. . it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 11th annual roosevelt reading festival. when fdr established the first

presidential library here at his home in hyde park he envisioned it becomeing the people year research study for the roosevelt era and is one of the busiest research rooms in the presidential library system. we get to see the fruit of the labor of all the people who use our research room through the years. so it's our pleasure to have how here. would everyone please take out your electronic devices and turn them off so that our presentation is not interrupted today. thank you. second housekeeping matter, if you'll find somebody on the staff here today, they'll be have to givedown of this roosevelt library buttons and that will get you into free admission to the new permanent exhibit we opened just a year ago after our three and a half year renovation.

so i encourage you to check out the new exhibit. finally, i want to thank our friends from c-span who are film hearing today. they're always great at showing support for public programs at the roosevelt library. the format of the session is that our distinguished guest will speak for 30 minutes, after which there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. because c-span is filming in this room, what i'd like you to does come up and line up at the microphone here so they cannot only capture your question on tape and your smiling face to see how much you're enjoying yourself. and then after the question and answer period, i will whisk the guest out to the lobby where he will be happy to sign all the books you're going to buy at the museum store. so david cross is a free lance writer and trial attorney some lives in philadelphia. his trial manual, how not to think like a lawyer,as a best seller on amazon in 2013.

his earlier book is a collection of his published essays on literature, history, music, and travel. his new book, choicing history, came about from the desire to flee the courtroom of philadelphia in order to get to know the presidents a little better. when not writing or litigating he quotes bob dylan and trying to decide which three cds to a desert island and no box set is allowed. david is married to his lovely wife, nicole, and the loving father of several children. our good friend, david cross. >> good morning. well, it is a delight and an honor for me to be here at the franklin roosevelt library to discuss my book. when i decided to take a road trip across the country to visit

all of the presidential libraries, i really had no idea what it was i was going to find. and i had no specific point of view at that time. i had heard some of the academics' criticisms, that these are all giant moss mausoleums to an ego, they don't confront us with both side of the presidents and the most damning of all criticisms that academics have levied, they're like theme parks. that young people might actually come to some of these places for fun. so, when i came i didn't know what i was going to find, and the first library i visited happened to be the franklin roosevelt library, and that was just pure serendipity. i live in philadelphia so it's the nearest one. i came to this library and fell in love with this place, and i -- as i traveled across the

country, i can't say none of these criticisms are ever worthwhile, but i found so much that was positive about the libraries, and i think, franklin roosevelt did a lot of things, but this is one of the big ones. i think everybody interested in american history, and everybody interested in the presidents, needs to thank franklin roosevelt for coming up with the idea of the presidential library. we didn't have this before and there's nothing like this in other countries. and i just thought when i started me trip, who would be opposed to those? to having a presidential library. and when roosevelt was president, most of the presidents used to put their documents into the library of congress. but documents went all over the place, and we all know that lincoln's documents went all over the place.

some presidents had a bonfire, and many of the papp papers were eaten by rats. george washington is the first person to have the idea of the presidential library. he was meticulous about keeping his paperwork, but franklin roosevelt came up with the idea, and we all talk about how we're in the most partisan of times but if you read through the arguments that went on about whether or not to allow for this library that's right here, whether or not to allow it to take place, you'd realize that there's been partisanship through our history, of course. a lot of people thing to it was a bad idea, and the man who thought it was the worst idea of all was hamilton fisch, who is from this district. and if roosevelt said it was

sunny, he said it was dark. so this is not a new thing. and he said, this is a terrible idea. first of all, it is this giant monument to this man's ego. and more importantly, we got the library of congress. why don't we put him there? and what he said was, we're going to hive to drive all over to -- because if root has one, everyone is going to want one of these libraries. i thought that's a great title, driving to poduny. my publisher didn't think so. so i didn't call it that. but when you come to the roosevelt library and come to a lot of other libraries you see this wonderful thing which is that when you go to where roosevelt was, when you see the hudson heir he used to actually look at, when you're in the house that he lived at, you get

closer to him. and it's one thing to read about a president and it's another thing to be where he is, and if you're a writer, this is a wonderful opportunity. it's a wonderful opportunity. and let me get started. i've got a power point presentation here. so, this, of course, is the roosevelt library. this is actually a different room from where the research take place now in the roosevelt library. this is what you would find if you went to the back room and saw where the researchers were doing their work, and as you see the gentleman back there with his camera, that's how most of us get our information now. we bring in a digital camera, and i'm old enough to remember back in the time when you used to have to come in and you requested and they had to xerox. now you can just come in and you get to snap the picture. and i came into that room and was interested the in finding

out how to presidential libraries came about. how franklin roosevelt did this. so bob clark wheeled me up one of this carts, which you can see, and i opened up the first box, and i took out one file, and what is wonderful about this library is before the freedom of information act took place, and the archivist and the white house before franklin relevant left the white house, were able to organize the papers very well. and i looked at this first file and i saw about 20 pages cross-referencedful might be something a cabinet member said and then cross-referenced. and i thought if i'm a writer and i footnote this, it looks like i've done this for six months. so for all of these books we read -- this is why my book "chasing history," i dedicate to

the archivist. they may not even be alive anymore when you go to that file, but for the mcculloughs and -- they couldn't do what they do without their work. and why do they do it? in this world where everything is self-aggrandizement, and as i drove across the country and met archivists, never met so many people who loved coming to work every day and just love their role in this, and they're not going to get their name in many books. some are in my book but for the most part they're just going to have the feeling they helped bring history about, and this is how it looks like, as -- this is a card you're going to get. these are for anybody to go to. a lot of people feel like, well, are you allowed to go? yaw. anybody in america can go and you can go and hold a document that franklin roosevelt signed or that winston churchill

signed. here's something with fdr, grand, and when you look at that, it's hard to even describe how exciting that can feel to actually see the actual material. here's a cartoon that came about when he was identifying to get this library put forward, and they're saying, here's fdr at the hyde park memorial. there's a lot of opposition. one lady sent to a check for one dollar and said, i'm sorry -- 20-cents and said, i couldn't send more because of the economy. and so there was a lot of criticism about doing this. you learn sometimes by bumping into something about someone. everything i'd always read about roosevelt was after pearl harbor, he was depressed-couldn't believe the navy was gone, and here he is thinking about his presidential library the next day. roosevelt kept his hand in

everything. and one of the things you do, you look at these presidents and learn lessons how to live, see that roosevelt would never have had to say, this guy ran my bank account. i didn't know he invested in that. if you look at the documentation, it's clear, he keeps his hand in every pot. and there's his car you can see. the mansion. this really affected me, looking at his elevator, and you all can good look at this today if you want to do that. again, you read about somebody, you understand about somebody, and of course, we all know about his physical limitations enwhen saw this heavy wooden elevator and was told he would pull himself up and bring himself down on it for exercise, you realize -- and his wheelchair, of course, was not like a modern wheelchair. it was heavy. and you realize the upper body strength he would have had to do

that. this is the driveway. he used to try to walk down the entire driveway. so, again in a book i like a lot by tony horowitz, confederates in the closet, a character says he kos you that combination of history and landscape and that this brilliance of franklin roosevelt's idea, to combine the history and landscape for scholars and for anybody else who is interested. other and here you get the opportunity to sit and look at the cabin he created. and this library has been recently refurbished and i wanted to show that if you go to this library you'll find both sides, both sides of franklin roosevelt, and a it bit more about that. the next one i went to was the kennedy library, and i write, the bay of what?

it's a complicate issue. what should go into a library and what shouldn't. but, for instance, to understand john kennedy you need to understand about addison's disease and understand his physical limitations and theses are things that are bypassed in the library, and i spoke to the director, and the director told me well don't go into the personal things because there are still relatives. it was interesting because after i had that conversation i came out here to the roosevelt library, and i'm looking at that lucy mercer thing that you just saw, and i looked next to me, and i was here at the anniversary, and who is there but eleanor roosevelt's granddaughter. and i was ready to catch her if she fainted. i was ready, but she didn't. so, just in case anyone at the kennedy library is watching this, i think it's going to be okay. beautiful library, though. out on columbia point, with the

jutting out into the waters that john kennedy actually sailed in. he had chosen to have his library in harvard, and there was such a fight. harvard was so unhappy about that. he was unable to do that. and, again, there's a lot of talk about kennedy and classical music and the dresses that jackie wore, and right now there's sort of an argument going on between the bobby folks and the john kennedy folks because they don't feel like bobby has been given enough attention, and the roosevelt library does a good job in incorporating eleanor because she is such part of the story, and bobby's family is interested in maybe going off to a different place. i would go and i would do a research topic everywhere i went. i what i wrote about the new

kennedy library is how this guy was pardoned. he is a jazz pianist. so if you want to hear that story, you know where to get it, "chasing history." so gerald ford, once he gets a library, it's official, everybody gets a library no matter what. his library is very interesting. the one problem with the library, they have the museum is 100 miles away from the archives. so, as she told me, she wouldn't want anyone to have to go through the difficultyies she has to go through and it's considered by everybody that was not a great idea. to have a little disco ball here to talk about what was going on. the ford library, he was willing to put good things and bad things. there's the famous stair well we all recall from the end of the vietnam war, and when kissinger

said, why would you put that in your lie center and ford says, it's history. now each of the libraries tends to create a replica of what the oval office looked like. just as an example of the difficulties of the libraries, this is the type of videotape that existed for eight year, very, very difficult to access. now the w library has to deal with the e-mails and -- there's a lot of technical issues that each of these places has to deal with. this is what i saw for about several hundred miles. and then we get to he hoover library, which was interesting because i came to the hoover library, a way a lot of people might come to libraries, not knowing a lot about hoover, knowing only what my teacher told me was that he didn't care about the depression and was very grumpy on that car ride with franklin roosevelt. and it's a great library.

some of the funniest archivists -- they tell me, that's a quote, the third world of presidential libraries, from one of the archivists. he said, no one ever announces from the hoover library. so what they were doing when i was there was having a pool, and they were all guessing -- many of us are in offices and we have basketball pools. their pool was, how many days a year did hoover spend in his vacation retreat? and i saw them all discussing this and i thought, this is cool. and i learned a great deal about hoover there, and this is the house he grew up in. a keynesian childhood, and after going to the hoover library, i

was so interested i ended up getting his memoirs, and i'm the one who read his memoirs. but the first volume, i tell you, it's very interesting and very funny. the guy had quite a sense of humor. and so that's one of the things that academics don't seem to comprehend when they criticize libraries for not showing both sides and so forth, and they say you can't be confronted. you can be confronted by positive information as well as by negative information, and i was confronted by thing about hoover, and of course it's the first step. it's not the last step to go to a presidential library and then you learned everything. what you do if the presidential library does its job, you're going to go out and want to read about that president. and there he is. tom swartz, he actually is one of the people who created the lincoln library, which changed

the way we do these libraries, and now he is the director of the hoover library. so went from the top to the bomb. but he got tired of having to beg for money every 12 months from the state legislature so he is happy to be in the federal system with herbert hoover, and i you're doing a road trip you have to stop at captain james t. kirk's future birthplace. [laughter] >> then i get to independence, missouri, and this place is as interested in truman as springfield is in lincoln. because he went back there after he was president. so, the town is really everywhere you go, it's -- well, turn on truman street and have some truman coffee and let's go to the truman bar, and here's

something we won't get in the future, letters. i just read all of his letters to his wife, bess, and they're so touching. and you really are able to see a different time and a different place, and i am very concerned about the future of our presidential scholarship and this is the rope, nobody writes these things anymore. they do a great job at showing both sides of the issue, and it is funny, though. they did this incredible job about discussing truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb, and they attacked some of the many stories we have heard, and quote eisenhower saying this war would have ended soon anyway and then they quote other people, and they say leave your own thoughts and page of pain says the same this my uncle walt told me i would have died if he

hadn't dropped the bomb. only bun guy disagreed. dude, that was so dumb. my favorite part of my visit to truman library was they took me downstairs. there's more things downstairs at that place than upstairs. and here's his army cot that i saw downstairs. his cards, his i.d., and interestingly, the hotel towels he and his wife stole as they drove across the country. [laughter] >> i went to abilene, kansas, and this was in 2011. tough economy, tough town. let me tell you, not a lot happening. this is main street. so, not a lot happening. and i went to the tourist spot there and i told this lady --

she was -- this elderly lady who seemed like she hadn't seen anyone come in there for quite a while. and she said what are you doing sneer i said i'm traveling across the country to visit all the presidential libraries. and she said, you don't know how lucky you are. we have one across the street. [laughter] >> a museum of telephony. i just had to have that on there. eisenhower, interestingly -- there have been a slew of new books on eisenhower within the last couple of years, and people are now looking at him anew. the feeling has always been he was vague, unconnected, didn't understand what he was doing, and now people are looking at him and taking another look at that. that's one of the interesting things that happens with presidential hoyt there never is an ending to it.

but you look back at eisenhower's time and there's not a lot to complain about in terms of how the economy was going and many of the things going on. and of course, much of it deals with him as commander-in-chief. thank you, starbucks, when i did my trip i was staying in tents a lot of the time, and visiting the libraries. so, wherever i was i was able to get a coffee and able to plug in and i was able to write my blog. i don't think i would have made it without starbucks. now, nixon, as he always does, pushes things to the level where you start to have some problems, and when i was at the nixon library, tim was the director there, and there was an absolute civil war going on between the folks at the national archives and the nixon people. much of this had to do with the

watergate exhibit, which was up there, which went along the nixon line, if you have read nixon's books, arguing his total innocence on it. not particularly different from what clinton does in terms of his impeachment museum, by the way. and neftali went in -- bob did the original watergate exhibit. tim neftali created a new exhibit but there's a lot of debate about, what do these libraries for? are they for the presidents' point or view or for history's point of flew view? and there's this funny sign he put on because somebody complained because there was a statue of mao. a chinese person complained and they said this doesn't mean the united states government is supporting mao, which seems as

obvious, as hitler pictures in the eisenhower museum as well. but -- recently mr. neftali wrote an op-ed piece about his concern that the nixon library people are going to put up an exhibit of -- involving vietnam. so, the question is, is this up to the libraries or should there be some governmental board that really looks at what the content is? i will say that one of the great things about these libraries, they're all different. they're not like going to holiday inns. every place is different and a lot of them are a lot like the president, and i don't want to get what i would get if i looked it up on the commuter or wikipedia. i'm okay hearing other interpretations of history. history is an argument without end. there's nobody up there who can tell us. certainly not in this country, what the proper history is.

so, this is his house and it's beautiful place back there where they seem to be constantly having weddings, which is sort of interesting. then you get to he reagan library. the reagan library brings in the most money and certainly does whatever the heck it wants to do, and it is a gorgeous library up on the top of simi valley. and you're going to have certainly the reagan point of view. this was my favorite part. instead of angry birds you knock down federal regulations. and then here's the game of life, which everyone wins because reagan is president.

but one of the things that i found fascinating when i was at the reagan library, i was looking at the speech he gave about -- the famous evil empire speech, and i remember he meant to do that in england but his -- had been blocked by his open state department so he snuck it in the bottom of a speech that he was going to do in orlando, florida and, i hoping the state department folks don't see it. bat day before he is going to give the speech, some of them did see it and he made the speech anyway, and those of you who remember that time, everyone said oh, my god, he is crazy, how can we have him say this? when i'm at the reagan library, a jewish dissident spoke, and he talked about when that speech came out, he was in imprisoned in a russian cell, and he heard about that speech. somebody left a photograph da out, and it gave him so much hope, and he was in solitary so

the only way to communicate was talking through the toilets or doing morsed so so he tells the person next to him in morse code, and they all told each other that the united states president had finally said the truth about the soviet union. so, again, you can be confronted -- when i was -- when ronald reagan was president, there wasn't a thing he did that it thought was a good thing. and then i came and heard that story, and i thought, well, that's a completely different perspective that i'd never looked at. so, that's one of the great things we get. also the only library with a pub. reagan, when he went to ireland, he had gone to a pub. he wasn't a drinker because his father was such an alcoholic, but he went to a pub, and after they closed the pub down they actually shipped out and put entity the reagan library, and here's air force one. so, facing out into simi valley.

so, yeah, if you want to call it a theme park, it's a theme park. i'm not offended if kids come and have a good time and want to read book about ronald reagan. it's the first step and not the last step. richard reefs who writes about reagan, and you get to lyndon johnson. bull was his nickname in hamp short -- in high school. short for a two-word phrase. i won't say it. but, again, history and landscape. where he grew up looks pretty much like it did when he was there that's the school he went to. and this was his original home, and then we see his ranch, and now if you're -- the people at the roosevelt library don't know how lucky they are because if you're an archivist out there you need to be able to take care of cattle as well because he said, i want it style be a working ranch, and it is, and he

also said, no one should ever have to bay to go to the lbj library, and so there's no fee. and you got to love a place that combines the liquor store and the post office. and there it is. doesn't it look luke johnson? stolid, strong. his wife came up with the idea of turn the papers into a work of art here and there's file after file after file of the folders of what lyndon johnson did. robert care rowe, who i interviewed for the book -- yeah, wonderful. there's his outline. of course, he visited -- his whole first book is about the hill country. he says when he first saw the red files he almost toward around and went home and take up with a new project.

and when i told hmm my project, he said that's going to take a lot of time and effort. and i didn't really listen -- take him seriously, and then you think about it, he said this would take time and effort. and there i am, happy as can be. i got a roosevelt mug, butch scofield book, i'm in heaven, and i'm in austin, texas. and this is where the bats show up in austin. then we get to the george bush library, and this is when it starts to become very hard to get your hand on any archives. i was able to find a lot of documents in which bush told the oak ridge boys they're great but i wasn't able to get a lot of documents about the arms race, i wanted to look at the letters nixon had written to him, and they were all considered too high security, even though there is no soviet union.

so i worry about what -- what the robert carrow who wants to do this thing about george bush is going to do when he can't get his hands on these documents. and we all heard he jumped out of a plane a couple weeks ago on his 90th birthday. and there's where john kennedy was assassinated. and then people ask if you had any advice to president obama what would you give, i would say, don't get too involved in your own library. one of the problems that the clinton library had -- i think it's because of bill clinton's involvement -- he doesn't realize how interesting he is, and so we got all the accomplishments of the bill clinton years, but without sort of an ark and -- arc and a way to understand it. we nose the libraries get redone and redone so i'm sure it will

move on. but you get a lot of these kind of black cards, and then -- black yard and then they had the discussion about the impeachment but didn't mention she who shall not be named, but they had someone saying i think it's very fitting that he was acquitted on lincoln's birthday, because only great presidents like lincoln and clinton ever get confronted with things like this. so here's his house, and a few feet in front of it is his -- is the train. taylor branch, who discussed how difficult it is, and central high, where you see it looks exactly like we all remember it on the film. one of those goose-bump moments. i had the opportunity to see president clinton up close and shake his hand, and watching him and the people in pennsylvania he was speaking for, just really drove home the difference between these presidents and the rest of us.

as we all know, remarkable man. and then last but not quite least, jimmy carter. jimmy carter's library, until the roosevelt library redid theirs, i think theirs was the top in terms of the modern gizmos and so for the. it's about -- five minutes away from atlanta. feels like a different world and it's a wonderful library and here's something where he just shows one day in the life of a president. you see all these meet examination discussions and things going on -- meetings and discussions ask things going on. you remember the reagan game. i would have played their video game but i didn't got my ph.d yet, and very complicated. and then where it all ends is i went out to see the george w. bush library be opened after they invited me to fly out. they told me i couldn't be there

but could i watch it on c-span in the basement. there's the director, alan lowe. but i had the joy of actually getting inside the c-span bus, and as you can see i snuck through and did it anyway. so, okay. and there we have it. so i am -- be delighted to answer any questions. [applause] >> if we have any questions, just please come to the microphone. >> how long actually did it take to do all of this traveling and writing? >> well, the traveling took me about two and a half months.

and that was the easy part. it wasn't until later i realized what robert karrow was telling me. i thought the trip would be hard. the trip was easy. if anyone has read books that combine traveling and history, they look easy to write. it becomes very hard because you start thinking, well, eye talking about myself to much. the with a i wrote a book, which i wouldn't advise anybody to do, wrote everything and then spent two years editing,ed didding, cut, cutting. about a thousand pages when i first wrote it. i just put everything in. so it took me a couple years to write it. >> did you ever at any point in time ever feel caught up in those political or divisive school of thought camps at various of the libraries? >> the only library that had any was the nixon library, in terms

of different people in the library having any different issues. most of the library is went to, i didn't even know who was from the archives, who was from the foundation. it's pretty seamless in most of the libraries. everything gets along pretty well. i go to the nixon library, and i walk through -- the nixon library you go through the book store, and then if you want to do -- go to the archives there's an elevator, and i asked the lady, where is are the archives? she is says the archives are where the door is, and she says, i don't know? and i said, really. so, i was picking up on all these weird things. and then somebody came up to me, who i -- he told me, don't use his name so i called him mark felt in my book. and he just started spewing.

this is his library. and they're not letting us tell his story, and many of the dose sents have quit, and neftali is a liberal and is just trying to push this liberal view, and so it became this thing where the two sides weren't even speaking to each other. and when tim neftali became the director, he made a comment, when they were very offended about, which i'm not here to run a shrine, and he basically took over the process of doing this watergate exhibit, and wouldn't allow any involvement from the foundation. and it took two years to put it together, and then he said you have a week to respond. so, they got few more weeks to respond, and then they wrote like 150 page thing. really saying, we understand --

which bob bostwick had a look to do with but they said we understand but it should say this, and things like the white house did this criminal act and they would say, well, the white house is a building. who are you saying did it? and a lot of other criticisms. tim neftali said i'm not changing anything or i'll quit. so, again, i thought it was a very good exhibit. but right now they're still going through that. and they're planning to put some exhibits together. they don't have a director. i don't think they want a director. >> was it as much fun as it seems to be now in the re-telling? >> yes. i was nervous the very first day because i had read many of -- i'd read books where people do these trips and on the first day they talk about how great they feel and just thumbing their noses at everyone outside their car because they're going to

work and you're taking this trip. so i started the trip and i feltner -- felt nervous. it's like how women are supposed to get the instinct to clean the house before they have their baby. i thought i would have this calm. and then it occurred to me, they all got advances. so, that is probably the difference. yes, sir. [inaudible question] >> in accumulating papers. would you consider that to be a presidential library? >> i consider it's presidential library. it's not considered an official presidential library because it's not -- that has to do with the designation with the national archives. doesn't mean it's worse or better. it's not part of that federal system. but i haven't been there since they refurbished it, but my

understanding is it is an incredible library, and so that isn't pejorative that it's not part of the official -- i mean, if i hadn't just stuck to those 13 libraries, i'd still be taking this trip, and my wife would have divorced me. >> thank you. >> so, now that you finished this one. what do you think you'll write next? >> well, i'm not going to say what is specifically, but i'm going to say it's going to have an outline. i'm so excited to have an outline to work off of. thank you for your questions. [applause] [inaudible conversations discussion]