avalanche many of which deal with the assassination, so it is a very crowded feeling to answer. in a perfect world i might have come at this at a different time, but the book was ready to go and of my publisher wanted to go with it now so i feel good about it coming out now. the thing about kennedy is that he seems to be interesting at all claims. he is one of these characters that is a public figure that a year from now, five years from now there are so many unanswered questions about his presidency, about his political career that i think he's always going to be a popular person to write about. >> we don't think about him as a senator very often. give a snapshot of his career. >> that is what brought me to him. we think of him as president kennedy. he was in the senate for 80 years, six years in the house. and he was an interesting consequential senator. he was a master of the senate

like lyndon johnson but he was active in foreign policy debates, very active in the discussion about vietnam, algeria, the soviet union. he also did something kind of interesting. he chaired a special committee to determine the five best centers in american history. this is a committee that lyndon johnson created for himself, who tired of it and can't of the candidate. so in some sense this is the one project kennedy was in charge of during his senate career. he took it very seriously. acquired all of the greatest historians in history in the spend some seven months digging into this, came up with a list of the five greatest centers and was something that became a part of his identity of being a young politician but also someone very steeped in american history. >> what came out of that? >> there was robert taft and robert for the to 20th century ones, but the big ones were john calhoun, daniel webster, henry

clay in the pre-civil war era. so kennedy's committee quickly decided on the top three webster, clay calhoun. they had a longer debate on the next two and even back at that point, kennedy would prefer george forest to be the leader but there were senators that might filibuster that choice, so kennedy had to back off and go with robert. so even back then there were some hints of filibuster in the senate. >> why would you say was one of president kennedy's most substantive pieces of legislation in the senate? >> well i would say two things. first of all he was active in the leader issues. he was the chairman of the labor subcommittee, and about was the one domestic issue that he really dug into. it was a huge issue back at the time. he mastered it. was maybe the one domestic issue he mastered. and it's contemporary that he

understood the nuances of the labor law more than anyone. interestingly, he got caught in a political battle and the final bill didn't really resemble what he wanted. so that was a labor law and also in the florida policy he gave some really marvelous speeches on indochina, the french involvement in indochina and algeria, the french involvement in algeria on the whole battle with the soviet union and how the u.s. should try to emerge in the cold war. so he was interesting. he was a more compelling person than i expected. and of course he had great contemporaries. he worked with people like hubert humphrey, richard, jackson, it was an interesting time with a great senator. >> what was his relationship with lyndon johnson when they were in the senate? >> they spend the time of the kennedy library in his file asking for better committee

assignments as a democratic leader kennedy was the junior senator so johnson had a lot of letters for different committee assignments. johnson continues to put them away in a wonderful note kennedy and johnson appointed kennedy some third or fourth tier as the commissioner. senator johnson was named in the boston harbor commission income so it was a competitive relationship but in the end i think johnson came to respect that he was a top formidable politician and a heavy hitter on policy, but he thought he was a real compelling political figure. >> john shaw, as president kennedy's senate career benefit him as president? >> i think it did. he understood the policy issues very well. he had a good schooling in that.

i think that he gave an appreciation for how congress worked. he spent four years in the congress. but he was very clear that he wanted to move on to the presidency, and in fact became only the second of sitting u.s. senator to win the presidency. before, the only one who had done it was warren harding in 1920 and since kennedy the only one that has done and is barack obama in 2008. so the senate isn't a natural jumping off point for the presidency, yet can be found a way to use it to advance his political ambition. >> the name of the book jfk in the senate pathway to the presidency, the author john shaw. santiago lyon talk about the associated press photographic history of the vietnam war and the state of the war photography today. the book vietnam includes 300 photographs by 15 photographers.