i'm director of the john f. kennedy presidential library and museum. on behalf of my library and colleagues i'm delighted to welcome all of you watching tonight's program online. thank you for joining us this evening. i'd also like to acknowledge the support of our underwriters of the library, lead to sponsors, bank of america and our media sponsors the "boston globe." we look forward to a robust question and answer period this evening and we will see full instructions on screen for submitting questions via e-mail or in the comments on the

youtube page during the program. we are so grateful to have the opportunity to explore the earlier years with our distinguished speakers this evening. this is the first major work about president kennedy in the many years we've been anticipating this for some time. much of the research took place in the kennedy library archives and we are pleased to learn more about this comprehensive new look at the formative years. i'm now delighted to introduce tonight's speakers. we are glad to welcome frederick back to the kennedy library virtually. he is the professor of international affairs and professor of history at harvard university. a specialist on u.s. foreign relations history he's the author or editor of nine books including embers of war that won the pulitzer prize for history.

the books include our man richard holbrook and at the end of the american century.

to get out of the news for an hour and a half as we try to navigate one of the storm used years in our lives. i knew you as a vietnam expert but now something broad as an american expert and shares a lot of interest with me and foreign policy so it's great to talk

about this completely engrossing biography of jfk. so, welcome, fred and welcome to the audience. i guess the first question is inevitable, but why another biography. there are a dozen. it takes a little bit to wade into the waters where so many others have gone and we thought we knew everything there was to know so why did you take this on? >> it is tremendous to be with you and have the opportunity to talk about this stuff. in a way our two most recent books mine is the beginning of the american century and yours is about the latter part but

it's great to be on with you. i've been fascinated by john f. kennedy and the kennedys for a long time. i've written about it in other contexts and in particular, vietnam and it's still to come, that question and the mother of all counterfactual's what would he have done had he survived. >> it's partly this interest.

and then maybe a third the materials in the library.

incredible folders, files, documents in the library. some of them used. it was because my own private research, no question. you zeroed in on the documents and i know there no one has ever used it. >> some of it in terms of the specific collections and specifics folders i had to see them myself up close but i knew

the terrific biography and i was able i do this and you do this yourself you look in the endnotes to see what other people have done and i can see what a few other people have done which haven't been open are available. there's some stuff available you can see without having to darken the doors of this library but it's a great collection. >> so how did you approach the genre of the biography.

it's the history of the war and even two years of decision-making about the war. i would say it's a little closer to the problems that confront a novelist because you have to fill your book with characters and especially one character and bring that character to life. i think all the harder if everyone thinks they already know that character so how did you approach the genre and what models did you use what guidance did you give yourself as you figured out how to research and write it? >> it's so interesting given that you your self authored novels so you have a sense of what you are describing and that

is fascinating to me. history and biography are not the same thing. i've come to realize how different they are in some ways. there are also important similarities about finding evidence. it's about trying to figure out what happened and it's centered on a particular life but there are similarities between this work and the work i've done previously but they are also different. i think i had been fascinated by the kennedys. it is in some ways the great american story. this family is just an extraordinary one and i begin with both the kennedys and the fitzgerald's in the middle part of the century and then of course joe's rise and then this huge family and jack that is a sickly child that emerges from

this. i won't say that i thought the story would find itself but this had great potential as a historian and also somebody that's interested in biography and wants to see if i can make this work as telling two narratives at the same time, both the kennedy story and america's story. can i briefly tossed this back to you because you have this experience how would you answer your own question in terms of how you approach this with respect to our map? >> i had a different problem which was richard holbrook by the time the book came out it was a fading figure in the foreign policy and he dominated many rooms and many news events

in his lifetime but he wasn't on the scale of jfk. he first went into the service under jfk with his call to service that inspired holbrook to join. i needed to grab the reader with the first paragraph and never let the reader go or else they would abandon the project because who cares. that was my great fear. you didn't have that problem. people care about jfk. i began my book about holbrook in the voice of a novelist even though the book has 35 pages of notes and it's as accurate as i could possibly make it it begins with, yes, i knew him as if you are about to hear by a rock into her and that is the voice that carries the entire book and it gave me a ton of freedom to do things traditional biographies

don't do but always within the guidelines that it all has to be true so i try to make it sound like something you would want to hear. >> we talked about this a little bit before but i think that it succeeds marvelous when we were on the show together. one thing that you say that i thought would be fun to talk about a little bit i'm paraphrasing. i didn't have a chance to look at this before we came on but you said something like only in fiction can we ever really get to know a person and i thought about that because jackie kennedy, maybe this is true, somewhat elusive, some people warned me early on you will never be able to get close to this guy because of that nature and some other emotional.

you are so right in this and i hope the readers will have to tell me whether i'm right. i think i can get given your parameters that only in fiction can we ever really know, i hope i get fairly close. >> i wrote this to you personally and i think it's sitting there on the book jacket now. it brings us so close it is in intimate picture and we should talk about how you achieve that but i think that the readers will find it a page turner and that's because you are always right there in the middle of a scene or very close to the characters and of course he's

ironic and detached. that's his character, but the things that created that character i didn't understand very well until i read your book so let's talk about that. but your book doesn't begin but his story begins the month before we enter world war i and with it is an interesting parallel to mine because born in 1941 which is the other year the american century began and entered world war ii so tell me about your decision to frame jfk's life as a life of the american century beginning in 1917 and what that means for our understanding of america's rise to global power. >> i think it might have been ernest may the late great harvard historian member of the department that i'm now in.

this struck me at the time as a graduate student we think of the american century beginning in 1940 or 41 or conceivably you could say the late 30s. some might say 1945 which may not be correct. but he said no in fact america's contribution to the war in 1917 and 1918 was formidable and because of the degree to which the powers were decimated by that great conflict though it was not fully evident at the time, the farsighted europeans understood it was only a matter of time before the americas were going to be dominant on the world stage and in a sense it was a delay in the 20s and 30s. the american-statesman leaders

were not quite sure what they want to do. i write a little about this in the book. do they want the responsibility, maybe not, but i still feel comfortable in saying 1917 is absolutely critical for two reasons, u.s. entry into the world and then the revolution becomes so crucial later on and crucial to jackie kennedy's life. >> basically the cold war that defined kennedy's public life began in 1917. the powers of the cold war, the trajectory in collision with each other. >> you could certainly make that argument. they sometimes say to my students i ask when did the cold war begin, and if you look at the characteristics which i also have them do, then i say how many of those characteristics were present some of the things

we associate as a great arms race for example, suppression and of course also in the soviet union, a bipolar world structure. some of those things may not be present but i've had a very smart students make a pretty compelling case at the start date of these competitions. >> did you have a preconception about jfk going into this, did you have a picture of him that you were then going to draw or did you begin relatively

agnostic? >> i think that i had a sense even when i began for my work and the fact he visited in 1951. >> he goes and asks all these penetrating questions about what the french are trying to achieve and i think i had the sense that the common view of young jackie kennedy as a kind of playboy that had everything handed to him and wasn't very serious about anything and only later became the mature politician. i had the sense may be that wasn't correct and i think that the research that i did. again the materials in the library are so marvelous and show beyond a doubt that this is a guy that from an early age is

serious about policy, deeply curious about the world. so that is sort of a half answer suggesting i had an inkling that i wanted to revise and i think the research supports. >> some o >> some of the most riveting pages are the trip to europe in 1939 when europe is moving rapidly and he's having a mix of a kind of vacation along with access to the most important council of government governmene continent. churchill, chamberlain, hitler.

>> in 39 nevertheless as you say, it was almost like a silica quality the degree to which he shows up in these places that become hot spots and i open the promise with him in berlin and late august of 39 and he even carries a message from the u.s. consular official. the ambassador left, but the diplomat gives him a message to carry back to his father who is the ambassador of britain, joe kennedy senior. the message says the germans are going to attack poland within a week. so yes, you have this kind of intrepid guys certainly benefiting from his father's connection. he wouldn't be able to travel to these places and see these

people of joe senior, already ambitious for his two sons, but it's also jfk's early striving motivation. >> let's talk about his parents and his relationship to them because when i said earlier i found he understood the character much better from your book, it was because the relationship with his father. the relationship with his mother is distant, and i wouldn't be the first to say may be the source of some of his misogyny because his mother let him down. she wasn't around a lot of his childhood. of course his father wasn't either, but the mother was expected to be and father was not. but his father comes across, joe kennedy comes across -- let's just say he made me feel like a lame father because he's

constantly arranging activities and events and every day is scheduled. we will go yachting in the morning and football in the afternoon and discuss current events over dinner and reading at night. he's incredibly involved in his children's lives and incredibly devoted to them so that seems to me to be the core relationship project kennedy growing up. is that right? >> i think it ultimately is and it's an extraordinary aspect of joe kennedy seniors persona and there is an interesting example of this. joe kennedy say 1934, 35 is heading up the fcc in washington, heading up an important new government entity and yet he pins these long hand written letters to jack who is in his last year at the prep

school. he sends these long hand written letters who's already at harvard and the younger children. it strikes me that this is a guy that somehow managing important government policy is nevertheless constructing his children, trying to mold his children, particularly the sons. it's clear that he's more concerned about them and the two older ones. .. >> he is actually more like

his mother in many ways than his father. his international responsibility comes from her that i suggest in the book. >> she is emotionally withdrawn and leads a separate wife through all of his illnesses at canterbury, she never pays a visit maybe comes once meanwhile she takes extended vacations by herself including to europe. i think that was hard for him as you suggested. >> you also said at one point what you expect from a woman whose husband flagrantly cheating on her throughout their marriage and humiliated her by bringing mistresses

home for dinner the alternative is to fight or maybe leave and those are not alternative she wants to inflict on herself or her family go against religion so the way out to his emotional withdrawal. >> that is exactly right and i think i suggest in the book they had a fan arrangement that he will be more discreet than he rose early on and she will look the other way and that is what happens. he has notorious affair with gloria swanson and hollywood and she realizes i cannot continue to do this but when you think about what she has to do her and then to see them

as objects to be conquered that's just a hard environment for her. >> where did jack's ambition come from? >> when the make very clear, wasn't simply handed to him he was his own boy and man and went his father's way because i was a path of least resistance and he thinks for his own path he doesn't want

to deeply hurt his father but he manages to go used a great deal of magnetism from his overbearing father to find themselves so how did that happen? how to that created a political ambition and jack? >> i thought a lot about that going to those materials that are so much all that evidence in the oral history collection of the library which is magnificent. they cannot reveal everything. because he was bedroom door with various ailments, he became the family reader and devoured european history and the statecraft and diplomacy

and was early fan of winston churchill. and ambition and realizing he always has his maternal grandfather and the two of them are extremely close and if it is politicians one is much more reserved and one is more scholarly in his approach but also grandpa, i can aspire to do something similar and then finally, especially in our own day and age such an appealing quality of life politics and i think he likes politics precisely because he thinks it matters and it is important. and from a pretty early age before junior is killed in the

war, he is already thinking to himself in a particular girlfriend he was close to. maybe i want to pursue a political career. it is those things in part that brings us serious quality early on. >> it's not as though joe junior was killed over england or the channel suddenly it's up to jack to carry on his father's dream, jack grows headed that way already. joe junior would not have had let jack brought to that career which is the incredible intelligence and then money also to be his own man which

is essential when you are in the oval office and you generals tell you who need to start world war iii with the soviet union over cuba and 62. >> i think it's right. and joe junior who was the golden child. he bought a lot to the table. straight from central castin casting, incredibly handsome, healthy as an ox, extremely ambitious. i suggest, i say in the book even if joe junior survives or comes back that we would've seen the same kind of trajectory from his younger brother. he had his own reasons for running and had the better clai claim. he already offered a book that was a lightly revised version of his thesis matlab joe junior the wrong way because he was used to being the center of the family.

he already have these attributes before joe junior's tragic death and he is making his own decisions even in terms of which office to seek and 1946. is not in his father's decision. >> tell us how with his mind as a practitioner of statecraft air practices foreign-policy developed in the crucial years of the late thirties to the early cold war when he first ran for office. how did he become the jack kennedy we now know as president? it seems those are the key years. tell us what happened and how they affected him and his

father to because that is a crucial parting of the ways. >> this was such a fun part of the whole writing experience for me. my wife will tell me - - my wife will tell you with the materials show precisely this. i think what happens is he gets to harvard 1936, he has a gap year. the class of 1940. the body one - - as your body is isolationist and continues to me and he buys into that. his father is ambassador to britain in 1938 and the arch appeaser even more than chamberlain himself. initially jack is inclined to agree with this position. but, this is the distinction

between him and his brother, joe junior is never comfortable outside his father's shadow so he parrots his father to the end. what is fascinating to me is to observe little by little jack kennedy begins to see a more complex and crowded world that his father or older brother and the problems with the narrow colloquial nationalism to see the threats posed by both the japanese and the germans. hard to say exactly when but before pearl harbor by the early part of 31 is a confirmed internationalist. / shift toward growth in his view for his own pacific experience and 43 is important to affirm for him, for young

jack kennedy, the united states has to play a leading role in world affairs. so they have long discussions about what the us will should be and he comes back affirmed in that belief but he also comes back skeptical the military you see in his letters home that is interesting military leadership. >> if we can develop this when you see this to the end of his life so it is those two and

his lieutenant and the young officer that the world is in any way abstract. because the whole generation of officers to become overconfident that america has nothing to worry about because we thought the nazi war machine he didn't come back with that kind of confidence in the american military and maybe in the american example to the world but not to impose

our will. it may have been the experience of the south pacific and to have an eye on the darkness and the blind spots and the ability to deceive ourselves and that all seems to be there at a very young age and i'm sure we can trace it right through to the crucial years in the white house. >> i think that's probably because his ailments and the tragedy that he has suffered. he effectively lost rosemary through a botched and horrible lobotomy lay 41. the sister who was closest to him and age at 18 months

apart. loses his brother and 44 later loses his closest sibling kathleen. and it does to your point he had a sense that wife was fraught. well developed sense of iron irony, self-deprecating humor. and combined with the experience in the south pacific, it came back there were limits in military terms to american power even though and 45 it is colossal and what it can do and achieve. see you are absolutely right to fall prey to what so many later fell prey to and this is evident early on.

>> before we get to the political chapter at the end of the book, let's talk about jfk and women. he is a hound dog and he has bedded a nurse or failed to better nurse and then those that come and go and those that they seem smitten with because estimates for pleasure and narcissism. you don't spare him but with but when his wife jackie has a

miscarriage he is off on the french riviera if i am not mistaken and finally gets back a week or two later. it is pretty unforgivable and it is hard to want to stay with hi him. how do you handle that material? makes it go on to the next chapter. >> yes it is a challenge. think it will be a bigger challenge in volume two. i don't think as a first response i think the behavior through 1956 is predatory if that is the right word.

i suspect not researching this fully overridden volume two that this will become more problematic. it's already problematic. some of this clearly comes from his father. we have ample evidence we instructed his sons to proceed in the way that he did to view women as objects to be conquered. no question about that. he was unfaithful to jackie before the wedding and after. and i can't have it both ways. i can't say he is his own man and paul attack on - - politics. he does not follow his father's dictates for which office to seek your career to choose or to support isolationism or interventionism before pearl harbor so with political and

career but that obviously he should show the ability to not follow his father's dictates when it comes to women and he doesn't. it doesn't have the more problematic elements that we see with joe senior who sometimes acts out against jack's girlfriends himself. >> it was a different time back then and at times if not hatred or disdain but i need to treat you the way i treat

my friend after jack rejected his advances is a loyal friend for the rest of his life. she is like an honorary guide. >> so we'll talked about that exception because he treats her so differently from so many of the other women. and respects her intelligence. in fact the fact she speaks in many languages and has been so many places and is clearly super sharp and they have these conversations, some of them picked up by the fbi because she is under surveillance because you see the two of them go out

intellectually. and other ways also but you are quite right you don't see very often. there are some other exceptions but ultimately jackie, though there are a lot of rocky moment moments, she is very formidable and he comes to see how intelligent she is and she has a cultured quality he really admires because he doesn't possess at the same way himself. there is something there that is problematic. >> he becomes a member of the house. and then he is elected to the

senate. so this piece at the book ends within the 56 convention when jack comes within a whisper of to be the vice presidential candidate for natalie stevenson which could've been a bullet dodged rather than an opportunity missed so what do you think of the politician in those years? he seems a hard working but there isn't that quality but you just immediately say this guy will go to the top but obviously he will get to the top so how do you describe him

as a politician who sees domestic politics that is mainly interested in world affairs? that's clear from the time he enters the house and 47 that foreign-policy is where he is most interested in where he feels the most comfortable and during the campaign and 46 this skinny 29 -year-old who gets the nomination and then he is home free but the nomination is ferocious. you can see even then he is comfortable talking about the emerging cold war maybe not a reality but it is emerging and by the way penetrating but then if you say it doesn't have the same engagement i

think he is fundamentally liberal on most issues and is quite conservative on foreign policy i suggest is an early cold warrior and does not see an opportunity for accommodation when henry wallace argues for the need to smooth things over with the soviets jfk is pretty caustic. >> as a side note joe kennedy senior and maybe arthur's messenger brought this up but he articulated a position more than a few cold war historians would articulate.

we could take a hands-off approach feeling very differently at the time. >> at an interesting incidence of that he goes to vietnam in 1951 and this is the opening of your book and asks all the right questions and what he sees the french are losing the war and why should that be our war? why we defending the colonial empire? and to take a more hawkish view of vietnam that we really have to hold the line against communism with north and south

vietnam. >> it is the great paradox with jfk in the simeon volume to as well but i think it is skepticism about a military solution in vietnam ever goes away. is there from 51 through november 63 and then rejecting that advice from his aides and then and then to that spirit that's the passage because you

earned the right to say that. >> i reserve the right but that paradox is as you say this saves jack kennedy even into the mid- sixties but especially the late fifties. he's much more aggressive, he is careful in a careful politician. but as you say that the united states must preserve a non-communist and how to figure out this guy who

understood so early western powers whether france or the united states said that probably cannot put down and those terms. and then to be targeted with the thoughts on communism. that is the explanation of a paradox. because of those troops in vietnam the 63. but with 15000 and advisers

and the government of south vietnam. and then corrected his own mistakes and how much domestic politics have to do with that and with volume two. so we will take questions and five minutes but i have one or two more things. so the only points in your book so what he mentions in the glowing and wonderful review with the mccarthy. and profiles in courage. so tell us why i may be wrong in thinking that jfk deserves

a harder spanking for the mccarthy era and then to make a call on that. and then to write the book. >> and before a live audience but when you read this it was and galley form and you pointed out somehow i need to try to address this those that

are marvelous up and down the line they said yes we can do this. so in response but not to your satisfaction. >> it's because of how late we were in change a few sentences. but i thank you are right even before your intervention i suggested that has to do with a close family ties especially joe senior and then to remain close. and those to the end.

and constituted a large party electorate. >> public opinion survey it suppose having the support of roughly 40 percent of the electorate i don't want to do that too closely but even after the senate begins to move a lot of american stay with him to the end. but he would have spared himself a lot of grief instructed sorenson who was in the hospital legitimately to say he went there to dodge the mccarthy border but i don't think that's true.

and why he didn't so that and 56 at the aforementioned he had a meeting with eleanor roosevelt the basically said why do you come out against mccarthy? and why i was all over george i write about this in the book. so why not in the summer 56 when attacking joe mccarthy why would jack kennedy nancy to mrs. roosevelt i think he liked mccarthy in person.

doesn't want to criticize mccarthy. >> i can only imagine and it did not mean enough to him and then to reject his father like that. >> parents were a little younger than and jfk and it was a litmus test has liberal democrats could be trusted so largely because stevenson.

>> when it came to 1960 they celebrated kennedy's election and with the mccarthy. not too much of the politics of that time and how they divide it on him. >> but it is worth noting the democratic party of the whole like hubert humphrey for a very long time were unwilling to criticize men to see the broad partisan support to go after him in any serious way. so the senator from massachusetts, a republican is

not just more so than jack kennedy so he is not alone. >> and profiles of courage , here we differ a little bit the evidence is powerful the broad architecture of the book the theme of the book and the argument and the need for evidence-based discourse. and then for compromise in a democracy. >> those themes are jack kennedy's. >> and for me the most interesting import's of the

book so this is basically his work. >> had he not won a pulitzer i don't think this ever would have been an issue. the question i can deal with to come back to this is how he should have responded that is a fair question one of the proudest moments of his life. is a reasonable to turn down the award? you know what that meant to an aspiring politician. no question of the middle chapters were drafted by others not just sorenson the professors who help them and i write about this. >> and to be on that minor

disagreement the way the book ends but it was a marvelous account and convention and to go down as one of the great convention but the 56 democratic convention and also detached enough to be able to recognize he can take a loss now and it won't be the end of him. and in fact it might actually help them. >> and i will just say here. this is where we are on now the concession speech that he gives at that convention.

and then to be interested in this and then has come so close and father thinks it is a disaster to come this close and says let's go they leave the hotel room and go to the podium and give the speech and it is an amazing moment. >> and there is a volume to. this comes from someone in columbia had you defined the leadership style with the

world challenges? >> it is characterized and insistent that he himself and his aides on the issues to have very little patience so than becoming informed on the issue and this is something i find admirable. he doesn't want yes-men. he is actually wants to hear people's opinions about which path to take and then act

accordingly. and to make a decision even though he's openly cautious on civil rights. with the legislative record overall by the time he is killed and the cuban missile crisis. and the military response. they are aggressive. kennedy is seeking a political solution looking at the khrushchev perspective. >> why did you and with 56? can you really get all the early fifties and the election

into volume two? >> i will remember that question and whoever posted. i am committed to doing this. i think i can do it seven years of his life and of course so much happens in those seven years but the first volume this extraordinary life that he leads it is remarkable and so much in the early volume with his father so we have to deal with the amazing campaign the secret of success it starts earlier than the competition

so to deal with this flying around the country speaking before tiny audiences on the tarmac crater 12 people and then ultimately culminates the primary battle with the race against nixon. but not to get deep into the conspiracies and because of what happened in dallas but maybe i save some space keeping that pretty muted. >> and at the same fear for robert caro.

so is 64 and 68 the presidency went to the crash factory hope it happens soon. so a viewer asks so are there any stories that you learned and included her that you don't kno know. >> and those wanting something more specific it is a young jfk one of the best qualities and talked about this was his

curiosity and interest in the world and what made people tick a more serious and engage individual to upend the myth which was real and let me put it this way this is a guy who despite the services from a young age was extraordinarily active and served in the war. he had to fudge to get into combat.

so he often sleeps only four or five hours a night and he supposed to be a death store all the time and is able to do these things so maybe i suggest we shouldn't it exaggerate the scope or the importance of those illnesses are not quite sure if that's where the question is going. >> this is a question about what he knew about his own country he seems to know from europe and the south pacific as far as america goes he knew riverdale and harvard am palm beach how much to jfk know about the vast nation of the united states and is it

possible to know his views on diversity for the american people. >> that's a good question and it's pretty limited not traveling much in the south even make for becoming a senator and i write about the small number of african-americans. >> i don't believe it was personally printed but it's also true he wasn't really animated by the experience african-americans had there was ample evidence and that comes later in volume two that

when he runs for president in 1860 and goes to places like west virginia and other parts of the country he has not seen before when he sees the degree to which they are income disparities that he is fully grasped before and i think it's clear from contemporary dns evidenced west virginia made a huge impression to appreciate the people that he met there with a chance to talk with them. >> i think that was so evident before was if i can develop this early but traveling around. >> and it was a book and a

book review that i hid in poverty in a big way. 's that is a cerebral detached and they both suffer debilitating illnesses the made them better people and better politicians. maybe his career coincided that the great depression jfk and somewhere in the book but

was never really engaged by the fdr phenomenon. and those that word insulated from the great depression. but you are quite right. as a result of the word of the aftermath. >> today with the need for public service what did jack leave you hopeful that today's generation can rise for the impact? >>. >> i think the younger

generation can do this but just desperately we need for americans to reengage with civic life and the example of jack kennedy to help us to do this in those chapters of the book and the degree by which the 1936, 37, 38, he asks large questions about the survival of democracy and if it is suited to responding to the authoritarian threats and can we do this and leaders who will accomplish thi this? and the thesis that is the heart under baldwin and

chamberlin unable to prepare for war but he decides that democracy requires stable leadership citizens who are informed and take an interest in policy and to hold leaders accountable so it seems to me that's the most powerful part. >> that's well said and connects to a question from a 20 euros university student interested in the career of a political world what can i win on - - learn from the young jfk to self learning and ambition? those are two interesting terms.

>> self learning and ambition that is perfect. 's he commits himself to that. it's hard to say exactly when he does the coming back after this grade excursion in 1939 that senior year of college we see the self motivation and determination to succeed and he becomes much more ambitious. but i do think that it's about to respond to the excellent question it's about taking an interest in policy which it sounds he already has a public service to see how we make

things better jack kennedy said for democracy to survive it requires capable leaders i have that slightly wrong it's in the preface. >> it seems that that we should think about because democracy is under threat and it will require all of us or your generation to commit to the hard work involved and no doubt democracy can work in for this country and other countries i guess it is an argument not for centrism but

remember to treat political opponents as adversaries and not enemies and that's what kennedy committed himself to. >> i was going to make the exact same point to be rewarded for the instant victory and for wiping out your opponent and humiliating on twitter or anywhere and what is the point? what is anyone gain from that? and as a journalist you always benefit from talking to people whose experiences different from yours. and to try to understand them

know have to like it or be friends or approve of their views. this is something obama had said the most kennedy asked president we have had since kennedy, try to walk around in somebody else's shoes the new to be a better public servant. >> i think that is exactly right and joe biden and was criticized earlier this year for the suggestion that ultimately we are going to have to reach out and what i talk about in the book is that in 55 between jfk and an

englishman from the kennedy administration becomes ambassador so they are friends to the end. the jfk says in this conversation i don't know if i am cut out to be a politician. i too often see the merits on the other side. therefore i become uncertain of the arguments on my own side. it is a revealing conversation and in our day and age we don't talk in those terms. >> it's interesting to see my analogy for biden is more lbj as a creature of the senate and a career politician, a centrist at a moment when history may make him a consequential president.

in the election of the moment we are in right now. so talk about his superb sense of humor. so it runs all through this boo book. >> it is true. and conan o'brien has a monologue about the jfk sense of humor but over time says we have had exactly two truly funny presidents. abraham lincoln and jf kennedy and he is right. not that other presidents haven't had a sense of humor but it's not as well developed as we see with these two.

and then to hold this particular skill and to some extent and the absurdist quality as well. may be in part and may have something to do with these maladies that he had to poke fun and not take himself too seriously it was a winning strategy. people liked it. so it's no question to key to understanding. >> we didn't talk about bobby but to are interested in his

political talent and what did he think of his work to the mccarthy committee? >> he's certainly saw bobby's work as a political strategist as the campaign manager and what he saw in spades in 52 it looks like he will lose on then this 26 -year-old comes on and in part because he's a lot like the old man to be right on track important as manager so when he sees is potential as a politician to

be very devoted to his brother there is the trip and 51 where they become much closer but to say this is a guy at some point should run for office. and with the service on mccarthy committee early on very much inclined to let bobby do what he should do and it was agreed on - - a good career move.