>> thank you for joining us this evening. we'd like to knowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the kennedy library. bank of america and the lloyd institute and our media sponsors the boston globe and wbur.

we look forward to a robust question and answer period. you will see full instructions on the screen to submit your question via email or through the comments on our youtube page during the program. we're so grateful to have this opportunity to support president kennedy's earlier years in depth with one of our speakers this evening. this is the first major work about president kennedy and many years. we've been anticipating this for sometime. much of professorfrederik logevall's research took place in the kennedy archive and we are pleased to learn more about this comprehensive new look at president kennedy's formative years and i'm now delighted to introduce our speaker . i'm so glad to welcome frederik logevall back to the kennedy library virtually . he is the lawrence dover professor of international affairs and professor of history at harvard university especially on us foreign relations history and history

he is the author of nine books including members of war which won the pulitzer prize for history. jfk: coming of age in the american century 1917 to 1956 is fred's newest book. i'm also pleased to extend a warm welcome to george packer, our moderator for this evening. his nonfiction books include our man richard holbrook and the end of the american century, a finalist for the pulitzer prize. the unwinding: 30 years of americandecline which won a national book award . and blood of the liberals, he is also the author of two novels in theplay and the editor of the two-volume addition of theessays of george orwell . 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 frederik logevall tonight and to get our heads out of the present and out of the news for an hour, hour and a half and into the past which is a great refuge as well as a guide for us as we try to navigate these stories in our lives. fred, i know you as the author of two essential books on the vietnam war and people i know who fought in vietnam, i asked them what are the books i have to read on the war when i was researching my biography who served in vietnam they said that's easy, choosing war and embers of war by the same guy, frederik logevall. so i knew you as a vietnam expert. but now i know you as something broader, as an america expert in someone who shares a lot of interest with

me in american history and foreign policy was great to get to talk to you about your completely engrossing, and socially which is the word david kennedy of the new york times book review used about your new biography of jfk. so welcome fred and welcome to our audience and i guess the first question is inevitable but why another biography? there hasn't been a major one in some time but it takes a little bit of. to wade into these waters where so many writers have gone. why did you take this on. >> first off george is tremendous to be with you. to have the opportunity to talk about this stuff. in a way these books are kind

of bookends because mine is the beginning of the century and his is more about the latterpart of the 20th century and maybe we can talk about that . it's great to be on withyou . i think i've been fascinated by john f. kennedy and kennedy for a long time. i had written about kennedy in other contexts especially the cold war in particular, vietnam but of course world war ii which is still to come. that vietnam question or what i like to call the mother of all counterfactual's, what you've done to survive and get attention but partly it's an interest in the kennedys, partly a sense that this had me one day walking in harvard yard, i wanted to write a book that was a biography but i could also use my training as a historian and use kennedy's 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, to superpower status on jack kenny's life kennedy's life . he's born in 1917, as the us is going into war and dies and 63 which is arguably the zenith of american power in some ways prior to the mess of vietnam. so it's those two things and then maybe a third, george which is that the materials in the library are just so phenomenal and i use this library that's hosting tonight's event is so good. a lot of them have been tap by a lot of people. that there was something kind of fresh about them and in a sense, that the biographies as they say are out there but nobody's gotten the kind of comprehensive life and times that i'm trying to do here. >> you knew about the

materials in the library from your vietnam research. >> i knew about it fromthe work on vietnam. i knew about it to some extent from other researchers . gladstone and others who said you know, incredible folders, files, documents in the library. a lot of them had been used all that much and some had come available but it was partly because of my own private research, no question so you had actually zeroed in on documents you knew were there once you committed yourself to this project. you said i'm going to box 291 , holbrook 73 because i know it's there and nobody's ever used it . >> obviously some of this and just the specific collections of specific folders, i had to

see them myself even before i had the sense but i knew for example david nassau's terrific biography of joe senior, as historians we all do this and you do this yourself. you look in the endnotes and you look to see what other people have done to see what they have done in termsof particular collections . some of them i think hadn't been available. and then one of the marvelous things about the library even though i think a relatively small percentage of the library's collections have been digitized, nevertheless some great stuff george. anybody can access from their couch. there's stuff available but it's what you can see without having to darken the doors of this library . it's a greatcollection . >> how did you approach the genre?

i don't think you had written one and it's not the same thing as the history of the war or the history of even two years decision-making about a war . it's more, i would say it's closer to the problems that confront a novelist because you have to temper public with characters and especially one character and bring that character to life and i think all the harder because everyone 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? >> it's so interesting,

especially given that you yourself offered novels so you have a sense of what you're describing here is totally fascinating to me and you're right, history and novels are not the same thing, i've come to realize how different they are in some ways but there are also important similarities . it's about trying to figure out what happened and in this case it centeredon a particular life . there are similarities here between this work and the work i've done previously but as you say you are also differences. i think i had been fascinated by the kennedys. it is in some ways thegreat american story . his family is just an extraordinary one. i begin the book with the arrival of both the kennedys and the fitzgeralds in the middle part of the 19th century and then of course joe, joe's rise in particular,that is to say joe

senior , this huge family and the marriage to rose, jack was a sickly child witnessing this and i wouldn't say i thought thestory would write itself . but i didn't think this has great potential for me as a historian. but also as somebody who's interested in biography and wants to see if i can make this work. both telling two narratives at the same time of kennedy's story and america's story. can i just briefly taught this back to you? because you have this experience toward how would you answer your own question in terms of how you approach this with respect to our now? >> i had a different problem which was richard holbrook, by the time my book came out was a fading figure in

american foreign policy . he dominated many news events in his lifetime, but he was not on the scale ofjfk, not close . he actually first went into the foreign service under jfk . it was his call to service that inspired him to join the foreign service . i just thought i needed to grab the reader with the first paragraph and never let that reader go or else i would abandon the project because that was my great fear, who cares? you didn't have that problem. people care about jfk. so i began my book about holbrook in the voice of a novelist even though the book had been as accurate as i couldpossibly make it , i knew him and you're about to hear a long yarn by a rock into her who had a voice that

carries the entire book and it gave me a ton of freedom to do things that traditional biographies don't do but always within the guidelines of the contract of the reader which is that it has to be true. so i tried to make it sound like just a great yarn that you would want to hear. >> you and i have talked a little bit about this before but i think it's speaks just marvelously when we were on the show together it was fun to talk about . i don't think in the early pages which i thought which would be fun to talk about a little bit. i'm paraphrasing, i didn't have a chance to look before we came on but you say something like only in fiction can we ever really get to know a person deep inside. i thought about that because jack kennedy, many people think this and maybe this is true. he's somewhat elusive.

people born you're never going to be able to get close to this guy because of that. i wanted to make sure he had some of his mother's emotional nerve. i think you're so right in this and i hope readers tell me whether i'm rightabout this . i think i can get, given your grammars that only in fiction can we ever really know i hope i get fairly close. >> i think you do. i wrote this to you personally and i think it's on the book jacket now. this brings us so close to jfk. it's really in the picture and we should talk about how you achieved that. i think leaders will find it engrossing. it's a page turner and that's because you're always right there in the middle of a scene or very close to the characters and there is of

course you're east attached and always observing, that's his character but the things that created that character i didn't understand very well until i read this book. so let's talk about that but two things at once. your book begins, his story begins the month before we enter world war i. and this is an interesting parallel to mine because holbrook is born in 1931 which is that other year the american century began when we entered world war ii so tell me about your decision to frame jfk's life as a life of the american century getting in 1917 and what that means for our understanding of america's rise to world power. >> i think it might have been ernest may, the late great

harvard historian and member of this department that i'm now in. it might have been ernie wrote, and this struck me at the time. i was a graduate student. thing like this which is we think about the american century beginning in 1940 or 41 or the late 30s. some might say 1945 which is not correct but ernie said no , in fact america's contribution to the war in 1917 and 1918 was formidable. and because of the degree to which the european powers were decimated by a great conflagration though it wasn't fullyevident at the time , farsighted europeans understood it was only a matter of time before it was going to dawn on the world stage and in a sense there

was a delay i think in the 20s and 30s. american statesman, leaders were not quite surewhat to do . i write about this in the book. they want the responsibilities of leadership, they did not but i still feel comfortable in saying that 1917 is absolutely critical to the american century for two reasons. us enters the war and of course the bolshevik revolution which becomes so crucial later on and crucial to jack kennedy's life . >> basically the cold war that defines kennedy's public life began in 1917. the two powers of the cold war, their trajectory and collision with each other began in 1917. >> you could make that argument, my students i often ask the question when did the cold war begin and if you look at the characteristics

of the cold war which i also have been due and i say how many of those characteristics were present in 1917, it turns out maybe only two or three but one of them might be adeep ideological schism . but some of the things that we associate with the cold war which is great arms race, suppression of internal dissidents, that was after world war iin the united states and the soviet union . a bipolar world structure as opposed to a multi-polar world structure. some of those may not be present in 1917 but i've had smart students, interesting students make a compelling case or 1917 as the start date of the superpower confrontation. >> did you have a preconception about jfk going into this ? did you have a picture of him that you were going to then draw or did you begin relatively agnostic and come

here with the research? >> i think i had a sense, that's an interesting question. i had a sense even when i began from my work in indochina and 1951. >> the beginning of embersof war . >> yes all these penetrating questions about what the party is going to achieve, i had a sense that that the common view of youngjack kennedy . this kind of a playboy who had everything handed to him, who wasn't very serious about anything and only later became a mature, striking politician. i had a sense that thatwas maybe not correct . and i think the research that i did again and the materials in the library are so

marvelous that this is a guy who from an early age is serious about policy, deeply curious about theworld . so that's sort of a half answer. i guess it suggesting i had an inkling that i wanted to revise it and i think the research supports that portrait. >> some of the most riveting cases are young jack's trip to europe in 1939. when europe is moving rapidly towards war and he's having a mix of a kind of rich boy vacation along with access to the most important councils of government all across the continent. churchill, chamberlain, hitler. tc hitler give a speech?

>> he never did see him give a speech. he was there first and 37 and they had an opportunity. but then they said he should go on but in 39, it was almost like a equality the degree to which he shows up in places that become hotspot and i open the book with a preface with him in berlin in late august 1939 and he even carried the message from the us consulate official, the senior diplomat in berlin, he gives him a message to carry back to the ambassador of britain, joe kennedy senior . and the message says the germans are going to attack. so you have this kind of intrepid guy. he's certainly benefiting from his father's connections

. he wouldn't be able to see these people and he was already ambitious for his two sons in particular. but it's also jfk's own early striving and motivation. >> let's talk about his parents and his relation to them because what i said earlier i felt i understood his character much better from your book. it was really because of especially his relationship with his father. his relationship with his mother is distant and i wouldn't be the first to say he made it a source of some of his misogyny because his mother let him down. she wasn't around for a lotof his childhood , his father was either but the mother was expected to be and his father was not his father comes across, joe kennedy comes across let's say he made me

feel like kind of a lame father was he's just constantly arranging activities and events and every day is scheduled and were going to go yachting in the morning and playing football in the afternoon and discussed current events at dinner and leaving at night and he's an incredible man of that generation, incredibly involved in his children's lives and devoted to them so that seems to be the core relationship for jack kennedy growing up. >> i think ultimately is and i think he's described it really well and it's an extraordinary pathway of joe kennedy seniors. it's a really interesting example i think of george which is joe kennedy insane 1930s, 34, 35 is adding up the sec in washington, he's having up an important new government entity and yet he

prepares these long letters, handwritten letters to jack losing his last year. he sends long letters to joe junior who's already at harvard. the younger children, it strikes me this is a guy who somehow managing important government policy is nevertheless instructing his children, trying to mold his children and in particular the suns, is more concerned it's quite clear about them and especially the two older ones . so what everyone might say about joe kennedy as a businessman, as a diplomat . he ultimately had a disastrous turn as ambassador to britain, his devotion to his kids is something. i'll also say that i think rose kennedy, the mother . she deserves more in some ways credit for jack upbringing that she's given.

i think she gets his historical sensibility more from her from his father. he's actually more like his mother in many ways. his international sensibility comes in part from her i suggest in part . she's emotionally withdrawn. she leads a kind of separate life to all of his illnesses at canterbury, she never pays a visit. i think she comes once the canterbury yet meanwhile she takes extendedvacations by herself including to europe . it's i think that was what i think you suggested. >> but you said at one point that what you expect from a woman whose husband is flagrantly cheating on her throughout their marriage.

and is humiliating her by bringing mistresses home for dinner and of course she's going to withdraw . they're fighting all the time and maybe to leave and those are not alternatives she wants to inflict on herself or her family and it goes against her religion so the reality is emotional withdrawal. >> i think that's right and i think that i suggest in the book that they have kind arrangement which is going to be more discreet in his affairs and maybe he was early on. she's going to kind of look the other way and i think that's what happens. he has a notorious affair with gloria swanson in hollywood. that's i think on some level he comes to realize i can't continue to do this but he is , your site so right george, when you think about what she has to endure and when you think about is view, his

objectification, objectifying women, seeing them as objects to be conquered. it's just a hard environment for her . >> where does jack's ambition come from because one thing your book makes very clear is that it wasn't simply handed to him like you know, and instruction on how to bea man by his father . he is his own boy and man in a way that is extremely proactive. he does not seem like a pampered, spoiled son of privilege who went his father's way because that was the path of leastresistance . in other words he's not donald trump junior. he fights for his own path, even while never causing too muchtrouble . he never openly is defiant

and rebellious in a way that could deeply hurt his father but he nonetheless manages to against a great deal of magnetism coming from his overbearing father find himself. how did that happen and how did it create a political ambition in jack? >> i thought a lot about that course and going through the materials which are so rich but all archival materials, all other kinds of evidence in the library which is magnificent . they can't reveal everything and i think what we see is somebody who because he was battered a lot with his various elements, he became the family leader. he devoured especially europeanhistory and statecraft and diplomacy . he was an early fan to say

the least of winston churchill. i think the ambition comes in part from him realizing a, maybe i can do something similar here. he's also got his maternal grandfather who is a legendary boston politician and the two of them are extremely close. they're quite different as politicians. jack is much morereserved, much more rain . stalwart in his approach than his grandfather but i think there's also that but i think grandpa fits is aspiring to do something similar and then finally i think this is especially in our own day and age for me such an appealing quality, george. he liked politics and i think he liked politics precisely because he thinks politics matters. politics is important. and i think from a pretty early age before joe junior

was killedin the war , he's already thinking to himself and to a particular girlfriend he was close to. maybe i want to pursue a political career so it's those things i think in part i think bringing in this serious quality. >> is not as though when joe junior is killed over england or over the channel that suddenly it's up to jack carreon 'sfather's dream . jack was headed that way already . >> i think that he was. >> and joe junior would not have had what jack brought to that career which is that incredible intelligence but also that quality of being his own man which is essential when you're in the oval office and your generals

are all telling you that you need to start world war iii with the soviet union. >> over cuba in 62. >> jumping ahead to volume 2. >> i think it's right and i do think that joe junior who was a golden child and who a lot to the table. he was straight from central casting in terms of being incredibly handsome , healthy as an ox. extremely ambitious, and i'm not going to suggest, i don't say in the book that even if joe junior survives, comes back from the war that we would have seen the same kind of trajectory from his life but he had his own reasons for running and as you suggest i think he had a better claim. he had already authored a book which was a lightly revised version that rubbed i think joe junior the wrong way because he was used to being the man in the family

and he already had these attributes before joe junior's tragic death. and he's making his own decisions . even in terms of which office to see in 1946 . it's not his father's decision to seek out. that is ultimately jfk's own. >> tell us how his mind as a practitioner of statecraft, as someone who thinks about and eventually practices foreign-policy developed in the 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 as president? seems to me those are the key years so tell us what happened and how they affected him and bring in his father too because that's a crucial parting of the ways.

>> this was such a fun part of the whole writing experience for me. and my wife will tell you that i would talk about again, what the materials in the library and elsewhere showed . but i think what happens is that he gets to harvard, and begins in 1936 to have effectively a gap year. most of his classmates in 1950, the student body is, it continues to be right up and i think he buysinto that . his father becomes a master in 1938 and as you know the kind of arch peter, even more so than the chamberlain and i think he felt initially that he was inclined to agree with this position but, and this is the distinctionbetween him

and his brother .go junior i think is never comfortable outside his father's shadow so he parents his father right to the end and what's happening to me is to observe little by little jack kennedy begin to see a more complex and crowded world than either his father orolder brother . to see the problems with a narrow, parochial nationalism that he endorses, to see the threat posed by both the japanese and the germans . and by hard to say exactly but certainly before poor pearl harbor so let's say by 31 i think he's confirmed internationalist . that shift or that growth in his view i think is totally interesting and finally i'll say that his own war experience in 43 . is important here and

affirming for him a mix. it affirms for young jack kennedy that the united states has to play a leading role in global affairs. question forhim has been settled . his mates this long discussion in their tent about what the us role should be and i think he comes back from the war affirmed in that view but he also comes back skeptical about i think the military as an instrument of policy. i think you see in his letters home are really interesting a sense that military leadership may not be a contradiction in terms but i think he'sskeptical of that . i think we see, i'll see if i can develop the story if it should be developed but you

see it in some way springing up from his life soit's those two . >> it's interesting because it may be he was lieutenant, right? so he was a young officer but he was not someone for whom the war was in any way abstract. he was out there obviously getting shot up. because old generation of officers became the overconfident generals of vietnam. who thought that america had nothing to worry about from the black pajamas because we fought the japanese war machine,this is actually going to be nothing . jack kennedy didn't come back from the second world war with that kind of confidence in the american military . maybe in american example to the world but not in our ability to improve and 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 in our ability to perceive ourselves so all that seems to be there at a very young age and i'm sure we can trace it straight through to the crucial years in the white house. >> i think that's so well put . partly because of his illness . partly because of the tragedies that he suffered. he effectively lost rosemary to a botched, horrible lobotomy in late 41 which the

sister who is closest to him in age, they're only about 18 months apart loses his brother in 44, later loses his closest sibling kathleen but i think he had and ithink it goes to your point , he had a sense that life was fraught. he had a well-developed sense of irony. 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 were limits to american power even though in 45 the united states is absolutely colossal in what it can do and achieve . so i think you're absolutely right. he didn't fall prey to what so many later castles fell prey to.

>> beforee get to this political chapter at the end the book , let's talk about jfk and women because there are a lot ofomen in this book . they come sickly, most of them. he is constantly writing letters to his friends about having bedded this nurse or there's just a ton of girls that come and go and some of them he sees seems really smitten with and especially parvati, others are clearly instruments for pleasure so how do you as a biographer, you don't spare him. you definitely don't spare him his treatment of women

and the worst moment is when his wife jackie has a miscarriage and he's off sailing around and finally gets back maybe later, it's pretty unforgivable. it's hard to want to stay with him so how did you handle that material which you don't hold back. you make it possible for us to go on, to want to know the next chapter? >> i think it's a challenge in george. it will be a bigger challenge frankly and volume 2. i don't think that his behavior in the period up through 1966 is predatory if that's the word here. there isn't the position of power, i guess it is already

a power differential, he's a sensor and so forth but i suspect not having researched this fully or written volume 2, i think this is going to become more problematic in volume 2but it's already problematic . i think some of it clearly comes from his father. i think we have ample evidence that he expected and he 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 for the wedding and after. and i think i can't have it both ways. i can't on the one hand say it is a man in politics. he does not follow his father's dictates in terms of his political position or which office to seat, he's his own man or whether to supportisolationism or

interventionism before pearl harbor . but when you make that argument with respect to the political stuff and career stuff, and obviously he should show the ability to not follow his father's dictates when it comes to women and hedoesn't . it doesn't have at least again as far as i can see some of the more problematic elements that we see with joe senior who sometimes asked out if you can imaginejack's girlfriends . but. >> nor can we say it was a different time back then because i think this is a more, you can use the word pathological attitude towards women and i woer at times i got if nothatred at least disdain, a dehumanizing towards them as if, i don't

mean to treat you the way i would treat my gafriend larry billings to jack afr rejecting his advancesis a loyal friend to for the rest of their lives . his sister is different, she's like an honorary guy but most historians don't get that treatment and i wonder if there's something darker than just being rude way or being a bit of a scoundrel about it. >> it may be. i think about who we talked about is a kind of affection because he treats her so differently from some of the other women and he respects her intelligence and is sort of envious of the fact that she speaks so many languages, she's been so many places and she's clearly super sharp and they have these conversations, some of them picked up by the fbi because

she's under surveillance in which you see the two ofthem go at it intellectually . and in other ways too but intellectually in a way that i think you're quite right. you don't see very often. there's some other affection. ultimately, jackie even though there are lots of rocky moments, she is very formative and he comes to see how intelligent she is and she too has a kind of cultured quality that he's really admires the same way himself. but yes, there may be a certain, how did you put it ? hello thing? thers something there that problematic, no question. >> so he becomes a member of the house, cambridge. >> 11th district of boston. >> watertown, i guess.

and he then he's elected to the senate and all of it leads to this wonderful set piece that the book ends with which is this 56 convention when jack comes within a whisker of being beating adlai stevenson which may have been a bullet dodged rather than an opportunity missed but what you make of kennedy the politician in those years, what do you learn about him and what struck you as -- he doesn't seem presidentialmaterial in the early volume . he seems hard-working, curious, all that but there isn't that quality that you just immediately say this guy is going to go to the top. how do you describe him as a politician who saw domestic

policy as what was the word? sewer contracts. that he's interested in world affairs. >> i think that's clear from the time he enters in 47 that his foreign-policy is where he's the most interested. i think it's where he feels the most comfortableduring his campaign and 46 , he's 29-year-old who wants to get the nomination and want to get the nomination he's free but that nomination is a ferocious one and you see even then that he's comfortable talking about the emerging cold war . that it's not a reality but it's emerging and i think on other international issues and by the way. >> already penetrating and insightful in seeing things from the soviet perspective. there's a simple certain empathetic understanding that he has but then as you say it

doesn't have the same kind of engagement. i think he's fundamentally liberal on most issues, not so much fiscal issues, like more conservative. he's quite conservative on foreign policy. i suggest in the book he's an early cold warrior. that he does not see an opportunity for accommodation with someone henry wallace argues to smooth things over with the soviets. jfk is the caustic in swatting down that notion. interestingly here, just a side note. joe kennedy senior and i think they bring it out in his autobiography and joe kennedy articulated a position that more than a few cold war historians articulate which is that the

soviets are not a threat to the united states in terms of its essential distance, we can take the sort of hands-off approach here says joe kennedy senior but they felt very differently at the time. >> and an interesting instance of that is they go to vietnam and you say in 1961 this is the opening of your wonderful book and asks all the right questions and once to see as if the french are fighting a losing colonialist war and why should that beour war ? why are we defending a colonial empire? we're the world's postwar democracy but by the mid-50s, he is taking a more politician theme about vietnam. he has speeches in which he thinks the world relies on coming as him at the parallel

between northand south vietnam so what happens ? >> it's the great paradox about jfk and indochina i think which is and i think this will be the thread in volume 2 aswell . i don't think his skepticism george about a military solution in vietnam ever goes away. i think it's there from 61 until november 1963 and 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 what it is, we can never know i believe if he survived he would have avoided most likely that he would have avoided the kind of huge open ended escalation. >> that is a passage in

choosing war that i read because you had earned the right to say that but i'll be curious to see if you still think it writing volume 2 but go on. >> i reserve the right to shift . but the paradox, the third part of this is the paradox is as you say this same jack kennedy. like we get into in the mid-50s, especially is much more aggrsive area he's careful, he's a very careful politician. he's careful in terms of his language. he's very reasoned approach to all policy decisions but as you say, he now sings a differentune on vietnam and indochina. his supporti, he believes that the united states mus reserve, do alln its power to preservestopping vietnam

so figuring out how this guy who understood so early that western power, whether it be france or the united states, and he said any westernpower , is this the same guy who's in domestic political terms and maybe that's the explanation, he seeks the white house now and he knows that democrats cannot be targeted with that soft on communism slogan, maybe that's the explanation of the paradox but however we explain it it's there on vietnam. >> and it's going to be a major tension in volume 2 because even though i think you convinced me that if kennedy had lived he would not have had 200,000 troops in vietnam within two years of 63. nonetheless, he sensed 15,000

advisors and he overthrew the government of south vietnam. he may well have collected his own mistakes but the mistakes are already being made and how much policy has to do with that faith with in his own government and opposition party. i would be interested to see what you learn in volume 2. we're taking two questions and five minutes but i have one or two things i want to ask you . the only point in your book that i stumble at all were the same ones that david kennedy mentioned in his glowing, wonderful review in this week's new york times book review . those are the mccarthy period and the question of authorship of profiles in courage. you've looked at both of them carefully so tell us why i might be wrong in thinking

that jfk deserves more of a harder spanking for his punching essentially the mccarthy era and trying his hardest not to have, not to make it difficultcall on that . and why we should think that we may have written some notes for profiles in courage . but he didn't write the book page for page. so take me through those please. >> 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 drafts, i guess in galley form and you pointed out the mccarthy, that i said i need to tweak this a little bit. i need to somehow address this.

the people at random house were absolutely marvelous up and down, i have such a wonderful publisher but they said we can do this . so even if this form is not to your satisfaction, you're going to be gettingthis . >> i'm about to finish the book. [inaudible] >> it's because of how late we were i can only do a few words or change a few sentences butthe fact that david, i think you are right . even before your introduction , i suggested that he was overly careful on mccarthy. i think it had something to do with close family ties with mccarthy. especially with joe senior who we talkedabout bobby tonight , bobby was lost to mccarthy and would remain lost, flew to wisconsin for mccarthy and remained both

joe i think in some ways to the end. it's partly about massachusetts politics, irish catholics constitute a large part of the electorate and by the way interestingcomparison , right through to the end beyond or at least through the century before of joe mccarthy, public opinion surveys after public opinion survey show he had the support of roughly 40 percent of the electorate. i don't want to draw that comparison too closely but it's interesting that even after the senate begins to move, even afterhis path from the army , a lot of americans stay withhim to the end . but i think jack kennedy would spare himself a lot of grief if he had instructed sorenson. for legitimate reasons, so those others who say he went into the opposite dodge and i

think that's not truebut he could have . so the procedure comparing, he could've instructed sorenson and he should have done so. and why he didn't is interesting. here's another quick thing about this which is in 56 at the aforementioned democratic national convention he had a meeting with eleanor roosevelt and mrs. roosevelt basically says, i'm paraphrasing, why didn't you come outagainst mccarthy ? i puzzle over, george, maybe you have an explanation for this. i thought about it, i dn't wrapped it in my head and erased it but i said why would he not inthe summer of 66 when atcking joe mccarthy , the guys a spent force, he's gone. why would jack kennedy not to say to mrs. roosevelt that i didn't like the y which is true . he didn't like mccarthy in

personal terms or political terms. even now however he doesn't want to criticize mccarthy and i can't quite figure that out . >> i didn't know. i can only imaginehat he was loyal to his family and this was one that didn't mean ough to him as going against his father in peasement did. to reject his father that way . it's a good an explanation as any of them . >> my parents were a lite younger than jfk and marthy was the litmus test to them as liberal democrs of whether a politician could be trusted. whher they could really respect a politician and they ended up at stevenson people because stevenson was much moreoutspoken about mccarthy

. so when it came to 1960, they celebrated kennedy's election , but he was not therean and he never was there man and it's really because of the mccarthy period. for a lot of liberals at was true so i think you have a desive effect. not so much on the polies of that time but on w democrats saw him and how they were divided on him. >> i think it's a goodpoint . i'll say one other thing and talk for a minute. that is that it is worth noting that democratic party as a whole including all liberal stalwarts for a very long time were unwilling to criticizemccarthy . they went 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 . and in fact the senior

senator frommassachusetts , republican is just as cautious if not more so than jack kennedy so is not alone in this. his extra boat is theproblem. in profiles in courage , i guess here you and i differa little bit . i think that gavin is pretty powerful that the broad architecture of the book, the themes of the book, the argument which by the way i think has failures in our own day of our about the need about the need for evidence-based discourse, or bargaining in the knee ultimately for compromising democracy. those arguments, those themes are jack kennedy's. sorenson is way too young, 25 or 26, is not going to be able to articulate those kinds of things. moreover the introduction and

conclusion i think for me the most interesting and important parts of the book i think those are more in kennedy's notes. that basically has worked. had he not one the pulitzer i think this would not ever have beenan issue . i can come back to this, but how he should have responded to the awarding of the pulitzer is a fair question. was one of the proudest moments of his life he later said. is it reasonable to expecthim 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 this, they had some professors who helped write about this and i guess i'm suggesting this is more jack kennedy's book then perhaps yours.

>> i don't want to end on the minor dispute because i want our audience to knowthat we han't even really talk about the wathis ends but it's a marvelo account of the conventionthat hasn't gone down in histy as one of the great conventions but it's the 56 democratic convention and you see jack kennedy at his absolute best because he is maneuving and showing that he knows how to play the game but also detached enough to be able to recognize that he can take a loss n and it won't be the end of him and in fact it might actually helhim when wh the tournament comes in four years. >> that's right and i'll say your folks, i have this in one of the end. you can go on youtube, which i guess is where we're on now and you can see e concession speech that begi at that convention. and it's done without notes.

i think it's a remarkable moment captured. we can all see it on youtube. it's an amazing clip so if. interested in this, he's com so close, just minutes befe togetting this nominatn . either way his fher thinks it's a disaster toven see the nomination. becomes this close and then he ss to ted sorensen when it becomes clear the tide has turned he says let's go, leaves the hotel roomnd goes to the podium, gets the speech and 's an amazing moment. >> and great ending and it kes you eager for fred, for frederik logevall to finish volume 2. let's get you a few questions and some of them are questions that i would have wanted to ask so i'll allow others to ask them . what were, this comes from

columbia, how would you define, how does it apply to today's world challenges. you touched on briefly,what more do you have to suggest on that ? >> i think it's a leadership style characterized by an 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 didn't know their stuff so it's a leadership style that is about becoming informed on an issue and then acting accordingly which to your second point, this is something i find fascinating. he doesn't want yes-men yes women around. he is actually somebody who wants people to have different views. he wants to hear people's opinions about which path to

take and then he will act accordingly and also say maybe there's much more about the final piece of this maybe is that when he needs to make a decision, even though he's openly causes on issues like civil rights which can discuss. his legislative record is meager by the time he'skilled . but the cuban missile crisis, when virtually all of his advisers are counseling a military result. they are aggressive almost to a person. kennedy is seeking apolitical solution . he shows capacity to look at things from chris chad's perspective which is important. and that's an element ofhis leadership style . >> this question is why did you end in 56?

are you really going to be able to get all of the late 50s and his entire presidency in volume 2? that's a worried reader about your next one. >> i'm going to remember this question. whoever posted, that one will be seared in my brain. no, i'm committed to doing this. i think i can do it. of course, so much happens here. but the first volume, there's a lot about the life that he leads which helps the biographer, there's so much in the early volume also on his father. he's a huge figure in the book but i think the substance of yourquestion is a good one . i've got to deal with the amazing campaign which really begins by the way in 57 and the secret of jack kennedy's success at all levels of politics in that he starts

earlier than the competition and he works harder than the competition so i have to early in volume 2 deal with this flying around the country with ted sorensen speaking before tiny audiences on airport tarmac's with 12 people. and then of course ultimately it culminates in first the primary battle and the race against nixonand we haven't even gotten to the presidency . it's helped by the fact that this all ends really suddenly in the election of 63. i don't think george, my present plan is not to get deep into conspiracies. obviously i have to give my reader my view of what happened in dallas but i am saved in some space by keeping that. [inaudible] >> iave the same fear.

he's older than you and he's someone between 64 and68 lyndon johnson's presidency went to the sars and crashed back so i dot know how he's going to do i. we all do. >> so the viewer asks what led legends abt jfk can you either unnd or upend from the biography? are there any stories that you either could prove wrong or that you've learned and included that we don't know or what is there hidd deep in the archives at might raise our eyebrows and just something about young jfk ? >> part of it is what we've already discussed and maybe the viewers are wanting something more specific but i do think this is young jfk who this is one of his best

qualities by the way and jack, you talked about this . this curiosity , his interest in the world and what made people tick. so the young jfk is i think a more serious,more engaged individual . we've already talked about this but i ao say i think maybe that upend a myth which is that the illnesses which were real, some of them build guidance but number nonetheless he felt them. i think it meets theotion that they were acutely debilitating. but let me put it this way. this is a guy who despite from a young age was extraordinarily active d he served in the war. hehad to sort of fudge to get

into combat but with his ther's help he did . who runs this bruisi campaign in 46 where he works everybody. he often sleeps only three or four hrs a night . someone who is at death's door all the time that supposed to be so ill that he can barely function, he's able to do things so may i suggest that we shouldn't exaggete those scope, the importance of those illnesses . i'm not su that's wherethe question was going . >> this is a queson about what he knew about his n country. he seemed to know europe and the south pacific deeply from personal experience but as far as america go, he knew our harbor, did he know much about the country? what can you tell us about what he knew about the united

states and some of his views on our diversity and on the american people in all its diversity at thisstage in life ? >> i thinkt's pretty limited, his kwledge. he had not f example traveled much in the south before he became even a senar. and i write about the small number of say african-ericans for example that he interacts wit. but i don't believe he was persally prejudiced really. but it's also true that the wasn't really animated by the searing exriences that african-americans had. there was ample evidence all around.

i think that comes later and i'll talk about this involume 2 . i also would say that when he runs for president i1960 d he goes to places like west virginia and he goes to other parts of the country and he hasn't seen before and he sees the degree to which there are deep come disparities in the couny that i don think he had thought about fore, i think it's car fromots of evidence, contemponeous evidence that west virginia in particular made a huge impression on him, what he encountered and he came to appreciate the people there and had a chance totalk with em . i don't think that was so evident he for. i think whether can develop this early in vole 2, traveling around the country for the first time, he's seeing party hasn't seen before.

>> i think it's interesting that it was a book and really book review that brought hidden poverty to his attention in a big w. i called harringtons the other america and the white mcdonald's review in the new yorker . so that's how a cerebral, detached, non- populist. he was not a populist. you can compare him to fdrand say they were both patrician . they both suffered debilitating illnesses that made them better people and maybe better politicians, but somehow maybe because his career coincided with a period of osperity rather than the great depression, jfk was not, that wasn't what animated him. >> i think it's true andi'm glad you raised it because we haven't talked about the two in that way . i think i suggest somewhere in the book that was 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 . i think it's extraordinary that the kennedys were insulated from the great depression and rose kennedy said later in life that in terms of her marriage, that gives you a sense of how the kennedys didn't experience it and i think you're quite right jfk becomes of political age after as a result of the war and the aftermath. he doesn't see things in the same way fdr did. >> this question is today with the need r public service and commitment to democracy d courage feel so great, what of young jack leaves you hopeful that today's emerging generation can rise and makean impact ? >> i am hopeful.

i do think our younger geration can -- my own kids are an exampleof this but others can do this . i do think we need desperately for americans to reengage with civic life. we all need to dthis and i think it'sn example of jack kennedy and even a young jack kennedy helps us to do this. i hope this comes out in thosechapters of the book . i'm struck the degree to which in the m-19th or maybe the 19 363 38 when he's in undergraduate, he's asking large questions about the survival of democracy. it is democracy suited to this age, sponding to the authoritarian threats, can we do this. are there leaders who will draft the metal and accomplish this and he asks that even as an undergraduate

in some ways at the heart of the thesis . under bawin chamberlain he seems unable to prepare for war but it's ultimately i think a hopeful message and i guess this comes back to the question . he decides that democracy requires able leadership. more than that it requires citizenship, citizens who are informed, who take an interest inpolicy issues . who hold their leaders accountable and then four people themselves to be engaged. it seems to me the most powerful part. >> that's well said and 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 for attitudes of self learning and ambition.

those are two terms that both define kennedy. >> self learning and ambiti . that's perfect becausehe commits himself to that. it's hard to sayexactly when he does . but when he comes back after this great scourge that you talk about george in 1939, 's in some ways i think different. i think that senior year of college, weee that self-motivation and determination. and he becomes much more ambitious and ambition have to be a part of this, no question but i do think that it's about to respond to the question, it's an excellent questionfrom our 20-year-old . it's about interest in policy and public service and seeing how we can make things better

. jack kennedy says in oneof his papers, think he's a nior 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 and i should havechecked before we came on . that's what viewers of your age should think aboutbecause i think democracy is under threat . i'm worried about the current state of it and i thk it's going to require all of us to maybe especially your generation to commit yourself to the hard work involved in this. i have no doubt that democracy can work. it has to work in this country. and i'll say one other thing which maybe is controversial. it shouldn't be. i guess it's the argument fo not maybe necessarily centrist, it is argument for remembering to treat

political opponents as adversaries and not enemies and i think that's something kennedy committed himself t. seeing theerits of the arguments fromhe other side which is really the hard work for all of us. >> i wasoing to make the exact name pnt because we now live in a political media world where we're are rewarded for the instant victory and for wiping out your opponent and for you million them, really. and what is the point? what does anyone gain from that ? and as a journalist, i think there is a conneion to policy in that you always benefits from going out and talking whose perience is different from yours. and whose views are different from yours. and try to understand them.

you don't have to like it, you don't have to be friends and you don't have to approve of their views but you can make the effort to understand this is something obama has said and probably the mo kennedy asked president we had since kennedy. try to walk around in somebody else's shoes and then you will be able to se a better public servant. >> i think that's exactly rit . i think that joe biden at leashas talked in similar terms. he was criticized earlier this year for his primary opponents for the suggestion that ultimately we are going to have to reach out and we are going to have to bargain hard, not abandon our principles but bargain hard and i'll say also st it's a fully fascinating

convsation to meet and i talk about in the book is think in 55 , between jfk and his good frienand englishman named dick gore who is in the kennedy administration becomes ambassadors in the united states so they are friends right tothe end . you know, jfk's present in this conversation. i don't know if i'm cut out to be a politician. i too often see the merits of the guments on the other side . i too often therefore become a little bit uncertain about the argument. it's a very revealing conversation and as you say george in our day and age we don't talk in those terms. >> it would be interesting to see if biden, my analogy provided is much more lbj because he is the creature of the senate . he is a career politician. he's a world leader,e's a

centrist and yet he's coming in if he makes it at a moment when this may actually make him a really consequential president so that minor historical analogy isnd in a reflection of themoment we're in right now . simmer wanted to talk about his superb sense of form but it runs throughout this book in letters and in scenes", say something out that. >> it's true. i called him and you should have it inhe text but i have conan o'ben who has a marvelous littleessay about jfk's sense ofhumor . t o'brien says we have exactly two truly funny presidents. abram lincoln and john f. kennedy . he's right about that. it's not to say other presidents haven't had a see of humor but it's not as well developed as with these two.

i think it's an ironic sen, it's a kind of self-deprecating sense of humor which i think he used to great effect , maybe especially in the white house . i think he owned honed this particular skill and you see in some extent. there was a kind of absurd is quality to it at times as well . maybe in part, i'm sure this is inborn, people probably know more about this than i do, is partly inborn . it may also have somethingto do with these maladies that he had . that poking fun at them and not taking themselves too seriously. made sense, was also a winningstrategy, people like it . i can't fully explain came from but there's no question that it's there and its key tonderstanding. >> 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 committee alongside roy cohn? >> he certainly saw bobby's work as a political strategist, as a campaign manager, as somebody to run a campaign he saw it in spades. the campaign was kind of floundering, it looks like he's going to lose or at least is not well positioned and then this 26-year-old comeson , bobby and in part because he's quite a lot like the old man. just get 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, it's a more interesting question. i don't know how to answer this. i think he saw he was very devoted to his brother but the age gap was such when they were very young there's a trick in 51 that i write about in the far east which they become much closer. but i think he deeply admired his brother and i'm sure his father in the high which at somepot should run himself or 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 he should do and the faer wanted bobby to have acquisition. as mccarthy became more controversial and started doing more and more outrageous claim to be able problem but by then bobby is no longer in mccarthy's

employee if we put it that way but he was still very close. to me as more problems i think for jack politically but this is a very close knit family. this is not a family that screamed and yelled at each other so you don't see in the records i've seen any particular anger on jack's part about jack's continued loyalty tomccarthy . >> left and with this rather enigmatic question. i sense that the majority of jfk's thoughtsand ideas were never localized or discussed by him . another way a lot of his thinking remains unrevealed . that's what a lot about jfk, the real man, his thoughts and ideas we will probably never know. do you agree or disagree and this gets to that question we talked about at the start about having access to the inner life of a real person

who died 60 years, almost 60 years ago. >> 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 a littlebit more than some . his he's his mother's son in thisregard . he rose, very prolific in her letter writing and at least i found her biographers may disagree with me but i find her even with her letter writing a kind of voluminous correspondence. that's hard to penetrate the start and i can see it in this regard and i think there's some of that with jfk but i don't believe as i said when we started maybe this is a good place and. i don't think we can get to know jack kennedy. at various points in the story in volume 1, he writes

a lot. and i think is quite open and what he says in these matters including sometimes about himself. letters to his friends, also others. letters to and got our god, the communication between the two of them i think reveals a lot. it's going to be interesting involume 2 . >> he would be more guarded. >> i think he will be more guarded. i already know that 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 felt 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 first-hand

experience or does that generation pretty much disappear. >> it's pretty much gone the are a few. i've spokento some of them and some of the ones that i spoke with like richard goodwin , thlate dance and , are nolonger with us. i don't think there are many . i do thinkhe magnificent jfk library oforld history collection would he to be used with caution as all collections must be used with caution. i think it's 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 would rely more on those sadly the vehicle to talk with people face-to-face . >> i can't wait for thenext one but meanwhile , congratulations on a marvelous book that i wish all the successin the world . make it reach many tens of

thousands,hundreds of thousands of readers . and i want to thank the jfk library and the audience for joining us tonight and most of all frederik logevall for being one of the great historians and writers in america today. >> thank you george to have this opportunity with you given your work. if you have not seen or read our man you've got to get your hands on that book. and george's recent writings in the atlantic are a must read. it's been great to chat with you tonight. i want to thank the library. any folks in the library are thanked in my acknowledgments . i've said much more there but now we just need the doors to reopen . so some of us can get back into these marvelous collections. >> good night everybody. >> monday night on the communicators, netflix

founder and ceo ruth hastings and business professor karen meyer discussed the unorthodox workplace culture but behind one of the largest tech companies in the world and their book no rules rules, netflixand a culture of reinvention . >> .. to actively think independently, not just to implement their bosses wishes. >> watch "the communicators" on c-span2. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend.