he also went to the pentagon until the pentagon to develop a task force to look into further ways to get rid of fidel castro. but this became an obsession of the kennedy administration. finally and maybe most importantly on april 20th of 1961 he appointed a task force on vietnam. this was, until this moment vietnam had really been a back burner issue for the american government. as of this point it became a front burner issue. kennedy's advisers but vietnam was a place where we could make a stand against communism. seven days later the task force came back recommended putting more personnel into the kid on. ..

you will also get a chance to talk with brooke houser. she has written a book about a high school for immigrant teens. unfortunately, former democratic presidential candidate george mcgovern has canceled. he he added call-in schedule but he had to cancel so we won't have that opportunity but we will have a call-in program with jim lehrer of the "newshour" as well. and honor webcast schedule from miami-dade college in miami book fair, randall kennedy will be

your 1:00 p.m. eastern time. isabel wilkerson "the warmth of other suns" will be at 3:30. your mic remember her from the national book festival. we did an hour with her on stage and then jim lehrer will be talking about his books on presidential debates and finally to wrap up the miami book fair tomorrow michael moore and we will bring that to you as a webcast so that wraps up our coverage today. enjoy the rest of the day in we will see you tomorrow from miami. next on booktv, kathryn mcgarr recounts the political career of robert strauss. mr. cibrian attorney at a washington law firm was well-connected inside the beltway or kerry served as chairman of the democratic national committee from 1972 to 1977. ambassador to the soviet union

in 1991 and as an adviser to several presidents. this is a little under an hour. >> good evening everybody. thank you for staying tight while we waited and thank you especially for coming out and braving electrical storms, thunderstorms, tornado warnings and everything else. we really appreciate you being here. i am here with my husband bad -- brad graham. on behalf of our fantastic staff we welcome you all here tonight. this is one of about 475 author events that we do at the store every year and we believe it's part of our mission as a great independent bookstore to do these events and bring authors to our community and our community to them, and really to provide not just great books for people to read but also a place and a space in a and a forum for public discourse.

before we get started let me thank c-span for bringing this event a wider audience. we we are glad you are here and let me give you a few words of the road in case you have not been to one of our offense before. our guest will speak and after that she will take questions. if you could go to, guess we only have one microphone tonight right here. please say your name as a courtesy and ask her question. she will answer questions for about 20 minutes or a half-hour or so. after that she will sign books. you can come up here and she will sign going in this direction. we also ask you to favors. one please fold up your chair since that them at the end of the bookshelf and that will make life easier for a step and also if you have a cell phone on now if you would not mind silencing at that would be much appreciated. in introducing her speak tonight, kathryn mcgarr and herb hook, "the whole damn deal" let me begin by saying that not too many people have a famous great

uncle. fewer still have famous great uncles and then decide to write books about them. kathryn has done just that, chronicling the life of, and i'm not sure how i am supposed to describe bob strauss because in this book there's a whole catalogue of things he did not like to be called. he was not a lobbyist. he was not an influence peddler but i suspect that he would agree and probably take great pleasure in being identified tonight as one of the truly great and iconic figures of american politics during the last chunk of the 20th century. many of you may know bob strauss many who do know him have probably been cajoled by him and certainly insulted by him which of course was a compliment of sorts and you no doubt as my friend sarah urman was telling me earlier have your own stories of the many -- are in his career

but whether or not you have ever met him, known him in any capacity at all you will certainly get to know him very well or better way reading this wonderful look, "the whole damn deal." through prodigious research interviews with key players including the protagonist and a long with a very hard work necessary to write a good book, kathryn has captured the man and his time and at least in my case reminded readers how much our political life and our political discourse has changed. since bob strauss' payday. i think some of us who have lived through that era and are living through it now shake our heads and say isn't there something missing these days and maybe a lot. i really am delighted to welcome a first-time author, kathryn mcgarr. she will tell us a story of how the biography came to be and a lot or about her famous great uncles of thank you so much for being here and please join me in

welcoming catherine. [applause] >> thank you very much. everyone of at politics and prose and c-span thank you for being here on this miserable might out and i really appreciate it. we were talking about how do you write a book about your famous great uncle and remain in the family and also write an accurate book and the way i tried to get around that was doing a lot of research, especially at residential libraries and national archives because the uncle bob as we called him in and the family that i knew growing up was very different from the man in the book. people asked me all the time, what surprised you most about love? what did you learn that was so surprising? i kept trying to think of some really great smart answer and i never came up with one but the thing that surprised me most was the how much power he had.

he was such a powerful player in washington and when i was a child during his heyday, i never really got to see that her go when he was with family he was a different person. when he was with his grandchildren it was about his grandchildren. one of his grandchildren told me he'd they didn't even know he had won the presidential medal of freedom. it was sitting on his shelf and they asked him what it was. he was a little more modest with his own family. i did spend my second birthday and also house which is the ambassador's residence in moscow when george h. w. bush appointed log ambassador to the soviet union, critical time when it was crumbling. lob landed there in the middle of the coup when yeltsin was rallying people and he went over there and came back around christmastime. he was ambassador to russia. he said i think i'm only fellow

who was the ambassador to 12 countries. so that was -- i did not know that uncle bob had flown into a coup. i just knew he got me a pink cake for my seventh birthday. i began writing this book at the columbia journalism school. i took a book class with sam freedman, and i think that he -- where he made one of his biggest marks on history was on keeping the democratic hardy together from 1972 to 1976. those were the parties that were really torn apart in 1968 after the debacle of the convention and the assassination of rfk and martin luther king and the party was in vietnam and a number of issues. he came in and really held the party together, first as

treasurer of the democratic national committee and then as chairman of the democratic national committee. the democratic hardy then looked a little bit like the republican party today in that it was very fractured and there was an extreme wing, the mcgovernite wing of the democrats and now the republicans have a tea party but what the republicans don't have this bob strauss figure. they are still fractured. so, bob really came in at a key time. i started researching his time at the dnc first, the first chapter that i wrote. i started in the middle and his election to the chairmanship and the national archives has all of the transcripts from the dnc meetings. these can be some pretty dull readings. but not when bob was chairman.

bob was really known around town and around the country because he did become a household name after he was chairman like reince priebus the current rnc chairman. i was laughing at the national archives. they frowned upon laughing. but bob was really hilarious and so he went about his job of keeping the party together with a sense of humor. during -- it was a very controversial election when he became chairman. this was after mcgovern lost in 72. nixon won every single state except massachusetts and the district of columbia so you can imagine. how bad candidate mcgovern turned out -- of his own. this is what bob was up against him by found at the nixon library, it has recordings of

their phonecalls that nixon was making with his staff in one of his aides, a pretty familiar name, calling the president, they were really tracking this dnc chairmanship election very closely, surprisingly closely. they were talking about george mitchell who became a senator from maine, very powerful sound or -- senate from maine. he was in his 30s and couldn't compete with bob and chuck olsen said about mitchell, he's from maine am a smart but he is not a strauss-kahn of the guy who really is a powerful, strong brilliant individual and when i heard him saying that i was like what did bob pay him to say that? [laughter] and then that was -- mcaneny said strauss would normally be the most effective guy they could get but i think in view of the mcgovernite it would probably blow up on them and we are going to win either way. obviously they did not win

either way because the watergate scandal broken apart and took him out of office. there were no mcgovernite and that is where bob was killed. even though he went towards a more conservative he had been an lbj and john connelly democrat from texas. if you didn't embrace the mcgovern's exactly. he doesn't appease the mcgovernite's. he made sure he had, they had what they needed and he made sure that labor had what they needed and the black caucus and women's caucus who were trying just at that time trying to grow, trying to expand so he really was not just a compromiser but a very skilled negotiator making sure that everyone had a little bit of what they needed. and that was because he always said that his goal for 1976 was to be able to deliver a party to a candidate. he said i'm not going to deliver a candidate to the party.

i am delivering a party to the candidate and that is something not going on state republican party. they are trying to deliver a candidate through a very divided party, so he didn't know who the nominee would be in 1976. he certainly did not think it was going to be jimmy carter. no one thought it was going to be jimmy carter and he preferred scoop jackson or maybe humphrey or muskie, pretty much anyone over carter but he looked past that as chairman of the dnc and he really saw it as his mission to keep his electors together. he didn't care who the nominee. he didn't care what they stood for and there was criticism leveled at him. his career that he was not an ideologue but all he cared about was getting a democrat in the white house and he really did not care who it was. when it turned out to be jimmy carter, they turned out to be great friends. jimmy carter who isn't necessarily known for his sense of humor really loved bob and i

interviewed him. he said that they grew as close as two brothers. bob could make him laugh and love would always insult him when he introduced him because that is how you knew bob love you. he would make fun of him for being too short. there was a lot of ways above made fun of jimmy carter and he used all of them. and then carter appointed him special trade representative. s. t. r. at the time and currently the office of the united states -- they changed it to ustr, and bob came in in a very weak cabinet position as a cabinet post but he really used his underdog status to his advantage and he became known as someone who really reached across the aisle and he was friends with republicans and

democrats. someone who started his career as treasure and chairman us the democratic party that would seem surprising that what helps him was that the democratic party, he was almost working across and i have already. any party that had george wallace who you know ran for president many times, and barbara jordan, the black congresswoman the same party and he was very friendly with both of them. anyone that can do that can work across alan congress for republicans and democrats and carter saw that. carter saw what he had done as chairman of the dnc and so he also thought he could do that abroad. the multinational trade negotiations had been stalled for some time. they started in 1973 and there were over 100 countries involved. so it seemed like a very daunting task for someone to take on. but bob was the one to do it because he didn't have a large

bureaucracy to work with. it wasn't like the department of commerce where you have a lot of people under him. he had a very small staff and he thought that was a good thing. he really accumulated powers through his friendships in congress with democrats than with republicans. i think it's especially pertinent now with the recent passage of the three bills last night, the treaty bills with colombia and panama and south korea, and everyone thinking at such it such a big deal about how they got this through so quickly and how bipartisan they were. it stroup, but this bill was also divisive and it wasn't just three countries bob was negotiating with. it was 102. one of the really large -- of trade, so i wanted to read a little bit about how bob negotiated through congress.

the bill and about passing 395-7 in the house and 90-4 in the senate and after the houseboat came in bob said to stu eisenstadt who was the policy adviser, who were the ones that voted against my bill? [laughter] he expected a victory and he got one and this was a controversial bill. a very divisive bill and he still got his 3952-7 and 95-4 both. now he is trying to sell it in congress and this was a point at which the kennedy round had really, the kennedy round was unsuccessful because the congress didn't end up passing legislation needed to enact it. so, there would not be a trade agreement until april but strauss i would be foolish to

wait for the final product to begin selling it. at the white house presented the bill to congress it would be on the special fast-track legislation to pass. introduced by the trade act 90s 97 are are restricted once a bill is presented to congress no changes could be made, no deals could be cut, no of minutes to be other than of filibusters would be permitted. strauss's teammate ustr came up with legislation. he wanted there to be no surprises. i'm not big said in a hearing before the house ways & means committee in july 1970 it. i think i know balance ideas and i will not drop a baby in your doorstep. i hope there might be a midwife in that process and we will be working with the committee closely. in an unorthodox move he even invited senior congressional staff into highly sensitive for negotiations. he wanted them to have as much at risk in the and the outcomes as he did. he worked the hill like crazy eizenstadt later said.

people loved him up their republicans and democrats and bob had a wonderful sensibility with help. he had been a very successful chairman of the party. strauss and his repetition for being a man who could work can work across the aisle. strauss reflected on his newfound diapers and ship in 1979 congressional hearing when representative charles bennett commented on how they had so far achieved bipartisan cooperation in the trade legislation. we truly have strauss said. what had impressed me as i have come in from position of adamic right party. don't samir going to move to the other side bennett said. now but i tell you this, it's mighty comforting snuggling up to my republican friends over here. gladwell i was highly partisan i was not accused of taking cheap shots along the way. i think that is one of the main differences in politics in politics today, the cheap shots along the way that he was not taking. with congress that is what strauss found out the other

people had to have. as he told journalists before the passage of the bill, the things you earn on the hill are not -- yuan in. the reason i've been getting things done as a because my personality, it's because i worry about their business. burst now they will carry you only so far. you have to deliver. if you can show the average person in congress how he can vote right now in the world an average member of the house and senate can now with the issue is all the time. they will go with you. although he made it easy for us legislators to go along with him stress encountered this is in both from protectionist who thought he had swindled congress into supporting him and from free traders who thought it made too many side deals to protect the american industry. such as is my sacrifice for been rent in order to protect tobacco partly so his old friend wendell would not lose his senate seat in kentucky. journalist and later -- william j. gail protectionist to the point of skewering carter and strauss for giving away the store wrote in his 1990 book

trade wars against america sultan -- mesmerized by as many empty promises as ambassador strauss fired at it in the spring of that year. a decade later is possible to look out on the carnage wrought by the 1979 trade act and wonder how congress could have been so gullible. he called the trade act quote like all predecessors since the roosevelt sponsored law of 1934 a fraud. strauss's promises were not entirely and you do which meant free traders could skewer him to me. strauss had indeed gone quote interest group by and just goof in the u.s., the farmers come the steel people and cut separate deals that made side deals, which i have to say i didn't barnett out until later eizenstadt said. after he left i used to joke every week one of the groups with which he promised something would call and ask for the commitment that bob gave them. although free trade advocates and free-trade critics air their

gripes about the tokyo rounds for years to come congress was obviously satisfied with his job. because of the way strauss sent out a bill and passed almost unanimously. on july 11, 1979 the house has the trade bill 395-7 and on july 23, 1979 the senate passed 90-4. carter noted in his diary on july 23, 1979 if he was disappointed with the coverage of the passage of the treaty bill which he considered to be the greatest achievement of his administration. he also wrote a "washington post" editor ben bradlee the following know. other than to not the the to not headline of this and on hill call him the posted not mention the trade that. is different in 1962. strauss and the congress deserve recognition signed a reader jimmy carter. in 1986 bradley, a friend of strauss' with whom he joked easily forwarded stress the note from carter writing, i was over to my tank this morning putting

in another million dollars of "washington post" stock and i found these things cluttering up. what did you pay him to write it this? all kidding aside, strauss was disappointed too and he said, when i got up the next morning i could not wait to read the marvelous story about what a wonderful fdr we had in robert l. strauss. he said i could've cared less about the stats in the presence of his staff. he said there was not a line in there. i almost had a stroke. but for his work on the tokyo rounds on january 16, 1981 and this was after he had run carter's failed re-election bid, so he always, carter always joked that he had two ambitions in life. one was to be present in one was retired to klayman bob helped him achieve both. so anyway january 16, 1981 carter lost the election for him

70% of strauss with the presidential medal of freedom which is the highest civilian honor reading at the time the following citation. for american politics is the art of the possible. through intelligence, ability and the many friendships earned during his service as leader of this party on the nation robert s. strauss has refined the art into a science with diligence, persistence and with. he successfully concluded the multilateral trade negotiations at a time when many believed they were doomed to failure. for strengthening the system of trade which link the nations of our independent world he gets our gratitude and respect. that was the end of log and trade and he knew nothing about trade going into it. co is like to joke that you know he didn't have much substance to him that when he was backed fdr he would get up at the crack of dawn and he had his staff make him flashcards with all the acronyms on them. he was a quick study and he

always joked, and a quick study but not very deep. he obviously got deeply into a lot of issues and from there he went on to negotiating, helping to negotiate, helping not to negotiate peace in the middle east and yet another job where he really had no background. and then again under the republican administration as i mentioned when george h. w. bush appointed him ambassador of russia. he said at the time in "the washington post," i am no rush expert but i never knew anything about any job i had until i got there. that is something else you can say today and have your appointment go through. [laughter] it was a different time in the press and also in the congress. there was a lot less bickering, and it is funny to read the congressional hearing for his nomination. at some point on my computer i would do a control f to find a

word laughter because whoever was typing it out would write in laughter and he often jokes about his nomination hearings. so he had congress man in his and his pocket and that doesn't happen which is probably for the best. [laughter] i would be happy to take questions now. [applause] >> if you have a question, come up to the microphone. if nobody does, i have a lot of questions. >> where is he now? >> he is going to be 93 next week, and he still lives at the watergate where he has been living since the 70s, and he is still -- goes in and has -- the restaurant in the robert s.

strauss building. >> i want to thank you. it is so nice to see young people engaged actually. i do really appreciate politics and prose for all these giving us this platform. it's a wonderful opportunity. not so much a question but really what you said before it was really true. there are very few people who can cross the lines, the isles anymore and i guess as an american citizen i have gotten very depressed because i am tired of being governed by people who lack more common sense than i do. and i set the bar pretty low. [laughter] so i would like you know to do what kind of relationship -- i was hoping you would talk a little bit about that -- what kind of a relationship you have with bob and how do they grow? he is a great uncle. he is not even your first uncle and how much read time we will

listen with them and how much did he contribute to this book? does he like the book? thank you. >> thank you. thank you for coming out into the rain. he is my great uncle, my mother jeanie strauss mcgarr is his first niece and she is sitting in the audience. so i grew up, grew up very close to my grandfather. i grew up in dallas and my grandfather lived in dallas and that is bob's or other so we saw above on most thanksgiving san christmases and sometimes passover's, and during the summers we would see him and del mar. he spent his summers and del mar going to the race back and he is still chairman of the board of del mar since 1973. he and his wife helen, they give me and my sister eskimo pies and chocolate popsicles. i thought what that was the only place you had eskimo pies.

uncle bob eskimo pie supplier. that was all i know him then and when i started on this book project i lived in washington for a few months. we have a lot of discussions, but he knew that his memory is not what it used to be and he was worried about that. he was worried about getting bad information so he gave me access to over 70 interviews that he had done with a ghostwriter that he had hired back in the '90s when he was trying to write his memoirs. ..

that meant that he did not remember a lot of the phillies in his life, a lot of the difficulty in his life, or the tension. so i did need to, you know, go beyond and go into the archives. i really had the best time at the carter library, especially there is a chapter of the book that would pit bob as carter's ambassador to the middle east peace process. so carter sent him over there to sort of hold the hands. carter thought that he, carter, and secretary of state were spending too much time on the peace process, and so that is the camp david. he wanted to it send a personal

representative he could trust to help see through the process. and this was a very tense time in bob's life. he did not get along very well the big new prisons become a national security adviser, or with the secretary of state because vance wanted bob to be under him in the state department, and bob wanted to report directly to the president, and bob, a few years later, said that fence was red and he was wrong, and of course he should have been reported to the secretary of state. bobcat is with the president. a lot of what i learned about bob was not from him. i learned a lot about his warmth and his personality and his goodness of york, but as far as what he was doing on a day-to-day basis and the dialogue on the situation room, that was actually dialogue from the situation room. it has been released and is at the carter library. you can bear research it. so a lot of what i have in here did not come from my family, it came from archives.

>> what is said about the editorial. >> oh, yes. i would not give him editorial control over the book. problem because i had just come out of journalism school. all white knight. no. you can't read the manuscript before reprinted. and he did not. he and his longtime assistant of 40 years, did read an early copy , mostly from major errors, but i had also a fact check the book on the phone, so that was sort of the way that i made sure that i did not have any major problems in here, but he did not have editorial control. and i am still invited. [laughter]

>> the feel it is a man is to a fair portrayal of them? >> i think so. i mean, i called them right after he read it. i was a little nervous. he said, i don't dislike it, i love it. that is sort of the kind of thing he would say. and i am sure there are parts it does not love, he was very sensitive about being called a lobbyist. and i address that in the book. he was sensitive about it, for good reason, because he did do a lot of kind of work that a lobbyist might do, with their work different standards at the time. he would never do anything that i know of illegal that would require him to register as a lobbyist, but i don't think it would have been in his own book. >> the earliest to get into politics, particularly of

domestic politics first. i suppose so, but what was his relationship with johnson, and did you remember a exchanges he had person to person with johnson? >> he was the first strauss to get into politics. and he mainly gatt and through john connally who had become governor of texas. and john connally in 1959 ran into bob on the street in dallas. connelly was a lawyer in fort worth at the time, and stars as a lawyer in dallas. getting a group of fellows together to go to washington to talk about johnson's presidential nomination. the want to come along? and that was sort of, you know, the beginning of the end. he went along and help support the johnson nomination effort in 1960, which we know has failed. kennedy, kennedy won that year,

but after that because connally was sort of johnson's protege strauss became one step closer to the white house when johnson became vice-president. and then on the day in dallas when kennedy was assassinated he was one of the hosts of that luncheon, you know, downtown. in no, he was very involved and all that. one thing, and i wrote it in the book. it is right for people to doubt my activity. i would definitely die by objectively, i try to be more skeptical. and so public tell me stories about being in the hospital to the you know, comforting belly colony to of connally after john connally was shot. and i was a little skeptical. i nodded and went along, but the reason it is in the book is because at the johnson library they have the john connally collection, and they have a record of everyone who visit him

in the hospital, and bob really was there on the day of the shooting. so he was extremely close to connelly, and jerkily -- through connally became close to johnson. johnson would give him some the size, which was not to be treasurer of a democratic party because he said deal with all that money is going to get you in trouble. you should not do that. and bob did it anyway. then he called him again on the ranch when he was running for chairman of the party, and he advised him not to run for chairman of the party either. so there were friendly, but the relationship was mostly through john connally. [inaudible question] >> oh, yes. he supported the president. first and foremost. he always thought that partisanship ends at the water's edge. it happens that his party was in power, johnson, but he supported johnson on vietnam.

and he later said that he regretted that, you wished that when johnson had asked about vietnam he had told him what he thought about the war, against the war. but publicly bob was doing his best at the '68 convention to get all of the votes that humphrey needed to support the vietnam plank. and so he was the -- he was always behind his candidacy, first and foremost. he really put his own political, is on public policy ideas second. johnson intimidated him. that was another reason. he always used to say that he would never let -- after he did not tow johnson the truth about vietnam he decided that he would always tell the president the truth if he was ever asked. and it turns out the almost ever-present after johnson did ask for a vice at one time or another.

including reagan. even though he had been in the carter ministration, and even though he had run carter's campaign against reagan, nancy reagan and raised further strauss and the former secretary of state, republican, bill rodgers, to sneak into the white house one evening. they went into the treasury building, went through the underground tunnel. bob had never been through the underground tunnel before. he said it was like a fallout shelter, but lining the walls of the could not believe is there. he went out to the residence of the white house and advised the president on what to do about the iran-contra scandal. and he advised him to get rid of chief of staff, and he said you need to bring in someone like a howard baker, someone who can really have a lot of credibility in congress with both sides of the aisle, a lot of relationships with the press,

and nancy reagan really took this to heart. at the time strauss did not think the president should really have been listening to him because the president disagreed with him and said, would never do that. that is what he told her when she gets home that night. he got a call saying, i don't suppose there is any way he would want to come help us over here in the white house, would you? he declined. he said that would not be a good idea for anyone involved. several weeks later he was fired and howard baker was brought in as chief of staff. and in his more he said, why bob strauss who had everything to gain from, you know, reagan falling of grace should be called then, why? i will never know. and it's true that bob was a democrat and a partisan, but anyone in washington who knew bob knew that he was a straight

shooter, and that he was going to tell reagan the truth and give reagan the best advice that he could. he loved being called to serve, you know, by his president. he said he never turned down a president, and that is how he ended up, you know, and over 70 years of age in a communist country in moscow, you know. he turned down bush for that ambassadorship. then really, you can't turn down a president. so he always try to do his best for republicans and democrats. >> the right line. >> a jim wright joke in the 80's. i don't know who the next president is going to be, but i can tell you is best friend is going to be, bob strauss. [laughter] and bob had a reputation for getting close to the president, whoever you west. one of my favorite stories, and i got it just as i was finishing the book and i was so excited. i went in an interview tom brokaw, and he told me a story

about when they were in ohio for the presence of the bait, as long anticipated 1980 debate between carter and reagan. bob was being excluded from the debate prep. the georgia of mafia had taken over, and there were prepping carter. so he knew that stress would be free for lunch they said they would ease just have one martini apiece. okay. just one terry then they said their seats just split one more martini submitted. later in the afternoon there are still drinking. and he says no, you know your fellow is going to lose, and you know that they're going to bring in new people and you're going to be out of power. he said to you watch. he knew. he knew his fellow was not a point to when continue his going to stay in power no matter who was in the light touch.

>> he had his way. >> yes. bob did get his way. >> the middle east. >> so, he was ambassador to the middle east peace negotiations for a very short time. several months in 1979, and because of all the tension that he was creating within the department of state and with residents he decided to bring him back and run the campaign. and they thought that he would be better served as chairman of the campaign. >> thinking now that he was going on. the political arena. the you know? was he really, a soldier. >> i can't speak for him, and i don't know how he feels, but i know that he wishes that it were more like it was 30 years ago when people were partisan

politics ended at cocktail hour and republicans, democrats had things to five drinks together and when partisan politics ended at the water's edge, putting a public face for the rest of the world, american together. >> you talk a little bit about his relationship to george mcgovern and the 1972 convention >> yes. asking about george mcgovern, and i heard you were in the government. so he did not have anything personally. and vice versa. they both of the other one was personally nice fellows, but bob really thought that mcgovern could not win the nomination. and most democrats and outside of that camp did not think that mcgovern could win the nomination. and he did not -- after his 1972 convention, which bob went into

as treasurer of the party, and he went into that convention paying for this convention, and he came out of it jobless. you know, providing all of his people. so, you know, flying back home he said to helen, you know, i am going to start working out to get my hands back on the party machinery. but he did not do anything to hurt mcgovern campaign. i was surprised to learn given who strauss and mcgovern is a did not think that he would be that involved in the campaign, but as i was reading through the transcripts of the meetings that gene west would who is mcgovern's chairwoman, bob actually did help them raise money, get emergency computers. he was not going to stand by and let the democratic nominee, you know, go without funds, but he really focused his efforts on fund-raising for congress.

and even though that was such a of a sweep for nixon, democrats did very well in '72 in congress bob was very committed to that. and i interviewed mcgovern by phone. he said that, you know, he thought that bob was probably a little upset after the commission and had every right to be because he had been passed over and done a lot of hard work and it went unnoticed. mcgovern had made commitments, you know, especially when mr. said he would appoint seen west would two was relatively unknown and not really tested politically. she was the emcee representative from the top that he had promised to her. and so, you know, the old guard was without the white government. and then when strauss became chairman this sort of left before there were asked. >> accused of being evasive.

the rumor. >> i don't know. the question is about governing a racist, which seems very not. >> i wonder. i heard. >> and never heard that, and that is not. >> that at all. >> survey says no. >> political ambitions of his own? >> bob would have liked to have been handed the presidency, i think. but he did not want to run for office. he really prefer being behind-the-scenes. and he said, you know, he said, you know, if he ran for the house he would have to go around antipoverty with everybody in america in case everybody's. he said, i like it when they're kissing my. he wanted to be handing out the checks and not be on the receiving end of the checks.

[inaudible] >> there was talk in the east about -- serious, i mean the new york times was running those webs about is bob strauss going to be our first jewish president. he would always say that he is foolish enough to love the rumors, but smart enough to not pay any attention to them. >> i think that he was the first jewish president of the methodist youth. >> almost. almost. baptist young people union. are you from texas? i can tell. so, when bonn, growing up in stamford, texas, which is a very small town about three or 4,000 people in west texas, he was born in 1919. there were only two jewish families in this town. that is because his cousins were also living there. so really, once there was family

in town which means that there were totally socially integrated and that belonged to the clubs. they ran the dry goods store and/or respected people. when i got his fbi file because bob was an fbi agent during world war ii, it turns out that no one ever forgot that there were jewish. when they were interviewing the townspeople, fine, high-tide jewish folks. it was very relevant, but not relevant to bob, as he was growing up. he did not see any anti-semitism , and as i say in the book, he got the cutest girls were the baptist young people's union, so that is where he was. he wanted to get elected president of the union. the minister, i am also jewish. have no idea when i talk about. the minister said he could not be. he also says if it were for that he would have been elected president. sometimes it tells the story and says that he was elected

president, and then they have to take it back because they explained that he was jewish. i think that among his peers it was not that big of an issue that he was jewish. when he gets to the university of texas, the student body population was larger than the town he had grown up in and did become an issue. he was only invited to pledge jewish fraternities. it was kind of a reawakening for him. he did not know that would be the case because he had always enjoyed a surge of popularity. and so he managed to, you know, be the one in his paternity to represent the fraternity with the other paternity. he really, he got out of what could have become a bubble for him at the university of texas and really was, you know, popular across campus, and he became a member of the cowboys. if you're from texas and know a thing about you teach him a unit that is a very prestigious and popular group, the texas cowboys . perdue is pretty popular.

side. >> i have one question. we were talking about this earlier. who out there even comes close today to being boss just? >> we decided no one. so a lot has changed since bob's time. a lot more money in politics, which means people are going home on weekends to campaign. not the same relations there were in congress. also the press cannot protect politicians the way that the press protected bob strauss. and, you know, you could say the most outrageous things and it did not really affect his career. having that kind of larger-than-life personality doesn't work.

someone it is not buy into ideology and really just wants, is practical and wants to negotiate and find a compromise. that is not popular today either . people and having to listen to their districts a lot more. and i probably know less about this than everyone else in the room, but it would be very hard to have another bob strauss for many reasons, climate, and because he was a one-of-a-kind character. >> thank you so much. [applause] [applause] >> if you all could hold up your chairs ruby really appreciative. the book is a put the front. katherine will be happy to sign copies for anyone. [inaudible conversations]

we are not immune in this country from these forces, and when the melting pot as been thrown out and you're preaching multiculturalism, what holds us together? >> here is a short other interview from the c-span campaign 2012 bus as it travels

the country. >> karen beckwith, "political women and american democracy". how did you decide which essays to include in this work? >> my calendar and i organized, the project on american democracy at university of noted name. we would convene by our estimation the best scholars on woman and politics and the u.s., not only the u.s., but scholars who were working on u.s. women in politics, and so we brought together arrange a people whose research we knew well and convened for today's conference at the evidence, after which at that conference we discussed all of the manuscript's that tested the chapters of these books, and have some commentary about it and discussion and then put it together in an edited collection published in 2008. >> describe the role of women in

this book? >> well, several emphasis in the book. let me tell you first so we are not doing. we're not looking at public policy. we are not looking at women in the executive. even in 2008 there were so few women in the executive. not yet a major female candidate for the nomination for president of a major political party in the united states. and so very few people of women at the sixth level which means the research, and finally we did not address women in the judiciary. so we looked at the behavior of women as voters, as candidates for office, but state and national office, behavior of women within political parties, the behavior of women once elected to national office. we also have a huge factor that looks at the gender and nature of u.s. political institutions as well as u.s. politics for women of politics in the context of comparative politics which is what is the situation for women

of politics look like in the u.s. compared to the rest of the world. the picture is not so pleasant. we have one of the least proficient, least advantageous the electoral systems of the national level for women, which is a single member plurality system with some modification. at the state level, similar to college. we also have two major political parties which are in formal and internal construction, have no clear formal instructions on becoming a candidate. offer very little clear structural means by which women can work the party, so to speak, to increase candidacies. so there are a lot of disadvantages in terms of achieving elective office. >> so in relation to the political parties as a woman voter, what are the findings are related to encouraging participation directly related to women? >> interesting things. that makes women, in fact, a

politically relevant democratic effort -- category. so the u.s. citizenry in voting electorate. secondly, women have slightly higher registration rates than do men, and women turn out at slightly higher percentages than do men. the larger number, absolute number of women combined with women heightened turn out makes for a big electoral impact. women are so are disproportionately to defend democratic. this is true across all age groups, and it is also true across all racial groups. racial and ethnic groups, women have a slight preference for the democratic party. so women come into an election, things like turnout and the range of issues that might attract women are important. women are more likely than men to vote for the democratic presidential candidate. that has been the case since 1992. that gap has been between two to five percentage points depending upon the polls you look at.

nonetheless, there is a democratic advantage in the electorate for the democratic party in general because of women. the absolute numbers that turn out and preference of the democratic party. no, the issues that seem to mobilize and attract the vote has to do with social welfare issues, foreign policy issues, and also cut to a certain extent, so-called morality issues. but for example, on issues like same-sex marriage, women are much as opposed to that that are ben, not by a huge margin, but nonetheless there is a difference. women are more concerned with foreign policy security issues, and that can have an impact. finally, women are more concerned about social welfare issues including things like health care, employment, the state of the economy, education. >> with a woman candidate for president coming into the campaign, do you see a change in

2012, are based on your research to you think that they will largely remain the same? >> i see no fino candid it's coming to the president's candidacy in 2012. there are only two on the list that i know of, sarah palin who is not yet declared and michele bachmann who is doing very poorly right now in early returns are really polling results in the republican party debates and in the polling numbers. i don't see either of them being the ultimate kendis for the republican party. and of the democratic side to all things being equal, the current president, barack obama will be the party candidate. that will foreclose any opportunity for a woman in that party to come forward. so i see no presence for women as president to candid it's in 2012. the media say, however, that some polling data, and most reason that i have seen as a live band from 2008 coming in very