years old 2006 and driving to work at 6:30 a.m.. . .

across the road and they are hit by the by ferrier prophesied to come and the two men in the saturn are killed instantly. >> you can watch this and other programs on linux booktv.org.

johnathan examines the political careers of lyndon johnson and ronald reagan and the respective elected victories in the 1960s. he speaks for just over an hour. >> good evening. i am the editor and director of the roosevelt house public policy institute. we gather in the homes of roosevelt and franklin's mother sarah. many of us that watched the monumental series in the last week would probably agree that fdr would be fascinated by both sides of tonight's conversation.

our interviewer is sam ten in house at "the new york times" whose political insight i've admired ever since the paths first crossed as an editor at "the new york times" op-ed page and later as an editor remarkably of the book review and the sunday weekend review. as you probably know he established himself as a gifted student of modern politics with his biography of whittaker chambers and then his book on the death of conservatism. we look forward to what he says he is doing inching along his biography of william f. buckley.

our spotlight tonight focuses on jonathan a former political correspondent for "newsweek" where he covered national politics including john kerry's presidential campaign and in 2004 the hillary clinton campaign in 2008. there's hardly there is hardly a modern political figure he hasn't profiled. bill and hillary, mitt romney, rudy giuliani, eliot spitzer and others. he covered the democrats for "newsweek" 2004 special election project at one of the national magazine awards. he went to harvard where he studied history and literature of the combination of discussions and questions for about an hour after which we welcome you to come to the first floor in the freedoms room where we can toast the speakers and

have a snack and buy books. [laughter] >> welcome, jonathan. we want to get the question to all of you just to get more of the conversation going so we will start with a few things and something to jonathan mentioned that crossed my mind as here we are at the home of the recent president franklin roosevelt and each are different figures. >> this is a wonderful place. i'm happy to be here and it's a wonderful place to be talking about and in johnson and ronald then johnson and ronald reagan because if you spend any time thinking about what these men have in common, which is what they are doing you will inevitably end up at fdr.

despite the fact that they are in different moments of time and that they come from two different places ideological they are contemporary. they were born less than three years apart in the early part of the 20th century and that means that they came of age in as young men both of them had the same idle who was fdr come in command very interesting politics that they pursued was in many ways trying to be their own version of fdr and you can see for both of them it had sort of a different meaning. for johnson the important thing was everything he accomplished in everything he did. he was trying to johnson and his presidency was essentially trying to re-create that legacy

of as many problems to help as many people and transform people's lives and government. for ronald reagan, the important thing is the connection that he was able to form with millions of people that he didn't know and couldn't see that understood all the same and that is what ronald reagan tried to bring to his political career as well so when we think about these men that were different and the presidencies which were in many ways quite different, the common thread is fdr so this is a great place to be talking. >> didn't ronald reagan say the press doesn't understand. i don't want to rollback the new deal. i revealed the new deal and i want to look at the society which is johnson's version of the new deal. what are the interesting things in your book as here we have two figures and a lot of people are interested in at the moment is a

witty look at johnson's first year in office ronald reagan invoked constantly by republicans and conservatives. why put these together? with the dynamic of the relationship? it's not as if they were great friends were political allies. >> the story that i tell is particularly about the days of johnson's presidency which were also the thousand days that followed the kennedy assassination and the back to me is an incredibly important moment in history because it is a moment where the countries politics began to change and by looking at the overlapping stories of ronald reagan and johnson in the period i think you can really see that change illustrated in a particularly vivid manner. what johnson is trying to do again in a model in the model in that time trying to essentially fulfill the legacy and create government programs that will solve the great problems the

country faces into talking about the government as a force of salvation is in the end what creates the opportunity for reagan to step forward and make an incredible case that it isn't the solution to the problem, government is the problem and if you look at ronald reagan, watching politics in this period, as you said he is single-mindedly focused on the great society. a famous moment in his life comes in october 1954 where he gets a televised speech that we now call a time for choosing and at a speech on behalf of barry goldwater that it is attacking lyndon johnson and saying that this vision of the government utopia is a path of ruin for the country into the country needs to choose another path. they don't think about that but that's who ronald reagan was

speaking about and then in the coming years when he begins his political career in california he is someone who is much more interested in these issues than local politics defines a way to connect with people by nationalizing the race and what that means it's starting in the first political campaign to run against the great society and what he finds -- it is lbj of california. >> and he uses him as a stand-in for lbj. so, when the book that tells a story of two landslides, the famous landslide in 1964 which is the largest popular vote, his landslide in the first political race as governor in 1966 in which he won california by a million votes that is just two years after johnson they'd won the state by governor eliot of

himself. >> william buckley told me once that when ronald reagan was first emerging in the nixon was looking at the run in 1968 nixon said to him he was an early reader and a very goldwater and people thought of ronald reagan at that point as deleted are not a second string very goldwater or a more polished very goldwater. and buckley said kansas actor possibly win and mixing said any man, any one who wins the governorship of california by a million votes is a national political figure and that's it and that answers the question. there are a couple of things i want to get at which is something you all will enjoy in the buck it's a very difficult thing that tells different stories and weaves them together. and you show us lbj and ronald

reagan at these early interesting times in their career. and i think a lot of us will be familiar with the buck or the general history of 1963 he is the vice president who is stripped of all power and it's the study of the guy that is describing lbj in power but what is fascinating to me is both ronald reagan in 1963 what he was doing and where his career was. >> if you ask the famous question where were you the data john f. kennedy was shot and might have candidate after you find that he is somewhere that he wasn't supposed to be. and the story that i knew before i started working on this about ronald reagan, he had an early in life acting career which in the 30s and 40s than turned into the screen actors guild and

then through his work at the ge theater and it became more about the passion for politics and his support of removal from the hollywood scene. when you ask the question where were you the david john f. kennedy was shot he is not where he was supposed to be. he was working as an actor. he had lost his job as the host of ge theater two years before and he was 53-years-old and looking toward middle-age and it wasn't at all clear what the next step was if he wanted to be someone who is going to be a national star. he was kind of washed up at that point is what he is doing is appearing in the kind of role that he frankly hated as the villain and as has a very dark remake of the earnest hemingway the killers. he's not even a particularly exciting filling. he's a conniving villain and

it's the part of ronald reagan hates that he gets it and so part of what makes the story sort of remarkable is the rapidity of the turnaround he goes from that place at the beginning of two not just the governor of california at the end of the the base of the conservatism and the national figure who is getting tons of attention in the press and the people that they possibly talk about is people of the united states and the heavens in three years time. >> you mentioned the speech that you gave for barry goldwater and some people think it was made at the convention. it was reported later. have any of you seen this speech? some people call it the speech as well. it had this tremendous rapidity that we do not identify in the later year and very quickly it is a version of the speech that had been given for years for the ge plant that was able but talk

about the impact that speech made on the active american politics in the funds that were raised and that this was a megastar. what did he do that was so impressive? >> i would like to go back to the beginning of the political virgins which in a lot of ways is impossible to separate from his acting career. you look at the career in the 30s as a hollywood actor and one of the things he learns from that is to have a reverence of public mood and public case and the idea that the public case changes quickly so he was a product of the studio system and in a lot of ways was literally a

product. they would turn out with these very quickly. if you found a hit and replicated it again and again until the public decided it didn't like it anymore and you have to become something else and then when you are an actor is an incredibly sort of humbling experience because one moment you can be on the path to megastar them and on the next you're done. so you have a firm respect for what is the public thinking and that is a question that you are thinking about a lot. in a lot of ways it is better training as a politician, national politician in the 1960s when politics are changing so much. that is johnson's career as a legislator because johnson, the master legislator that we all know so much about in his sort of obsession in the legislative process really thinks of it as being about relationships and a legislative maneuvering. and he is not nearly as attuned in his prior experience to the

presidency to help the public mood shifts in how you pay attention to it. >> and also the mastery of television. the great communicator. roosevelt saw that he did do it visually. >> johnson is aware that at least at this moment where you really do see television taking control of the country one of the first things i did and researching the story was to go back to the days of the kennedy assassination and to watch that footage from the days after the kennedy assassination to try to keep my eye into the camera on johnson and it's impossible to do. he's the president of the united states but the pictures of the kennedy family, the funeral procession into the country grieving her so much more compelling than anything you see of johnson and even though he is

the leader of the free world at that point, it is for a wild a minor figure in for me that really was enlightening to understand about johnson because it creates this challenge is how do you refocus the story so that you are the leader in the ur to center of attention while honoring this incredible event that the country has gone through and that's a remarkable accomplishment of his in the early days of the presidency to be able to pull that off as positioning himself as the steward of john f. kennedy's legacy. but the problem is exposed to air of television having the air of television having its own line in a lot of ways is a reoccurring one for johnson and he is aware that he knows that john f. kennedy was much better at television and that it is a new powerful force in our politics and he struggled to keep up with it. he's constantly getting advice about how to do it better and

you really feel sorry for him when you read some of these memos that were written to him because it's always speak more quickly now, no, no, no, speak more slower. [laughter] where different glasses, try the podium no, no no podium. and all this. don't think about it and after he has been given all these clues of what he should do. >> in person he was an extraordinarily charismatic figure more than the others and it's sort of the opposite of a lot of times when you see a celebrity in real life the action is he's so much smaller than i thought. with johnson at the opposite. people who have seen him only on television were consistently surprised when they saw him in person because he was taller than they thought, better looking, more intelligent, and he was so much more captivating. she did have that ability as

others have written about to look at someone and see their soul. and i think one of the reasons that television doesn't work for johnson is johnson's interpersonal relationships are so much about control. he's trying to understand you and control you and in television when you are appearing there and the people who are out there are anonymous and unseen you can't have that kind of control to someone like ronald reagan who has been doing this his whole life essentially surrendering himself in front of the camera is much more powerful in the emerging media and you really do see that shift in politics where someone like johnson said they had an inherent disadvantage to someone like reagan. >> you mentioned how during world war ii they were all profitable.

this is the great entertainment of the day. they were a contract after. how good is he at taking the scripts and absorbing it in the way that a professional actor does? >> you never heard complaints about ronald reagan and his professionalism. i think that he was very good at it. he gets frustrated in his career because he thinks that his career is constantly being mismanaged in relation to this public mood. he thinks that it's taking him out of the limelight when he should have been in it and they put him back when they've changed and that's so important for ronald reagan as he is looking at this rapidly changing political landscape of the 1960s. he doesn't just put himself forward and say these are my ideas about limiting the government and this is why the country should follow me right now. he waits for the right moment

when johnson and the democrats in washington have essentially overpromised for government and lost credibility and that's the moment you see him finally willing to enter the arena as a politician himself. that's not an accident. he is incredibly practical when it comes to his own self-interest and the care of his own future. he waits for the moment it's plausible that they would give him a chance as a conservative candidate. >> let's talk about his ideology. i think we get a bj. he's been in washington in the early days of the new deal and he's a favorite of lyndon johnson and he was a protége and he actually came through the old establishment and the house of representatives and then goes to the senate and he's a new deal liberalism of it would be called. he began as a new deal liberal and then became something different. how did that happen? and when did it start?

>> ronald reagan has a famous phrase i believe in the democratic party can of the democratic party left me. which really resonates -- >> and he said that when >> when he was running in the 70s and the 80s. so, that is when it begins to resonate with the people we come to think of as ronald reagan democrats. and in his case it is somewhat misplaced because what that implies is that they stayed exactly the same place in the same place into the party took a lurch to the left. that's not really ronald reagan. i think that he is someone who is drawn to extremes in a vivid contrast. so the new deal and roosevelt are appealing to him because it is -- it stands for something and it is a compelling cause of the little man and he identifies with that.

in the postwar period for a number of personal and political reasons he becomes interested in what he sees as a threat to the communist conspiracy the democratic party is no longer a place for him even though the cold war liberal democrats that are tough on communism, there is too much contradiction and complexity in that. they are right that it's pretty unified anti-communism is a much more clear place for someone of his dramatic sensibility to end it and i think really that is what draws him there. >> what about the impact of his hollywood days not as an actor but as a leader on the screen actors guild figures to union stripes thursday union stripes and there were also ideological divisions that emerge. where was ronald reagan on all that? >> you see him emerge as a

candidate and as a governor and a president. he is someone who is pretty good in those days at finding exactly where the middle ages and ending up there. as the screen actors guild president, he is concerned about the infiltration of communists in hollywood which pushes him more to the right anti-communist but at the same time he's a strong defender of actors, and i think there is that the combination of high principle and they tactical pragmatism and reagan that makes him effective as a politician in the 60s when he actually decides to run for governor of california and this is something i spend a lot of time talking about he's so conscious of being different from goldwater which for ronald

reagan is a horrible thing to do. to go out and make a sharp stand on the principle would be noble to do. but for ronald reagan who is again focused on what is the public want does the public want and how do i connect with the public the whole point is winning. so in goldwater campaign of 1964, reagan is a strong supporter and appears on goldwater's behalf in california and in a primary with nelson rockefeller and he had a victory there and ronald reagan says to the crowd, we need to make love to democrats because they don't want to win a convention, we want to win an election and that's exactly what the crowd didn't want to hear. they booed at him for saying this but the same idea is that he takes and after the goldwater defeat when he is positioning himself as a candidate he goes and presents himself as a unity candidate to the republican party of california. and he says he will only accept the nomination if he is convinced that they can accept and as a candidate.

and what that does is in a certain sense it says to the conservatives don't force me to prove myself to you otherwise i won't run and that means he can spend a lot of time when he's running for the nomination thinking about a message that will connect with a lot of people beyond the republican party. it's an interesting lesson as we think about the republican party today where ronald reagan is consistently held up as a sort of idea that no one can live up to because of the perfect conservative record. ronald reagan and the period was focused on winning. >> how much did his loss when he ran for governor of california i guess in 1962 that's the one that seems to have ended his career. then he was a lawyer and that's when he said he won't have nixon around to kick around anymore. how did he campaign and with less things might he have drawn on that? >> if you were to look at 1964

which is where a look in the book i look in the acute thinkpad running for governor or the unprecedented third term as a democrat had a pretty good shot. he had an easy victory was a figure far more as we know to the center at that point and was ronald reagan. and the hugely national figure. so if you were to say pat brown can defeat that guy he's never held any office and he's associated with what brown calls the crowd of the united states you would think he has a pretty good shot and the book actually begins with johnson and brown talking the day after his landslide victory in 1964 and johnson and brown are sort of reviewing the results and johnson is saying brown makes noise about i don't know if i'm going to run and johnson said i

don't want to hear anything about that. you are going to run and it's going to be a shoe in as the other implication. the other thing they talk about that today in the instigation is the three counties that johnson happened to lose in the otherwise landslide election he says to johnson he lost to san diego and it's even associated with the hard-line conservatism. you lost the smallest county in the state and then he says he lost and i don't know what's going on there but i've got the orange county publishers coming in and we are going to figure it out and i will report back to you. he doesn't really pay attention to that which is understandable. he just wanted huge victory. but actually, it is that little piece of information that probably has more importance for the future of johnson's legacy in this country than anything because what we see now in that

defection of the voters into places in places like an orange county that were white, suburban, middle-class to the children of democrats and a lot of them former democrats themselves towards a conservative like goldwater shows the viability of the conservative movement and the later part of the 20th century which is what does so much to undo the media legacy. >> what argument are they making when they abandoned the democratic party that listed their parents into the middle class and now they are in the middle class and the turn toward the republican party. >> johnson has an opportunity in the mid-60s he has this enormous electoral landslide and he not only pursues an aggressive agenda which is again in the mold of roosevelt.

>> and describe briefly what was in that agenda. >> the landmark legislation and the civil rights having health care to medicare and medicaid, education, poverty, head start. all these fundamental programs that we associate with and actively engage federal government in our modern life. he not only pursues all those programs and brings them home legislatively, at the same time he changes the rhetoric that the expectation for government from the liberals that have come before him and really this is where i think there's a major change jim progressivism from the earlier form of fdr and john f. kennedy. to me one of the essential the noble things about fdr is the division of government. if it's not just its aspirations that the government can do, it is the realism about what our expectations of government should be.

it's always going to fall short of the expectations and there is a tension between the aspirations for government and limited expectations for the ability to do it. we have to believe that these problems are worth solving and we have to understand that in a lot of ways it's beyond our ability to solve them and john f. kennedy had of it, too. i think that he departed a major way as he is passing all these programs he communicates to the country as though the problems that affect humankind throughout its history during the reach of solving. these are the most hopeful times at the time he gives that speech in october of 1964, johnson is on the other side of the country and he says it is a time of peace on earth and goodwill among men and the timing is now.

that's a pretty remarkable expectation for government. and it is inevitably going to fail to meet that and when it does come than they create then they create a good climate of anxiety with conflict in vietnam, the apparent disintegration of the cities. that undermines peoples faith in government altogether and i think that is in a lot of ways what gives them legitimacy to the counter argument which is the government essentially but not the solution to all of our problems and in many ways the government is the problem. and i think over time politics in this country have really become a choice between those two visions. one in which the government can solve all of our problems with which the government is a problem that we need to solve and that in the end i think has gotten us away from that spirit of roosevelt and his part of the reason that it's so hard for us to govern this country. >> let's get some questions.

i'm sure people have been. we have a microphone right next don't be shy. you might even end up on teeth were something better. >> the gentleman over here has a question. >> while the microphone is coming around, host jack rosenthal was involved in some of the speech writing for lyndon johnson including the university speech that begins in june of 1965 with the earth is the home of the revolution or something like that. and advocating the great society and a different political persuasion. >> in jax defense on that speech -- [laughter] that is a good speech in terms of what i was talking about about realism because there is a sense in that speech that the take away from that period is the idea that freedom is not enough.

johnson had done all this work to achieve the constitutional equal city for africa america in the country that you need to actually then think about the problems that are confronting the black economic justice. and as he's talking about that he says this is going to be hard work but it's worth doing. that is a line of thinking that is in that tradition of liberalism and it's very different from some of the other utopian rhetoric i was talking about before. >> this argument is frequently made today that we've been living the last 35 or 40 years in the age of reagan or conservatism i just wonder how you square it with a list these are things that happened since lyndon johnson left the presidency. they have the earned income tax credit for my americans with disabilities act, medicare part

d. the affordable care act and the constitutional position of rights so we are living in a age of conservatism? >> that's not exactly what i am saying is. there's a there is a scorecard of the last elections where the majority of the popular both want. i think part of the problem is that the divide that i described has created a sort of false reality for that. reagan, and i know the difference is one between rhetoric and actual work. ronald reagan is someone to did appreciate the government had a role when he's elected governor of california, he talks about trimming and cutting and shrinking the government and he really doesn't do much of it. the same happens in the presidency but it is quite successful and he leaves the

presidency as a popular president who wins the cold war in the eyes of the republican party and he brought to the country back to a place of confidence from the sort of 70s love and over time that i think is getting the idea that ronald reagan did that by saying the government was a problem and by identifying them as a problem. today you have people that are not living in his spirit of actually focusing on the good governance. they are just trying to live out the legacy and that's why we have the government shutdown and white in a lot of ways the republican party is not able to sustain its advantages even in the years like the 2010 t. party election or the 1994 election. >> i >> i might have something to daniel patrick moynihan said

around the time he left the nixon administration. but some are were at the last several presidents. moynahan says the republic is conservative in its ideology but liberal in the reforms and that's why you have a tea party that says keep your hands off my medicare, or the concern of many on the right ad that immigrants are not really the incursion in the labor force but actually the social services that are made available to them and everybody wants a piece of the pie and all the rest and that was a shift that the early ronald reagan opposed medicare and benefits for the war veterans. it was kind of the old liberal kind of conservatism and then he ran for president. >> he ran for governor and set it aside as well. to me being at ronald ronald reagan in the 60s, you have to

really sort of separate his passionate anti-communism and his passion about fighting communism from everything else because he really cares a lot less about everything else. and i don't mean that he doesn't believe some of the positions he takes that it's just for him the goal as pcs at stopping the policy of the appeasement which is going to inevitably lead to ruin and that is the animating parts of the philosophy and what makes him a conservative. it's actually not that hard for reagan when he becomes a politician to sort of step away from those more extreme policies that he had when he was speaking about politics and the conservative circle because he's not as compassionate to them and that is the guiding principle that makes it successful in a lot of ways is that you stand on your high principles that you are willing to compromise.

>> right here we have somebody else. >> i know orange county very well. what did they not like in 1964 that spread to the rest by year later? the only thing i read is the fiscal state in of california was a mess under pat brown and ronald reagan's love love that they were bankrupt in many ways. >> i think what you see is that it's it is a hot bed of conservatism because he has this primary against rockefeller because he has this incredible army of passionate volunteers from orange county that go out and make the case for him as an almost religious so what they are doing is they are the early edge of seeing this link between

the threats on the international communism which the bbs is not adequately addressed by the figures in washington and the encroaching state of the government at home so that is an easy argument to make it through that coming you have inevitably the road to communism and that's not for those passionate diehard readers, that isn't what he popularizes in the country at large they are the ones that populate the members. >> you probably know that orange county -- she looked very closely at these aspects of the john birch society in some of the orange county suburbs that

was a unified cost. let me talk about something else to that is racial anxiety. something that ronald reagan addressed in complex ways was part of certainly the campaign of 1966. there had been a riot that came at the same moment that lbj was signing as the rights legislation and in the movement from the south to the north. what would happen if he was emerging as a political figure? >> there is a famous moment in the 1966 campaign where ronald reagan is running in the republican primary for governor, fairly republican liberal mayor at san francisco and christopher is again using this around the neck strategy saying that ronald reagan and goldwater opposition

to the civil rights act of 1964 was what had given the republican party is a j. disgrace. and he has a sensitivity about the actions on racism. he's so sort of upset by this but when christopher attacks him with this line and the debate reagan gets up and leaves the room which the media covering it thinks this is the end of his political career. he lost his composure and it plays right into the line that has opponents have been using against him which is an empty suit he's just an actor on the lines of the people have given him and he doesn't have a script he totally falters. but you see a change of would have been the centrist position of 1964 where it was an idea

1966 you have two thirds of the white northerners saying that civil rights is moving too fast. >> that that means it's moving out of the south to the backyard. >> wasn't there also a proposition for the fair housing click >> there was a fair housing bill in 1964 which is actually something that the johnson campaign was worried about in california and the 64 election that there would be a backlash in the 64 race but it didn't happen. >> anyone remember the democrat also ran briefly for the nomination of 1964? george wallace of alabama. it's very well in several primaries. he did quite well. the white backlash has begun and johnson understands this sort of backlash as a phenomenon in 1964. in 1964 he is looking towards

what should be a pretty easy election for him because he has so perfectly come to him that anybody after the kennedy assassination and he has made his whole campaign about that. it's a remarkable piece. at the same time as he's escalating the vietnam war he is running a campaign of peace and prosperity. and -- spin and goldwater called him out on that. >> he did. what johnson is trying to do companies looking towards an easy reelection but he thinks about the backlash but it's not as appealing for johnson who really needs a source of fear to come in human form as some of those lurking potential threats he sees among people he knows chiefly the kennedys. so the lead up to the convention

in 1964 he is quite focused and he spends a lot of time thinking about that. if he spent at same time thinking about the question of what's happening in this country, who are these new voters that have moved out of the cities and out of the old democratic machine and into the suburbs and what do they want and how do i come up with a message that is by a my progressive message on civil rights and he's sending government programs in a way that can actually connect, he might not have had enough the same problems that he had in his presidency although of course vietnam did overwhelming. >> you just made me realize and the book brings it home, too in a very subtle and elegant way is that in some ways although johnson was by far the more practiced politician and really a microbe of the legislative process as we talked about. he was more worldly in many respects because he had seen more. remember lyndon johnson was afraid to give a speech in the

north because he thought he didn't like him and he was identified. lbj was afraid to give a speech. no southerner had won the presidency. and i calculate either woodrow wilson or zachary taylor and it looks like no southerner could ever win. when he's traveling the country he's a national movie star. he hobnobs with celebrities and in hollywood in some ways he's actually more in touch. that's what the book is partly about. that he is actually more in touch with the move to the country. >> at the moment when it possible to talk to the country as a whole in a way that it hasn't done before and that is why it is such an important place to start because it is a shared moment the country as a whole whether you live in california or maine you experienced that in much the

same way because you're watching it on television. johnson is an old-school politician in many ways who thinks about different regions represented by their legislators so it's not just what do people in desperate country want. it's who is their representative and what does he want and what kind of a command is that and that is the extent of the political understanding. there is a difference between him and what he fails to understand is the difference between the congress and the country's. ronald reagan going back to the early days of the career he viewed himself as sort of representing the normal middle-class good virtuous american and he deletes all along that whatever he thinks is right and good is that most people in the country thinks is right and good and if they disagree with him then it must be because someone has been conniving to convince them otherwise. and if you can just indicate

with them they will understand and come around. and that is a whole sophisticated way of thinking about the media culture in a moment where that country shifts from parochial political institutions to sort of what we think of now with these massive national campaigns. >> asked questions? she has the microphone right here. >> less of a major issue but taking up your comment about all the ways lyndon johnson played lyndon johnson was rather dismissive of humor come for a. if you can deal with the relationship in your book? >> i do at times about johnson's relationship with hubert humphrey. particularly in the narrative here, too.

he goes through this really tortured episode in the summer of 1964 and it becomes public about who is going to be his vice president. a lot of the sort of media focuses on this question of because the vice presidency is empty i should say after -- >> was there any thought of actually appointing someone or it just never came up? because i don't think i have ever seen any reference to that. did they even consider doing it? >> i'm trying to remember. i don't think that it was a part of the conversation. we were so focused on because of the kennedy assassination and i think that the kennedy assassination does prompt us because to think that there's a lot more because it is quite caring for the country not only that there is no vice presidency but the speaker of the house john mccormick who at that point

there is this idea that the country having lost one president and if something were to happen to johnson then you have someone else who is and that would be quite traumatic to the country but there is a conversation in 1964 about his johnson going to pick johnny kennedy to be the president. he desperately doesn't want to have body as his vice president. >> and they really hated each other. >> needed. they are different from one another obviously new england versus texas. bobby wears these trade outfits and has these aristocratic detachment. he would wear these suits with fine french cufflinks but in other ways they are both quite similar because they have traditionally in their lives played the part of supporting role to a powerful man. >> this is one of the

interesting points of the book. >> he >> he's done it in his career of course that his brother. that's the role that he plays with his family. he struggles for a long time and finally it is as the attack dog that does the dirty work they can do. johnson actually in his early life plays that for a number of figures starting with sam rayburn the speaker in the house of representatives and his great mentor in the senate richard russell and there is that sort of common effect of suppressed ego and rage of which belong to that defender and they both play that role for jack kennedy. they each see things they don't like about the roles when he descends to the presidency in the wake of jfk's assassination,

bobby views him as the embodiment of everything that is wrong in the world. it is the great and justice that not only has he lost his brother that he loves so much but that is a horrible pretender. it should be there in his place. but because johnson's central political message that here there's a strong rationale to make him his in his presidency he says early on in the spring if he can do it without bobby is going to do it without him that if he needs him he will bring him along and he makes that quite clear to bobby kennedy who at the same time it's pretty awful to johnson in return. >> and he wanted it right x. >> what's interesting is he

talks a lot about not wanting it and all these other things he wants to do and he's obviously in this position of great grief and survivor's guilt. he comes later in the 60s and is able to put that suffering into the compassion for others and make it a message about really inspired political change. he is still in that place so he talks about babies can't be the ambassador to vietnam or he's going to write a book. all of these other ideas and the last thing you want to be his vice president. but he becomes aware that he doesn't want them to. so all of a sudden the vice president is a job he wants for a brief period in that summer. they go through this terribly awkward public dance of johnson

essentially having this problem on his hand which is everyone has been talking about is he going to go to bobby or not. he doesn't need to bobby kennedy as his his vice presidents but how does he make it clear to bobby, how does he make it clear that he's going to not choose bobby bobby in a way people won't be terribly disappointed and who he does choose in the end? creates an awful public break between them which is the final straw between them. lurking in the wings all this time to get back to your question has been hubert humphrey who is always at the top of the list of the vice presidential prospects. >> briefly why? he ran in 1950 -- >> johnson we forget this now because johnson is a the hero of the civil rights and he does such amazing things with the progressive policy in the 60s

but one of johnson's other other medias political necessities in 1964 is to prove that he can be not a fictional candidate from the south which some people still saw him as a texan but as an incredible national democratic party that's becoming much more liberal. >> he is more of a conservative democrat. >> exactly and that was his background. he's big on this ship as the national ambitions grew but he's still associated if you watch the footage from the early hours after the assassination of the commentators are saying of course johnson will be more conservative than john f. kennedy. that is what people always associated with him so he's the great orbiter great arbiter of that era and then on the us choice and puts people at ease in the same way that when he chooses george h. w. bush or the grandkids with gerald ford and

other vice presidential debacle is ignoring he could be an entering candidate as well. >> and humphrey has introduced that in the 1948 democratic convention. >> and interestingly, one of the people speaks on concrete's behalf in the election is none other than ronald reagan. [laughter] ronald reagan and hubert humphrey. an interesting thing about the campaign and i'm sorry we are jumping around here, the johnson and brown can't have a horrible strategy in 1966 as johnson puts it a hanging around his neck and bring him into the reincarnation of goldwater. they tried that strategy and it doesn't work so finally they send humphrey to try to save pat brown and he makes the case and

that's what they are not seeing at this point is that's not for the a lot of people in california that's a an idea. >> two more questions. the gentleman back there. yes, sir. >> there was a piece a few days ago in "the new york times" by the boston university professor with a book coming out in early 1915 if i recall. the contention is that ronald reagan should be returned to history and the republican party return to the principles of lincoln, roosevelt and even eisenhower. overall, what is your view as to whether ronald reagan's defense reagan's's legacy during the presidency and afterwards has either affected the nation positively or negatively?

>> i think that the legacy when you think about it, the best case that you can make for the presidency is the sort of restoration of confidence in the idea of the national greatness that a lot of people inherently are part of american identity which he does so well and been the sort then the sort of single-minded focus on ending the cold war which he does so i personally think that view is problematic in many ways but i can see the wisdom of it. i think the problem with the presidency is in many ways it starts on the first day. the famous line the government isn't the solution to the problem, the government is the problem. that idea that i see as a

departure from the consensus sensibility of the government that is dedicated to solving people's problems even as flawed as the government might be is what i think has a lot. the popularity and then the association that that is what made reagan successful is what has done a lot to undermine our faith in government today and it's also hurt the republican party because what we see is that the party is able to make the inroads when there's a strong antigovernment mood in the country like 1994 were 2010 and maybe like this year it appears like it's going to be that what they are not able to do is unsustainable because there is no pressure on them to turn around and presented positive government agenda and people want the government to do things and i think that message

has in many ways armed the country. >> what's interesting and i would be glad to share you quote the entire sentence because people forget the first word in the present moment the government is the problem is not the solution. ..

>> where does the republican party look in 2016? you have made a very strong point, and i think some of our questioners asked, too, that much of the method, at least as it's been espoused and embraced, seems irrelevant so injurious. how do we get a republican party of lincoln? or dwight eisenhower. >> the last truly popular president for everybody. is that a possible thing now or does the republican party have to find a new set of heroes, a new set of ideas. >> we hear a lot that this notion that ronald reagan couldn't get elected if he ran in today's republican party. which is an -- >> wouldn't get the nomination. >> because he is not conservative enough is the implication and that's an appealing idea to me i don't reely believe that because it gets back to that idea of reagan had strong principles that he

believed in, on big issues, and then he was really infinitely adaptable on everything else. so reagan in today's republican party i think would figure out where he needed to be but he would also be asking that same question that he was asking in 1964 and in 1966, which is, how do i get the republican nomination? talk to republicans in a way that is not going to alienate the rest of the country, and he is able to do that so effectively in the '60s because he has a deep confidence in himself and his conservatism, so i think one way that a conservative candidate could help to us emerge and to save the party from its problem ises to mirror the confidence to say to the people who come after them with litmus tests and proving their fealty to everything -- every caus