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we look forward to a robust question-and-answer period this evening. you will see full instructions on screen for submitting your question via email 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 our distinguished speakers this evening. this is the first major work about president kennedy and many years we've been anticipating this for some time. much of professor frederik logevall's research took place in the kennedy library archives and we are pleased to learn more about this comprehensive new look at president kennedy's formative years. i'm delighted to introduce direct speakers, we are glad to welcome frederik logevall back to the kennedy library virtually, he is professor of international affairs and professor of history at harvard

university. specialist on u.s. foreign relations history and modern international history he's the author or editor of nine books including embers of war, which won the pulitzer prize for history and the francis portman products. jfk coming-of-age in the american century 1917 to 1956 as 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 man, richard holbrook, and the end of the american century of finest dominic finalist for the pulitzer prize to stop the unwinding 30 years of american decline, which won national book award. the assassins gate americans in iraq and blood of the liberals, he is also the author of two novels and a play in the editor of a two-volume edition of the essays of george orwell. legality welcoming our special guests. >> welcome everybody.

i hear there's at least a couple hundred of you which is fantastic. it will be a privilege and a pleasure to talk to frederik logevall today and get our heads out of the presence and out of the news for an hour or hour and and a half and into the past which is a great refuge as well as guide for us as we try to navigate one of the storm yesteryears in our lives. fred, i know you 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 and served in vietnam when i asked him what are the books i have to read on the war when i was researching my biography of richard holbrook who served and might vietnam said, that's easy, choosing war and embers of war by the same guy, frederik logevall, i knew you as if vietnam expert but now i know you really as

something broader as an american expert and as someone who shares a lot of interest with me in american history and foreign policy. it's great to get to talk to you about your completely engrossing and source owing, the word david kennedy used in the new york times book review, new biography of jfk. welcome, fred, and welcome to our audience. i guess the first question is inevitable but why another biography? there hasn't been a major one and some time but there are dozens. it takes a little foot spaãchut

why did you take this on? >> first off, george, tremendous to be with you and have this opportunity to talk with you about all of this, it occurred to me just now listening to you that in a way our two most recent books, mine and our man are kind of bookends because mine is really the beginning of the american century and yours is really more about the latter part of it if in fact maybe we can talk about that. great to be on with you.i think i've been fascinated by john f. kennedy and the kennedys for a long time. i had written about kennedy and other contexts especially related to the cold war in particular vietnam and in volume 2 which is still to come, the vietnam question of what i like to call the mother of all counterfactual's, what would he have done in vietnam had he survived, but will get attention. it's partly the interest in the kennedys, partly a sense that this hit me one day walking in harvard yard to write a book that was biography but 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, superpower status on jack kennedy's life, born in 17, the right as the u.s. is entering world war i, hugely important conflict of course, died in 63 which is arguably the zenith of american power in some ways, prior to the mass vietnam. it's those two things and maybe a third which that the materials in the library are just so phenomenal and i knew this the lobby hosting tonight's event are so good i thought a lot of them hadn't been tapped by a lot of people so there was something kind of fresh about them and then in a sense that the biography is out there but nobody is really done

the kind of comprehensive life and times i'm trying to do here. >> 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 other researchers graduate students of mine and others who said, incredible folders, files, documents in the library some of them used, a lot of them haven't been used all that much and that of course stuff that's come available but it was partly because of my own private research, no question. >> you actually zeroed in on documents you already knew where there once you commit yourself to this project. like you said, i'm going to box 291 because i know what's there and no one has ever used it.

>> obviously some of this in terms of specific collections and specific folders i had to see them myself and see them up close. before i have this sense. but i knew david nassau terrific biography of joe senior i was able to, as historians we all do this, we look in the endnotes and see what other people have done, i could see what david and a few other people have done in particular collections, seven him some of them haven't been open and available prior to that work. and then one of the marvelous things about the library even though i think a relatively small percentage of the libraries collections have been digitized, nevertheless some great stuff, anybody can act service from their couch there is stuff available that you can see without having to darken the doorways of the library but

it's a great collection. >> how did you approach the genre of biography, i don't think you had written one. it's not the same thing as the history of a war or the history of even two years decision-making about the war, it's more of i would say a little closer to the problems that confront a novelist because you have to fill the book with characters and especially one character and bring that character to life and i think all the harder everyone thinks they know that character. how did you approach the genre the unknown genre of biography what models do you use or what guidance do you give yourself

as you figure out how to research and write it? >> it so interesting, especially given that you yourself authored novels so you have a sense of what you are describing it's totally fascinating, i think you are right, history and biography are not the same thing. i've come to realize just how different they are in some ways. they are also important similarities it's about finding evidence it's about trying to figure out what happened in this case it's centered on a particular life but there are similarities here between virtual work and the work i've done previously. they are all so different. i think i have been fascinated by the kennedys it is in some ways the great american stories this family is an extraordinary one beginning and begin the book with the arrival of the kennedys and fitzgeralds in the

19 part of this century ãb first part of the 19th century. joe's rise, joe senior and then this huge family this marriage to rose, jack who was a sickly child emerges from this. i won't say that i thought the story would write itself, turns out they never do, but i 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. as i said, kind of both telling two narratives at the same time, both the kennedy story and america's story. can i just briefly toss this 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 and to our man? >> i had a different problem,

which was richard holbrook by the time my book came out was a fading figure in american foreign policy. kind of dominated on many news events in his lifetime but he was not on the scale of jfk, not close. he actually first went under the foreign service under jfk 's call to service that inspired holbrook to join the foreign service. i thought that i 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. and began ãbi began my book about holbrook in the voice of a novelist even though the book has 35 pages of notes and as accurate as i could probably make it, holbrook i knew him as

if you are about to hear a long yarn by ãbthat's the voice that carries the entire book. it gave me a ton of freedom to do things that traditional biographies don't do but always within the guidelines of the contract with the reader which is that it all has to be true. i try to make it sound like a good yarn you would want to sit down and hear through a long night of storytelling. >> you and i have talked about this but i think it succeeds just marvelously when we were on chris lightens a show together was great to talk about this. one thing if i may, you say in early pages which i thought about and which would be fun to talk about a little bit, i'm paraphrasing i didn't have a chance to look at this before we came on but you 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 is somewhat elusive some people warned me early on you'll never be able to really get close to this guy because of that nature that he has, he had some of his mother's emotional ãbi think you are so right in this and yet i hope readers will have to tell me whether i'm right about this 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 wrote this to you personally and 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 that this is engrossing, it's a page turner and that's because you are

always right there in the middle of a scene or very close to the characters and yes of course he's ironic and detached and always observing his own 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. two things at once. his story begins the month before we enter world war i. this is an interesting parallel to mine because holbrook was born in 1941 which is the other 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 beginning in 1917 and what that means for our understanding of america's

rise to global power. >> i think it might've been ernest made the late great harvard historian member of this department that i'm now in i think it might've been ernie who wrote, and this struck me at the time i was a graduate student, something like this, we think of the american century beginning in 1940 or 41 or conceivably you could say maybe the late 30s, some might say 1945 which i think would not be correct. ernie said no in fact america's contribution to the war in 1917 and 1918 was formidable because of the degree to which the european powers were decimated by that great consecration, though it wasn't fully evident at the time europeans

understood it was only a matter of times before the americans would be dominant on the world stage in a sense there was a delay in the 20s and 30s that american-statesman leaders were not quite sure what they wanted to do, i write a little bit about this in the book. did they want the responsibilities of leadership? maybe not. but i still feel comfortable in saying that 1917 is absolutely critical to the american century for two reasons, u.s. entry into the war and then of course the bolshevik revolution which became so crucial later on and crucial to jack kennedy's wife. >> basically the cold war that defined kennedy's public life began in 1917 and the two powers of the cold war there trajectory in collision with each other began in 1917. >> you can certainly make that argument. i think we would say and i

sometimes say to my students i often asked question about end of the cold war began and if you look at the characteristics of the cold war, which i also have them do i say how many characteristics were present in 1970, turns out only two or three of them were. one might be a deep ideological schism, but some things we associate with the cold war, which is the great arms race for example, suppression of internal dissonance, some of that we see right after world war i in the united states and of course also the soviet union a bipolar world structure as opposed to a multipolar world structure, some of those things might not be present in 19 17 but i've had very smart students interesting students make a pretty compelling case for 1917 as the start date of the superpower confrontation. >> you have a preconception about jfk going into this?

did you have a picture of them you were going to draw or did you begin relatively agnostic and come to your pictures through the research? >> i think i had a sense, that's really interesting question, i think i had a sense even when i began from my work in no china and the fact that he had visited in 1951. >> which is the beginning of embers of war. >> the beginning of embers of war when he goes and asks all these penetrating questions about what the french are trying to achieve. i think i had a sense that the common view of young jack kennedy as a kind of playboy who had everything handed to him, was a very serious about everything, and only later became the mature striving politician. i had a sense that was maybe not correct and i think the

research i did in the materials in the library are so marvelous i think show beyond a doubt this is a guy who from an early age is serious about policy, deeply curious about the world. so that sort of and a half answer i guess it suggesting i had an inkling of what i wanted to do but the research supports. >> some of the most riveting pages are young jack's trip to europe in 1939 when europe is moving rapidly toward war and he is having a mix of a kind of rich boys vacation along with access to the most important counselor government all across the continent, churchill,

chamberlain, hitler, doesn't he see hitler give a speech? >> to his regrets he never did, he was there at limb billings first and 37 they had an opportunity to hear him at nuremberg and they decided not to do it. then they said we should have gone. but and 39 nevertheless almost like a valid quality to the degree to which he shows up in these places that become hotspots. i open the book i open the preface with him in berlin in late august 1939 and he even carries a message from the u.s. counselor official, the ambassador had left but the senior diplomat in berlin gives him a message to carry back to his father who is the ambassador in britain, joe kennedy senior, the message says the germans are going to attack poland within a week. so you have this kind of

intrepid guy he certainly benefiting from his father's connections he wouldn't be able to travel these places and see these people ever joe senior, who was already ambitious his two sons in particular the two eldest sons it's also jfk's own early striving and motivation. >> let's talk about his parents and the relation to them, when i said earlier i felt i understood his character much better from your book this is really especially his relationship with his father. the relationship of his mother is distant and i wouldn't be the first to say maybe the source of some of his misogyny because his mother let him down she wasn't around for a lot of his childhood. of course his father wasn't either but the mother was

expected to be in the father was not. his father comes across, joe kennedy comes across let's just say he made me feel like kind of a lame father because he just constantly arranging activities and events and everyday schedules and working to go yachting in the morning play football in the afternoon then we will discuss current events at dinner and a reading at night. he's incredibly involved in his many children's lives and incredibly devoted to them. that seems to me to be the core relationship for jack kennedy growing up. is that right? >> i think it ultimately is. think you describe it really well. i think it's an extraordinary aspect of joe kennedy senior persona and it's a really interesting example of this which is that joe kennedy in 1934 ã35, heading up the fcc

in washington, he's heading up an important new government entity yet he appends these long letters, these handwritten letters to jack in his last year at the prep school. he sends long letters handwritten to joe junior who is already at harvard, the younger children , it strikes me that these is a guy that somehow managing important government policy, nevertheless instructing his children, trying to mold his children, in particular the signs he's more concerned, it's quite clear, about then especially the two elders. whatever people may say about joe kennedy as a businessman, diplomat, ultimately disastrous turn as ambassador to britain, we can talk about that, this 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 then she sometimes is given. i think he gets his historical sensibility more from her bed from his father. he's actually more like his mother in many ways than like his father. his international sensibility comes in part from her i suggest in the book. as you say, george, she is emotionally withdrawn, she leads a kind of separate life through all of his illnesses at category, his first school children she never pays a visit she comes once to canterbury, she never comes to choke, meanwhile she takes extended vacations by herself including to europe. and i think that was hard for him i think he was adjusted. >> you also said at one point that what you expect from a woman whose husband is

flagrantly cheating on her throughout their marriage? and humiliating her by bringing mistresses home for dinner and of course she's going to withdraw, the alternative is to fight all the time and maybe leave and those are not alternatives she wants to inflict on herself or her family and they go against her religion. the way out is emotional withdrawal i think that's exactly right. i think that they, i suggest in the book they have a kind of arrangement which is that he's gonna be more discreet in his affairs then maybe he was early on. and she is going to look the other way and i think that's what happens he has a notorious affair with gloria swanson in hollywood and i think on some levels he comes to realize i can't continue to do this but you are so right, george, when you think about what she has to

endure and when you think about his view of objectifying women seeing them as objects to be conquered. it's a hard environment for her. >> it wasn't simply handed to him last instructions about how to be a man by his father. he is his own boy and man in a way that is an extremely attractive. he's 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 donald trump junior. he fights for his own path even

while never causing too much trouble. 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. and going from the materials which were so rich but all materials all archival materials all other kinds of evidence the oral history collection of the library which is magnificent. they can't reveal everything. i think what we see as somebody who because he was bedridden a lot with his various elements and continues. >> he became the family reader

and devoured especially european history and statecraft and diplomacy he was an early fan to say the least, voice of churchill. i think the ambition at least comes in part from him realizing maybe i can do something similar here he's also got his maternal grandfather honey fitzgerald which is a legendary boston politician and the two of them are extremely close, quite different as politicians, jack is much more reserved, much more ordained, scholarly in his approach than his grandfather but i think there is also that that grandpa fits i can aspire 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 likes politics and i think

he likes politics precisely because he thinks politics matter, politics is important. i think from a pretty early age before joe junior was killed in the war he's already thinking to himself and to a particular girlfriend he was close to anger ourãbinga, maybe i want t pursue a political career. it's those things in part that bring in the serious quality to him early on.>> and it's not as though when joe junior was 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 he was. >> 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 are in the oval office and your generals are telling you that you need to start world war iii with the soviet union. >> i think it's right and i think that joe junior 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 i 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 younger brother he had his own reasons for running and as you suggest i think he had a better claim, he had already authored a book, a lightly revised version of the senior

thesis and really rubs joe junior the wrong way because he was used to being primus ãin 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 seek in 1946 it's not his father's decision to seek a house seat, that's ultimately jfk's own. >> tell us how his mind as a practitioner of statecraft, 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 who is president it seems to me those of the key years so tell us what happened and how they

affected him. 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 what the materials in the library and elsewhere show about precisely this period. i think what happens is that he gets to harvard, he begins in 1936 he's had effectively a gap year he is a year older than most of his classmates in the class of 1940. the student body is pretty heavily isolated and continues to be so right up until the end and i think he buys into that, his father becomes ambassador britton 38 and a kind of arch appeaser even more so than chamberlain himself.

this is the distinction between him and his brother. joe junior i think is never comfortable outside his father's shadow so he parents his father really right to the end and what's fascinating to me is to observe little by little jack kennedy a more complex and crowded world than either his father or his older brother to see the problems with the kind of narrow parochial naturalism to see the threat posed by both the japanese and the germans and it's hard to say exactly when but certainly before pearl harbor the early part of 41 i think he's a confirmed

internationalist that shift and growth in view i think is totally interesting. and then finally i will just say that is on war experience of the south pacific and 43 is important here in affirming for him, it affirms for a young jack kennedy that the united states has to play leaving world affairs. i think that's a question for him has been settled in for his mates they have these long discussions i think he comes back from the war affirmed in that belief he also comes back skeptical about the military as an instrument of policy. i think you see in his letters home which are really interesting a sense that military leadership may not be a contradiction in terms but i think he is skeptical of that i think we see, i will see if i

can develop things or if it should be developed into volume 2 but you see it really way and some ways through the end of his life. if those two. >> it's interesting because it may be, he's lieutenant he was the young officer but he was not someone for whom was unstrapped because the headquarters he was out there getting shot up. because the whole generation of officers became the overconfident generals of vietnam who thought that america had nothing to worry about with these ãin black pajamas because we fought the nazi war machine, the nazi war machine, this is actually nothing we in 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. i have a feeling it might've been the experience in the south pacific but also his nature to be skeptical to look 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 see ourselves. all of that seems to be there at a very young age and i'm sure we will be able to trace it straight through to the crucial years in the white house. >> i think that is so well put. i think partly because of his elements, partly because of the tragedies he suffered, he

effectively lost rosemary to botched horrible lobotomy in late 41, the sister who is closest to him and age only about 18 months apart loses his brother in 44, later loses his closest siblings, kathleen or kip but i think it goes to your point e they had a sense that life was fraught. he had a well-developed sense of irony, kind of self-deprecating humor i think then combined with, as you say, the experience in the south pacific he came back i think with the 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 absolutely colossal in what it can do and achieve, so i think

you are 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 there are a lot of women in this book, they go quickly most of them. he is a hound dog, he is constantly writing letters to his friends about having just bedded this nurse or failed to bed this nurse and then a ton of girlfriends that come and go. some of them he seems really smitten with especially inga, others are clearly instruments for pleasure and maybe a bit of narcissism. how do you as a biographer, you

don't spare him, you definitely don't spare him but his treatment of women in the worst moment is when his wife jackie has a miscarriage and he's off sailing off in the french riviera, if i'm not mistaken, finally gets back maybe a week or two later. it's pretty unforgivable. it's hard to want to stay with him. how did you handle that fraught material. you don't hold back, and you make it possible for us to go on wanting to know the next chapter. >> i think it's a challenge and i think it will be a bigger challenge and frankly in volume 2. i don't think as his first response i don't think that the behavior in the period up to 1956 is predatory, if that's the right word here.

there isn't the position of power, i guess there is already a power differential but i suspect not having researched this fully or written volume 2 i think this is going to become more problematic in volume 2 but it's already problematic. some of this clearly comes from his father. i think we have ample evidence he instructed his sons to proceed in the way he did and in view women as objects to be conquered, there is no question about that. he was unfaithful to jackie before the wedding and after and i can't have it both ways. i can't on the one hand say he is his own man and politics he

does not follow his father's dictates in terms of its political precisions or which office to seek or which career to choose, he is his own man. or whether to support isolationism versus interventionism before pearl harbor. if we make 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 doesn't have at least again as far as i can see, some of the more problematic elements that we would see with joe senior who sometimes asks about ãbasks out jack's girlfriends, if you can imagine. >> nor can we see it was a different time back then. this is the more i would even use the word pathological attitude toward women. i wonder at times i got a little with it's not hatred, at least disdain dehumanizing eyes

toward them as if i don't need to treat you the way i would treat my gay friends to whom jack after rejecting his advances as a loyal friend for the rest of their lives. his sister is difference she's like an honorary guy but you don't get that treatment. i wonder if there is something darker than just he respects her intelligence and sort of is envious of the fact that she speak so many languages and been to so many places. she's clearly super sharp and they have these conversations

some of them picked up by the fbi. because she is under surveillance in which you see some of them go at it intellectually. intellectually in a way that i think you are correct ãbquite right you there are some other exceptions. ultimately jackie, though there are lots of rocky moments she's very formidable. he comes to 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 at the same way himself. there might be a certain, how did you put it, loathing or ãb there's something there that's problematic, no question. >> becomes a member of the house from cambridge ãbthen

he gets elected to the senate and all of it leads to his wonderful set piece that the book ends with which is the 56 convention when jack comes within a whisker of being adlai stevenson's vice presidential candidate which may have been a bullet dodged rather than an opportunity missed. what you make of kennedy the politician in those years? what did you learn about him and what struck you, he doesn't seem presidential material in the early going. he seems hard-working, curious, all of that there isn't that quality that you just

immediately say this guy is going to go to the top and yet obviously is going to get to the top. how do you describe him as a politician who saw domestic politics as what was the word, sewer contracts. mainly interested in world affairs. >> i think that's right and it's pretty clear from the time he enters the house in 47 that that foreign policy is where he's most interested in where he feels the most comfortable during the campaign and 46 this skinny 29-year-old who's got to get the nomination once he gets the nomination he's home free but that nomination is a ferocious one. you see even then that he's comfortable talking about the emerging cold war, that he left not really a reality but it's emerging. and other international issues, by the way, quite already penetrating insightful and

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 i think is president but doesn't have the same engagement that all with domestic issues. i think he's fundamentally liberal on most issues, not so much fiscal issues but more conservative. is quite conservative on foreign policy. i suggest in the book that he is an early cold warrior. he does not see an opportunity for accommodation when henry wallace argues for the need to try to smooth things over with the soviets, jfk is pretty caustic in swatting down the notion. interestingly here, a side note, joe kennedy senior, i think david niosa brings us out of his biography, maybe's lessons are junior brought this up but joe kennedy articulated

a position that more than a few cold war historians articulate witches the soviets are going to invade anybody.the soviets are not a threat to the united states in terms of an extra special existence.we can take a hands-off approach here, that's joe kennedy senior, his son felt very differently at the time, which is a fascinating between the two. >> interesting instance he goes to vietnam in 1951 and this is the opening of your wonderful book "embers of war", and he asks all the right questions and wants to see for himself and what he sees as if the french are fighting a losing war and why should that be our war that why are we defending a colonial empire? we are the world's hope for democracy. but my the mid-50s he is taking a more hawkish view about

vietnam as a threat giving speeches in which you have to really hold the line against communism right there at the parallel before north and south vietnam. it's the great paradox about jfk and indochina which i think is, i think this will be the thread in volume 2 as well is that i don't think his skepticism with george about a military solution in vietnam ever goes away. i think it's fair from 51 it's fair to november 1963. in fact, we have a lot of evidence of him in the white house rejecting hawkish advice from his aides when they want to send ground troops and so on. it's one of the reasons why in terms of the what if's, though we can never know, i do believe if he had survived he would've avoided most likely that he

would've avoided the kind of huge open-ended escalation that ã [multiple speakers] >> that is a passage i read fervently because you earned the right to say that but i will be curious to see if you still think after writing volume 2. >> the paradox, that part of this, the paradox is as you say, the same jack kennedy as we get into even the mid-50s but especially late 50s is much more aggressive, he is careful he's a very careful politician careful in terms of his language, very reasoned approach to all policy issues but, as you say, he now sings a different tune on vietnam and indochina and supporters of the government himself he believes that the united states must

preserve, do all in its power to preserve a non-communist south vietnam. figuring out how this guy who understood so early that western powers whether it be france or the united states, he said that he said any western power 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 the soft on communism slogan maybe that's the explanation of the paradox. however we explained it it's there.>> and it's going to be a major tension in volume 2 because even though i think you've convinced me that if kennedy had lived we would not have had 200,000 troops in vietnam within two years of his

63, nonetheless, he got us in deep. he draws in 15,000 advisors and overthrew the government of south vietnam. in ways he made well may have while corrected his own mistakes but how much domestic politics has to do with that. the fear of the democratic president faced with hawks in his own government and the opposition party i would be really interested to see what we learned during volume 2. we will take questions about five minutes. the only point in your book that i stumbled at all was it when kennedy dominic david kennedy mentions in his wonderful review in this week's new york times book review those are in the period the question of authorship of

profiles he looked at both of them carefully. tell us why i might be wrong in thinking that jfk deserves more of 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 notes or profiles encouraged he didn't write the book page for page. take each of those please. >> i don't know whether the first part is something i should be admitting before a live audience as it were but when you read this, george, more than in draft it was in galley form and you pointed out the mccarthy bit i said i

needed to tweak this a little bit. i need to try to somehow address this. is there time? the people at random house were absolutely marvelous up and down the line, i have such a wonderful publisher but they said we can do this. in response not into your satisfaction. >>. [multiple speakers] >> i haven't got the finished book. >> because of how late we were i could only do a few words change a few sentences but suffice it to say that i think you are right. i think 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 joe senior who

loved, we haven't talked about bobby tonight yet.bobby was close to mccarthy and would remain close. he flew to wisconsin for mccarthy's funeral. you remain devoted to him some ways to the end. expertly about massachusetts politics irish catholics constitute a large part of the electric. interest in comparison to our own day right through to the end beyond the censure or at least through the censure and 54 of joe mccarthy public opinion survey after public opinion survey showed that he had the support of roughly 40% of the electorate. i don't want to draw the comparison too closely but it's interesting how even after the senate begins to move, 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 sorensen, he was in the hospital for legitimate reasons so those authors who said he wanted to the hospital to dodge mccarthy vote i think that's not true but he could have through a procedure called pairing he could've instructed sorensen to vote and he should have. why he didn't is interesting. here's another quick thing about this, and 56 at the aforementioned democratic national convention he had a meeting with eleanor roosevelt and mrs. roosevelt basically said, and i'm paraphrasing, what gives? why don't you come up against mccarthy? and what i puzzle over, maybe you have an explanation of this i don't write about this in the book i thought about it i think i have a paragraph and then erased it. why would he not in the summer of 56 when attacking joe mccarthy is easy the guy is a suspense force he is gone, why would jack kennedy not say to

mrs. roosevelt yeah i didn't like the guy, i don't think he ever liked mccarthy personal and political terms, even then, however, he doesn't want to criticize mccarthy and i can't quite figure that out. >> 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 dead to reject his father that way. 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 politicians.

ã [multiple speakers] >> when it came to 1960 they celebrated kennedy's election but he was not their man and he never was there a man and it was really because of the mccarthy period. i think for a lot of liberals that was true. i think they 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 will say one other thing quickly to stop for a minute about ãband that is that it's worth noting that the democratic party as a whole including liberal stalwarts like hubert humphrey for very long time were unwilling to criticize mccarthy. you have to go pretty far into 54 to see broad parts of the party began to go after him at

any serious way. kennedy is not alone in this regard and ãbsenior senator from massachusetts republican is just as cautious if not more so than jack kennedy. he's not alone in this on profiles encouraged so we can open this up for others, i guess here you and i differ a little bit. i think the evidence is pretty powerful that the broad architecture of the book, the themes of the book, the argument which i think has salience in our own day and part about the need for evidence-based discourse for bargaining in good faith, and ultimately for compromise and democracy but those arguments those themes are jack kennedy's, ted sorensen is way too young at 25 or 26, he's

knocking 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 than kennedy's notes. that's basically his work. had he not won the pulitzer prize, i don't think this would've ever been an issue. ...... 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. but i guess i'm suggesting thisser more jack kennedy's book

than perhaps you are allowing. >> well, before we go to question is don't want to end on that minor disagreement. i want our audience to know that we haven't even really talk about the way the book ends but it's a marvelous account of a condition convention that was no a great convention but the '56 democratic convention you see jack kennedy at his absolute best because he is maneuvering and showing he knows how to play the game and also 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 from then. >> i'll just say to folks. 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 on youtube, an amazing clip. if folks are interested in this and he has come so close, just multiples before, to getting the nomination. 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 said, let's good, go to podium and he gives this speech, and it's an amazing moment. >> and a great ending and makes you eager to -- for fred logevall to get to volume two and finish volume two. let's to a few questions. some are question is would have wanted to ask so i'll allow others to ask them.

what were -- this comes from someone in columbia how would you define this leadership style and how does it apply to today's world challengesful you touched on that briefly, fred. what more do you have to say about that? >> i think it's a leadership style characterized by an' absolute insis citizen on his part that he himself and his aides need to be well informed on the issues. he had very little patience for advisers and others who didn't know their stuff down to the details. so it's a leadership style that is about becoming informed on an issue and then acting accordingly. which leads me to the second point. this is something i find admirable. he is not -- doesn't want yes men and yes women around here. he is actually somebody who wants people to have different

views. he wants to hear people's opinions pout which path to take, and then he will act accordingly. i'll also say maybe theirs much more to desaid but the final piece of this is when he needs to make a decision, even though he is overly cautious on issues like civil rights which we can discuss, his legislative record is fairly meager by the time he is killed. i think the cuban missile crisis, when virtually all of his advisors are couping a military -- counseling a military response, aggressive almost to a person, kennedy is seeking a political solution. he shows enough capacity to look at things from khrushchev's perspective which is really important, and that is an element of his leadership style, too.

>> this question is, why did you end in '56? are you really going to be able to get all of the late 50s, the the election and the president presidency. >> i'll remember that question. whoever posed it, that one will be seared in my memory. i am committed to doing this. i think i can do it. it's seven years of his life, and of course, so much happens in those seven years. but the first volume, there's a lot also that happens. it's an extraordinarily varied life he leads which helps me as a biographer. the story is remarkable and so much in the early volume also on his father. he is himself a huge figure in the book and self -- several others about the subtext of your question is a good one. have to deal with the amazing campaign, which begins in '57, a

secretive jack kennedy's success at all levels of politicses he starts earlier than the competition and works harder than the competition so i have to -- earlier volume dealing with live in around the country with ted southernson and speaking to tiny audiences a airport tarmacs for eight people and 1 people, and then culminates in the first primary battle in '60 and then the race against nixon and we haven't even gotten yet to the presidency. i guess i'm helped by the fact -- it's terrible thing to say -- but this all ends suddenly in november of 1963. and i don't think, george, my present plan is not to get deep into the conspiracy or deep into the -- obviously i have to give the reader me view of what happened in dallas but maybe i save some space by keeping that pretty limited.

>> well, have the same fear for robert carrow except the is older than you is some ways even more -- i mean between '64 and '68 lyndon johnson's presidency went to the spars and then crashed back to earth. so i hope it happens soon. >> we all do. >> so, a viewer asks, what lemming jeopardy about young jfk do you unwind or upend from the biography? any stories you either could prove wrong or that you learn 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 but young jfk. >> part of it is what we have already discussed and maybe the view is wanting michigan more specific but i do think --

wanting something more specific but i think young jfk who is -- one of his best qualities and jackie talked bit this after his death. his curiosity. his interest in the world and what made people tick. so the young jfk is, i thing, more serious, more engaged individual than we have dom believe. we already talked about this. also say i think maybe i upend a myth which is that the illnesses which were real, some of them ill diagnosed but nevertheless he felt them, i think i upend the notion that they were acutely debilitating. let me put is this way. this aguy 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 runs this producing campaign in '46 where he outworks everybody, often sleeps only the or four or five hours a night. somehow this guy who is supposed be at death's door all the time and supposed to be so ill that he can barely function, he is able to do these things and maybe i suggest that we shouldn't exaggerate the scope. the importance of those illnesses. those come to mind. >> this is a question about what he knew about his own country. seemed to know europe and the south pacific deeply from personal experience, but as far as america goes, he new brookline and river dale and harvard and palm beach. did he know much about the

country? the question is what can you tell new how much jfk knew about the vast nation that was the united states and is fob know his views on our diversity on the american people and all their diversity at this stage of his life. >> i think it's really in question. think it's pretty limited his knowledge. maybe seen this and 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 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 him. that comes later -- i'll talk put this in volume 2 -- i also would say it's when he runs for president in 1960 and he goes to places like west virginia and he goes to other part of the country hat he hadn't seen before and he sees the degree to which there are deep income disparitieses in the country he don't thing we thought but before. it's clear from lots of evidence, contemporaneous evidence that west virginia in particular made a huge impression on him, and he came to appreciate the people 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 but traveling

around the country for the first time really he is seeing lots of parts 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 in a big way. michael harrington's the otherrers and then dwight mcdonald's review in the new yorker. that's a cerebral, detach -- let was not a populist and you can compare him to fdr and they were both patricians and both suffered debilitating illnesses that made them better people and maybe better politicians, but somehow maybe because his career conceded with a period of prosperity reason than the great depression, jfk was not -- that wasn't what animated him. >> he thick it's true and i'm glad you raised that because we

haven't talked but the two of them in that way. i thick suggest in the book that he was never -- what's the word -- never really engaged by the fdr knock. never connected with him in some way that lot of other people did. i think it's extraordinary the degree to which the kennedys are instance lated from the great depression. rose kennedy said latest in life that one of the best period of her life was the early 1930s, and gives you a sense how the kennedy decide not experience, and jfk bosks political aim after this fish resident of the war and the aftermath and doesn't see things in the same way that fdr does. >> right. this question is, today when you meet for public service and commitment 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. >> i am hopeful. i do think that our younger generation can -- i own kid or an example of this and also others -- can do this. 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, helps us to do this. hope this comes out in those chapters of the book. i'm struck by the degree to which in the mid-19 -- maybe the 1936-37-38 when he is an undergraduate, he is asking large questions about the survival of democracy. is democracy suited to this age, responding to the authoritarian threats, can we do this? there are leaders who will

accomplish this and he is asking that even as an undergraduate, and the thesis, it's in some ways -- that's the heart of the thesis, i why british under baldwin and championer lynn seemingly unable to prepare for war but it's ultimately a hopeful message. i think he decides that the democracy 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 to enter public service and be engaged. that's the most powerful part of legacy. >> that's really well said and connects to a question that just came from 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 or two interesting terms that both apply to kennedy. >> self-learning and ambition. 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 talk about, george, in 1939, he is in some ways i think different. i think that senior year of college, we see that self-motivation and determination to succeed and he becomes much more ambitious. ambition has to be part of this no question, but i do think that it's about to respond to the question, an excellent question from our 20-year-old friend -- it's about taking an interest in policy, which it sounds like you

already have, and public service, and seeing how we can make things better. jack kennedy says in one of his papers, i think he is 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. i think democracy irunder threat. i'm word bit this 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. shouldn't be. i guess it's an argument for if not maybe necessarily centrism.

it is an argument for remembering to treat political opponents as adversaries and not enemies and that's something that kennedy committed himself. so if seeing the merits of the arguments on the other side which is really hard for all of us, don't get me wrong. >> i was going to make the exact same point because we now live in a political 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 game from that -- gain from that? and as a journalist i think there's connection to politics and you always benefit from going out and talking to people

whose experience is different from yours and white house views are different and to try to understand them, try to hear them. you don't have to like it. don't have to be friends, don't have to approve of their views but you need to make that effort to understand, which is something obama has said and probably the most kennedy-esque president 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 -- i think that joe biden at least has talked in similar terms and he was criticized earlier this year from his then-primary opponents for this suggestion, that it matily we are going to have to -- ultimately we have to reach out and bargain hard north abandon principals bull bargain

hard. i'll say totally fascinating conversation to me that i talk about in the book is i think in '55, between jfk and his in friend and englishman named david ornsby-gore, who booms ambassador at the out and they're friends to the end. jfk says in this conversation, i don't know if i'm cut out to be a politician because i too often see the merits of the argument on the other side. too often therefore back little bit uncertain about the arguments on my own side. and it's a very revealing conversation, and as you say, george in our day and age we don't talk no those terms. >> right. exactly. it will be interesting to see if biden -- my analogy for biden is much more lbj because he is a creature of the senate, he is a career pol, wheeler dealer,

centrist, and yet he is coming in, if he makes it, a at moment when history may actually mack him a consequential president. that's my little historical analogy. the election and the moment we're in right now. one audience member wants you to talk about his superb sense of humor which we haven't talked about but runs all through this book. in his letters and themes and quotes, say something but that, what kind of humor was it. >> it's true. i quote and -- i should have it in the text but i have conan o'bryan who has a marvelouses stay but jfk's sense of humor but o'brien says we have 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 of humor but not as well as

developed at we see with these two. it's an ironic sense of humor, kind of self-deprecating sense of humor he used to great effect specially in the white house. he honed this skill, and you see it to some extent earlier, too it was an absurdist quality to it as times as well. maybe in part i'm sure this is in-born -- people can know who know more can explain so it it's partly i'm sure inborn and have something to do with the maladies he had, and that poking fun at them and not taking himself too seriously made sense, was also 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 pout 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 certainly saw bonny's worth as a political strategist, as campaign manager, somebody to run a campaign. he saw in spades in '52. the campaign kind of -- floundering against henry cabot lodge, going to lose or not well-positioned and then this 26-year-old comes on, bobby, and in part because he is quite a lot like the old man, just gets the thing right on track and i think it's hard to overstate how important bobbies as a manager and as a shrewd and kind of

ruthless operative. when he sees bobby's potential as a politician is a more interesting question. i don in -- don't know i have gd answer he able games such when they were young they were not particularly close. there's trip in '51 at the far east including vietnam which they become much closer but i think he deeply admired his brother and i'm sure saw that his is a guy who at some point should run himself for office. how he felt but bobby's devotion to mccarthy and his service on mccarthy's committee issue think that early on he was very much inclined to let bobby do what he felt like he should do and a good career move for bobby if the father wanted bobby to have the position i think at mccarthy became more controversial and doing more and more outrageous things it became

a problem. by then bobby is no longer at mccar their's employ, but he was still very close to joe mccarthy. that creates more problems, i think, for jack politically, but this is a very close knit family. not a family that screams and yells at each other and so you don't see at least in the records i've seen, any particular anger on jack's part about that continued loyalty on bobby's part to mccarthy. >> let end with this rather ening mat tick question. sense the majority of jfk's thoughts and ideas were never vocalized or discussed by him. a lot of his thinking remained unrevealed. therefore there's lot about jfk the real man, his thoughts and idea, that are mystery and will probably never know. do you agree or disagree and this gets to that question when we taj about at the very start,

how a biographer can have access to the life of a real person who died 60 years -- almost 60 years ago. >> i think it's very perceptive question. i do think that he does keep a part of himself secret. think we all do but maybe he does it's little bit more than some. he is his mother's son in this regard because rose very prolific in her letter-writing, at least i found, and there have been accident biographies on this so their biographers may disagree but i find her even with her letter writing and the voluminous correspondence, and hi and think there's interest of -- some of that with jfk but i still believe -- maybe this a good place to en -- i think we can get to know jack kennedy.

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, including sometimes about himself, letters to his friends, maybe in particular lem billings, and letters to inga reveal as lot. it's going to be interesting in volume two. >> hell will be more guarded. >> i think he will be more garde. 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's surprised me the degree do which i felt like i could get at the young jfk. >> there are people still alive who were adults when he was

alive and who can tell you their first hand experience or is that generation pretty much disappeared. >> it's pretty much gone. there are few and i've spoken to some of them, and some of the ones i spoke with, the late richard goodwin, the late dan sand, are no longer with us. i don't think there are many. i do think that the magnificent jfk library, the oral collection, has to be used with cautions as all collections mls be used with caution. i think it 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 on being able to talk to people face to face. >> i can't wait for the next one but meanwhile, congrats on a

marvelous book that it wish off the success in the world. main it reaches hundreds of thousands of readers, 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 historians and writers in america today. >> well, thank you, george to have this opportunity with you, given your work and if you have not seen-not read our man, you have to get your hands on that book. george's recent writing in the atlantic or must read. it's been great to chat with you tonight. i, too want to thank the library. many folks in the library thanked in my acknowledgments. now we need the doors to re-open so some of us can get back into those marvelous collections. >> okay. good night everybody. >> take care.

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