>> you can watch this and all of our what are you reading interviews@booktv.org using the search bar at the top of the page. >> weeknights this month we feature booktv programs as a preview of what's available as you begin on c-span2. issue marks the 20th anniversary of booktv's monthly author program in depth. tonight highlights from past shows including our interviews with david mccullough, shelby foote, toni morrison, tom wolf, cornel west and many others. there begins at eight eastern. enjoy booktv this week and every weekend on c-span2. >> you are watching c-span2, your unfiltered view of the government. created by america's cable-television companies as a public service and brought to today by your television provider. >> good evening. i'm alan price, director of the john f. kennedy residential

library and museum. on behalf of my library and foundation colleagues i am delighted to welcome all of you for watching tonight program online. thank you for joining us this evening. i would also like to acknowledge the generous support of her underwriters of the kennedy library forms. lead sponsors bank of america and the lowell institute and her media sponsors, the "boston globe" and wbur. we look for to a robust question and answers this evening turkey will see full instructions on the screen for submitting your questions via e-mail or in the comments on our youtube page during the program. we are so grateful to have this opportunity to explore president kennedy's earlier years in depth with a distinguished speakers this evening. this is the first major work about president kennedy in many years we have been anticipating this for some time. much of the research took place in the kennedy library archives and we are very pleased to learn

more about this, rancid new look of president kennedy's formative years. i am not allowed to introduce tonight speakers. so glad to welcome fredrik logevall back to taking a library virtually. he is a professor of international affairs and professor of history at harvard university, a specialist on u.s. foreign relations history and modern international history. he is the author or editor of nine books including inverse of work which won the pulitzer prize for history, and the francis parkland project. "jfk: coming of age in the amers his newest book. i'm also pleased to extend a warm welcome to george packer our moderator for this evening. a staff writer for the atlantic, his nonfiction books include our men, richard holbrooke and into the american century, a finalist for the pulitzer prize. the unwinding, 30 years of

american decline which won a national book award. the assassins gate, american in iraq. in the blood of the liberals. he is also the author of two novels and a plate and the editor of a two-volume edition of the essays of george orwell. please join me in welcoming our special guests. >> welcome everybody. i see there's at least a couple hundred of you, which is fantastic, and it will be a privilege and a pleasure to talk to read tonight and get our heads out of the present an out of the news for an hour or an hour and half and into the past which is a great refuge as well as a guide for us as we try to navigate one of the storm is years in our lives. fred, i knew as the author of i think the two essential books on the vietnam war, and it's not

just me saying that. people i know who fought in vietnam who served in vietnam when asked him what of the books i have to read on the war when those researching my pocket richard holbrooke who served in vietnam said, oh, that's easy. choosing war, and embers of war are the same guy, fredrik logevall. i knew you as a vietnam expert but now i know you really as something broader, as a new american expert and someone who shares a lot of interests with me in american history and foreign policy. it's great to get to talk to you about your completely engrossin engrossing, and source a link which is a word david kennedy of the new york of the "new york times" used in this book review, new biography of jfk. so welcome, , fred, and welcomeo our audience. and i guess the first question is inevitable, but why another

biography? there has been a major one in sometime but there are dozens. it takes a little bit of chutzpah to wade into those waters were so many other writers have gone and we thought we knew everything there was to know. so why did you take this on? >> well first off, george, treatment is to be with you enter this opportunity to talk with you about all the stuff. it could be just not listening to you that in with our two most recent books, mine and our men, are kind of bookings because mine is really the beginning of the american century and yours is about the latter part. may we can talk about that. the great to be on with you. i think i've been fascinated by john f. kennedy and a kennedy's for a long time. i had written about kennedy and other context especially relating to the cold war and in particular vietnam and, of course, in volume two which is still to come that vietnam question of what i like to call

the mother of all counterfactual, namely, will be a dent in vietnam he survived? it's partly this interest in the kennedy's, partly a sense that this hit me one day walking in harvard yard, a book that is berkeley but i could also use my training as a historian and use ten days of life to tell the story not just of his rise but america's rise, that you could map the rise of the united states to great power status come to superpower status on jack kennedy's like he was born in 17 right as the u.s. is entering world war i. hugely important conflict of course. dyson 62 which is arguably the things of american power. prior to the mess in vietnam. so it's of those two things and then maybe a third, george, which is that the materials in

the library are just so phenomenal. and i knew this. the library that is hosting tonight event. they are so good, i thought a lot of them have not been tapped by a lot of people so there was something kind of fresh about them. and then it says about how please is used, they are out there but no one has really done i think a kind of comprehensive life and times that i'm trying to do here. >> and you knew about the materials in the library from your vietnam research? >> i knew about it from the work on vietnam. i knew about it from some extent from other researchers, graduate students of mine and others who said, you know, incredible folders, files, documents in the library. some of them use, a lot of them have it and use all that much. and, of course, stuff has come

available. but it was probably because of my own private research, no question. >> you actually zeroed in on documents that you always knew were there when she commit yourself to this project like you said i'm going to, box 291, folder 73 because i know what's there are no and has ever used it. >> obviously some of this in terms of the specific collections a specific folders, i had to see them myself up close but i knew a terrific biography of joe, sr. i was able as historians would we all do d you do this yourself, you look in the nose and you see to look what other people have done. i could see what david and few other people have done in terms of particular collections. some of which i've not been open and available prior to that

work. one of the marvelous things about the library even though our relatively small percentage of the library's collections have been digitized, nevertheless, some great stuff, george. anybody can access from the couch. there's stuff available that means you can see without having to darken the doorways of this library, but it's a great collection. >> how did you approach the genre of biography since -- i don't think you would written one, right? it's not the same thing as the history of war or the history of even two years decision-making about a war. it's more of, i would say a little closer to the problems that confront a novelist because you have to fill your book with

characters, and especially with one character, and bring that character to life. all the harder, everyone always thinks they know that character so how did you approach the genre, the unknown genre of biography and what models did you use or what guidance did you give yourself as you figured out how to research and write it? >> that's so interesting especially given that you yourself offered novels and so you have since of what you are describing. that's totally fascinating to me. i think quite right, history and biography are not the same thing. i have come to realize how different they are in some ways. there are also important similarities. it's about finding evidence. it's about trying to figure out

what happened. in this case it's suited on a particular life but there are similarities here between his work and the work i have previously done. there also different. i think i had been fascinated by the kennedy's. is is in some ways the great american story. this family, it's an extraordinary one, beginning at a begin the book with the arrival of both the kennedy's and the fitzgerald in the middle part of the 19th century and then of course joe's rise in particular, that is to say, joe, sr., this huge family, this marriage to rose. jack was a sickly child emerges from this, and i won't say i thought the story would write itself or it turns out they never do but it did think this has great potential for me as a historian but also as somebody who's interested in biography and once to see if i can make this work, a kind of, as a said, both telling to an artist at the same time, both kennedy story in

the end and america's story. can i just briefly tosses back to you? because you have this experience, george, how would you answer your own question? in terms of how you approach this with respect to "our men"? >> i had a different problem, which was richard holbrooke of the time my book came out was a fading figure in american foreign policy. he kind of dominated many rooms in many news events in his lifetime but he was not on the scale of jfk, not close. actually first went into the foreign service under jfk, his call to service that inspired holbrooke to join the foreign service. i felt that he needed to grab the reader with the first paragraph and never let that reader go, or else they would abandon the project because, who

cares? that was my great fear, who cares? you didn't have that problem. people care about jfk. i begin my book about holbrooke in the voice of a novelist, even though the book as 35 pages of notes and is as accurate as i could possibly make it. it begins holbrooke, yes, i knew him as if you are about to hear a long yarn by some of the new holbrooke and that is the forsaken the entire book. it gave me a kind of freedom to do things that traditional biographies don't do, but always within the guidelines of the contract that the reader, which is that all has to be true. i tried to make it sound like just a great yarn that you want to sit down and here through a long night storytelling. >> you and i talked about this before but i think it succeeds just marvelously when we on the show together. it was great fun to talk about this. just one thing if i may that you

say i think in the early pages which i thought about and which would be fun to talk about a little bit. i am paraphrasing, i didn't have a chance to look at this before we came on but you said something like only in fiction can ever really get to know a person deep inside. and i thought about that because jack kennedy, many people think, and maybe this is true, somewhat elusive. some people warmed me early on your never going to get close to the sky because of that nature that he had. yet some of his mothers emotional patterns. i think you're so right in this and yet i hope readers will have to tell you what i write, i think we do get, i think i can get, given your parameters that only in fiction can we ever really know. i hope i get fairly close. >> i think you do.

i think -- i wrote this to you personally. i think it's sitting there on the book jacket now, this brings us so close to jfk. it is really an intimate picture, and we should talk about how you achieve that. but i think readers will find this is engrossing, it's a page turner, that's because you always right there in the middle of a scene or very close to the characters, and yeah, there is of course he is on conic and detached and always observing his life and everyone else. that's his character but the things that created that character i didn't understand very well until i read your book. let's talk about that but two things at once. your book doesn't begin but his story begins the month before we enter world war i. this is an interesting parallel

to mind because holbrooke was born in 1941 which is that of the year the american century began when we entered world war ii. tell me about your decision to frame jfk's life as a life of the american century began in 1970 and what that means for our understanding of america's rise to global power. >> it might've been earned his make may, the late great harvard historian, member of this department that i am now in, i think it might've been ernie hill road, at this struck me of the time i was a graduate student, something like this, which is we think of the american century beginning in 194041 or conceivably you could say maybe the late 30s. some might say 1945 which i think might not be correct. but ernie said no, in fact,

america's contribution to the war in 1917 in 1918 was formidable and because of the degree to which the european powers were decimated by that great conflagration, though it wasn't fully evident at the time, sagacious, farsighted europeans understandings undera matter of time for the americans were going to be dominant on the world stage. and in a sense there was a delay in the 20s and 30s american statesman, leaders were not quite sure what the what to do. i write about this in the book. did they want the responsible of the leadership? maybe not. but i still feel comfortable in saying that 1917 is absolutely critical to the american century for two reasons the u.s. entry into the war and then of course the bolshevik revolution which becomes so crucial later on and

crucial to jack kennedy's life. >> physically the cold war that defined kennedy's public life begin in 1970 -- basically -- the two powers of the cold war, their trajectory in collision with each other began in 19 -- >> you could make that argument. i think would say i sometimes say to questions often ask them about when does the cold war begin? if you look at the characteristics of the cold war which also happen to come and i say how many of those characters were present in 1917? it turns out that maybe only two or three of them were. one of the might be a deep ideological schism, but some of the things that would be associate with the cold war which is great arms race, for example, suppression of interpol dissidence. some of that we seek right after world war i also in the united states and that's of course also in the soviet union. a bipolar world structure as

opposed to a multi-pole for world structure some of those may not be present in 1917 what i said very smart students interesting students make a pretty compelling case for 1917 as the start date of this superpower confrontation. >> did you have a preconception about jfk going into this? did you have a picture of him that you're going to then draw, or did you begin relatively agnostic and come here picture through the research? >> i think i had a sense to really -- it's a really interesting question. i think i have since even when i begin from my work on indochina and the fact he visited in 1951 -- >> the beginning of "embers of war" ." >> when he goes and asks all phase penetrating questions about what the french are trying

to achieve. i think i have since that the common view of young jack kennedy as a callow, kind of playboy, who had everything handed him, who was a very serious about anything, and only later became mature, striking politician i have since that was maybe not correct. i think the research i did, again the materials in the library are so marvelous i think show beyond a doubt that this is a guy who from an early age is serious about policy, deeply curious about the world. that is sort of a a half answe. it is suggesting i had an inkling that it wanted to revise what was a common view editing the research actually supports this. >> some of the most riveting pages are young jack's trip to

europe in 1939 when europe is moving rapidly toward war, and he's having a mix of a kind of rich boys vacation along with access to the most important counsel's of government all across the continent, churchill, chamberlain, hitler. doesn't he see hitler give a speech? >> no. to his regret never did see him give a speech. he was there and they had an opportunity to hear hitler at nuremberg and decided not to do it. then they said we should have gone. but in 39 nevertheless, as you say, it was almost like a salad quality degree to which he shows up in these places that become a hot spot. open the book, i open the preface within in berlin in late august of 39 and even carries a

message from the u.s. consular official, the ambassador had left but the senior government in berlin it's in the message to carry back to his father was the ambassador to britain, joe kennedy, sr. the message says the germans are going to attack poland within the week. you have this kind of intrepid guy. he is benefiting from his father's connection. he wouldn't be able to travel to these places and see these people if joe, sr. was already ambitious for his two sons in particular the two eldest sons, but it's also -- i'm sorry, it's also jfk's alone early striving and motivation. >> let's talk about his parents and his relation to them. because when i said early i felt i understood his character much better from your book, it was

really because a special 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 for a lot of his child. of course his father wasn't either but the mother was expected to be and the father was not. by this father comes across, joe kennedy comes across as, let's just say he made me feel like a lame father because he is just constantly arranging activities and events and everyday is scheduled and we're going to go yachting in the morning and play football in the afternoon and then will discuss current events at dinner and reading at night. he's incredibly for men of that generation, incredibly involved in his many children's lives and incredibly devoted to the. that seems to be the core relationship for jack kennedy going up, is that right?

>> i think it ultimately is and i think you describe really well and is an extraordinary aspect of joe kennedy seniors persona. it's a really interesting example of this i think which is that joe kennedy in 1934-35 is heading up the sec in washington, heading up an important new government entity, and get he pens these long letters, handwritten letters to jack who's in his last year at a prep school. he sends long letters, handwritten to joe, jr. is already at harvard. the younger children, it strikes me that this is a guy who somehow managing important government policy is nevertheless, instructing his children, trying to mold his children and particular the sons come he's more concerned, it's quite clear about that and

especially the two older ones. so whatever one might say about joe kennedy as the businessman, as if the public, has old most disasters turn as ambassador dermer it. we can talk about that. his devotion to his kids is something. i will also say that i think rose kennedy, the mother, she deserves more in some ways credit for jack's upbringing than she is sometimes given. i think he gets his historical sensibility more from her than from his father. he's actually more like his mother in many ways than he is like his father. his international sensibility comes in part from her i suggest in the book. but as you say, george, she is emotionally withdrawn. she leads a kind of separate life through all of his illnesses at choate, at

canterbury for his first prep school and then choate. she never pays a visit. i think she comes wednesday canterbury. she never comes to choate. she takes extended vacations by yourself including to europe. i think that was hard for him. >> you also said at one point what you expect from a woman whose husband is flagrantly cheating on her throughout their marriage. and his humiliating her by bringing mistresses home for dinner and, of course, she's going to withdraw. they alternative is to be fighting all the time and may be to leave, and alternatives she wants to inflict on herself or her family and the agreeance -- they go against our religion. the way out is emotional withdrawal. >> i think that's exactly right and i think, i suggest in the book they have kind of arrangement, , which is he's gog to do more discreet in his

affairs and maybe he was early on, and she is going to kind of look the other way. i think that's what happens here he has a notorious affair with gloria swanson in hollywood, and that i think it's on some level he comes to realize i i can continue to do this. but you're so right, george here when you think about what she has to endure and when you think about his view of, his objectifying women, seeing them as objects to be conquered, it's just a hard environment for her. >> where did jack's ambition come from? one thing your book makes very clear is that it wasn't simply handed to him like instructions on how to be a man by his father. he is his own boy and man come

in a way that is extremely attractive. he does not seem like a pampered, spoiled son of privilege who went his father's way because that was the path of least resistance. in other words, he's not don trump, jr. he fights for his own path, even while never causing too much trouble. he never openly is defined and rebellious in the way that could deeply hurt his father, but he nonetheless manages to, against a great deal of magnetism coming from his overbearing father, finds himself. how did that happen and how did it create a political ambition in jack? >> yeah, i have thought a lot about that. of course in going through the materials which are so rich but

all archived materials, all of the kinds of evidence, the oral history collection of the library which is magnificent, they can't reveal everything. i think what we see is somebody, because he was bedridden a lot with his various ailments -- >> continuous. >> and continuous. he became the family reader. he devoured especially european history and statecraft and diplomacy, was an early, he was an early fan to say the least of winston churchill. i think the ambition at least comes in part from him realize hey, maybe i could do something similar here. he also has his grandfather, honey fitz fitzgerald and the two of them are extremely close. there are quite different as politicians. jack is much more reserved, much more urbane, sort of skull in

his approach than his grandfather but if it there's also that, that grand profits is, i can aspire to something similar. and then finally come at a think this is especially in our own day and age, army such an appealing quality, george. he likes politics. .. maybe i want to pursue a political career. so it's those things at least in part that bring in this serious quality to him early on. it's not as if when joe, jr. is killed over england or over the

channel, suddenly it's up to jack to carry on his father's dreams. jack was headed that way already. >> i think that he was. >> pan would have been, you know, joe, jr. would not have had what jack brought to that career, which is that incredible intelligence and broad learning, but also, that quality of being his own man, which is just essential when you're in the oval office and your generals are telling you that you need to start world war iii with the soviet union over cuba. >> over cuba in 1962. >> ahead to volume two. >> i think that's right and i think that joe, jr. who was the golden child and who brought a lot to the table. he was straight from central casting in terms of being incredibly handsome, healthy as an ox. extremely ambitious. i'm not going to suggest, i

don't say in the book that even if joe, jr. survives and comes back from the war that we would have seen the same kind of trajectory from his younger brother, but he had his own reasons for running. as you suggest, i think he had a better claim, he'd authored a book, a lightly revised theme of his senior thesis and that really rubbed joe, jr. the wrong way because he was used to being in the family, he had had these attributes before joe, jr.'s tragic death. and he's making his own decisions. even in terms of which office to seek in 1946. it's not his father's decision to seek a house seat. that's ultimately jfk's. >> tell us how his mind as a practitioner of state-craft.

as someone who thinks about and eventually practices foreign policy developed in those crucial years from the late '30s to the early cold war when he first ran for office. how did he become the jack kennedy that we now know who is president? seems to me those are the key years. tell us what happened and how they affected him and bring in his father, too, because that's a crucial parting of the ways. >> it is. this was such a fun part of the whole writing experience for me, and my wife will tell you that i would, you know, i would talk about, again, what the materials in the library and elsewhere show about precisely that period. i think what happens is that he gets to harvard, where the-- he begins in 1936. he's had effectively a kind of gap year, a year older than

some, most of his classmates in the last of 1940. the student body is pretty heavily isolationist and continues to be so up until the end and i think he buys into that and his father becomes ambassador to britain in '38 and is a-- initially jack is inclined to agree with the his position. this is the distinction between him and his brother, joe, jr. is never comfortable outside of his father's shadow so he parrots his father right to the end and what's fascinating to me is to observe little by little, jack kennedy begin to see a more complex and crowded world than either his father or his older brother, to see the problems with the kind of narrow parochial nationalism that i think both of them endorse, to see the threat

posed by both the japanese and the germans. and by, hard to say exactly when, but certainly before pearl harbor, let's say by the early part of '41 he's a confirmed internationalist. and that shift or growth in his view i think is totally interesting. and finally i'll say that his own war experience in the south pac in '43 is important here in affirming for him, it's kind of mixed, it affirms for young jack kennedy that the united states has to play leading role in world affairs. i think that question for him has been settled and for his mates. they had the long discussions in their tents about what the u.s. role should be. i think he comes back from the

war affirmed this that belief, but he comes back skeptical, i think, about the military as an instrument of policy. i think you see in his letters home, which are really interesting, a sense that you know, military leadership, it may not be a contradiction in terms, but i think he's skeptical of that. i think we see -- i'll see if i can develop this or if it should be developed into volume two, but you see it really in some ways through the end of his life. so it's those two. >> it's interesting because it may be, you know, he was lieutenant, right? >> correct. >> so he was a young officer, but he was not someone for whom the war was in any way ab trastt because at headquarters he was out there being shot up. a group of officers became the

overconfident generals of vietnam who thought that america had nothing to worry about with these peasants in black pajamas because we had fought the nazi war machine, the japanese war machine, this is going to be nothing, we're the united states. jack kennedy didn't come back from the second world war with that kind of confidence in the american military. maybe in the american example to the world, but not in our ability to impose our will and i have a feeling that it may have been the experience in the south pacific, but it's also just his nature to be skeptical, to sort of have an eye on the darkness and on human frailty and the flaws in our nature, our blind spots, our ability to deceive ourselves. so, all of that seems to be there at a very young age and i'm sure you'll be able to

trace it straight through to the crucial years in the white house. >> you know, i think that's so well-put. i think partly because of his ailments, partly because of the tragedies that he suffered losing -- well, he effectively lost rosemary through a botched, horrible lobotomy in late '41, the sister closest to him in age, they're only about 18 months apart. loses his brother, and his his oldest sibling, kathleen or kit. and the sense that life was fraught. he had a well-developed sense of irony, a kind of self-deprecating humor. i think that combined with, as you say, the experience in the

south pacific, he came back, i think, with a sense that there were limits to what certainly in military terms, there are limits to american power, even though in '45 the united states is colossal in what it can do and achieve. so, yeah, i think you're absolutely right. he didn't fall prey to what so many later generals fell prey to and that's evident here early on. >> before we get to the political chapters at the end of the book, let's talk about jfk and women because, man, there are a lot of women in this book. they come and go request i can -- they come and go, quickly. he's a hound dog, he's just constantly writing letters to his friends about just having bedded this nurse or failed to bed this nurse or and then

there's a ton of girlfriends that come and go and some of them he seems really smitten with and especially inga arvad, some are instruments of pleasure. and you definitely don't spare him, but his treatment of women and the worst moment is when his wife, jackie, has a miscarriage, and he's off sailing around off the french riviera, if i'm not mistaken and finally gets back maybe a week or two later. it's pretty unforgivable. it's hard to want to stay with him. so how did you handle that fraught material which you don't hold back, but somehow you make it possible for us to go on wanting to know the next

chapter. >> yeah, i think it's a challenge, george, and i think it will be a bigger challenge, frankly, in volume two. i don't think, as a first response, i don't think that the behavior in the period up through 1956 is predatory, if that's the right word here. there isn't the position of power, i guess there already is a power differential in the latter part of this, he's a senator and so forth. but i suspect not having researched this fully or written volume two, i think that this is going to become more problematic in volume two, but it's already problematic. and i think, you know, some of this clearly comes from his father. i think we have ample evidence that he expected, indeed instructed his sons to proceed in the way that he did and to view women as objects to be

conquered, there's no question about that. he was unfaithful to jackie before the wedding and after. and i think, i can't have it both ways. i can't on the one hand say he's his own man in politics. he does not follow his father's dictates in terms of his political positions or which office to seek or which career to choose. he's his own man, or whether to support isolationism versus interventionism before pearl harbor. if i'm going to make at that argument with respect to the political stuff and career stuff then obviously he should show the ability to not follow his father's dictates when it comes to women and he doesn't. it it's-- >> right. it doesn't have, at least again, as far as i can see, some of the more problematic elements that we'd see with joe, sr. who sometimes asked out, if i can imagine, jack's girlfriends himself.

>> right. >> and, but-- >> nor can we say it was a different time back then because this is, i think, a more-- i would even say use the word pathological attitude towards women and sometimes i got a whiff, if not hatred, at least disdain, dehumanizing eye toward them, as if i don't need to treat you the way i would treat my gay friend lem billings to whom jack, after rejecting his advances, is a loyal friend for the rest of their lives. other than his sister is different, she's like an honorary guy, but the women don't get that treatment and i wonder if there's something darker than just being a bit of a scoundrel about it?

>> it may be. i think that inga, who we've talked about, is kind of exception. he treats her so differently from some of the other women and respects her intelligence. in fact, sort of is envious that see speaks so many languages and been to so many places and she's clearly super sharp and they have some of these conversations, some of them picked up by the fbi, interesting story, because she's under surveillance in which you see the two of them go at it intellectually and other ways, too, but implant-- intellectually that you don't see. there are some exceptions, ultimately jackie, though there are lots of rocky moments and i deal with these. she's very formidable. he comes so see how intelligent she is and she, too, has this kind of cultured quality that

he really admires in part because he doesn't possess it the same way himself. but, yeah, there may be a certain, how did you put it, loathing or-- >> distan. >> disdain. >> something problematic. >> so he becomes a member of the house from cambridge. >> the 11th district. >> the 11th district. waterstown, a bunch of places and then he gets elected to the senate and all of it leads to this wonderful set piece that book ends with when the convention jack comes within a whisker of becoming adelaide stevens partner, and what did

you learn about him and what struck you as-- he doesn't seem presidential material in the early going. he seems hard working, curious, all that, but there isn't that quality that you -- that you just immediately say this guy's going to go to the top and yet, obviously, he's going to get to the top. so how do you describe him as a politician who saw domestic politics as what was the word, sewer contracts? he's mainly interested in world affairs? >> i think that's right. i think it's pretty clear from the time he enters the house in '47 is that foreign policy is where he's most interested and also where i think he feels the most comfortable, during the campaign in '46, this skinny 29-year-old who has to get the nomination, once he gets the

nomination, he's home free. but the nomination is a ferocious one and you see even then, he is comfortable talking about the emerging cold war. not yet reality, but it's emerging and other international issues and by the way, quite already penetrating insightful in seeing things from the soviet perspective and what they might want. there's a certain empathetic understanding that he has with respect to policy that is present, but again then it doesn't have the same with all domestic issues. i think he's-- i think he's fundamental ly liberal on most issues, not so much fiscal issues where he's more conservative. he's quite conservative on foreign policy. as i suggest in the book that he's an early cold warrior. that he does not see an

opportunity for accommodation when henry wallace sees the need to smooth things over with the soviets. jfk is pretty caustic in swatting down that notion. interesting here, just a side note, joe kennedy, sr. and i think that david nassau brings this out on his biography and maybe slessinger, more than a few cold war authors bring out, they're not going to-- we can take a handsoff approach here. that's joe kennedy, sr., his son felt different. >> interesting to that, he goes to vietnam as you say in 1951, this is the opening of your wonderful book "embers of war"

and asks the right questions and what he sees is that the french are fighting a losing colonialist war and why should that be our war is this what is-- why are we defending a colonial empire? we're the world's hope for democracy, but by the mid '50's he's taking a more hawkish view about vietnam giving speeches in which we have to hold the line againsts communism right there at the parallel between north and south vietnam. so what happened? how did-- >> it's the great paradox about jfk and indo china, and i think this will be the thread in volume two as well. i don't think his skepticism, george, about a military solution in vietnam ever goes away. i think it's there from '51, there until november of '63.

in fact, we have lots of evidence of him in the white house rejecting hawkish advice from his aides when they want to send ground troops and so on. and it's one of the reasons why in terms of the what-ifs, though we can never know, i believe he would have, if he had survived, he would have avoided, most likely that he would have avoid the open-ended that johnson-- >> that's a passage in choosing war that i read carefully because you had earned the right to say that, but i'll be curious to see if you think think it after writing volume two, but anyway, go ahead. >> i reserve the right to shift. no, but the paradox, that's part of -- the paradox is, as you say, this same jack kennedy as we get into the mid 50's, but especially the late 50's,

is much more aggressive. he's careful because he's a very careful politician. he's careful in terms of his language, a reasoned approach to all policies. but as you say, he now sings a different tune on indo china and that the united states must do all to preserve a nonhigh pressure communist vietnam and figuring out how this guy who figured out so early, western powers, whether it be france or the united states, and he said that, any western power is probably not going to be able to put down ho chi minh's revolution. is this the same guy-- maybe that's the explanation he seeks the white house now and he knows that the democrats can't be targeted with the soft

on communism slogan. maybe that's the explanation of the paradox, but however it's there, it's there. >> it's a major tension in volume two. even though you convinced me that if kennedy had lived we would not have had 200,000 troops in vietnam within two years of his-- you know, of '63, nonetheless he got us in deep. he brought in 15,000 advisors and overthrew the government of south vietnam. so in some ways, he may well have corrected his own mistakes because the mistakes were already being made and how many domestic politics have to do with that, the fear of a democratic president faced with hawks in his own government and the opposition party. i'll be really interested to learn what you learned in volume two. we are going to take questions

in about five minutes. i have one or two more things to ask you. the only points in your book that i stumbled at all were the same two that david kennedy mentioned in his glowing, wonderful review in this week's new york times book review. and those are the mccarthy period and the question of authorship of profiles in colonel. you've -- profiles in courage. tell me why i might be wrong in thinking that jfk deserves more -- a harder spanking for his punting essentially the mccarthy era and trying his hardest not to have to make a difficult call on that. and why we shouldn't think that he may have written some notes for profiles in courage, but he didn't write the book page for

page. so take each of those, please. >> yeah, i don't know whether the first part of this is something i should be admitting before a live audience, as it were, but when you read this, george, in -- more than in draft, i guess in galley form. in galleyments-- galley and you pointed out the mccarthy bit, i need to tweak this, i need to address this, is there time? the people at random house were marvellous up and down the line. i have such a wonderful publisher. they said, yeah, we can do this. and in response to, not to your satisfaction-- >> i haven't gotten the finished book and you may well have-- >> it's because of how late we were, i could only do a few words, change a few sentences. >> right. >> but suffice it to say i

think you were right. i think that even before your intervention i suggested that he was overly careful on mccarthy. i think it had something to do with the close family ties with mccarthy, especially with joe, sr. who loved-- but bobby, we haven't talked about bobby yet and bobby was also close with mccarthy and would remain clothe. flew to wisconsin for mccarthy's funeral and remained devoted to him i think in some ways to the end. it's something about the politics, and interesting comparison to our own day, right through to the end. beyond the censure, at least through the censure in '54 of joe mccarthy, public opinion survey after public opinion survey showed he had the support of roughly 40% of the

electorate. i don't want to draw the comparison too closely, it's interesting even how after the senate begins to move and even after his attack on the army, mccarthy, a lot of americans stay with him to the end. but i think jack kennedy would have spared himself a lot of grief if he had instructed sorenson. he was in the hospital for legitimate reasons so those authors who say well, he went into the hospital to dodge the mccarthy vote, i think that's not true. but he could have through a procedure called pairing, he could have instructed sorenson to vote and he should have done so. and why he didn't, is interesting. here is a quick thing about this. in '56 at the aforementioned democrat democratic convention meeting, he had a meeting with mrs. roosevelt and i'm paraphrasing, what gives, why

didn't you come out against mccarthy and what i puzzle over, george, maybe you have an explanation about this. i didn't write about it in the book and i had a paragraph and i then erased it, i thought, why would he not in the summer of '56 when attacking joe mccarthy, when he's spent and gone, why didn't he say to mrs. roosevelt, i don't like the guy, didn't in political terms, and even then, however, he didn't want to criticize mccarthy and i can't quite figure that out. >> let me quickly respond-- i don't know, i don't know. i can only imagine that he was loyal to his family and this was one that didn't mean enough to him as going against his father's appeasement did, to reject his father that way.

i think --. >> that's as good of an explanation as any of them. >> my parents were a little younger than jfk and the mccarthy period was the litmus test for them as liberal democrats, of whether a politician could be trusted, whether they could really respect a politician and they ended up, as stevenson people largely because, i think, stevenson was much more outspoken about-- >> he was, he was. go ahead. >> and so when it came to 1960 they celebrated kennedy's election, but they -- he was not their man and he never was their man and it was really because with of the mccarthy period. i think for a lot of liberals that remained true so i think it had a decisive effect not so much on the politics of that time, but on how democrats saw him and how they divided on him. >> i think it's a really good point. i'll just say one other thing

there quickly and talk for a minute-- and that is that it's worth noting that the democratic party as a whole, including liberal stallwarts like hubert humphrey, for a very long time were unwilling to criticize mccarthy. you'd have to go pretty far into '54 to see broad parts of the party begin to go after him in any serious way. so kennedy is not alone in this record and in fact, saltenstall, a senior senator from massachusetts, republican, is just as cautious, if not more so than jack kennedy. so he's not alone in this. the center vote-- in profiles in courage, quickly so we can open it up for others. i guess here you and i differ a little bit. i think that the evidence is pretty powerful that the broad architecture of the book, the themes of the book, the

argument, which by the way i think has salience in our own day, for discourse, bargaining in good faith, the need ultimately for compromise in a democracy which we can discuss, those arguments, those themes are jack kennedy's. ted sorenson is way too young to have at 25 or 26, he's not going to be able it articulate those things and didn't. moreover the introduction and conclusion, those are interesting part of the book, i think it's more than kennedy's notes. i think those are his books. in he never won the pulitzer, i come back to this, how he should have responded to the awarding of the pulitzer, it's a fair question. it was one of the proudest moments of his life he later

said. is it reasonable for him to expect to turn down the award? i don't know. i don't know what that would have meant to an aspiring politician. there's no question that the middle chapters were drafted by others, not just sorenson, but they had some professors who helped them and i write about this. and i guess i'm suggesting there's more jack kennedy book than perhaps you are allowing. >> yes, well, before we go to questions, i don't want to end on that minor disagreement because i want our audience to know that we haven't even really talked about the way the book ends, but it's a marvellous account of a convention that hasn't gone down in history as one of the great conventions, but it's the '56 democratic convention and you see jack kennedy at his best because he's maneuvering and showing he knows how to

play the game, but detached enough to be able to recognize that he can take a loss now and it won't be the end of him and in fact, it might actually help him when the big turn comes four years. >> i think that's right and i'll just say here to folks and i have this in one of the end notes, you can go on youtube, which i guess is where we're on now, and you can see the concession speech that he gives at that convention. and it's done without notes. i think it's a remarkable moment captured that we can all see it on youtube. it's an amazing clip, so if folks are interested in it and he comes so close, just minutes before, to getting this nomination. by the way, his father thinks it's a disaster to even seek the nomination. he comes this close and then he says to ted sorenson when it becomes clear the tide has turned. he says let's go and they leave

their hotel room and go to the podium and gives this speech and it's an amazing moment. >> yeah. >> and a great ending and it makes you eager to-- for fred lodge logevall to get to volume two. how does this touch on today's world challenges. you've touched on that briefly, fred. >> i think it's leadership style characterized by absolute insistence on his part that he himself and his aides need to be well informed on the issues. he had very little patience for advisors and others who did nt know their stuff down to the

details. so it's a -- it's a leadership style that he's about becoming informed on an issue and then acting accordingly, which leads me to the second point. i think he is and this is something i find admirable. he is-- he doesn't want yes-men and yes-women around him. he wants people to have different views. he wants to hear people's opinions about which path to take and he'll act accordingly. and i'll also say there's much more to be said about this, but the final piece of this is maybe that, you know, when he needs to make a decision, even though he's overly cautious on issues like civil rights which we can discuss, his legislative record overall is fairly meager by the time he's killed. the cuban missile crisis, when virtually all of his advisors

are counseling a military response, they are aggressive, almost to a person, kennedy is seeking a political solution. he shows in that capacity to look at things from khrunichev's perspective. >> and this question, why did you end in '56? are you able to get all of the late 50's and all into volume two. >> and that one will be seared in my memory. i'm committed to doing it, i can do it, it's seven years in his life and so many happens in those seven years, but the first volume, there's a lot also that happens.

it's an extraordinarily varied life that he leads which helps me as a biographer, the story is remarkable and there's so much in the early volume also on his father. he's himself a huge figure in the book and several others. but i think that the subtext of your question is a good one. i've got to deal with the amazing campaign which really begins by the way in '57. the secret to jack kennedy's success is that he starts earlier than the competition and works harder than the competition. i have to deal with this flying around the country with ted sorenson speaking to tiny audiences on airport tarmacs for eight people, 12 people and ultimately culminates in the primary battle in '60 and race against nixon and we haven't got ten to the presidency.

and by the fact, terrible to say, it ends suddenly in november of 1963 and i don't think, george my present plan is not to get deep into the conspiracies or deep into the-- obviously, i have to give the reader my view of what happened in dallas, but maybe i've saved some space, but keeping that pretty limited. >> yeah. well, i mean, i have the same fear for robert caro except that he's older than you and he has in some ways, he's even more -- between '64 and '68 lyndon johnson's presidency went to the stars and then crashed back to earth. i don't know how he's going to do it, but i hope it happens soon. >> we all do. >> so, a viewer asks, what legends about young jfk do you early unwind or up-end from the

biography? are there any stories that you either could prove wrong or that you learned and included that we don't know? or what is there hidden deep in the archives that might raise our eyebrows or teach us something about young jfk? >> i think part of it is is what we've already discussed and maybe the viewers wanted something more specific. but i do think that this is young jfk who is-- this is one of his best qualities, by the way. and jackie talked about this after his death, his curiosity, his interest in the world and what made people tick. so the young jfk is, i think, a more serious, more engaged individual than we have come to believe. we've already talked about this. i'll also say, i think maybe i up-end a myth which is that the

illnesses, which were real, some of them ill-diagnosed, but nevertheless, you know, he felt them. i think i up-end the notion that they were acutely debilitating. or let me put it this way. this is a guy who despite these illnesses, from a young age, was extraordinarily active and he served in the war. he had to sort of fudge to get into combat, but with his father's help he did. who returns this bruising campaign in '46 where are outworks everybody. often only sleeps three, four, five hours a night. somehow this guy who is supposed to be on death's door all the time and supposed to be so ill he can barely function, he's able to do these things. so maybe i suggest that we shouldn't exaggerate the scope

of those illnesses, i'm not sure that's where the question was going. >> this is a question what he knew about his own country. he seemed to know europe and the south pacific deeply from personal experience, but as far as america goes, he knew brookline, riverdale, harvard, palm beach. did he know much about the country? the question is what can you tell us about how much jfk knew about the vast nation that was the united states? and is it possible to know some of his views on our diversity, on the american people in all of their diversity at this stage in his life? >> yeah, i think it's a really good question. i think it's pretty limited his knowledge, and maybe his interest to some extent. he had not, for example, traveled much in the south before he became even a senator so never mind in the house. and i write about the small

number of, say, african-americans, for example, that he interacted with. i don't believe he was personally prejudiced, really. but it's also true that he didn't -- he wasn't really animated by the searing experience that african-americans had and there was ample evidence all around. i think that comes later and i'll talk about later in volume t two. i also would say it's when he runs for president in 1960 and he goes to places like west virginia and other parts of the country that he hasn't seen before and he sees the degree to which there are deep income disparities in the country that i don't think he had fully grasped before. thought about before. i think it's clear from lots of

evidence, contemporaneous evidence that west virginia in particular made a huge impression on him, what he encountered and he came to appreciate the people that he met there and got a chance to talk with them. i don't think that was so evident before. i think when -- we'll see whether i can develop this early in volume two, again, travelling around the country for the first time, really, he's seeing lots across the city that he hadn't seen before. >> it's interesting that it was a book and really, a book review that brought hidden poverty to his attention. a big way. michael harrington's the other american and dwight mcdonald's review in the new yorker. that's how a cerebral attached, nonpopulist, he was not a pop list. >> not a populist.

you could compare him to fdr, he both suffered illnesses maybe made them better people and better politicians, but maybe because his career coincided with a period of prosperity rather than the great depression, jfk was not-- that wasn't what animated him. no, i think it's true. i'm glad you raised them because we haven't talked about the two of them in that way and i think i suggest somewhere in the book that he was never, what's the word, he was never really engaged by the fdr phenomenon. he never connected with him in some way that a lot of other people did. >> right. >> it's extraordinary how the kennedys were insulated from the great depression. and rose kennedy said her best period of time was the '30s.

and jfk comes in after the war and doesn't see things in the same way that fdr did. >> and today's need for service to democracy and courage feels so great, what of young jack leaves you hopeful that today's emerging generation can rise to make an impact? >> well, i am hopeful. i do think that our younger generation can-- my own kids are an example of this, but also others, can do this. i do think we need desperately for americans to reengage with civic life and we all need to do this and i think that the example of jack kennedy and even a young jack kennedy helped us to do this. i hope this comes out in those chapters of the book. i'm struck by the degree to

which in the mid 19-- or maybe the 1936-37, 38, when he's an undergraduate, he's asking large questions about the survival of democracy. is democracy suited to this age responding to the authoritarian threats? can we do this? are there leaders who will accomplish this? and he's asking that even as an undergraduate and the thesis ab it's in some ways, that's the heart of the thesis, why were the british under baldwin and chamberlain, seemingly unable to prepare for war, but it's ultimately, i think, a hopeful message and i guess that comes back to the question that i think he decides that democracy, it requires able leadership, more than that it requires citizens who are informed, who take an interest in policy issues, who hold

their leaders accountable and then for people themselves, of course, to enter public service and be engaged. that's, it seems to me, the most powerful part of the legacy. >> that's really well-said and it connects to a question that just came in from a 20-year-old university student interested in a career in the political world. what can i learn from a young jfk and his activities and attitudes to self-learning and ambition? so, those are two interesting terms that both apply to kennedy. >> self-learning and ambition, i think that's-- that's perfect because he commits himself to that. it's hard to say exactly when he does, when he comes back after this great excursion that you talked about, in 1939. he's in some ways, i think, different. i think that senior year of college, we see that

self-motivation and that determination to succeed and he becomes much more ambitious. ambition has to be a part of this, no question about this. but i do think that it's about to respond to the question. it's an excellent question from our 20-year-old friend. it's about taking an interest in policy, which it sounds like you already have, in public service, in seeing how we can make things better. jack kennedy says in one of his papers, i think he's a junior when he writes this, for democracy to survive, it requires dedicated and capable leaders. i have that slightly wrong, it's in the preface actually, i should have checked before we came on. that seems to me what you and others your age should think about because i think that democracy is under threat. i'm worried about this-- the current state of it and i

think it's going to require all of us, but maybe especially your generation to commit yourself to the hard work involved in this. i have no doubt that democracy can work. it has worked for this country and for other countries and then, i'll say one other thing, which maybe is controversial. it shouldn't be. and i guess it's an argument for, know the maybe necessarily centrism, it is an argument for remembering to treat political opponents as adversaries and not enemies and i think that's something that kennedy committed himself to. it's seeing the merits of the arguments on the other side, which is really hard for all of us. you know, don't get me wrong. >> and that was-- i was going to make the exact same point, fred, because we now live in a political and media world where you're rewarded for the instant

victory and for wiping out your opponent and for humiliating them, really, on twitter and anywhere, and what is the point? what does anyone gain from that? and as a journalist, i think there is a c always benefit from going out and talking to people whose experience is different from yours, and who's views are different from yours and try to understand them. try to hear them. you don't have to like it. you don't have to be friends, you don't have to approve of their views, but you really need to make that effort to understand. this is going that obama has said and probably the most kennedy-esque president we've had since kennedy. try to walk around in somebody else's shoes and then you will be able to be a better public servant and a better-- >> i think that's exactly

right. i think that joe biden at least has talked in a similar terms and he was criticized earlier this year from his then primary opponents for this suggestion. >> yeah. >> that ultimately we are going to have to reach out and we are going to have to bargain hard, not abandon our principles, but we're going to bargain hard and i think it's essential. and i'll say totally fascinating conversation to me that i talk about in the book is i think in '55 between jfk and his good friend, an englishman named david ormsby-gore. and become's britain's ambassador to the united states so they're friend right to the end. but you know, jfk says in this conversation, i don't know if i'm cut out to be a politician. >> yeah. >> because i too often see the merits of the arguments on the other side. i too often thereforebecome

uncertain about arguments on our side. and in our day and age we don't talk in those terms. >> right, exactly. it will be interesting to see biden, by analogy for biden is more lbj, he's a creature of the senate. he's a career pol, he's a wheeler dealer, a centrist, and could make him -- and one wants to talk about his superb sense of humor, we haven't talked about, but it runs through his book in letters, themes, quotes, so say something about that. what kind of humor was it? >> yeah, it's true. i quote and then note, i maybe

should have it in the text, but i have conan o'brien who has a marvellous essay about jfk's sense of humor. but o'brien says, we've had exactly two truly funny presidents. abraham lincoln and john f. kennedy. he's right about that, actually. it's not to say that other presidents haven't had a sense you have humor, but not as well developed as we see with these two. i think it's an ironic sense of humor. it's a kind of self-deprecating sense of humor, which i think he used to great effect maybe especially in the white house and he honed this particular skill and you see it earlier to, and it's a kind of absurdist quality to it at times as well. maybe in part, i'm sure this is inborn, people can probably, who know more about this than i do, can explain it, it may be

in-born and it may have something to do with the maladies that he had, poking fun at them and not taking himself too seriously made sense, was also a winning strategy. people liked it. i can't fully explain where it came from, but there's no question that it's there and it's key to understanding him. >> we didn't talk about bobby, but two questioners are interested in when did jack see bobby's political talent and what did jack think of bobby's work for the mccarthy committee alongside roy cohen? >> i think he saw bobby's worth as a political strategist, a campaign manager. >> yes. >> somebody to run the campaign he saw in spades in '52. the campaign find of was floundering against henry cabot

lodge, like he would lose or not well-positioned and then this 26-year-old comes on and bobby, in part because he's a lot like the old man, just gets the thing right on track and i think it's hard to overstate how important bobby is as a manager and as a shrewd and ultimately kind of ruthless operative. when he sees bobby's potential as a politician is a more interesting question. i don't know that i have a good answer to this. i think he saw, became very devoted to his brother. the age gap when they're young they were not particularically close. there was a trip to vietnam where they become much closer, but i think he deeply admired his brother and i'm sure saw hey, this is a guy at some point should run himself for office. how he felt about bobby's

devotion to mccarthy and his service on mccarthy's committee, i think that early on he was very much inclined to let bobby do what he felt like he should do and it was a good career move for bobby. the father wanted bobby to have that position. i think as mccarthy became more controversial and started doing more and more outrageous things, i think it became a problem. by then bobby is no longer in mccarthy's employ if we put it that way, but he was still very close to joe mccarthy, that creates more problems, i think, for jack politically, but you know, this is a very close knit family. this is not a family that screams at yells at each other apso, you don't see at least in the records that i've seen any particular anger on jack's part about the continued loyalty on bobby's part to mccarthy. >> and let's end with this

rather enigmatic question. i sense the majority of jfk's thoughts and ideas were never vocal idesed -- vocalized by him. remained unrevealed. there is therefore there's a lot about jfk, the man, that we'll never know and remains a mystery. and that's the question at the start how a biographer can have access to the inner life of a real person who died 60 years, almost 60 years ago. >> yeah, i think it's a very perceptive question and i do think that he does keep a part of himself secret. i think we all do, but maybe he does it a little bit more than some. he's his mother's son in this regard because rose very prolific had her letter writing, at least i found, and

of course there have been excellent biographies of rose and her biographers may disagree with me, but her volu volu volumenou sch volumenous, and maybe this is a good place to end. i think we can get to know jack kennedy and at various points in this story in volume one, he writes a lot and i think is quite open in what he says in these letters and including sometimes what he says about himself. letters to his friends, maybe in particular lem billings, and to inga, the communication between the two of them reveals a lot. it's going to be interesting in volume two. >> he will be more guarded because he will be-- . i think he will be more guarded. in fact, i already know,

george, that you know, letters, plain old letters written by him to others become more scarce. and so, that's going to be a challenge. i think it's less-- it surprised me the degree to which i could get at the young jfk. >> are there people still alive who were adults when he was alive and who can tell you their firsthand experience or has that generation pretty much disappeared? >> it's pretty much gone. there are a few and i've spoken to some of them and some of the ones that i spoke with, the late richard goodwin. the late dan send, are no longer with us. i don't think there are many. i do think that the magnificent jfk oral library history collection, though it has to be used with caution, as all

collections must be used with caution i think is a great resource and some of those interviews were conducted soon after the assassination, which is both a good thing and a problem, but i will rely more on those sadly than being able to talk to people face-to-face. >> well, i can't wait for the next one, meanwhile, congrats on a marvellous book that i wish all the success in the world. may it reach many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of readers. [laughter] >> and i want to thank the jfk library and our audience for joining us tonight and most of all, fred logevall for being one of the really great historyions and writers in america today. >> thank you, george, to have the opportunity with you given your work and you know, if you have not seen, folks, if you've not read "our man", get your hands on that book.

george's recent writings on the atlantic is a must-read. great to chat with you tonight. i, too, want to thank the library. many folks in the library are thanked in my acknowledgements, i could have said much more there, but now we just need the doors to reopen so that some of us can get back into those marvellous collections. ... the u.s. senate is not in session today due to the veterans day holiday. senators will meet tomorrow at 11 eastern to continue judicial confirmations. they will consider president trump's district court nominee for the southern district of florida. the senate has confirmed so far

222 federal judges under president trump and nominee ilene kann florida would be the first woman to join the court during the trump administration. watch live coverage here on c-span2. weeknights this month we're featuring booktv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span2. this year marks the 20th anniversary of booktv monthly author interview program in depth. that starts at eight eastern and enjoy booktv this week and every weekend on c-span2. >> booktv on c-span2 s top nonfiction books and authors in the weekend. saturday at one p.m. eastern from the recent virtual southern festival of books reflect on life in appalachia.

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