are, the father was a drinker and the problems that you mentioned. >> guest: he would have been unhappy and he would not be in the white house today. we have some record of what was like to be a child of barack obama, senior. obama, senior had eight children depending who is doing the accounting. one of them died in a motorcycle accident. after obama became president all told four of them have memoirs one of them is more, sondra who lives in china and read in memo

for the autobiographical fiction all but he describes what it was like to be waiting for his father to come home after work, and they were all nervous because you didn't know is he going to be drawn, angry and as the day goes on to get more anxious and suddenly obama, senior is back nine times out of ten he is drunk and angry. he bangs on the door and says why have you gone to bed and not stand up and made me my dinner? we have witnesses, this isn't just the sun, we have neighbors, etc., the wife comes sometimes he would come in and drink more and of his life and she describes in the book listening to her screaming in the other room and wounded him as a person needed to committee years to even be a will to claim of the obama nay she couldn't do it until after he became president not for reasons of theme to attach but somehow it made it acceptable to claim the name there was good news that wasn't all pain.

the daughter who lives in my robie also wrote a book and she describes being a daughter of obama, sr. and how hard it was to get him to pay attention to look at you and think and she tells the story 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 bills are not paid, you need to go home and get the money. so she walks back, and goes to obama, sr. and says no problem, i will call my friends and get the check. well, he gets the check and she walks back to school but she knows the check is no good and in humiliation of that, it wears on her and then she goes back home until somehow she gets a thing in the end of a school administrator took pity on her but it was a series of humiliations and neglect. >> host: we are going to take a break now and then we will come back and talk a little bit about this in the obama story,

this meeting of obama, the foster, reconnecting with his son in 1971. so we will be back in a moment. what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know.

>> host: as i said before the break, this moment when obama, senior comes back and reconnect with his son in 1971, how did that come about? that is the only time that obama, now president obama really met his father. is that true? how did that come about and how did that go? >> guest: the details what can

about are not entirely clear except he did come back. their life was collapsing. he was unemployed, he lost three promising jobs, his third marriage had fallen apart his wife left him or was in the process of leaving. he was not in a great place and he comes back to visit the family. but correspondents lit up to that i'm not sure but he comes around christmas. ann is back from jakarta and obama, jr., as he describes in the book is very excited about it and watches his father and is looking at with the movements are like and how people pay attention to him and for awhile that goes well but pretty soon obama, senior's habit of telling him what to do, quarrelling about obama, senior begin to wear and everybody by the end of the visit they get into a fight and obama, senior is watching jr waiting for a television program fi believe it was the hall that the show you need to stop watching television and do your homework she had been waiting to

see and obama, jr. is pushing his father would leave which soon he does and that is the last time he ever sees him. they do write letters leader in the 20s but eventually even that stops. >> host: to that meeting, that returned, was that something that was pivotal in obama, jr's five? now seeing this man he had known about and look back on it leader and sort of draw some conclusions about his that? >> guest: i don't feel that visit was pivotal. i think was disappointing to him. i think the image of his father continued to be the shining he wrote that his mother portrayed and she did that for good reason to give the charnel something to believe about and dream in. as obama, jr. begins to look at who his father was in the leader years he finds a complex and painful truth. that i think was pivotal.

>> host: one thing not to back up for a moment we had controversy about this birth certificate with president obama. did you find any doubt at all that he was born in hawaii? i know you talking your book about his being born in the hospital and the date and so on. there was a controversy in the political context here about whether he was born here. there was some sort of a confusing story about some of his relatives in kenya saying he was actually born there. did you get insight into this? i think it is completely born he wasn't -- rahm he wasn't born in hawaii. >> guest: there are records of his birth in honolulu in august. there is no question in my mind and there never was. that put the lie to any questions about that. never an issue as far as i was concerned. >> host: and again, looking at the father's political views and the father's political history,

new gingrich who was the speaker of the house is now running for president has talked about you can't understand president obama unless you understand and this is a direct reference to obama, senior which the called the anticolonial attitudes and behavior. how active was the father in that kind of anticolonial movement, and is it fair to try to connect the fothen and passan in any way in that kind of history? >> guest: i think anticolonial is an antiquated and inaccurate phrase. the canyons for not acting in the colonial way they were acting in a canyon way. of those years earlier and the rebellion, this was at a different period. by the 1960's it was about the canyons. the british agreed to transfer the government back. this was an exciting time, the british were out, they were not around, they stayed to some extent but also khan yunis and

obama, sr. was was engaged in activity than many. she was somewhat involved with a prominent nationalist and involved in his movement a little bit he worked on his paper but he wasn't a candidate and was no way out there ranting and criticizing the british at all. he was worried about obama. he left in 1959 long before independence leader he wasn't even there and some of the critical years building up to the takeover of power so i feel that is an inaccurate characterization. >> host: when obama, senior goes back to kenya, why does -- why do things fall apart from their? is an argumentative miss or just over confidence? what happened? >> guest: i think there's a number of reasons. one is he held it together in the united states, she knew how important was to get the degree and not the masters of the ph.d. and he kept himself together. he did drink and he did have a lot of women in his life and when it comes back is the middle

of 1964 probably july or august of 64 the independent is only one year old. this is an exciting time africans are being put in these big jobs the british have had taken to hotels in the restaurants that used to say no effort tensor dogs allowed now they can go in order a couple of shots of whiskey all things are possible. it's a very exciting time and obama let loose. he was smart, had a great job when he came back and he had a white wife, he had everything and she should have been a big man, he should have gone on to be successful. partly he drinks too much, partly he doesn't have the phd. there 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 is getting my harvard degree, she would say to people, a kenyan and british

alike and it didn't go well for him. he lost his first job and was a trainee at shell. he's let go and he goes on to the hugely promising job in the research department at the central bank of canada this was the new bank, this, too could have been an opportunity of a lifetime. he drinks on the job and is led to work he criticizes people all the time. he gets a high-ranking job as a senior development officer at the tourist development corps. it sounds like a mid-level bureaucracy but this is a big job bringing in the tourists' etc. to me if he lasts for years. he doesn't just a drink on the job, he gets arrested. two months after fer joined driving he starts to lie about what the job is that he travels around the country developing tourism. he claims the title about him she says he's the general

manager. he's not the general manager. they didn't really like that. many things began to happen. >> host: it's interesting that you talk about this personal habits and rather messy series of personal behavior with drinking and so long and womanizing. again, looking at the sun, what a contrast. president obama, a very disciplined man in his conduct and the week that he does business, he's got the law professors' attitudes about argued cases and seeing all sides of things, but he's not a confrontational person and i wonder if this is another reaction against his dad or to try to be the opposite of his death i wonder if he had thoughts about that. >> guest: i was trying to think of words between the two of them. president obama was a very equal figure, focused will come his father was hot in every sense of the word. i don't know how much he heard

about that. my impression of his knowledge of his father comes from family members have somewhat outside that i don't know how much he knew about what happened on his job is, the constant are giving and crossing so i'm not really sure, to some extent that is just cushiest. >> guest: tells about the final car accident when obama, sr. died, what happened there was a direct result of his drinking? >> guest: there are mixed opinions of what led to his death. certainly he was drinking at night at the bar, a favorite spot. he's there with all his friends to be there for many hours from usually because he was so drunk he had a driver that took him home and that might the driver wasn't there. people offered to take him home and he said no pity if he leaves and drives into the eucalyptus trees and is apparently dead instantly. because obama, sr.'s life was fractured he had a different

pieces. and everybody had a different feeling about it. there were people in his family to swear to this day that it was rage. that he was murdered frozen in time, nothing is broke, the class isn't broken and the windshield isn't. the press club 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 think obama found a place of peace. at the start of 76 he had another media age 46i think that he was ready to be the parent he had never been but it was good enough so i don't think it was suicidal. >> host: what he have tried to have been closer to his son in america, too? >> guest: i have no indication of that. >> host: he was back at kenya.

that was the life he's all i had him. >> host: having done this for research and you've done an amazing amount of research in the book would do you think america should know about president obama's that and what has helped out -- jumped out at you that stay with you the most about them? and about president obama himself. >> guest: >> guest: as the first african-american president, obama, jr., he is the first. historians, he created himself in many respects, he didn't have an absent father, he had a very destructive father who was not a very good parent. he thought about putting his son up for adoption. when i learned that i thought

what must this feel like for president obama now to learn this? she hadn't heard this before according to the white house. i feel like it makes the story more astonishing that he has survived this kind of person and certainly inherited his strengths and it's an interesting tale that tells a lot about who he is. >> host: we talked a little about the contrast between president obama and his father with the discipline and the commitment to family and the success president obama has had compared to his father. the similarities between the mind and the billions of both of them. >> guest: the both of them are extremely intelligent to get both of them had an ambition to get beyond the limitations of their childhood and they decided they were going to make something of themselves. one did it and one didn't quite do it political discourse and

the involvement in the current of their time and also there were men who were and are 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 kenya was deciding what kind of country or what were its policies going to be and was drifting to the right. they were deciding what their economy would be. obama, senior spoken critically she wrote an article about that objecting to the rightward drift. he wanted more for the little man to share and not so much foreign investment to have a stake in their country joe was going the other direction, for an investment, matching the financial control in the hands of the few. like his son, obama, sr. was speaking out for a more just society, and he paid a penalty for that i think. >> host: i want to turn to the idea of religion. was obama, senior a muslim, and there is all of this chapter in

american politics ever since barack obama has been on the political scene but he's a muslim and there's all these myths about this what is the history of the family as far as religion? >> guest: he certainly was a muslim and adopted the faith in zanzibar after world war i and all of his children were raised as muslims. obama, sr. was and religious in the slightest when he went to the christian schools, so he was made to leave his religion at the door you have to be a christian to go to the schools his father wasn't particularly happy and obama would say nobody in my school was a muslim i'm not going to be that one either. he never went to the church, synagogue, she wasn't a religious man. >> host: then the name, was that the bad idea to name him after himself? >> guest: i have no idea to be honest with you. i would imagine so but he already had a son so why she waited for number two is unclear to me.

>> host: what was his relationship with ann dunham? let's talk a little bit about how they got to know each other and a quick court should i guess it would say and how was their marriage? was the abusive to her? >> guest: no evidence that he was. in the united states he was minding and was well aware of american culture and new e enough to say he was divorced and i don't think he was and never mentioned his children and she was very much in love with him and had a taste for something different and would write to her friends that, i am in love with an african and he genuinely loved her. in the in the was all about obama. he was taken with her to a point. neil abercrombie the governor of hawaii knew him and understood him best she knew ben mezrich vv coo ann and barack they were always in his life and they were

never in theirs. obama was waiting to go back to kenya. that is what he cared about. why will he did carry enough to marry her which he didn't have to do remember he also told her in doing and have these other children full blooded children. i think in his own way she was discouraging her for coming. abercrombie also observed speed had her own envisions. he felt she didn't want to go to kenya because she knew in that culture she would be in second place. she had her own ambition so they come together for several months and they began to part. we have a record the were not even living together around the time that he was born >> host: and ann was 18. and then when did the grandparents coming to the picture? they were part of the picture from -- when she can get married

there were 100% present. i interviewed family members about the possibility and none of them believe it would be true. ann was deeply committed. they were a team to some extent raising the beebee. >> host: and a lot has been made of the parents being the sort of grandfather and grandmother from kansas. >> guest: they lived in number of places, texas briefly, seattle longer during high school years winfield and was a man on the new viking in honolulu they found their place of was a very diverse culture. >> host: did her parents accept barack obama, senior immediately or i think as i recall they had no problem with the dating but they were troubled by the idea of the marriage. >> guest: both grandparents were troubled with marriage.

that's what we learned from dreams over in lake victoria who writes an angry letter and this is don't you marry that white woman and settled down after a while in the situation. >> host: and then the parents were doting. >> guest: they were deeply devoted and ann was in jakarta during the high school years. >> host: looking at the whole pattern and the trajectory of obama, sr.'s life, she came to the states to be educated but you don't think that he ever intended to stay, he was always intending on going back. >> guest: he was eager to go back and he writes to tom in a couple instances lookout for my life i'm getting ready to come back and i'm preparing myself, so everything had to do with kenya. >> host: did he have any political the ambition or was it always to be a government

official or -- >> guest: he saw himself as an intellect to shape the culture and the economy certainly i don't think he had political ambition. he was close to a number of political figures, the current president was an economist. tom boya, who he was closest to come and i describe in the book one of the critical evens of obama, sr.'s life has to do with when boya was assassinated tom was a very popular and prominent politician and a scene of like he might be in line to become the next president and was assassinated right before. and on the street nothing of significance. they joke about how badly his car is parked and when he comes out he's killed. it's important because the assassination was committed was a pivotal event in politics and turns people against and never

kept his mouth shut and testified. he didn't testify much but the fact he did testify it was kind of an affront. he himself with leaders say that he had been marked by that, that he had identified him and that there had been an attempt on his own neck life and he really believed that. he is prone to making things up but he lived in fear that he had been marked by that. >> host: how much was he seen as the leader at any point in the whole politics or government system? he was considered a rising man for a while. >> guest: he was a smart guy very good at what he did. people wanted him. they saw his potential but wasn't a political leader.

he was a good friend of obama's describes how when he himself was beginning to campaign for a legislator he would take obama with him. obama wasn't included the time that he was a smart guy and people liked to have him around. he tells how one day they go to a rally, a campaign rally of teachers and union members and he's up there talking about pensions and finance. obama after 15 minutes stands up and tapping his watch says come on, man. if they haven't got it by now they are never going to get it. so i don't think he would be much on the political front as a candidate. >> host: doesn't sound like an hour closing minutes, the authors are insights into obama, senior that you truth but for some of the moments that were particular to know about him? anything about kenya or the u.s., and again, going back to that thread and what might say

today. >> guest: with his mother's leaving in his rejection from harvard i think towards the end, he mellowed to some extent. she is unemployed and lost for many years. alcoholic years between 71 and 76 she's in a bar of course in 76 and he asks to buy him -- the president -- he goes admin he goes why don't you buy me a drink? she says why are you appear buying drinks and i'm twice the economist you are? why don't i have money to buy a shrinks? and he likes him and knows about his complex past and his argument and he says show up in my office tomorrow, i will give you a job. and indeed he does go to his office and gets a job and it's a low-level job, something he was far more talented than but he has come to a place of peace. i think by then he had found some of his sons serenity on a

certain level he lost a little bit of that fire she was in his 40's and in a different era. >> host: what year was that? >> guest: in 76 she gets the job and is in a different place. it was the huge promise of kenya's early years and the economy is in somewhat good shape but a very up and down period. >> host: tell what he was like in terms of what he looked like, what kind of a physical figure he was. if you looked at him, would you see president obama or did they look different? you have a picture of him on the cover of the book, and they look a lot different to me. >> guest: the do look different. obama, sr. and his brighter days was a very hand some, sexy attractive guy that dressed in beautiful european suits and he went to a special shot in nairobi. she smoked his pipe, she had beautiful shoes, he was very

attractive. >> host: he had a very resonant voice. >> guest: dever baritone and snap people from across the room and he was very known for that. you know, there's two pictures in the library of the university of hawaii and one is one of what is there and probably 1960. and he's got a kind of young man his exuberance and he is laughing in this hand some. there were photos taken, i don't know why, backend 71 and he's a different creature altogether. he is sitting by himself and again, neatly dressed but he looks tired and old. he aged very quickly so i think they have a different appearance. obama, jr.. >> host: you have this notion about president obama and the charisma. did you see a lot of that in the father? >> guest: absolutely. i wish i could have met him. >> host: i was going to ask if you came to like him.

>> guest: anybody researching probably wants to meet the figure in the flesh, but yes, she sounded like a very fine person to be around and exciting to read you never knew what was going to happen next. >> host: but the curve is not personally, how did that manifest itself just in the sort of interactions one on one? he wasn't a public figure. >> guest: he wasn't a public figure but many public figures were drawn to jam, politicians, many people in government. even though he told stories and he lied about things he never said he was dr. obama, he wasn't. and he was caught by the famous economist at harvard he wasn't. i talked to one of his bosses who was an economist in my robie to this day and i said did you know this stuff, of course but he was a smart man. that's all he needed to know. very different american culture, and trinkle the job, you are now, but there was a community of people deeply fond of him and

still are, despite all his difficulties at work and his job, etc.. if they like the man. >> host: and that was through his whole life. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: was the drinking inhibiting him? was he able to control that? >> guest: she did not control it. she was kind of a lost soul. he had a couple friends who took care of him, nothing for a weigel. he drifted from one to the next. his own daughter writes about him and quote sister staying he lived in a hotel room for a while by himself and i think of them as the lost years but he still had friends by eating his drinks and he could go on the outer continental and have them say i will buy you would drink. >> host: i think our time is up and i am really grateful for your time to do the interview and i urge everyone to read your book. i was fascinated by it and best of luck.

>> guest: thank you. >> host: thank you. >> that was "after words" in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policy makers, legislators and others familiar with the material. "after words" is a free weekend on booktv at 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 p.m. and 9 p.m. sunday and told the on monday. you can also watch the afterwards that online. go to booktv.org and click on afterwards that on the book tv series and topics list of the upper right side of the page.

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