times. coming up over the next several hours we will show you some of those programs. first up in 1992 he appeared on c-span's book not programmed to talk about his biography of president harry truman. the book won the pulitzer prize for biography and hope to change the view of the truman presidency. here is david mccullough from 1992. >> david mccullough, and your last chapter called citizen truman "truman had held to the idea of the mythical roman heroes cincinnatus ". what's that all about? >> cincinnatus was the mythical hero who left the plow, left the farm to go to the aid of his country in time of war and became a great general and it was victorious and then he renounced all of his power and

returned to the farm. that's a theme that this country was founded on. if you go up to the rotunda in the capital and you look at the great painting of the tremble of george washington turning over his powers as commander-in-chief and the continental army to the congress, the cincinnatus symbols are all do that painting because the founding fathers really believe this is what democracy entails. it meant that citizenship met any citizen should be called, could be called upon any time to serve his country or her country and any capacity including the greatest power. in the power belong to the people, therefore, power would be returned by those who held it for a time. truman liked to say i try never to forget who i was, where he came from, and where would go back to. that's the cincinnatus team obviously but it also shows that he knows who he was. he knew who he was and he was

proud of who he was and the return to independence after he left the office of the presidency in 1953 was his way of letting his actions speak louder than his words but when he got home he found it was living up to the idea wasn't as easy as expected and well we all remember i think with affection the harry truman of independence missouri walking the same streets of the town he had grown up in and just being a citizen neighbor truman once again, he wasn't all that easy for him. he missed washington, he missed the simulation of the pressure and the excitement of washington. in order to understand truman you have to understand, it seems to me, life in jackson county. he lived to be almost 90.

>> the year that he left washington to go back to independence? >> 1953 when eisenhower took the oath of office as the 34th president of the united states. when eisenhower took the oath and true maroon walked down off the platform he was right back down on ground level again as citizen truman. he had no pension. he had no allowance for office space, no franking privileges. no secret service guards. his only income was his army pension which was i think $119 a month. he got on the train and the president, the new president general eisenhower had given him loaned him the presidential parlor car can the railroad car that had belonged to franklin roosevelt, the famous magellan to write home to independence. all the way across the country

he was greeted at one town after another the crowds that came down he got restless and got up and walked around. it was regular passenger train the rest of the train was for the regular passengers he just walked up and down the chain saying hello to everybody and returning to what he had been, the last part of his life in many ways is as fulfilling as happy as interesting part of his life as all the rest of it. he is a great story, harry truman, and asked sometimes why did you do truman and what drew you to truman? and there are many obvious reasons but one of them certainly for me as a writer is it's a wonderful story. the story of his retirement years is as appealing, was as appealing to for me to write is also anything in the book. 1117 pages. >> including source notes. >> correct.[laughter] if you stop at source notes.

>> 992 pages of text. a mere slim volume. the big problem was to keep it to one volume. i was determined it would not be a two volume biography. i wanted it all in one volume. i wanted it to be a big book. i didn't know it was gonna wind up quite as big as it is. it's a big subject. it's a big life. the arc of his life is really a chronicle of american life in those years. he goes from what is essentially a jeffersonian jacksonian farms and small towns which he experiences directly as a boy growing up in a small town environment for 11 some years. to a country and nation that describes the world with power based primarily on industrial technological and scientific accompaniments. he is a 19th-century man formed in all manner of speech, habit,

thought, taste, formed in that period before the british world war and yet he has to face momentous the most momentous of all decisions of the 20th century by which theoretically he is not prepared but then we were prepared as a country either. to me he's like bunyan's pilgrim and pilgrim's progress. he has these various ordeals and complications and difficulties he has to overcome or get beyond. each one of which represent something that symbolizes the history of our country. this is a book about america for me. i wanted to be as much a book about america as it is about harry truman. >> is a lot of things we can do a with this book we only have a short hour. i'm going to stay with the last chapter and also some notes. in this last chapter because it's relevant to today commute

talk about harry truman and his wife got in their own car after he was president, drove by themselves back to this town in new york, talk about that. >> he had a new chrysler and love to drive an automobile. which is interesting because it was one of the few recreations he had he didn't know how to play in sports, he didn't play golf commute and play tennis. he didn't even know how to dance. driving an automobile and reading and walking were his primary recreations. he bought a new chrysler and as he said he wanted to give it a workout. they decided to drive from independence back to washington and friends tried to sway them from doing that but they were determined and they set off in the car and it was an adventure in itself. every time they came to people would of course recognize them

and they be great for us and the police would get very concerned they were in town and worried about their safety and worried if something happened to them would be the fault of the local police. mr. truman like to drive quite fast above the speed limit. mrs. truman did not approve that. she would have him hold to the speed limit. as a consequence they were often being passed and what people would pass them by they would look there was former president of the united states his wife driving along the highway and the cars would drop back and pass them again to see a set eyes there goes our incognito. then when they arrived in washington many of the press corps covered him drove up to maryland to pick him up. they heard he was coming. waited for the car to come in

and they all followed him in the town and he loved it. when he stopped at the mayflower and got out just as short sleeves on driving the car the crowd all gathered around, traffic backed up and caused quite a commotion. they then drove up to new york to see margaret, who was then living in new york and went to some shows went to see on the town leonard bernstein show. went to the restaurant just like anybody visiting new york. and causing great commotion. taxicabs would pull over to the curb and drivers would jump out and say hi harry, you are my man and all that. the state trooper pulled him over for apparently he had been cutting people too close when he passed them. he said the trooper wanted to say hello and get his to shake his hand. from then on they would go by

train, plane come about. >> there been an attempted assassination and the number of presidents had already been assassinated. why with government at that time have productions? >> it just wasn't done. in fact, he had very little money. he had to borrow some money. quite secretly. dean atchison cosigned to pay for the move back home. this is not well-known. it doesn't mean he didn't have any money. he did have money but he needed some cash to cover the dances moving out of the white house. when he got home, in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography and memoirs which no other president had ever done except herbert hoover. hoover's time was much ãb

truman's presidency covered far more tumultuous history than hoover. to undertake the two volume memoir was a very major ambitious task. then he built his library. there had been a previous presidential library, franklin roosevelt library at hyde park it was established after roosevelt. truman was the first president to actually officiate over the establishment of this presidential library. he was beginning something new. one of the things i tried to imply or emphasize in the book is that truman was in part a very creative public figure. he was a creative president. his was a creative presidency. he been a builder all his life, he built roads, he built choruses he got to washington when he became president he

built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house. which caused a great flurry of criticism. he is the one who entirely rebuilt the white house. the white house we have today is really the house that harry built. except for the outer shell which is maintained the original outer shell. the entire interior is a reconstruction of the original house. he took part in every detail of the reconstruction. he loved building he loved creating and things. in course in a larger way his presidency is marked by such creative and innovative acts as the marshall plan and truman doctrine and nato the library building the library, having his office at the library

welcoming guests and taking people around the library became his life except for his troubles when he went to europe. >> did you ever meet him? >> i saw him once when i was just a youngster when my first job in new york i was very starry eyed and got a job in a new magazine called sports illustrated. was coming home from work one night we lived in brooklyn and i came out of the subway stop at the old st. george hotel and a big car pulled up. it was a small crowd rating and i stood with the crowd and a big car pulled up in governor harriman stepped up and i never seen a governor before. i was quite excited about that. and out stepped former president truman. i was astonished. and i remember thinking, my god, he's in color. because we only have black-and-white television. black and white newspapers. the fact that he had very high color, he radiated good health.

it made him seem very vital to a person. he certainly didn't seem like a little man to me, to me at that moment he was six foot eight. but i never spoke to him and never met him. i've often thought that would be asking if he could go back in time and i could reach out and touch him on the shoulder in 1956. mj, mr. president, i'm right your biography someday. >> knowing what you know about him, what do you think he would think of this? >> i'm sure there are some of that he wouldn't like because this is after all an honest attempt to see the complete premises flaws and faults. i would hope that in some he would think i had understood him better than other people have. i think he was a much much more

complicated, complex and keenly intelligent man. thoughtful, considerate man than the stereotype of harry truman. the portrait implies. he isn't james whitmore. he isn't the kind of he isn't just the kind of salty down-home missouri well rogers. all the people i've interviewed who knew him and work with him and were in the white house with them, all say please understand that this man was much more than met the eye. >> how many interviews did you do? >> about 126 and that ranged across a broad spectrum. some people who hardly knew him at all but saw him come and go as neighbors or people in independence. also some of whom were so

important and what interviewed them many times over. >> who did you spend the most time with? >> i would guess in total perhaps either margaret truman, his daughter, or george elsie, who is on the white house staff and clark clifford. some of the secret service people who are invaluable because they were with him all the time. many of whom had never been interviewed before. >> are secret service allowed to talk after the fact? >> apparently so. >> they were concerned? >> no. they were wonderful because they saw him offstage they saw him in all conditions and often under enormous pressure. you mentioned the attempted assassination two of the secret service men still here in washington walked me through the whole event from inside and outside blair house where it took place.

spent the better part of one saturday doing that. i'm sure that's never been done before. so my account of that is based on material that can only be had by reaching that time to living people. their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing to listen to and true of all the people that work for him at all levels. i did not find a single person who knew him well and work with him who wanted to tell me what his terrible backstage temper was or what an ungrateful or difficult boss he was to work with. the closer people were to him it wasn't just that they liked him that they were devoted to him and in a way i kept hoping i would find some people who didn't really like him and had

some skeletons to pull out of the closet but that never happened. >> when did you start on this? >> 10 years ago 1982. >> what was the reason? >> i was looking for a subject, i started working on a book about pablo picasso, had to go around the barn with pablo picasso to wind up with harry truman and i quit that book i stopped after a few months because i found i dislike him so a repellent human being. he didn't really have a story of the kind that interested me. he was instantly successful. he never really went very far or had any adventures so to speak. he was immensely important painter. he was the krakatoa of modern art. i found the treatment of his family his attitude toward women, all he wasn't somebody i wanted to spend five years with is roommate so to speak.

in my editor at simon and schuster suggested that i think about doing franklin roosevelt because at that time there was not a good biography of franklin roosevelt. just on impulse in a visceral way i said, no, if i really do 1/20 century president it would be franklin roosevelt it would be harry truman and he said, well, why not harry truman? so i looked into it and i found it was not a good biography of harry truman. there isn't a complete life and times the last chapter that you're talking about that part of his life is never been written about before. comprised 20 years of his life is a very important part of her life. beyond that there was this immense collection of letters and diaries which he poured himself out on paper all of his life and he left a written,

personal, very revealing record unlike those of any president i have known him. we don't write letters much anymore. he did both his whole life and long before he ever realized he was going to be a figure in history. in one month to give you an example, in one month in 1947 when he was president and when his wife best was back in independence looking after her mother harry truman, the president of the united states wrote to her 37 times. these were just simple how are you and the weather is turning cool. these were real letters. >> did you ever find out how he wrote them? was it on hand. >> actual letters. >> and wonderful, clear, straightforward strong handwriting, just like he was. but fortunately very legible so there's never a problem reading

his handwriting as there was very seldom ever a problem understanding what he was talking about. >> in the last chapter you pointed out at some point in his life that he and his wife called their daughter margaret every night in new york? >> yes they were very very close. the same people with him as secret service agents or is white house staff, domestic staff in the mansion, have said they were by far the closest family they have ever known in the white house. though they don't want to be quoted by a person, they all say that truman was their favorite president. he was the first president ever to walk out to the kitchen and the first president in their memory to walk out to the kitchen to thank the chef or the cook for the dinner that night. they remembered calvin coolidge coming out once or twice but they thought that was perhaps to see if anybody was filtering

food. truman knew everybody by name on the staff. knew all about their families. this wasn't a politicians device. it's just the way he was. the whole give them hell harry, harry truman on the job at the office in the white house with his people at the lowest level or highest level never gave anyone hell. he never raised his voice. if anything he is remembered for being for how considerate he was. from small favors and courtesies he would do. >> let me ask you a few things about yourself then i will get back to president truman. were you born? >> was born in pittsburgh pennsylvania 1983 andãbi grew u very happy household my own

children have told me you have no chance of ever being a serious writer because you had too happy childhood. >> what did your parents do? >> my father had an electrical supply business electrical supply company which is still in business by one of my brothers now runs it. i went to yale university and when i got out of the yale i was determined to go down to new york and get a job either a magazine or newspaper. >> how did you get into yale? >> i guess i just did well enough on the college boards exams and i had pretty good grades in high school my two other brothers had gone there that seem to help in those days. >> what did you study? >> an english major and minor in fine arts. i was torn whether to be a writer or a painter. i never imagined i would wind

up writing history and biography. i feel in my work that i'm working in the school following a tradition or school other writers who would not been trained academically as the historians but writers who work in the past away foreign correspondent might work in another country. people like barbara tuchman and bruce cadman and paul horgan and wallace stagner and robert caro and robert massey, lots of them. i suppose we are lapsed to journalists. >> who came to new york for what reason after school? >> to find a job. out of the streets, try to get a job in the new york herald tribune, colliers magazine and time life was hired at time life to be a trainee at sports illustrated. >> how long did you stay there?

>> at time life for almost 5 and half years and when john kennedy was elected i came down to washington to be part of the new frontier. a very lowly member. i worked at the u.s. information when admiral was running it which was very exciting. after the president was killed and after marrow was ill and went back to new york as an editor and writer at american heritage magazine. my major effort there was the picture history of world war ii which is still in print. at that point i started writing my first book which at night and on weekends which was the john ãbpublished in 1968. >> how many of the books? >> this is my sixth book. >> during this 10 year period from 1982 to 1992 did you write any other books?

i wrote the anthology of essays which came out last year but no other books but i did a good deal in television. i've been the host of the smithsonian world series on public television and lately the last five years for the american experience series and a number of other documentary series like the lbj program and civil war. >> what was the voice can you hear that voice over 11 episodes of the civil war? do you get much reaction from other people in the country? >> at an airline ticket counter or order something in restaurant somebody's head snaps around and says the civil war. that was a big undertaking and it's almost wall-to-wall narrations i felt like i'd been in the game all 60 minutes, but was never seen.

it was a privilege to be part of that series, will such a wonderful project. ken burns is a major figure in broadcasting today. he defied all the experts. the conventional wisdom about television was that nobody was interested in the serious programming documentary programming and certainly nobody would watch anything like that went on for that many hours. >> how much time did you devote to that? >> i was involved with it from beginning and as i recall it took about 4.5 years. it wind up taking a little bit longer than it did to fight the war. >> in the notes in the back the acknowledgments you talk a lot about your family and rather than me read it, how many kids and how many were involved in this? >> we have five children they all help in one way or another. some extensively. one son drove me all through france to follow the whole war the harry truman's party in the

world war i and that same young fellow took a photograph of me on the back of the book, that's bill mccullough. jeffrey mccullough, another son, to help with research on capitol hill. at the library of congress. there's help with research or sustaining their father through difficult times the book is dedicated to our youngest daughter dori mccullough who did a very valuable work with helping with research on the restoration of the white house. more than that, who was with us with my wife and me all the time through those 10 years. we moved to washington to the smithsonian series when i was 50 years old. we came with one daughter who is a teenager and we lived in a very small apartment and we are making all adjustments one does

to living in washington. from first-hand experience. it was very valuable for me in writing the book to a been here because the paleontologists in order to better understand the possible record study that the living form, and studying the historical record about the senate and the white house and the whole way the bureaucracy works in the press works, everything about washington. it helped to study the living form as well as the historical record. >> you say what the ãbhe ran one night after roosevelt? >> one of the most dramatic moments in the whole story was when truman the evening of roosevelt's death is someone from the white house by the press secretary steve early when truman was having a drink with sam rayburn in what was

euphemistically known as the board of education ...... >> and i wanted to make that run and to find out what time he must of been in various places so to tell him how long it took him to walk over over to the hideaway. you can start running to the capital so i asked to take baker to make the run at the same time and he said i know why. yes i will arrange of it on -

- arrangement that i can run with you so that capital place as our escorts made the run and we were coming along through the hall running through those stone house of the capital for men with street shoes it is a thunderous sound. we came up to a point where the white house capital police have their rest area and an office and they heard this noise four or five of them came out into the hall to see what was going on and what they saw was one capital policeman running straight for them seemingly being chased by two guys in suits civilian suits another tasting from behind and the capital police

as we could see looked very apprehensive and as we got up to them they said to them don't ask. >> i could never possibly explained what we were doing. it was a long run and very worthwhile. truman said later he did not think her did not occur to him the president was dead and wanted to confer about something but if he didn't think the president was dead then why was he running? what did he think he was running toward or what was he running away from? if it were a movie or fill you can see that freeze-frame of him running down the hall by

then he is president of the united states he is running alone with no capital guards. he had to have known he wasn't admitting it to himself must've been a dreadful time then he arrives at the white house and steps off the elevator mrs. roosevelt comes forward and says very softly hairy, the president is dead. i feel it's a very revealing moment because at first he couldn't say anything but then said is there anything i can do for you? and then of course she says to

him, no, is there anything we can do for you? you are in trouble now. >> he is a character on an odyssey who was in trouble at one point most of his life. but then he has to rise to the occasion whether the family farm when his father dies or an officer of the artillery battery world war i or a senator emerging from the shadow or the stigma in the background he says to get out of the hole so to speak. because franklin roosevelt told him nothing. most people know he was told

about the atomic bomb that that was only part of it. it wasn't only irresponsible of roosevelt's part but unkind. so when mrs. roosevelt says you are in trouble now she knew what she was talking about. >> you write about the selection process for the vice president for the election and also a number of times how the people around roosevelt knew he was a very sick man. >> it was commonly known at the convention. i think it's one of the most dramatic stories of political history. they know the nominee for the presidency is running for the fourth term will not survive for last very long he is a dying man. this is kept secret.

it's a cover-up of for very good reasons. it is absolutely essential neither our allies or the enemy get the idea the most powerful of all nations is being led by a dying man. but the vice presidency is worth everything. and the irony of the story is the man they nominate, truman doesn't want to be nominated whereas the other two henry wallace and burns are ambitious and what that very much. >> wallace was the vice president and roosevelt was playing a tricky game because he told both you are my man. you go to chicago and get the nomination. but the political bosses

wanted truman. some say he was an accidental president but he wasn't accidental at all because they didn't want wallace because they felt he was too left-wing and too eccentric and didn't want the famous senator from south carolina one of roosevelt's most important assistance at the white house he was to conservative with the segregationist. he wanted truman. roosevelt under tremendous pressure agrees and then at one point he says i hardly know truman. so truman is the creation of the smoke-filled room of the old bosses and one cannot help feel therefore that was not an entirely bad way to go back to

business. the bosses knew what they were doing because they were extremely fortunate harry truman was there. even though on paper with a conventional resume his background is inadequate for the presidency. in many ways he was superb least prepared to be through but the country was through and he knew from first-hand personal experience so much of what american life was about. >>cspan2: talk about surviving the. financially. >> yes or by the time he paid his taxes and the rest he wound up with not very much but what saved him financially in one of the great circles of the story is the old family

farm that was sold to make way for a shopping center and it turned out to be very valuable. he was raised on the jeffersonian idea and the value of land to see to the hardest of times then he hung onto that farm through terrible times and all kinds of depressions because this is what had real value and in the final analysis wasn't the political career or fame or memoirs or all the other things that would give security. >>cspan2: when i think getting it together how do you survive financially? >> i do a lot of lecturing.

and television and my advance. >>cspan2: what will make this book a success? >> i don't know how to answer that. as far as i'm concerned if it reaches readers if it's already bestseller in a matter of weeks 922 page biography to go right to the top of the bestseller list. i will say it's unprecedented but it is rare in the summer and in part that is because truman still has a very high standing and great appeal among all of us. but in this political year he represents something the country more in other years wants to reach out for.

for the authenticity and clarity in his personal and presidential manner. truman stood for served on - - something. you may not have agreed with his position but you knew where he stood. >> was he loyal to his wife? >> he certainly was. absolutely. never never never. in fact there is a scene where he gets into his car to drive back to his quarters and an army officer puts his head in the window of the car late at night and says mr. president i can arrange anything you would like what you are here. anything of wine or women. truman is absolutely livid.

>>cspan2: i have underlined. listen son, i married my sweetheart. she doesn't run around on me i don't run around on her i want that understood. don't mention that to me again. by the time we were home the secret service man got out of the car and never even said goodbye. what would an officer ever be doing saying this to a president? >> it's almost unimaginable. >>. >> many of the secret service people had never been interviewed before i spent one long night with the head of the secret service and at the end of the evening i thanked him for giving me three or four hours of his time he was

also with roosevelt and churchill and stalin and i said thank you and in particular how often you must of been asked these questions. he said i've never been asked these questions. truman's affection and his devotion is a major part of his life and it's a very touching aspect the reason we have all these letters is because he was so devoted his courtship is one of the great stories that i know of pre-world war i middle america on the farm in love with the prominent well-to-do family the uphill struggle the family does not want her to marry him. it's his first campaign. he pursues her, he's devoted

and loyal he seems always to want to please her in the letters how am i measuring up. >> i noticed throughout your book allied of insider information. >> and his mother and sister imagining where he meets the churchill and stalin for the first time. never has he been on the world stage before. and he had no small experience that some of those that were with him did better than roosevelt would have.

>>cspan2: page 949 what is this cost? thirty dollars? >> yes except at discount stores you can pay ten bucks. >> in the wintertime put in your trunk and way down the back of your car. >>cspan2: you have any perception or projection as to how many of these will sell? >> no. over 200,000 right now. number one bestseller. number three on the new york times list it is unheard of what the book of this kind it is the season supposedly. it was as a return to america

returning to ours not so long ago. because this is real and who we are and we must be reminded of who we are of the tough times we have been through a wonderful line of churchill we didn't come this far because we are native sugar candy. when you see what he has individual and what we have accomplished and built and stood for and if he reminds us of anything it is the strength and vitality and the common sense of the democratic process. >>cspan2: when you travel around on the talk shows, what are the things people ask you the most?

>> at the moment it is about ross perot and the question is often doesn't he remind you a very truman? and what interests me about that question is the underlying wish that i will say yes. they want me to say yes ross perot is another harry truman. because i feel that we are hungry for the authenticity truman represented. we had it with the wii of politics in the creation of candidates and personality and persona by ghostwriters and madison avenue experts. when truman went out with the ultimate expression of what he

represents to campaign across the country with his whistle stop campaign stopping in little towns along the way 22000 miles. brutal. physically shattering experience those that can remember that vividly. he spoke to the people directly and spoke spontaneously and in complete sentences. i think it is latin teachers would have been very proud. if you look at those speeches today wouldn't this be reassuring if somebody was as direct with us as that man? talk about problems and

solutions never whining or blaming other people or his star and the dogged determination and the conviction that he would win was shared by nobody none of the experts or pollsters or professional politicians that he had a chance. >> in the last chapter you write a lot at the end of his life they tried to reconcile with general eisenhower. there is one incident they spent an hour together at the end. >> yes both general eisenhower and former president truman came to washington for kennedy's funeral and spent an hour together at blair house

and they made up and reconcile differences. >> was at ever written anywhere? >> it's not know what was said but it is important to understand truman made up with everybody he ever had a fight with. he was a very forgiving person his temper was hot but it was over very fast the only person he ever had reconciliation with was general macarthur but even then he did send him birthday greetings on occasion that went unanswered meet with president nixon and the music critic for the "washington post". >> i gather he is writing a book about that experience

himself. so he's not willing to talk. >> and then they blurted out to general eisenhower who was present at the time i support you. >> yes he tried twice to get eisenhower to run as a democrat. according to one account he even offered to run 1940 as the vice presidential candidate if eisenhower would agree. imagine that. so when they had the breakup , it was very painful to truman because he admired eisenhower and then the breakup came because eisenhower refused to repudiate senator joe mccarthy when he attacked general marshall and called him a traitor truman thought the

world of him and that he was the greatest man of the 20th century and that marshall made eisenhower and elevated him to that position. so for eisenhower to sit on the same platform and not include a paragraph that was in the prepared speech to repudiate these charges gave truman a moment of betrayal and almost never got over but eventually did. >>cspan2: offer your book you write many times about harry truman being surrounded by book books. >> he was a lifelong reader i asked margaret one day what is your father's idea of heaven she said that's easy a good comfortable armchair a good reading lamp and a stack of new history and biography. he once said all readers

cannot be leaders but all leaders must be readers in particular history and biography. that since is a crucial aspect because it meant he knew what mattered in the long run the judgment of the country in the long run so with the calls for impeachment to file gently - - fire general macarthur because he knew what mattered in the long run he would have been judged to do the right thing. >> he liked a couple of jolts of urban in the morning. >> if there's one startling discovery he would drink every morning apparently quite early to get the engine going. he would go for a walk and do

some exercises and then have a drink when i was first told this i thought that couldn't be. but it was confirmed by two or three others as well. >>cspan2: what was he like? >> very stubborn holding on long after he should have died in the hospital. i think he was sustained by miraculous modern medicine. >> a model patient and never complained but a breakdown of heart and lungs. >>cspan2: how long did his wife live quick. >> almost ten more years he

died just after christmas. >> did you have a chance to talk to her? >> no. she was unable to see people. >>cspan2: do you have another book in mind? >> as several but i haven't made a decision yet. >> is there a movie? >> yes there will be. at the moment there are two different television networks interested in the book a dramatization of the book on television. >>cspan2: after all you saw about harry truman and learned about him would you vote for him? >> absolutely and actually go work hard to see he was elected. he did make mistakes the loyalty program was a serious mistake and he made others but he reminds us what a man in that job can be and can do and

he accomplish things and created legislation and ideas and constructive policy again and again. if not for the korean war which cause the downfall of popularit popularity, his standing with the country would not have suffered as it did. >>cspan2: we and looking at this cover who did it? >> wendell meyer who i think is an immensely gifted man who's done book jackets all of my books except for one. it's an important portrait because it suggests the road that truman travels to the white house which represents the road the country has made from the agrarian nation to a world powe power.

>>cspan2: david mccullough author of truman thank you for your time. >> thank you. >>. >> can everyone hear me? i have a variety - - a writer and senior editor it's my pleasure to introduce david mccullough one of the finest living historians and it's my pleasure