"c-span2". every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors for unit book tv on "c-span2", created by americans cable television company. today you by the television company. to provide book tv to viewers as a public service. >> good evening. i'm director of the jon f. kennedy presidential library and museums. on behalf of my library and foundation collects, i'm delighted to welcome all of you are watching tonight's program online. thank you for joining us this evening. i would also like to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the kennedy library. the sponsors and bank of america intermediate sponsors, the boston globe and wbur. i look forward to a robust question-and-answer period this evening. for instructions on the screen for submitting your questions via e-mail or in the comments on our youtube page during the

program. so grateful to have this opportunity to explore president kennedy's earlier years "in depth" with our distinguished speakers this evening. it is the first major work about president kennedy and any years we been anticipating this for some time. much of professors frederik logevall research took place in the kennedy archives and we are pleased to learn more about this new look that president kennedy's formative years. and delighted to introduce tonight speakers. so glad to welcome frederik logevall, backed to the kennedy library virtually . he is it professor of international affairs and professor of history at harvard university. a specialist on u.s. foreign relations history and modern international history is the author for an owner of nine books including members of war which won the pulitzer prize for history and the francis - in jfk

coming-of-age to the american sensory 1917 - 1956. that's his new book. and i'm also pleased to extend a warm welcome to george, our moderator, staff writer for the atlantic as nonfiction books include our men, richard holbrook, in the end of the american century. a finalist for the full surprise. the underlining 30 years of american decline which won a national book award. the assassins gig. america in a wreck . in the blood of the liberals. he is also the author of two novels in the play and the editor of two volume edition of the essays of george orwell. please join me in welcoming our special guests. frederik: welcome everybody . to hear there is a couple of hundred view and that is fantastic. it will be approved and sent privilege and a pleasure to talk to fred tonight and to get your

heads out of the present. and out of the news for an hour or an hour and a half into the past which is great refuge as well as a guide for us as we try to navigate one of the storm is years in our lives. fred, i know you is the author of i think the two essential books in the vietnam war. it's not just me saying that, people i know who fought in vietnam who served in vietnam: i asked him for the books i have to read in the war. when i was researching my biography, he said oh that is easy . choosing more and embers of war by the same guy, frederik logevall. so i knew you as a vietnam expert freedom and now i know you really is something broader as an american expert and someone who shares a lot of interest with me in american history and foreign policy. so is going to get to talk to

you about your completely engrossing and source of bowling which is the word of the david kennedy used in the book review . new biography of jfk. of the "jfk". and so welcome fred into our audience and i guess the first question is inevitable but why another biography. it's been a major one but there are dozens already. it takes a little bit iia into those waters were so any other writers have gone. so why did you take this on. frederik: first of all george, it's tremendous to be with you. it occurred to me that in a way these books are kind of bookends here. mines just the beginning and yours is more about the latter part for unit maybe we can talk

about that. i think i have been fascinated by john f. kennedy in the kennedys for a long time. i had written about kennedy and their other contacts. and pulled work in particular. and of course in volume two which is still become, that the no question, what i would like to call the mother of all information. what would he done in vietnam. how would've he survived. it says partly the interest in the kennedys and partly a sense this hit me one day walking into the harvard yard . but i can also use my training as a historian and use kennedys life tell a story of just of his rise on americans rise. you could have mapped the rise of the united states to great powers and is super's power

status on jack kennedy's life. he was born in 17, right as we were entering world war i. in a conflict of course indicted 63 which is arguably that sort of american power and prior to the vietnam predisposes two things and then maybe a third george wishes as the materials in the library were just so phenomenal. and i knew this. it the hosting of tonight's event, they are so good. i thought a lot of them had not really been tapped by a lot of people. to build something kind of pressure them. an instance, the biographies or other nobody is really done i think i'm a the kind of comprehensive life and times that i am doing or trying to do here. george: and you knew about the materials in the york library from your vietnam research.

frederik: yes, i knew about it from the work on vietnam. i knew about it from other researchers, graduate students of mine another summa said, incredible folders and files and documents in the library. some of them use a lot of them and some of them and not been used a lot. it was partly because my own prior research no question. speech of you actually zeroed in on documents that you knew were there. and you said i am going to find box number 291, number 73 because i know what is there . nobody is ever used it . frederik: will obviously in terms of the specific collection and folders, i had to see them myself and close. before i had the sense but i knew for example, the david

nassau's terrific biography, a senior i was able as a historian, we all do this for unit you look in the notes and you see what other people done. lexi with david and a few other people had done in terms of particular collections. some of which had not been open and available prior to that work. then one of the marvelous things about the library even though relative small percentage of the library's collections have been digitized rated nevertheless, some great stuff george. and anybody can access it from their couch. if there's stuff available that you can see without having to darken the doorways of the library. but it's a great collection. george: so how did you approach the genre of the biography. and since i don't think you had written one right.

in some of the same thing is the history of the war or even two years decision making about a war. it's more than i would say look closer to the problems that can stump a novelist because you have to fill your book with characters and especially with one character and bring that character to life and i think that all of the harder if everybody already thinks they know that character. so how did you approach the genre, the unknown genre of biographies. models did you use what guidance did you give yourself that you figured out how to research and write heads. frederik: it is so interesting especially given that you yourself of authors and novels. as you have a sense of what you're describing here.

it is totally fascinating to me. i think you're quite right. they're not the same thing. i come to realize just how different they are in some ways. and of course also in ported similarities. think about finding the evidence about trying to figure out what happened in this case is centered on a particular life but there are similarities between this work in the work that i have done previously. it also there different . and i think i had been fascinated by the kennedys. discuss some ways the great american story. this family, it's an extraordinary one beginning and i begin the book with the arrival about the candidates in the fitzgeralds in the middle of the 19th century. and then of course joe, the rise in particular, i would say joe senior. and this huge family, this marriage to rose. jacky was a sickly child emerges

from this. and i will say that i thought the story would write itself. they never do. i did think this had weight and potential for me as a historian but also somebody was interested in biographies. wants to see if i can make this work. and as a said, telling two narratives at the same time. the kennedy story and america's story. can i just briefly talk 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 our man. it. george: i do different problem which was richard holbrook by the time my book came out was a fading figure in american foreign policy . kind of dominated any rooms and events in his lifetime.

but he was on the scale of jfk. nicholas. he actually first one into the foreign services under jfk. it is called to service that inspired holbrook to join the foreign service. i thought he needed to grasp the reader with the first paragraph and never let that reader go or else it would abandon the project because who cares. that was my great fear. who cares. people care about jfk so you didn't have that problem. so i began my book about holbrook in the voice of a novelist. even though the book has 35 pages of notes and accurate as i can possibly can make it. it begins, i knew him. as if you're about to hear this by someone who knew him. there was a voice that carries the entire book. i gimme a ton of freedom to do things the traditional biographies do not do.

but only within the guidelines of the contract of the reader. it all has to be true. so try to make it sound like just a great yarn that you would want to sit down and hear through the storytelling. >> and you and i have talked about this before. but i thank you so just marvelous. it is great fun to talk about. one thing that may, in the early pages which i thought about that would be fun to talk about a little bit freedom paraphrasing. i didn't have a look at this before i came on friday say something like only infection. can we ever really get to know the person. and i thought about that because jacky kennedy, people thank you so someone truly listed . you may never really get close to the sky because of that nature that he had. some of his mother's emotional

detachments . you are so right in this yet i hope my readers will tell me what to write about this . think we do get and i can get given your parameters and only infection can we ever really know. i hope i get fairly close. george: i think you do. i wrote this to you personally and i think it's there sitting in the book jacket now. this brings us so close to jfk. it is really an intimate picture and think we should talk about how you can achieve that . think the readers will find it that it's engrossing, it is a page turner. and that is because you're always right there in the middle of a scene very close to the characters. it and yeah there is of course he's ironic and detached noise observing his own life and

everyone else . that is his character. but the things that created that character, i didn't understand very well until i read your book. so let's talk about that. two things. your book begins or the story history begins, the month before we enter world war one. this is an interesting parallels mine because holbrook was born in 1941, which is another year of the marking century began and entered into world war ii. he said to me about your decision to frame jfk's life as a life of the american century beginning in 1917. what that means for our understanding of america's rise to level power. frederik: it might've been ernest man, the late great harvard historian member of this department that i'm now in. might've been ernie who wrote in

the struck me at the time one of the graduate student . something like this, we think of the marking century is beginning in the 1940s or 41 north conceivably you can say maybe the late 30s. some might say 1945 which i thank you so not correct. but ernie said, no. in fact, america's contribution to the war in 1917 and 1918 was foreman. and because of the degree to which the european powers were decimated by that great time. though it wasn't fully evident at the time. the farsighted europeans understood it was only a matter of time the vm americans would have the dominance on the world stage. in a sense there was a delay in the 20s and 30s and americans statement leaders were

not quite sure what to do. i write about this in the book. do they want the responsibility of the leadership. maybe not. but i still feel comfortable in saying that 1917 is absolutely critical to the american century for two reasons, war and the revolution became so crucial enron and to jack kennedy. to his life. george: so basically the cold war that he finds his public life began in 1917 the to powers of the cold war from their trajectory in collision with each other began in 1917. frederik: you can certainly make that argument. i often asked my students a question about when did the cold war began. and if you look at the characteristics of the cold war which i also have them do i say how any characteristics were present in 1917 in terms of the maybe only two of 30 of them were . 1 million a schism for

some of the things and associate cold war, and the great arms race for example. internal dissidents . that would've been right after world war i and also in the soviet union, a bipolar world structure is a post to multi- structure. maybe some of those work present in 1917. but it had very smart students interesting students to make a . compelling case for 1917. of the date of the superpower confrontation. george: did you have a preconception of jfk going into this. did you have a picture of him that you are going to then draw. or did you begin relatively agnostic and cumbia pictures three research.

frederik: i think i have a sense, that is a really interesting question for you to think had a sense that even when i began from my work on indochina and the fact that he visited in 1951. george: the beginning and reservoir. frederik: yes. all these penetrating questions about what the french were trying to achieve. i think i had a sense that the common view of young jack kennedy is a tell-all kind of the playboy and everything handed to him who wasn't very serious about anything and only later became mature product that construct politician . maybe has since that was not correct. i think that the research that i did, and again the materials in the library are so marvelous. i think they show beyond a doubt that this is a guy who from an early age is serious about

policy . deeply curious about the world. so that sort of a half answer. i guess it's suggesting that i had an inkling that i wanted to revise most common view. i think that research actually supports that. george: i think some of the most riveting pages are young jack's trip to europe in 1939. when europe is moving rapidly towards more and having a mix of a kind of rich boys vacation along with access to the most important councils of government all across the continent. and churchill, chamberlain date, hitler. disney see hitler give his speech. frederik: took this regret he never did. he was there and had an

opportunity and then he was go gone. but in 39 nevertheless as you say, there's almost like this kind of quality to the degree to which he showed up in places that become hotspots. i opened the book and the prophets with him in berlin and they'd august of 39. an even carried a message from the u.s. consular official. the ambassadors but the senior diplomat in berlin gives him a message to carry back to his father who is the investor in britain . joe kennedy senior. the message says, the germans are going to attack poland within a week. so here you have this kind of entrapment guy. he certainly benefiting from his father's connections. he would not be able to travel and see these people if joe senior was already ambitious to

his sons in particular to his eldest sons. but it's also jfk's own early striving in motivation. george: took that is parens a relationship to them. because when i said earlier, i felt like i understood his character much better from the book. it's really because especially his relationship with his father. the relationship with his mother is distant. and i would be the first to say the may be the source of some of his misogyny because his mother the him down. she was not around for a lot of his childhood . and of course his father was on a date with the mother was expected to be in the father was not. but he comes across, joe kennedy comes a frost as was just state that maybe like telling father because he's just constantly arranging activities and events

in everyday schedules and go golfing in the morning and play football in the afternoon and then discuss current events and it and dinner and reading and i praise incredibly, involved for men at that generation breeds incredibly devoted to his children party it seems to me to be the core relationship for kennedy growing up. is that right . frederik: i think it ultimately is free to think described very well nothing is an extraordinary aspect of joe kennedy seniors personnel. it is a good example george. joe kennedy and say 1934, and 1935 is heading up the sec in washington . an important new government entity. in it he pins these long handwritten letters to jack who is in his last year at prep

school. he sends long hand written letter to joe jr was already at harvard . younger children, it strikes me that this is a guy who somehow managing important government policies nevertheless instructing his children, trying to mold his children and in particular the sons. is more concerned, quite clear about them. especially the two older ones. it's whatever one might say that joe kennedy is a businessman and a diplomat, ultimately disastrous turn as ambassador to britain we can talk about that. in this devotion to his kids is something bring the i would alsy that i think that rose kennedy, the mother, she deserves more in some ways credit for jack's upbringing than she is sometimes given. i think he gets his historical sensibility more from her and

from his father. he's actually more like his mother and like his father. his international responsibility comes i think from her as i suggest in the book. she's emotionally withdrawn. she leads the kind of separatist life through all of his illnesses. at canterbury his first press goal . she never paid him this is . think she comes once she never goes and meanwhile she takes extended vacation by yourself including to europe. and i think it was hard for him as you suggested. george: but you also said at one point that what you expect from a woman whose husband is flagrantly cheating on her throughout their marriage. it is humiliating her right bringing mistresses home from dinner. of course she's going to withdrawal. the alternative is to be

fighting all the time relief. those are not alternatives that she wants for her family. the going concern religion. so the layout is emotional withdrawal. frederik: i think that's exactly right targeted and i suggest in the book that they have kind of an arrangement that he's going to be more discreet in his affairs and maybe he was early on. and she's going to look the other way. and i think that is what happens is that he has a notorious affair with gloria swanson in hollywood. i think on some level he comes to realize the can't do this. but you are so george, when you think about what she has to endure and when you think about his view for his objectives are objectifying women and seeing them as objects to be conquered.

it is just a hard environment for her. george: portage exhibition come from party to because none the things in your book makes very clear is that it was not simply handed it to him. like instructions on how to be a man by his father. he is his own boy and man in a way that is extremely attractive. is not seen like a pampered and spoiled son of privilege who in his father's way because the path of least resistance. in other words is not donald trump jr. 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 is nonetheless, manages to against the great deal of main schism coming from his overbearing father. finding himself. how did that happen and how did it create a political ambition in jack. frederik: i have thought a lot about that. in going through the materials which are so rich . federal archival materials and evidence. darrell history collection of the library, they can't reveal everything. i think we see somebody, because he was bedridden a lot this various ailments. and continuous . he became the family reader and devoured especially european history. he was early and say the least of winston churchill. i think the ambition comes in

part from him realizing that maybe i can do something similar here. he's also got his maternal grandfather. fitzgerald who was a legendary politician. the two of them are extremely close. quite different has politicians. jack is much more reserved. certain scholarly and as a person his grandfather but this also, got grandpa fits, is i can aspire to do something similar. and then finally, and i think this is especially in our own day in age, for me such an appealing quality george. he likes politics. i think i think he likes them because politics is important and it matters. and i think from a very early age, before joe jr is killed in the war, he is already thinking to himself and to a particular

growth and that he was close to inga. that may be he wants to pursue a political career. since those things at least in part to bring in this serious quality early on. it. george: is not as though when joe jr gets killed over england or over the channel that suddenly is subject to carry on his father's dreams. jack was headed that way already read ... ... >> and he brought a lot to the

table. he was straight from central casting and incredibly handsome healthy as an ox and extremely ambitious walmart suggest that that i say in the book even if joe junior survives and comes back from the war would have the same kind of trajectory, but he had his own reasons for running and as you suggest he had a better claim he already offered a book which likely would be a revised showed a that web john junior the wrong way and he already had these attributes for the tragic

death and he's making his own decisions even which office to seek a 1946 was in his father's decision but ultimately jfk. >> tell us how his mind as a practitioner of statecraft who eventually practices foreign-policy develops through the crucial years from the late thirties to the early cold war when he first ran for office how does he become the jack kennedy we know as president? it seems those are the key years of tell us what happened and how they affected him because that's a crucial parting of the ways. >> this was such a fun part of

the writing experience for me and my wife will tell you i will talk about with the material show during this period i think what happens is he gets to harvard and he has had a gap here so he is one year older than most of his classmates in the class of 1940. the student body is pretty heavy isolationist and i think he buys into that and as you know even more so than chamberlin and initially jack is inclined to agree with this assertion and this is the distinction joe junior i think is never comfortable and is

father's shadow so what's fascinating to me is to observe little by little jack kennedy to see a more complex and crowded world than either his father or older brother to see the problems with a narrow parochial nationalism and to see the threat posed by the japanese and the germans. it's hard to say when but before pearl harbor the early part of 41 i think he is a confirmed internationalist. - - shift or grow is totally interested and in the experience of the south pacific and 43 is important because it affirms for young jack kennedy that the united

states has to play a leading role in world affairs. now with the us role should be and i think he comes back from the war affirmed in that believe but he also comes back skeptical i think the military instrument of the policy and you can see in his letters home which are interesting, a sense that military leadership is a contradiction of terms but he is skeptical of that and we can see if i can develop this so if it should be developed that you see it through the end of his life. >> it's interesting because he

is a young officer but not someone that the war was abstract because he was out there obviously getting shot up because of all generation of officers became overconfident generals a vietnam who thought america had nothing to worry about because we thought the not see war machine the japanese war machine jack kennedy didn't come back from the second world war with that kind of confidence in the american military. maybe with the american example to the world, but not with our ability to impose our

well. it may have been the experience in the south pacific but it's our nature to be skeptical or to have an eye on the darkness and human frailty. and the laws and the blind spots to see yourselves. so all of that seems to be there at a very young age and i'm sure you can trace it right through to the crucial years in the white house. >> yes. that is so well it partly because of his ailments , partly because of the tragedies he suffered, he effectively lost rosemary

through a botched and horrible lobotomy late 1941 the sister who was closest to him and age. only 18 months and age loses his brother and 44 later his closest sibling kathleen. and it goes he had a sense that life was brought a well-developed sense of iron irony, self-deprecating humo humor, then combined with the experience of the south pacific, he came back with a sense there were limits certainly in military terms to american power even though and 45 the united states is colossal in what it can do and achieve. so you are absolutely right. he didn't fall prey to it so many later generals fell prey to which is 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 come and go quickly, most of them, he is a hound dog and constantly writing letters to his friends about bedding this nurse and then a bunch of girlfriends that come and go some he seems really smitten with especially inga and others are just clearly instruments for pleasure or a bit of narcissism. as a biographer you don't spare him but his treatment of women and the worst moment is when his wife jackie has a miscarriage and he is off

sailing in the french riviera if i'm not mistaken gets back a week or two later is pretty unforgivable and it's hard to want to stay with him so how did you handle that material? you don't hold back but to make it possible for us to go on to the next chapter. >> yes. it is a challenge i think it will be a bigger challenge in volume number two. i don't think as a first response, i don't think the behavior in the period up through 1956 is predatory if that's the right word. there is in the position of power i guess there is already a power differential as a senator, but i suspect not

research this fully or volume number two this will become more problematic. it already is. but 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 in view women as objects to be conquered. no question about that. he was unfaithful to jackie before the wedding and after. and i can't have it both ways on the one hand i cannot say he is his own man in politics. he does not follow his father's dictates and political positions which career to choose or to support isolationism versus interventionism before pearl harbor but if you make that argument with respect to political and career 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 the more problematic elements we see with joe senior who sometimes acts out himself. >> nor can we say was at a different time because i would even use the word this is more pathological attitude toward women so at times i got a whiff not of hatred but disdain like i don't mean to treat you to whom jack after

rejecting his advances his sister is different and is honorary but those that don't get that treatment and i wonder if there's something darker than being a scoundrel about it. >> i think inga is the exception because he treats her so differently than the other women. and respects her intelligence. in fact envious of the fact she speaks so many languages and has been to so many places and is clearly super sharp and i have these conversations, some of them picked up by the fbi because she is under surveillance in which you see the two of them go at it intellectually and in

other ways also but you are quite right you don't see very often there is another exception but ultimately jackie come although there are a lot of rocky moments, she is very formidable and he comes to see how intelligent she is and she too has this cultured quality he really admires in part because he doesn't possess at the same way himself. but there may be a certain loathing or disdain or something there that is problematic, no question. >> he becomes a member of the house. >> the 11th district of cambridge. and then he is elected to the senate. and all of this leads to what

the book ends with the 56 convention when jack comes with in a whisper of being adelaide's dimensions presidential one - - vice presidential candidate could've been a bullet dodged rather than an opportunity missed but would you think that kennedy as a politician in those years? what did you learn about him and what struck you? he doesn't seem presidential material in the early volume but hard-working and curious but there isn't that quality that you just immediately say he will go to the top but obviously he gets to the top. how do you describe him as a politician to see domestic politics?

who was interested in world affairs? >> that's right is pretty clear from the time he enters the house and 47 that foreign-policy is where he is most interested in where he feels the most comfortable. during the campaign and 46, this 29 -year-old who get the nomination then that's home free but that nomination is ferociou ferocious. even then you can see he's comfortable talking about the emerging cold war that is not a reality that is emerging and other international issues and points already penetrating insightful to see things from the soviets perspective and a certain empathetic understanding with respect to policy. doesn't have the same kind of

engagement of all domestic issues. i think he's fundamentally liberal on most issues with his more conservative he's quite conservative on foreign policy. suggest in the book he is an early cold warrior and does not see an opportunity for accommodation with henry wallace who argues for the need to smooth things over with the soviets. jfk is pretty caustic to swat down the notion but interestingly joe kennedy's senior brings us out in his biography and event arthur's messenger that he articulated a position that more than a few cold war historians articulate the soviets are not going to invade anybody. they will not threaten the

united states with their existential existence we could take a hands-off approach as kennedy senior felt very differently at the time. >> and interestingly he does to vietnam as you say in 1951 and this is the opening of your boo book, and asks all the right questions if he sees the french are fighting a losing war and why should that be our war? why are we defending a colonial empire? where the hoped-for democracy but by the mid- fifties, he takes a more hawkish view of vietnam as a threat and giving speeches in which we really have to hold the line against communism right there at the parallel between north and south vietnam.

what happened? >> it is the great paradox of jfk and china which is and i think this will be the thread in volume two as well, i don't think his skepticism about a military solution in vietnam ever goes away. i think it's there for 51 until november 63 and in fact we have lots of evidence of him in the white house rejecting hawkish advice from his aides sending and ground troops and it's one of the reasons why in terms of the what if, we can ever know if he would have survived he would have avoided the huge escalatio escalation. >> that is that path because

you earn the right to say that i will be curious to say in writing volume two. >> i reserve the right. but the paradox is that as you say, the same jack kennedy with the late fifties is much more aggressive, he's a careful politician, in terms of his language, a very recent approach to policy but he now sings a different tune on vietnam and the chinese government and he believes the united states must preserve in its power the autonomous south vietnam so figuring out how this guy who understood

soberly that western power whether france or the united states, and he said that come any western power with him down the communist revolution is this the same guy in domestic political terms, maybe now he sees the white house and he knows democrats cannot be targeted to be soft on communis communism. maybe that's the explanation of the paradox or however we explain it is there. >> it will be a major tension in volume two because you convinced me if kennedy had lived we would not have had 200,000 troops in vietnam within two years of 63. nonetheless he god is in deep with 15000 advisers and overthrew the government of south vietnam.

so he may well have corrected his own mistakes but those were already made and how much does domestic politics already have to do with that? and with the opposition party i would be really interested to see what you learn. we will take questions and five minutes but the only place in your book that i stumbled at all that kennedy mentions in the wonderful review is the mccarthy. in the question of authorship in profiles and he looked at them carefully so tell us why i might be wrong in thinking that jfk deserves a harder

spanking for planting the mccarthy era and try not to make a difficult call on that and why we shouldn't think you may have written some notes of profiles in courage but he didn't write the book page for page? >> i don't know if the first part of this i should admit before a live audience but when you read this and galley form, and he pointed out mccarthy i said i need to tweak this a little bit and need to address this and people random house were

marvelous i had such a wonderful publisher that they said we can do this. so in response not to your satisfaction. >> i haven't gotten the finished book. >> because of how late we were i can only do a few words and change a few sentences but suffice it to say i do thank you are right. even before the intervention i suggested he was overly careful on mccarthy i think it had to do with a close family ties, especially joe senior we have even talked about bobby at tonight who is close to mccarthy and would remain close and it would go to wisconsin for his funeral and remain devoted to him to the end it's about massachusetts

politics and irish catholics that are a large part of the electorate and by the way an interesting comparison to our own day. way through to the end of the century and 54 of joe mccarthy public opinion survey repeatedly shows he had the support of roughly 40 percent of the electorate. i don't want to go to closely but it's interesting even after the senate begins to move even after his attack on the army a lot of americans stay with him to the end. but i think jack kennedy spared himself a lot of grief if he had instructed sorenson he was in the hospital for legitimate reasons. they say he went in there to dodge mccarthy vote i don't think that's true but he could

have through a procedure called hearing could have instructed sorenson to vote and he should have done so. and why he didn't is interestin interesting. here's another quick thing that and 56 at the aforementioned democratic national convention he had a meeting with eleanor roosevelt and she basically said in a paraphrase why didn't you come out against mccarthy? and what i puzzled over george, maybe you have an explanation i thought about it but i did not write about this in the book i erase the paragraph but i thought why would he not in the summer of 56, when attacking joe mccarthy is easy, he's gone why would kennedy not say i don't like the guy which is true i don't thank you like him personally, even then however he doesn't want to criticize mccarthy and i can't

quite figure that out. >> he was loyal to his family and it didn't mean enough to him to go against his father did and then to reject his father that way. >> i think that's as good of an explanation as any. >> my parents were a little younger than jfk and the mccarthy. was the litmus test for them as liberal democrats of whether a politician could be trusted, if they could respect politicians and they ended up with stevenson i think because he was much more outspoken. >> he was. >> when it came to 1960, they

celebrated kennedy's electio election, but he was not they are man and never was and really it was the mccarthy. for a lot of liberals that was true so i think he had a decisive effect not so much on politics on that time but how they divided on him. >> it is a good point i will say one other thing quickly it is worth noting that the democratic party as a whole including liberals like hubert humphrey for a very long time or unwilling to criticize mccarthy. you have to go pretty far into 54 to see broad currents of the party begin to go after him in any serious way so kennedy is not alone in this regard. in fact senior senator from massachusetts, republican is

just as cautious of not more so than kennedy so he's not alone. in profiles in courage very quickly, you and i differ a little bit, i think the evidence is pretty powerful that the broad architecture of the boo book, the themes of the book, the argument which by the way has civilians in our own day for evidence-based discourse or bargaining in good faith but those themes are jack kennedy's sorenson is way too young 25 or 26 he cannot articulate that. moreover the introduction and the conclusion i think for me the most important parts of

the book i think those are more than kennedy notes i think that's his work. >> had he not won the pulitzer i don't think the several the been an issue so the question i will do with to come back to thi this, how he should have responded to the poets are is a question one of the proudest moments of his life he later said come is it reasonable to expect them to turn down the award? i don't know. i don't know what that would mean to an aspiring politician. no question those middle chapters were drafted by others there's professors that help them and i write about this so i am suggesting it's more his book then perhaps you are allowing. >> i don't want to end on that minor disagreement because i

want our audience to know that we haven't even really talk about the way the book ends but it is a marvelous account of the convention that hasn't gone down in history as one of the great conventions but the 56 democratic convention and you see jack kennedy at his absolute best because he is maneuvering and showing he knows how to play the game but detached enough to recognize he can take a loss now and it won't be the end of him and might actually help them in four-year. >> i think that's right and i will say here i have this in the endnote you can go on youtube and you can see the concession speech he gives at that convention. it's done without notes and it is a remarkable moment

captured so if they are interested in this it comes minutes before to before the nomination his father thinks a disaster to seek the nomination and comes as close and then says to sorenson the tide has turned he says let's go and they leave the hotel room to go to the podium and give the speech. it is an amazing moment. >> a great ending and it makes you eager to get to volume two and finish volume to. let's get to a few questions coming from columbia how would you define his leadership style how is that apply to

today's world challenge? >> i think it is 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 advisers and others that don't know their stuff down to the details. it is a leadership style about becoming informed on and issue which leads me to the second point, something i find admirable, he doesn't want yes-men around. he is actually somebody who wants people to have different views he wants to hear their opinions on which path to take

and then act accordingly. and then there's much more to be said that the final piece is when he needs to make a decision even though he's overly cautious like civil rights his legislators record overall is meager by the time he is killed with the cuban missile crisis when virtually all of the advisors are counseling a military response. they are aggressive. kennedy is seeking a political solution, he showed that capacity and that is an element of his leadership style. >> why did you and in 1956? can you really get all of the late fifties the election and

his entire presidency and volume number two? they were read reader. >> i will remember the question whoever posted to my am committed to doing this. i think i can. seven years of his life and of cut one - - of course a much happens, but the first volume is an extraordinary life that he leads with helps the biographer of the story is remarkable there so much in the early volume. as a father and his father is a huge figure in the book but the subtext of your question is goo good. i have to deal with the amazing campaign which really begins in 1957 the secret to kennedy's success at all levels of politics is he starts earlier than the competition and he does harder

than the competition. 's earlier have to deal with flying around the country was sorenson and speaking before tiny audiences on the tarmac of eight and 12 people and then of course ultimately it culminates the primary battle and 60 than the race against nixon we have even gone to the presidency program helped by the fact it ends suddenly november 63. my present plan is not to get deep into the conspiracies obviously have to give the reader my view of what happened in dallas but maybe i save some space by keeping that pretty limited. >> in the same fear for robert caro and in some ways even

more between 64 and 68 and then he went to and then crash back to earth i don't know how you do it we hope it is soon. >> of you are asks what legends about young jfk do you unwind from the biography? are there any stories you could prove wrong? and then about young jfk. >> part of it is what we have already discussed maybe the viewers were something more specific but this is a young jfk this is one of the best qualities jackie talked about

this after his death his curiosity and interest in what makes people tick so the young jfk is a more serious and engage individual and we have come to believe. i will also say that i think it upends those illnesses which were real and then that notion they were acutely debilitating these are the guys that despite these illnesses was extraordinarily active and then had to fudge to get into combat who wins is bruising campaign and 46

sleeping only three or four or five hours a night and then to be on death store all the time to be so ill he can barely function and is able to do these things. so maybe we shouldn't exaggerate the scope of those illnesses a measure that's where the question was going. >> this is a question about what he knew about his own country. he seemed to know europe and the pacific deeply from personal experience but as far as america goes, he knew riverdale and harvard and palm beach. does he know much about the country how much did jfk and then is it possible to know

his views on diversity with the american people and all of their diversity in the stage of life? >> it's a good question he had not traveled much in the south and even a senator. in the small number of african-americans he interacted with. i don't believe he was personally prejudiced. but he wasn't really animated by this searing experience african-americans had in there was ample evidence all around that comes later.

when he runs for president in 1960 and that he sees with there are deep income disparities and to be thought of before. and with that contemporary evidence in particular that made a huge impression and then to appreciate the people and with a chance to talk with them. >> it all thing that was so evident before and to see if i can develop this but again traveling around the country for the first time this party hasn't seen before. >> soberly a book review by

michael harrington and then with the review in the new yorker. and then non- populist and then compare them to fdr to say they are attrition the ball suffered debilitating illnesses as better politicians that somehow maybe because his career coincided with prosperity rather than the great depression, that's not want animated him. >> i'm glad you raise that. and i think i suggest somewhere in the book he was never engaged by the fdr

phenomenon and never connected in some way that a lot of other people did it is extraordinary that the candies were insulated from the great depression rose kennedy said with her marriage was the early thirties to give you a sense of how they experience this and jfk is a political age as a result of the war and the aftermath and doesn't see things in the same way as fdr. >> with the public service and commitment to democracy and courage feel so great what leaves you hopeful and with the rise in the impact. and that the younger generation my own kids are an

example of this but we do need desperately for americans that the example of jack kennedy hopes to do this and i hope that comes out on those chapters of the book. i am struck by the degree with a 1936 or 3738. responding to those threats and then he's asking that as an undergraduate and the thesis under baldwin and

chamberlain what is a hopeful message to decide that democracy requires to take an interest in policy issues to our leaders accountable. >> and as well said coming in from a 20 oh university student interested in a career in the political world what can i learn from the young jfk with the attitudes to self learning and ambition.

>> self learning and ambition that is perfect because he commits themselves to that and when he comes back after the great excursion and in some ways different the senior year of college that self motivation and determination and to become much more ambitious is an excellent question from our 20 old friend it's about taking an interest in policy which it sounds like yorty have been public service to see how we can make things better jack kennedy says one of his papers

for democracy to survive requires dedicated dedicated ending capable leaders it slightly wrong i did check before he came on because i think democracy is under threat and the current state and will require all of us to commit yourself to the hard work involved in i have no doubt that democracy and then maybe to be controversial. it's an argument maybe not centrism but an argument to remember to treat political

opponents as adversaries and not enemies that's what kennedy committed himself to to see the merits of the arguments on the other side. that's exact same point because after the political world to be awarded and then for wiping out the opponent on twitter and anywhere and what is the point? and as a journalist there is a connection to politics and to always benefit from talking to people whose experience is different from yours you don't have to like it you don't have

to approve of their views and this is what obama said the most kennedy asked president that we have had since kennedy , try to walk around in somebody else's shoes and then you can be a better public servant. >> that's exactly right i think the joe biden talks in similar turns and was criticized from the primary opponents for the suggestion that ultimately we will have to reach out and bargain hard, not abandon our principles but also totally fascinating conversation that in 55 for those in the kennedy

administration becomes ambassador so they are friends right to the and. but jfk says if i'm cut out to be a politician. and therefore to become a little bit uncertain about the arguments it is a very revealing conversation as you say in our day and age will talk in these terms. >> but my analogy for biden is more lbj from the senate career politician and that at a moment when history may make him a consequential president

and with that we know right now so talking about his superb sense of humor so say something about that. >> i should have conan o'brien had a wonderful essay about the jfk sense of humor but o'brien says we had to truly funny presidents. abraham lincoln and jfk and i think he is right about that matches the they haven't had a sense of humor but it's not as well developed as you see with these two i think it's ironic sense of humor and self-deprecating which i think

he used especially in the white house and it was that absurd quality at times may be in part so it may also have something to do with these maladies that he had poking fun at them not taking themselves too seriously i cannot fully explain where it came from but no question that is there so when did jack see

bobby's political talent? and what did jack think of bobby's work for the mccarthy committee? seeing that work as a political strategist as a campaign manager it looks like lodge will lose at least not well positioned and right on track and how important bobby is as a manager as a shrewd and ruthless operative. when he see bobby as a potential for he's very

devoted to his brother and then to become much closer. and then deeply admired his brother. and then he himself should run for office. and then early on he was very much inclined to let bobby do what he should do and it was a good career move and i think as mccarthy started to do more and more outrageous things it became a problem but then as he was employed to be very close to joe mccarthy that creates more problems for jack

politically this is a very close knit family they scream and yell at each other with any particular anger on jack's part to continue that loyalty. >> let's and with this question i sense the majority of jfk was never vocalized or discussed by him. searle jfk the real man has ideas that we will probably never know. do you agree or disagree? like us back to the question at the very start how a biographer in the life of a real person who died almost 60 years ago.

>> that's a very perceptive question. and to keep a part of himself and his mother son in this regard that and her letter writing so i find her even with the letter writing and in this regard there is some of that and that this is a good place to and and at these various points it is quite

open what he says sometimes including about himself and the communication between the two of them it will be interesting in volume two he will be more guarded that plain old letters written by him and others become more scarce. so surprised me to that degree with the young jfk but when he was alive and is that generation gone?

>>. >> some of those that i spoke with i do think the magnificent jfk library collection and those were conducted soon after the assassination and i will rely on those talking to people face-to-face. >> i cannot wait for the next one but meanwhile a marvelous book all the success in the world may reach tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in the jfk library

in the audience for joining us tonight for being one of the great historians and writers in america today. >> thank you to have this opportunity with you if you have not seen folks you've got to get your hands on the book it's been great to chat with you tonight many folks i couldn't say much more but some of us can get back into those marvelous collection. >> good night everybody. >> take care