seemed to be masturbating, he removed part of his colon. when he felt mentally ill under an investigation, he hauled off to hot springs, arkansas, and had his own teeth pulled. so he believed in what he was doing, but what he was doing was an absolute sfic travesty. >> watch this program mitt online at booktv.org. just search andrew scull or the title of his book, "desperate remedies." >> and you've been watching booktv. every sunday on c-span2 the watch nonfiction authors discuss their books. television for serious readers. and watch hem all online anytime at booktv.org. you could also find us on twitter, facebook and youtube,@booktv. ..

>> guest: absolutely.y. texas, where texas goes, america goes in many respects. that's never been more true than today. texas has always sort of lead the way for america in so many respects. we've had three presidents from here in thes. last 60 years, lb, presidents george h.w. bush and president george w. bush. texas is an outsized presence in american life, and texans wouldn't have it any other way. >> host: you have worked with one of those presidents as well. well come have you work with all three in some capacity? let's start with lbj was right here in austin. >> guest: i was a director of

the lbj presidential library from 2009-2017. and now i am the president and ceo of they lbj foundation and f written several booksks about lj including what i think will talk about today, "indomitable will." one ofj the reasons i wanted to be the director of the lbj library now 13 years ago was the fact lbj is one of our most consequential presidents in so many respects. i think he is known for vietnam predominantly, that there's so much more topr his legacy. and while vietnam is a vitally important part of that legacy, the loss of the great society are just as important if not more so including very importantly the strides that he made on civil rights throughout the course of his presidency which fundamentally change our nation and allowed us to meet our most important ideal which

is that all men are created equal, that inegalitarian isn't that defines who we are as americans. it's lbj who brings that to fruition at a didn't think he was recognized for thosese accomplishments so i very much wanted to come to the lbj library to eliminate americans on what lbj means -- illuminate -- particularly and 21st century, had have thinks that he did during the course of this presidency continue to resound in today's america. >> host: mark updegrove, why did you move from the library to the foundation, and what is the difference? >> guest: the library, as most presidential libraries are, is run under the auspices of the national archives. which is the public side of the public-private partnership that are presidential libraries. when i was director of the lbj library i was an employee of the national archives. now i'm oniv a private side of that equation. i'm the president and ceo ceo of

the foundation so we hope the national archives run that institution putting money and resources into the library to make it even more for the american people. >> host: one of the things the johnson family did was release all the audiotapes from the oval office. what was a reason for doing that? that was a pretty big gift to the american people, wasn't it? >> guest: asi gift to history in so many respects. you are absolutely right, peter. harry middleton who was more or less the noggle director of the lbj presidential library and had been a speechwriter for lbj in the white house found out about the existence of these tapes, these secret telephone tapes that lbj had made during the course of his presidency after president johnson died.t they were given to them by a secretary who was charged with holding them in her custody until the president died. president asked there be a seal on thebe tapes for 50 years whih would mean that we would be

opening them next year if he had gotten his wish. but harry middleton realized the importance historically of these tapes in documenting the presidency of lyndon johnson. and in some ways and documenting the presence in general they really give a glimpse into what the presidency looks like for not just lyndon johnson but for any president. as a consequence he took these to labor johnson who was alive at the time and said we think these are important, we think they should be processed and made available to the american people and lady bird johnson to her everlasting credit, peter, unflinchingly without listening to the word of the state and how they reflected on her husband gave harry middleton the green light to start processing these tapes and rolling them out to the american people. and now as you know and so many historians and members of thekn american public know, these are the crown jewels of the lbj

presidential library or archive. >> host: we're going to listen to one. this is a lady w bird talking to president johnson. here's one of the audiotapes. >> mrs. johnson is calling and wishes to speak to the presiden president. >> you want to listen for about one minute or would you rather wait? >> i'm willing now. >> i thought that you looked strong, firm, and like a reliable guide. your looks were splendid. the close-ups were much better than the distance once. >> you can't get them to do it speeded i would say there were more close-ups then there were distance once. drink a statement you were a little breathless and there was too much looking down, anything goes a little too fast, not enough change of pace. i dropped drop invoicedf

sentences. there was a considerableickup in drama and interest when the questioning began. your voice was noticeably better and your facial expressions noticeably better. the mechanics of the rm were notch too good. although i heard you well throughout every bit of it, i did not hear your questioners clearly. >> well, the questioners will not talk. >> host: mark updegrove, what were listening to? >> guest: that was lady bird johnson giving: her husband a critique on what was his second press conference. she was, as you could hear, very candid in her assessment of how he did. you were a little breathless and you worried a little, and some shots are better than others. ultimately, she gave him a b+,

and a tell the story story about that tape. as you know from going to the lbj library in a museum exhibit we have handsets were you can hear some of these conversations in the context of that part of the exhibit. and on the tenth floor ofib the library there is a handset where you can hear president johnson getting what was famously or infamously known as the johnson treatment where he was applying his very unique brand of persuasion. and on the other would yound can hear some of the conversations that lbj had with lady bird johnson. we had barack and michelle obama to the library about eight years ago when they were in the white house. president obama was listening to lbj applying some of the johnson treatment of one of those handsets, and michelle obama, mrs. obama was listening to lady bird johnson talking to president johnson on the other handset. she was listening to the conversation she said barack has

got to hear this. she walked across the tenth floor. shelk got in all of his phone, brought him over to her phone. he listened to that conversation, but the handset down and then said some things never change. so he could very much relate to the wife of the president giving an unvarnished critique on his performance, and he appreciated very much. >> host: we're going to look at your bookk "indomitable will" and this is about lbj in the white house. and and i just want to go thrh some of the descriptions that people gave of president johnson. this is jack, i frankly didn't understand him, harry middleton who was arr staff assistant to e president, said there were just too many nuances in him. warren rogers to work for hearst newspapers and look magazine said that he was the most overwhelming human being i've ever known in my life. hugh, who i believe was a friend of yours at one time, and he has

passed and he was with the time for so many years, even larger and more important than ever, and he was in charge for every second, that was according to marianne means. joseph califf californian johnson i worked with was brave and brutal, compassionate and cruel, incredibly intelligent and infuriating insensitive with the shrewd and uncanny instinct forr the jugular of his adversaries. >> guest: he was a jumble of contradictions. he was, i think bill moyers though i think might be quoted in there as well said he's pretty much every adjective in the dictionary at a given time. he was extraordinarily mercurial, extraordinarily complex. he was capricious. he was unpredictable. and i think everyone saw a different sight of him. he treated everybody differently. hubert humphrey called him a

psychologist. he was able to read people really effectively and get them to rally aroundun his will, hene the title of the book, "indomitable will." i do think that a belief to read people meant that he treated people vastly differently one person to another. an incredibly complex man, an incredibly formidable presence and to think an incredibly consequential president. >> host: what would you grade him? >> guest: well, i would go to, c-span as you know, peter, does this marvelous poll among historians, i believe 140 some were pulled back in 2021, last year. and lyndon johnson was in the top quarter of all presidents. not at the pantheon with franklin roosevelt andhe abraham lincoln and georgein washington, not in the greats but in the near great category. that's exactly what i would put him, in the latter part of the new great category withr dwight

eisenhower and harry truman and theodore roosevelt and jack kennedy. i think that's were lbj, ronald reagan probably- belongs there, too, for a variety of reasons. every president has a a mixed legacy. vietnam is clearly the darker side of the lyndon johnson legacy, but again is a look at the laws of the great society they're absolutely transformational. >> host: at what point did it not become the overwhelming definition of president johnson rather than civil rights, voting rights, et cetera? >> guest: i think the tide on vietnam turned around 1967. that's when the american people really started doubting our presence inre vietnam, and the t offensive which happened in the first quarter of 1968 really turned thing irrevocably. and it was shortly after thehi t offensive which were a series of battles throughout the vietnam

conflict where the u.s. military won resoundingly in all of them. that's what we fail to remember at this point, but the fact is we realize, the american people realized the matter what we did, the opposition in vietnam was going to keep on coming. they were absolutely relentless. at that point i think lyndon johnson reassessed his presidency and he opted not to run on march 31, 1968. he gave. he gave at the very famous speech where he told the american people he would neither seek the nomination of his party nor run if it were granted to him by the party. and i think that was in for two reasons. principally, it was because of his health. he worried because he had a wii card, he had a nearly fatal heart attack in 1955 at the age of 47. whether he was going to live to face another term if he were to have another term in the white house. he worried that he would put the american people through a health crisis, as woodrow wilson did

during the latter part of his presidency, and a franklin roosevelt did in dying in his fourth term in office. but i also think he was thinking about the vietnam war. he wanted to use the balance of his term tous find a peaceful resolution which ultimately alluded him, and a think he knew in his heart of hearts that it would be extraordinarily divisive in america, that would further divide america at a time when we really needed to be united. >> host: markit updegrove, you quote president johnson as saying the president only has one year to get things accomplished tragic it's true, and you can see it. lyndon johnson is elected to the presidency in his own right in 1964 with a mandate of 61% of the popular vote. it was the biggest electoral victory in our history to that point. and he knows after he gets the presidency throughth this mandae that political capital

regardless of the popular mandate that he got is ephemeral. in fact, g he says when the president is first elected he is a giraffe. six months later he is a worm. so why lyndon johnson was standing tall in the presidency, he got as many of the laws of the great society through as possible, knowing that that political capital would ultimately evaporate. what he might not have anticipated, peter, was the resounding controversy around vietnam that would come later in his term as president. >> host: when he was senate majority leader, and i might be misquoted you, you either say he was the most powerful man in washington or the most powerful senate majority leader of all time. did i get either of those courts right? >> guest: partly. i would say he was certainly the most powerful senate majority leader of the 20th century. there's an argument he made for him being the most powerful senate majority of all time. we did have a president in

place, dwight eisenhower was a pretty hefty presence during that time as well but there's no question that if washington was a jungle, in many ways lyndon johnson was the king of the beasts. >> host: what was his relationship with eisenhower during those years? >> guest: very harmonious. it's a great example for what bipartisanship can look like when we're more united as a nation. the two worked together very closely on a variety of differentet initiatives, includg things that affect yesterday like the eisenhower interstate highway system and the creation of nasa. the soviet union had launched sputnik in 1957.. we realize that the soviet union during what was essentially the height of the cold war should not dominate the heavens, and we mobilized to create nasa. that was the work of congress and the president putting it together and elderly as you know we would go to the moon ahead of

all other nations in what was a tremendous reflection of what our country can do we work together, before we move onto mo other presidents and other presidential history, you spend a bit of time talking about president johnson's father and his attitude, especially towards the ku klux klan. >> guest: i do. we were sitting in the shadow of the state capitalit here where lyndon johnson's father was a legislator. i think lyndon johnson was schooled at his knee in many respects about what politics is and what one can do if one holds lyrical office. and got lyndon johnson intoxicated about the world of politics, but you're absolutely right. the ku klux klan at the time in our history the early part of the last century was dominant in this part of the world, and they made threats against legislators that did not tow the line. lyndon johnson's father refused to do so at his peril, and his

physical peril. they threatened his life and there were several nights where johnson's father and uncle stood awake on the porch with arms at the ready in case the ku klux klan came. they defied the ku klux klan, refusing to yield to the racist and bigoted wishes, and i think that wasat a lesson to lyndon johnson, too. i think in many respects lyndon johnson is our civil rights president. there is nobody with the possible exception of abraham lincoln who does more for the cause of civil rights than lyndon johnson. at leastly as president. >> host: the role of lady bird and lyndon johnson's political career. >> guest: well, there's no question that she was an absolutely indispensable asset towa him. she was somebody he could rely on completely, could trust completely. she knew how he thought in many respects. she knew his heart. she knew his mind. i think in many ways lyndon

johnson let hishi demons aroma, knowing that they would be quietly warded off by lady bird johnson who would summon the better angels of his nature. she could be relied on to do so. so often she saw the very worst in him. he would expel all this while and his greatest doubts about himself, knowing that she was talking off the ledge. also she was incredibly astute. she had an incisive political mind which he relied on. i think in so many ways she was his most trusted, reliable, and able in many respects advisor. >> host: why do you refer to george h.w. bush and george w. bush asnd the last republicans? >> guest: the republican party has changed so dramatically since george h.w. bush and george w. bush were in the white house. if you look just at george w.

bush was the governor of the state and spent w a lot of timen the mansion to our right and to the statehouse to our left, this is a different political party. george w.. bush stride but only to bolster democracy and our country but throughout the world. he was pro-immigrant. he was in many ways not, he was not a nationals. he was not xenophobic. it's a different republican party today. and when the bushes talked to me on the record for "the last republicans" i thinkth they expressed concern that donald trump would be not only the standardbearer for the republicanst party but at the te a possible successor to the in the white house. we had spoken before donald trump became president in 2016. the last interviews that i did

with them for the book were in the latter part of 2016 and donald trump had yet to be elected president. >> host: what was the relationship between the bushes? >> guest: that's one of the reason i wanted to write the book. the were a lot of misconceptions. as you know being in washington during the time there were so many misconceptions about the relationship that was at the thought george h.w. bush was schooling his son behind the scenes and saint son, you are not doing this or that right, and telling him how he should behave in the role as president. atkinson was undermining his presidency. anyone who knows george herbert walker bush knows that is a complete fallacy. i really wanted to get it on the record. what the relationship was, not only during the course of george w. bush's presidency but during the courses of their lives. and essentially at the end of the day it's a love story. if you look at george h.w. bush's influence on his son in the white house, it was that of

father, not as one who had preceded him in the white house. he knew the rigors of the president. he knew the demands of the job. he wanted to be there as a comfort to a son, somebody who his son could come to just to relieve himself of the burdens of that office, even for a moment with somebody under the burdens that he was carrying. but george herbert walker bush his attitude was we've had our turn in the white house, now it's your turn, and my role is to support you as best i can, and i'm'm here if you need me, t he don't mean dash if you don't need me uncleta to stay out of your way. >> host: two very first well-known ladies with the bushesow as well. >> guest: barbarark and laura incredibly strong and important first ladies. also important counselors to their husbands, , people thats y could go to behind the scenes

for important political advice. people who had their backs as president. barbara bush certainly had her sons back when he was in the white house as well. former first ladies in the same manner that lady bird johnson with. >> host: and barbara bush was known as the>> enforcer. >> guest: for good reason. youu always knew where you stood with barbara bush. she was candid, she was frank. she had a really good read on folks, too. a good read on people and what their motivations were. and again i think a very important asset to her husband a first lady. also as you know wildly popular. she was in so many ways america's mother. it was a matriarchal presence not only in the bush household but throughout america when she was their first lady. >> host: we're sitting writer in the middle of austin at the

texas book festival created by laura bush as you know. she was a first lady of this state for six years before becoming first lady of our country, as you took this template, this book festival template and brought it to our nation. noww we have the national book festival in washington, d.c. every year because of laura bush, who was also by the weight likeo barbara bush a devoted reader that all the bushes were voracious readers, but barbara bush and laura bush love a good book, and the new, laura bush being a librarian knew the power of a book. books have a way of speaking to us int ways that other medium simply don't. >> host: mark updegrove, how did you get in the presidential historian business? >> guest: it's a fair question. i had been on the business side of publishing, peter. i was, had risen up to the ranks at "time" magazine on the business side for selling advertising space and then i would go from the west coast to

toronto to run times independent canadian operation and addition. but principally on the business side. i had editorial.. i hope his editorial as per my responsibilities and then idi wt back to new york where my career had begun in being the publisher of "newsweek." left "newsweek" for mtv, of all places, and it was not a particularly satisfying chapter in my career. and in order to devote myself to something that i thought would be more meaningful beginin writg a book on presidents after they leave office, like the bushes were spoke about earlier. i, too, am a voracious reader of presidential history and i never read a book about presidents after they leftt office. they are fascinating chapters in light of these presidents and in so many ways they reveal their character in ways that their time in the white house did not. so i wrote the book called

second acts, presidential lights and legacies after the white house, and that led to my second act as a presidential historian. >> host: and welcome to austin, texas, and booktv's "inas depth" program. our guest this month is presidential historian, lyndon johnson foundation president, and abc consultant mark updegrove. here are some of his books that were going to g be talking about for the next two hours. second acts, would you just mentioned, presidential lights and legacies after the white house came out in 2006. baptism by fire, a president who took office in times of crisis came out in 2009. "indomitable will" which was covered a bit of, lbj in the presidency 2012. "the last republicans" about the bushes came outbu in 2017. and his most recent is "incomparable grace," jfk in the presidency and will be getting

to that in just a minute. but this is a call-in program as you well know. we're talking about presidential history. let's see if we can stump mark updegrove with presidential story questions. 202-748-8200 if you live in east and central time zones. 202-748-2001 for those of you yn the mountain/pacific time zones. third phone line and this isho for text messages only. you can text a message to mr. updegrove, 202-748-8903. please include your first date and your city if you would. and we will scroll through our social media sites that you can also contact us with. just remember, at booktv is our handle on that. mr. updegrove, i'm going to start with where i was going to finish in "incomparable grace" and a half a note here that says

jfk. was he a legend? was he an ideal? how realistic is his reputation today? >> guest: it's mixed. i think lbj's repetition is outsized for a variety of reasons.ns number one, it's because he was cut down in his prime at the age of 46 before he finished his term in office. and when he stood very tall in the presidency, he accomplished some very significant things for our country and the world. also you havee to remember that the camelot legend was being spun by the kennedy family and acolytes because the kennedys were not done. they still had presidential aspirations with bobby kennedy and later with ted kennedy so it served their interest to embellish the legacy of john f. kennedy, and i think, too, because john f. kennedy became a martyr by being struck down by an assassin's bulle we can look back ates his presidency and say that he would have done things

differently. he was the great might even if history. we can look at vietnam and civil rights and some of the turbulence that we experienced in the 1960s and say well, if jack kennedy had been in the oval office things would've been different. be true.or mayva not we will never know. but i think those are things thatth have helped burnish the kennedy legacyy through, since e was assassinated in 1963. >> host: the relationship between jfk and lbj. they called each other names, released their people did. >> guest: i think you talked about jfk and lbj.fk let me talk about that relationship and then we can go broader because it's complex. jfk and lbj i think regarding lee at times admired each other. i think that lbj would concede that while jack kennedy was a

backbencher and the senate when he was the all powerful majority leader, he had risen to new heights in the presidency. he had realized in many ways his great potential, and whenli he died lbj said that jfk was a eat public hero. i think jfk would concede that lyndon johnson was somebody who knew power very well because when he, jack kennedy as a backbencherte innocent need to t something done, he had to go through lyndon johnson as the majority leader in orderer to do so. when he was selecting somebody to round out his ticket in 1960, who better than lyndon johnson? not only to give the ticket regional battles which he does but get her to engender the trust and support of wary democrats in many respects but also because lyndon johnson knew washington, and he would be an effective successor to kennedy ifif something were to happen to an office. that's why you picked a vice president. because you can have somebody who can do the job if you cannot

continue to do so. so there was respect between the two. they might've looked askance at one another at various times but ultimately the respected one another. when you pan out more broadly there was great suspicion between the kennedy and johnson camps.ca bobby kennedy and lyndon johnson had great antipathy for one another, mutual contempt as one biographer put it in the title of his book. they despised one another. it was bobby kennedy who had great influence on the kennedy white house and his acolytes who called lyndon johnson uncle cornpone. they denigrated him and lyndon johnson i think saw that and i think disparaged them intend by calling them the harbors, by which was to suggest they were elite ivy league is out of the depth and the whitest trundle we are going to play one more lyndon johnson recording, audiotape. and this has all those bit of a reference to the kennedys.

i think you will know which one this is. let's listen. >> jim, i want a report o a number of people assigned to kennedy the day he died at the nuer assigned to me now, and if mine areot less i want them less right quick. >> yes, sir. >> and diving substantial is because i'm staying right in thisouse. i won't even go to the bathroom. if i have to bore people, and i want, i don't know who has charge of the white house police. >> major stover. >> you get wh him today and you tell him with these hearis come up and i'm not going to th kind of stuff anymore and if i i can't ever go to the bathroom, i won't go. i prose you i won't go anywhere. i will stayigus behind these ack gates but i don't need eight people following meo church. t one m secret service driving and one in the c with me, 82 or three bind is all right, but yesterday i had six or seven

of them in their, and walter got a call this warning sayin because i turned out the lights you had tod increase your security. >> that isn't so. >> of courset's not so but i want the figures. these boys that need jobs puts into counterfeiting or something else because if you don't do it i will commit suicide. >> host: mark updegrove, why was jfk, why was lbj so concerned about the number of secret service agents he had and how many jfk had? >> guest: i think he did want the world to see that we were afraid of something like that happening again. he had very famously marched behind the casket of john f. kennedy at his funeral on november 25, 1963, against the wishes of his secret service. he did so to show the world we are not going to be deterred by this violence. and i'm going to show up and pay my respects to the 35th

presidenthe who did so much fory political career and his country. and i think it took that spirit into the presence as well. he didn't want all these distractions to his presidency. he wanted to show the american people that he lyndon johnson was not afraid. >> host: mr. updegrove, we're going to start taking some calls and then will come back into the president but let's hear from cornelius was in alexandria, louisiana. cornelius, you are on booktv. please go ahead, hey, god bless booktv and everything. boy, i love all the stuff on c-span and everything. mark, my question for you, i had a lawyer here and his name was richard d burns, and you work with big jim garrison down here in new orleans and stuff. and his son is still alive, dmitry burns. and he knew something about the jfk assassination. i would call of all the time and everything. and i was just wondering two

questions for you. one, if you ever heard of richard b burger in alexandria, louisiana, and then two, there's a guy named abraham baldwin, president kennedy that was his first african-american secret service agent. he's got echoes of dealey plaza. so we know something about the jfk assassination. he essentially said the secret service had weapons of the but biden -- >> host: i think we got the idea of what you want to talk about. let's hear from our guestde mark updegrove track you i'm afraid it is probably short and not a satisfying answer. i don't who that person is. i've doctored of them. obviously they can get assassination something that continues to loom large in imagination of the american people. we could talk about that. i have never subscribed to the conspiracy theories that still seem to be out there after all these years. i think, i believe in the lone gunman theory in the absence of

credible evidence otherwise, just as members of the warren commission did. some years back i was able to interview several times gerald fordw who was at the time the lone surviving member of the warren commission and he told me that i always subscribe to the lone gunman theory, again, in the absence of m a more credible theory that could be back after i had not closed the door on the notion that there could have been a greater conspiracy, but i don't believe it because nothing,g, nobody has come forwd with evidence that would suggest that lee harvey oswald alone wasn't responsible for this horrendous act. and i agree with president ford. i would also say that this new book by paul gregory who was one of the few people who knew lee harvey oswald. he was a neighbor who had taken russian lessons from lee harvey oswald russian wife marina, who was relatively close to the oswald scum of the closest anybody i think was to the oswald. and he saw a lee harvey oswald

somebody who is very capable of committing the t assassination f the president, somebody who wanted that kind of thing, or infamy as it ultimately has become, and who would actually attended and assassination against a government official before and his life. so he saw lee harvey oswald as having the motivation, as having the traits of a psychopath such that he would commit an act that horrendous. >> host: mark updegrove, if i'm getting my timeline right, jfk and lbj were scheduled to be here in austin that night when he was shot, right there was an event happening here fundraiser? >> guest: that's exactly right. in fact, they were too go, pete, they were to go from dallas where president kennedy was obviously assassinated here to austin in a shed of where we're standing right now forhe a fundraiser at the capital, a democratic fundraiser. there was speculation as to why

john f. kennedy made the trip, and there are many who believe it was to mend fences between senator yarborough, a very liberal democrat, elected johnson was a more moderate democrat, vice president at the time. in fact, if the present one command of the senses he could've done so in washington or both of them lived. he didn't have to go to texas, their home state. in actuality i think it will motivation, kennedy's will motivation in coming here, was to raise money and put money in the democratic warchest for the coming election in 1964. john connolly the governor at the time and ben barnes who was a rising star in the democratic party here in texas assured president kennedy that if he were to come to texas that he could raise $1 million for the democratic cause. that was a lot of money in 1960. in 1963, excuse me excuse me. i said 1960, were meant the 1964

race. and i think that compelled jack kennedy not only toin come to austin but to go to houston, to san antonio, to fort worth and to dallas, and, of course, as you mention he was supposed to come here to round out the trip before spending the night at the lbj ranch j just 70 miles from here later that evening. >> host: 89 years ago that assassination happened in dallas. is io it still a stain or a remembrance here in texas rex doesn't still affect texas politics? >> guest: it was interesting i was doing several events for the book in dialysis a few months ago after the book was published. it was very mucht: stillte top-of-the-line when people thought of john f. kennedy they thought of the assassination. and they heardke a lot about itn dallas. i think because texas book depository and the use and existed there.

a museum paying tribute to john f. kennedy, the site where lee harvey oswald perpetrated the murder of president kennedy. so it's really there in dallas, still a presence in dallas it really is on the mind of folks in that part of the world in a way i couldn't quite have imagined have not got up there to talk about john f. kennedy. of course i have gone to other places in the united states to talk about the book. it wasn't quite as prevalent as it was in dallas i don't think it continues to be a stain but it's still very much part of the consciousness in particular of those in dallas. >> host: carlos in studio city, california, you are on with historian mark updegrove. please go ahead. >> caller: so great to see you and hear your comments about lyndon johnson. i was born in austin. i live in california now. we always knew how smart lady

bird johnson was. she was very, very well educated. i like to hear you speak about her struggles get education and how for a woman of her age, not age, but at that time, was very referred to seek that kind of education and really, really worked hard to be a smart woman there she became a very, very good businesswoman. i would like to speak on that. thank you. >> guest: of course. thank you for the question. i am a former resident of studio city and a love that part of the world. i appreciate your question in the place where you live. lady bird johnson, you're right, was air great advocate for education as was lyndon johnson. while i mentioned it, lyndon johnson is in my view our civil rights president. you can also lay claim to being our education president. it wasas lyndon johnson poured federal aid into education for the first time, a profusion of

federal aid to the elementary and secondary education act, and the higher education act, both put into law in 1965 which is a mention was really the high tide of the great society. lyndon johnson's first year and the presidency after winning it in his own right. that fundamentally changed the educational landscape. you mentioned lady bird johnson was educated here in austin at the university of texas. she helped to unveil head start which continues to be an important part of american life today for those underprivileged young americans who don't get a breakfast every morning before going to school. lyndon johnson, it's important to note, had seen this firsthand how many think he had a very formidable chapter in his life when he taught school in tutuila taxes host to the mexican border, to ae group of impoverished largely mexican american schoolchildren.

thisge was between lyndon johnson's junior and senior years at whathn is now texas ste university when he is trying to get enough money to finish out his education in order to do so. he taught the schoolkids in this small school and he sawl through their eyes what bigotry and hatred and poverty in racial injustice looks like. and that never left his consciousness. in fact, when he was in the presidency and trying to get through a piece of legislation that he knew would benefit those less privileged in this country, those people in many cases of cholera, he would say remember those mexican american the schoolkids, remember them as you were thinking about this legislation and how transformational it can be in american life. so i think you're absolutely right, lyndon and lady bird johnson were united in the cause of education, and it made huge difference in the number of people educated in this country

and in the quality of our education at large. >> host: and as you wrote in the hill publication last year, president johnson do his own support of voting rights reform would hurt his standing with voters throughout the south, just as it had when he championed the civil rights act the year before, but johnson stood resolute famouslyn askin, what the hell is the presidency for? did jfk move civil rights forward? did he escalate the vietnam war during his administration? >> guest: the answer is yeses to both. i will start with the vietnam war. yes. he believed, kennedy believed that we had to hold the line on communistt insurgency in vietna. he subscribed to the domino theory that held that if you allow one nation to fall to communism, that other nations in that region and perhaps throughout the world would fall in turn due to the fact that the

very aggressive politburo in the soviet union and those in beijing would be emboldened by that victory, and would try to take countries of greater geopolitical significance. so president kennedy believed, as eisenhower did, you had to hold the line on communism in vietnam or it would do adverse things to that region of the world. in terms of civil rights, i think kennedy moved very, very cautiously on civil rights throughd the bulk of his presidency here at in 1863 when martin luther king brought the civil rights campaign to birmingham and went to jail and pinned his famous letter from the birmingham jail, consciousness around civil rights was beginning to be raised. so vitally kennedy made a speech that elevated civil rights to a moral issue. it can never been put in those

terms before, but the american people hearing that civil rights was a a moral issue was an incredibly important victory for those on the front lines of the civil rights movement. but you can fault kennedy for not pushing aggressively the civil rights act that he had proposed in 1963 but failed to put into law by the time he was assassinated. lyndon johnson as you suggested took that bill that was languishing in congress and used kennedy's martyrdom to push it through. his advisers warned him not to do that. they say earn the presidency in your own right and then tried to push civil rights once you get the mandate of the american people. lyndon johnson knows he has this opportunity and that that, too, can be ephemeral. and he looks at his advisers and says what the hell is a presidency for?is he makes the civil rights act and the tax cut which were legislative priorities of john f. kennedy his priorities when

he comes into the presidency accidentally. he gets them both through and the civil rights actd again isa game changer for our nation and its promise, and our most sacred creed, which is that we recognize all people equally. before the civil rights act we simply didn't have that as part of american life. >> host: we are pleased to be right in the middle of the texas book festival with author and historian mark updegrove, is the author of several books including these second acts, president allies and legacies after the white house which will get into in a few minutes. baptism by fire, eight presidency took office in times of crisis, "indomitable will," lbj in the presidency. "the last republicans" looking at the bush presidencies, and "incomparable grace: jfk in the presidency." we've got about another hour and 15id minutes, and your calls as

well. we'll put the numbers up, 202-748-8200 if you live in the east and central time zones. 202-748-2001 for those of you in the mountain/pacific. and a third phone line set aside for text messages only, 202-748-8903. please include your first name and your city if you would in sendingg those texts there and our next for mr. updegrove comes from michael in boston. michael, we are listening. >> caller: yes, good afternoon and thank you c-span and peter, one of my favorite tv host, and mr. updegrove i think you are giving a really solid, convincing argument but had to say i respectfully disagree. let me tell you why. i was born three weeks after john f. kennedy was assassinated, so i will be 59 in weeks. the way i look at that legacy is

this, that is i can see the parallels of via the end of the civil war, and i will explain how. the congress created the 13th and 14th amendments, but what they did, and this was due to the work of black people as well, the caller troops, but what they did is they added a clause about citizenship now being just born on land, knowing that we are contiguous in south america. how do i compare thatco with lb? he comes the voting rights civil rights act which came about because of the work of black u.s. citizens at that time also added the clause that these were going to not apply to immigrants and aliens from other countries larger latin america and -- >> host: michael, i apologize. i'm going to interrupt you here. what exactly would you like mr. updegrove to respond to come if you could phrase it shortly? call that i can phrase it

shortly. i am going to saym that and i wish i could debate you, that i view it as lbj as the start of -- and so is great society programs were actually the healh programs and they can be critical current qualifies that's which abuse black commits us to bring systemic oppress and the second last point i want to -- >> host: we got the gist. we leave it there. anything you like respond? >> guest: i appreciate your question and your views. i think that's the wonderful thing about being americans weio can all have our own perspective on the president and his legacy. i think that, i look at the laws that lyndon johnson put into place as ayn mentioned as being transformative in terms of the situation that we faced in race, andres since our founding. in so many ways the issue of

race defines who we are as a nation. it shows us at our very best and it shows us at our very worst. lyndon johnson had toed the line on segregation for a great deal of his career when he was in the house in the early years, in his early years as senator. he did so knowing he would not have been viable as a politician in this staten of texas which ws for all practical purposes a part of the deep south people they becamepo majority leader ad was accruing more power i think you put the weight of the majority to of your positiond that of the civil rights act of 1957, evident but for its symbolic importance being the first piece of legislation since reconstruction. and when he became president as a mentioned a moment ago, he really uses the bully pulpit to elevate the plight of people of color inat this country, to raie

consciousness about what they're going through, , to the laws in place that would change the way that we treated people of color and different creeds and different religions, and gender as well. >> host: michael is calling from florida to wear in florida are you? then go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: yes. i'm calling you from broward county, florida, and broward if your not familiar with we just had five of our school board members replaced by the governor and that's relevant because i'm going to ask you to please come visit. i invoked historians of all things at the thickest part of the reason we got in trouble, because i pointed out that as far as can we were the county that fought the masked man, that was basically grandparent genocide, covid-19 grandparent genocide and they were using the kids as smallpox blankets. they actually brag about it on video. in fact, recently come three days ago, bob woodward said he

had trump and his announcing though some serious issues there where -- it was submitted again and here's the issue. it's not so much that they did but why did we go along? that's where historians come c because i try to tie together race with his through herbert spencer in the 1860s. he started all the stuff and that that's what we're open to genocide in the first place. they claim national words, and recently did was to justify slavery. that's why here in the south this is relevant, both healthcare and education have been starved because it is used as a competitive game. our schools are designed to a 20% succeed can 20% fail and 60% to be okay. i'veve been pushing for 100% expectation in our school board. that's how you want -- >> host: we appreciate your statement, michael. we are going to leave it there and this is a good little segued we have here, which is a text, this is from rich in orange,

california. i we get the chance to talk about baptism by fire, one of your books, could youou talk a little bit about how john tyler, a 39th ranked president by c-span historians, ended up in baptism of fire? was it simply an accident? accidentalt was an presidency, and that's the reason that he was in "baptism by fire." this was a series of presidencies, presidents rather that were faced with unprecedented crises. john tyler, our tenth president come faced an unprecedented crisis, which we never think the death of an incumbent president until john tyler was vice president and william henry harrison died after a month in office. so there is very little in the constitution that states what a vice presidents powers are after he becomes president upon the

assassination, or the death rather, of anti-incumbent. so we didn't know whatcu to do. john tyler elite firmly that he had the power that his predecessor had, at the were many who believed it was his responsibility to uphold the policies of william henry harrison. he believed he was his own man. and i think that's a very, very important precedent. so no, john tyler is not one of our great presidents, but he does take the presidency during an unprecedented time and establishes an important precedent, which is if the vice president takes over after the death of an incumbent, he or she, help with some point in our history, has the h presidential power in his or her own right and can exercise it as they see fit, not as the predecessor might have seen fit to enact

policy and make decisions. >> host: mark updegrove, you also have thomas jefferson in "baptism by fire" and you write the election of 1800 was the most scurrilous in american history. why is that? >> guest: : remember, that was written back in 2009. it might even supplanted more recent events. you're right, it was. we talk about the fragmentation of media today. we've had the fragmentation of partisanship in media through other periods of her history as well. certainly at p that time there were so many different partisan newspapers. they were demonizing the opponents in ways we would probably recognize today, but it was not an innocent time. the reason that jefferson becomes really important is because we did not have a two-party system when george washington was president. there was one political party, that was the federalist party. when jefferson becomes president we had split parties. there were two parties, the federalist party which john

adams was apa part of, the incumbent presidente come had been vice president to george washington, , and the republican party which thomason -- thomas jefferson helped to found the we did know what would happen in a two-party system. we wish to be able to preserve our democracy? that sounds very familiar in today's america. george washington believed that if we descended into a two-party system that we would not survive in our country. it was an existential crisis. it was extraordinarily important that we saw out of that election a peaceful transfer of power which indeed did ensue, and that thomas jefferson governed all americans, not just those and his party, , and he did that as well. again, that's a precedent that was extraordinarily important in order for our nation to remain viable and the democracy that we claimed ourselves to be. >> host: here's a quote from george washington which you have in "baptism by fire," a

two-party system kindles the animosity of the past against another, foments occasionally writes and insurrection tragedy that sounds awfully silly today at a time when we've had a two-party system for overar 200 years. look, that is fundamentally what it is to be american to certain degree. we are here because we can hold our own beliefs. we can express our own beliefs. we can vote for the candidate who is most attractive to us. that's what makes us different. so naturally we are defined in many ways our differences. this time is so different than of the times that we've experienced in our history.xp that's what history tells us, peter. harry truman used to say there's nothing new in the world but the history you don't know. we have seen all before. that said, we are facing existential crises today because there are thosee who don't

observe, who said they would not observe theef peaceful transferf power, and that it's a threat to our democracy. that is something we haven't seen in our history before, but that has, shown itself in other parts of the world to the detriment of those nations. >> host: and as you say "baptism by fire" came out in 2009. going back to your 1800 was the most scurrilous election, is it too early to judge the 2020 election at this point back? >> guest: we probably need a few more yearsrs to get 2020 context. i think it takes at least a generation for us to have a clear-eyed view at the people and trends that we saw in american politics. it takes that much time at least for passions to corporate we talked about the evolving legacy of lyndon johnson for instant. passions are so deep rent it out took us at least two generations to get a more dispassionate look at lyndon johnson's presidency.

for george herbert walker bush met with the early took a little less time. it was a a less divided time in our history when he left office. essentially the crises that he was dealing with come the end of the coldco war, the reuniting of germany, some of the gulf war, all those things were resolved by the time he left office. i think he and his lifetime was one of the few presidents who actually saw anve evenhanded assessment of his presidency, but we need a longer lens in order to evaluate history with any degree of dispassion and objectivity. >> host: one of the things i learned, was reminded of in "baptism by fire" was john adams was happy to boston by the time thomas jefferson got sworn in as president. .. parties to that point.

george washington had been president, relinquished office to his vice president. george washington stayed around for the ceremony before retreating back to mount vernon in virginia. john adams, however, didn't know what to do, so he boarded a stage coach in the early morning hours >> earlier morning hours of march 4th, 1801 and started the long ride back to quincy, massachusetts and well on the way to baltimore when thomas jefferson was sworn in as third president. and here is a tweet, in your book you mentioned discrepancy in texas and ceded the race in 1960, and how is this different from 2020 and possible election fraud. >> there was alleged to be fraud not only in texas, but in illinois as well. john f. kennedy won the presidency by a scant 2/10 of a

percentage point, just 118,000 votes meant the difference between a president kennedy or a president nixon and there were many who urged nixon to contest the election and even dwight eisenhower said, and offered to raise money, nixon was a statesman and deeply concerned as john f. kennedy was about our foreign policy. this, as i mentioned, before, peter, was when we were at the height of the cold war and threats were soviet union were real. and nixon didn't want to show that our election system didn't have integrity, that we should question the peaceful transfer of power. i think it probably made nixon a little bit more paranoid and we saw what happened during the course of his presidency. he wasn't taking anything for

granted in 1968, when he would win the presidency against hubert humphrey and in 1972 when he would win reelection by the biggest landslide at that point in our history, 64% of the popular vote against george mcgovern, the democratic candidate. >> and from myrtle beach, south carolina, jan, you're on the air with mark updegrove. >> good afternoon to both of you. thoroughly enjoying this. since november 22nd, 1963, i'm 66, and ever since that date i've followed politics, you know, i've read politics and worked local politics that kind of thing. anyway, my question is going to lyndon johnson. two, anybody that lbj detested more than robert kennedy? >> thank you, sir. >> the answer is, i can't know

the mind of lyndon johnson. i'm sure that those who were getting in the way of our system of government, whether they be here in our country or abroad, would have been a greater irritant to lyndon johnson. he would have been more contemptuous of those and one thing he could agree with with bobby kennedy. they wanted the best for our country, and some of the same things, but in terms of personalities, they were vastly different. i think he saw bobby kennedy as a dilettante and beneficiary of nepotism. it's hard to argue when you consider the kennedy patriarch and he wanted bobby kennedy in the attorney generalship and he

encouraged john kennedy to appoint him and johnson saw that as bold-faced nepotism, which it was. and kennedy saw johnson as crude and boorish, occasionally abused the power that he had and that might be true as well. they were fundamentally different personalities, both had great strengths and some weaknesses and i think the others were all too ready to see the weaknesses in the other. >> mark updegrove, this is marcus in new york. question, which president used the most expletives. [laughter] >> it was kind of a contest, wasn't it? >> i would say, you know, it's interesting in delving into the kennedy presidency, i was surprised at the number of expletives that were routinely used in the kennedy white house. lyndon johnson was no stranger

to profanity and used profane language, it was more of the barn yard variety. i think i'm currently reading a very good book by peter glasier and the i'll tell you the number of expletives, beginning the letter f surprised me, it was so much a part of the pattern, the everyday patter of language that went through the trump white house. i was a little set-- surprised by that and perhaps a little put off. so i'd say, based on the limited knowledge i have of this subject, i would say that donald trump at least in that case wears the crown. >> this is a quote from you in 2015, my guess is that he'll have a relatively active

post-presidency in the same vein of a jimmy carter and bill clinton, referring to barack obama. how did you do in 2015? >> well, i think he has pretty big ambitions for what he wants to do with his post-presidency. it's a fascinating role. unofficial role, if you will, that presidents can play off they leave office. the reason i wrote "second acts", we see harry truman who leaves the presidency, the most position in the world and goes back to the humble position that he had before he left for washington, 1935 to become u.s. senator and then vice-president briefly and then president upon the death of franklin roosevelt for almost eight years and then he goes back to independence, missouri, lives in the same

house that he and bess had lived in prior to departure. independence is a very small town and bess insists that he go mow the lawn. they were leading a very humble life and he didn't harness the power of the presidency as he might have as a former president. jimmy carter changed that. jimmy carter left washington in so many ways having suffered a huge defeat at the hands of ronald reagan, reagan 51% of the vote to jimmy carter's 41%, unable to gain reelection in office. he retreats back to plains, georgia and wondersha he's going to do withis presidency an h decides instead of just making a presidential library that that pays homage to his legacy as president and is a repository of the record, he's going to do something with the

position that he's been given, as being a former president and he becomes an activist. he decides to devote himself to the causes that were most inspiring to him as president, those were peace making and human rights and he establishes the carter center, and essentially provides the template for modern activist post-presidency. in terms of barack obama. i would say he's not quite jimmy carter, but he has raised, i believe, over a billion dollars around his presidential center, which will have a very robust policy institute and will be a position not only to put it-- devote itself to the causes that he continues to be passionate about, but to pursue his legacy about those causes after he's no longer with us. >> prior to jimmy carter, herbert hoover was the longest surviving post-presidency.

what did he do in the 30, 40 years he had? >> in a long time he was in the political wilderness, a convenient scapegoat for franklin roosevelt. this is a person who made a lot of money and then devoted himself to public service. among other things, he becomes iconic across the world, this legend because he uses his formidable engineering skills to feed war torn europe after world war i. millions could have starved, but for the efforts that herbert hoover organized and engineered around their getting food and sustenance until they could get on their feet. an incredibly important thing and a reflection on american humanitarianism. he wanted to be back in public service, but roosevelt felt it convenient to blame him for the ravages of the great

depression. that's politics. when harry truman becomes president, taking over roosevelt, a democrat as he was. and he had him do in world war ii, what he had done in world war i, to feed a war torn region as that part of the world recovered from the ravages of war and put hoover on committees to make sure we're spending wisely and hoover almost singlehandedly saves us millions, and maybe billions of dollars reorganizing departments in the federal government. hoover was forever grateful, peter, for harry truman to bring him back into public service and the two formed an unlikely, but deep friendship when they left the white house, they were friend for the balance of their lives and shows in so many ways the best

of what it is to be american. we need to remember those things in a divided america today. >> so, to come back to harry truman as well. he left washington in '53, but he did not have secret service protection until after jfk's assassination, did i get that right. >> that's correct, nor did he have a presidential pension, nor office space allocated to him by the federal government. noun of the emoluments that the presidents have today were given to harry truman, harry truman saved off what would have been bankruptcy, if he hadn't sold off family farmland. and lyndon johnson sees his plight and gives a law, gives a

president a modest pension about the time. compensated about what a ceo would have made, substantially less and proportionate for what ceo's, enough not to be financially embarrassed and gets office space and franking privileges which is important, and truman wanted to answer every letter sent to him. when he produced his memoir, and they would send him the book to be signed and then they would not send a return address. and he would sign the book and send them back with the posting the money and he didn't have the franking privileges. >> mark updegrove since maybe gerald ford, presidents seemed to do quite well financially in their post presidency, yes? >> correct, i think that ford wasn't the first one to enjoy

financial rewards from having been a former president, but he's the first one who does it as actively as he does. ford, too, had been a public servant almost his whole adult life. a modern sum as president and then others they might incur. he told his memoir for a pretty fair amount of money to then publisher harper and rowe. he didn't have a great deal of financial resources to fall back on. so he joined certain corporate boards, went on a speaking circuit and some said called the rubber chicken circuit and he would appear in pro-am golf tournaments, he didn't make a living from it, but benefitted from having been a former president and made a fair amount of money before he died

in 2006. >> the clintons, the obamas, ronald reagan all did pretty well, financially? >> they did. in fact, ronald reagan was roundly criticized after leaving office in 1981 for travelling to japan to make speeches for a million dollars unheard of at the time. and jimmy carter did the same thing for less money and scrutiny, but it was that too much money? shu he go abroad and make that amount of money? that's done routinely and less scrutinized. >> thanks for holding, you're on with author mark updegrove. >> good afternoon, peter, afternoon good afternoon mr. updegrove. especially you, peter, to be on with you again. my first question for mr. updegrove, which historian

do you enjoy following. and comment, no worst kept secret that lbj was miserable during his time for vice-president and people said he was surly, drinking a lot and realizing the limitations of the office because you know when he was senate majority leader there with as a saying that nothing could get done in washington unless lbj said so. so basically, you know, there was times he wanted to employ a before walter mondale, deployed a vice-presidential staff during the carter administration and started with lbj, floated the idea of a full-time vice-presidential staff and an office adjacent to the west wing, but it was shot down by jfk. >> all right. we've got it. your favorite historians and lbj as vice-president. >> well, let me tip my hat to

him for being an astute historian himself and i'll answer his first question first. it's so hard to answer that question because i have the great good fortune of calling these people my friends, but like so many, you know, i revere doris kearnes goodwin and richard norton smith and doug brinkley my friend who is here at the texas book festival today and think make an important contribution to history and i wouldn't want to single out one. you mentioned hugh sideer, and the church versus the state side and we came to a partnership through a number of programs and we became good friend. he was of particular influence to me. he was a writer of the presidency contemporaneously, but he was an important

historian by giving a first draft of history and looking at the presidents in real-time. and i found his council valuable and i continue to find his work and archives valuable as a historian myself. and in terms of what willner says and the vice-presidency, lyndon johnson almost reluctantly accepts the second spot knowing he would have little effect on the presidency being vice-president. he does so because he knows, i believe, john f. kennedy may lose the presidency, but for his presence on the ticket, particularly the regional southern balance that it gave him as ab from the south at a time there were greater fissures between the democratic party in the south and north. partly due to the stand that some democrats were taking on the issues of civil rights.

in the vice-presidenty lyndon johnson was almost like a caged animal. he reflexively with power, having none, and had to be enormously frustrating for him. i think, also, he realized he was being undermined by bobby kennedy and that, too, hurt. even though john kennedy did not want that. he made it very clear that if you are disrespectful to my vice-president, you will be in jeopardy of losing your position in my white house. and included him in all the association occasions and other things, but i think there's no question that he lacked political power in that office. >> how far behind jfk was lbj through dallas on that motorcade? was he in the next car? >> no, he was several car lengths behind and of course, that car sped to the hospital in john f. kennedy's wake and lyndon johnson was at the

hospital as he got the news that john f. kennedy had died, knowing that the burden of the presidency had been placed on his shoulders at that point. he soon goes to air force one on the runway at love field in dallas and the cabin of air force one is stifling hot because they had turned off the aircraft knowing that the president wouldn't be returning until they had completed the dallas visit and were off here to austin later that evening. so he waited there for mrs. kennedy and refused to allow the pilots to go to washington until the body of john f. kennedy was loaded on the aircraft. he wanted to ensure that john f. kennedy was being brought back to washington. i guess it was the spirit of the military, don't leave any soldier left behind. and it's when kennedy's body is on board, that lyndon johnson soon takes the oath of office, signaling the transfer of power

from kennedy to johnson, even though constitutionally he was already president. he didn't need to take the oath of office to constitutionally be the acting president-- the president of the united states. but lyndon johnson knew, just as john tyler would ultimately know when he took over the presidency for william henry harrison, that it was important to show the american people and the world that they were speaking that oath and taking the presidency, it was a for malty, yes, but manifestation of the power from a deceased president to the vice-president. whose idea to have jackie kennedy standing there with him, it was that lbj? >> lbj asked an aide to ask mrs. kennedy if she wished to witness his being sworn in and to her credit she said i believe i owe this to the

american people. >> barbara in buffalo, please go ahead with your question or comment. >> good afternoon, i am calling to ask about who you used as your historicalion? the person that inspired me the most about lbj was robert carroll. i can't tell you how his books captivated me and also doris kearnes goodwin, but you mentioned her, but i don't know if you mentioned robert caro. i can tell you i was never that into politics and lived in d.c. for a brief time in 1960, believe it or not, but when robert caro came out, with his books they were captivating and getting into his personality and i fell in love with him. i didn't like him before, you know? i just-- >> all right. thank you, barbara. in fact, robert caro is still working on volume, isn't he?

>> working on will probably the last volume. and the history of lyndon johnson's entire life. i think there's no question that this is a definitive. robert caro has been working on the series of books of lyndon johnson i think since the late 1970's and yet to deliver his fifth volume which i believe will take the readers through the balance of lyndon johnson's presidency to his death in early 1973. i believe he left off in the middle of 1964 before johnson gets elected to the presidency in his own right. so, he'll take us through probably the height -- through the election of '64, through the height and then through the quagmire that would be vietnam and back to texas and he retreated to the ranch and died

four years of since. >> and there's no question that his chronicling of lyndon johnson's life is important for so many reasons. i think that caro would tell you, it's not just a comprehensive biography of johnson's life, but uses johnson as a lens into his time. lyndon johnson was in power and through that you can see what washington looks like through all the nuances. that's why i think his telling of the johnson story is important. i'm with you, barbara, let's that name to the list. >> let's remind you're a long time ceo of the johnson library and lbj foundation. how much time did robert caro spend in austin? >> a lot of time in the reading

room. people should realize what a valuable force presidential libraries are for me and others, if you go into the great hall of the lbj library, you ascend a great, giant, marble staircase and takes you into the great hall where the presidential seal is etched in travertine marble and you can see through the window the archives, many of the boxes containing the archives of the johnson presidency. they're a beautiful brilliant red and have gold presidential seals on them and it's meant to nod toward the transparency with which we treat our presidential record. that's why what we're talking about with, you know, the issue with donald trump is so vitally important. those presidential record don't belong to a president.

they were used by the president, but under the provisions of the presidential records act of 1987, they belong to the american people and put under the care of the national archives. in many cases they're transferred to the presidential libraries of that president under the auspices of the national archives and they can be accessed by the scholars in the reading rooms. and it's vitally important not only for history, but reflection of the transparency, which is one of the hall marks of democracy. >> our next call from susan. >> mr. updegrove, i'm embarrassed i've never heard of you, very fair and balanced, and such a broad understanding of just, just the gifts that our presidents, really, since

eisenhower because that's my frame of reference. and i could talk to you for 10 years just i could just pump you with a million questions about all the presidents i've admired for various reasons from both side of the aisle, i'll ask you two quick questions, even though i've lived in new england for many years and i am roman catholic, and i grew up in a family that was at once very grateful to see john kennedy be elected president, but i come from maryland catholics and deeply admiring of the schriver family, for instance. i think there is a view among some catholics of the kennedys being-- their wealth was ill-gotten, men were extremely well behaved and cads and weren't adhere

rent to the way they conducted their personal lives and the women were extraordinary. how sergeant schriver, he was so influential especially later with wonderful eunice founder and special olympics, but he was the architect of the peace corps and i think he was a conscience in the kennedy administration and i was wondering how the kennedy brothers sort of treated him, you know? i was curious how they viewed him even though their sister was married-- >> susan, thank you. i think we've got an idea. we're going to let mark updegrove riff now. >> susan, thank you for the call. and thank you for now hearing of me. spread the word. your question was about sergeant schriver and where he fit into the kennedy family and i would say the answer was they had enormous respect for

sergeant schriver and when john f. kennedy put together as the peace corps as an embodiment ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country ideal, he charges sergeant schriver to figure out how to put it in place and while he's important to the kennedy presidency, it's also vital to note he was also important to the lyndon johnson presidency. after johnson becomes president, he feels it's important to keep the folks that john f. kennedy had put in his cabinet as advisors in his white house and long them is sergeant schriver. he not only asks schriver to continue on trying to put together the founding blocks around the peace corps, he also asked him to head up his war on poverty, which is one of the most ambitious planks of lbj's great society. it's a vitally important position in the johnson white

house. so not only did john f. kennedy and by extension the kennedy family have faith in schriver, so, too, did the 36 president lyndon johnson. and i'll mention the catholocism of the kedds kennedies for a moment. i'm not catholic myself and not whether the kennedy brothers and the ideals. it was very controversial that john f. kennedy was a catholic when he threw his hat into the ring and we had to grapple that as a nation, would john f. kennedy serve the pope in the vatican or the american people. and he made an important speech at rice university, he was first and foremost an american, and he would serve the american people and i think that lays the groundwork for the important speech that barack obama would make at the

national constitution center in 2008, talking about being an african-american, as candidate for the united states presidency, what being black meant to him in this country and what it meant to his candidacy and both helped us to get over the controversy of electing a person of faith in the case of john f. kennedy, and a person of color in the case of barack obama. >> and you're watching book tv on c-span2, this is our monthly in depth program, one author, his or other body of work and this month we're pleased to be in austin, texas with historian and author and lbj foundation president, mark updegrove. here is how to contact us. we have less than 30 minutes. 202-748-8201 for those of you who live in the mountain, and

pacific time zone and you can send a text message as well, 202-748-8903, we'll scroll through our social media sites as well so you'll have a chance to send a message that way as well. we've got a little less than 30 minutes and we're going to hear next from kent from fremont, nebraska. good morning. >> good morning, good afternoon, i was a 13-year-old student in junior high when john kennedy was killed so i remember that well. and i remember like the previous caller said, all of this controversy about him being catholic and, well, let's face the truth in real life, his brothers were adultress men

and where there is sin, there is problems and mark, i appreciate your work, you've certainly done a lot of the research. that warren commission, i think that was a sham. isn't it true? they did not interview a dozen people on that overpass and a security or a special agent climbing on the back of the car had a weapon discharge, right? >> all right. thank you, thank you, kent in fremont, nebraska. it's kind of funny, mark updegrove about half the calls have been about jfk, even though we've talked about several 20th and 18th century presidents or 19th century presidents. >> that's right, it shows the indelibility of our history. this is someone 13 years old when the president passed. the impact that someone might have on a 13-year-old and

others things that would, 9/11 and i mentioned barack obama. and then the january 6th insurrection might be one of those moments where we're taken out of our workday, our busy lives and when something stirs our attention and i think we reflect on what it means to be an american in those moments. you can see it's remarkable to me that something that happened, as you pointed out, almost 60 years ago still continues to be almost front and center in the american consciousness when people think of john f. kennedy they think of his tragic assassination, very, very often that's the first thing that comes to mind. >> george is in bloomington, illinois. please go ahead with your question or comment, george. >> i have a question of mr. updegrove concerning the

democratic national convention and in 1960. it was reported that-- it's been reported over the years that same raburn, the speaker of the house, had advised lbj or one of his aides that he was going to be given the nod for the vice-presidency by jfk, in history, i believe it is, in any case my question has to do with bobby kennedy's attempt to dissuade his brother, jfk from offering the vice-presidential nomination to lbj. there was a story reported years ago that bobby kennedy or one of his aides went outside the hotel where the convention was taking place and went down or up two or three flights on the fire escape to surreptitiously entered into

the same suite where i believe his brother and his aides were conversing or convening to discuss the vice-presidential nomination. >> hey, george, george, that's a lot of information, but can you just tell us very briefly why your fascination with this particular topic? >> well, i was a freshman in college when this took place and it was shocking of course, the assassination, but that directly related to my call, but you bobby kennedy was well-known to have a visual contempt with lbj. >> all right, we've got the idea. thank you so much. mark updegrove the election of 1960. >> well, i think that the caller was absolutely right, that sam raburn-- >> a texan.

>> speaker of the house, powerful in his own right first advised lyndon johnson not to take the spot as vice-presidential nominee on the ticket and came back the next day, lbj why are you telling me today to take it when yesterday you told me not to? and he said raburn said, because as sure as good made little green apples if you don't take the nomination, richard nixon will be our next president and i think that lyndon johnson became convinced of that as well. the caller is absolutely right. bobby kennedy did come down and urged lyndon johnson to withdraw his name. johnson refused to do so. he said, look, if you want me to be off the ticket, get jack himself to call me, if jack calls me and the kennedys were not monolithic.

they had different views on lyndon johnson. the patriarch had respect for. and when jack kennedy to be the vice-presidential nominee himself taking the second spot to adlai stevenson. he said you shouldn't be on the ticket unless lyndon johnson is object the ticket. i'll put money in it. there is a near miss in 1956 and then sets his sights in 1960. it's important to note that jack kennedy and his father had enormous admiration for lyndon johnson, bobby kennedy, however, was, as we discussed earlier, looked upon lyndon johnson differently and looking out for his brother's interests, tries to take lyndon johnson out of it.

>> president obama was the first sitting senator to be elected since jfk, correct? did i get that right? >> lyndon johnson-- with vice-president-- sitting president. >> sitting senator. >> yes, that's correct. >> richard nixon, jfk and lbj all knew each other from capitol hill. >> they did. >> what was their relationship, if any? especially the r and the d part of that relationship? >> you know, it was a different time. if you look at the laws that eisenhower, kennedy, and johnson put into place, so many of them were bipartisan driven and we don't have-- it's important to note, too, peter, that we don't have civil rights without the support of northern republicans. southern democrats, dixiecrats stood in the way of civil rights legislation and for many of them outside the power of congress' upper and lower

chamber could stave off that, could effectively use tactics to defeat legislation. so lbj needed civil rights to be pushed through. and i remember talking to george mcgovern years back and i asked about the bipartisan spirit which in so many ways defined the washington of that moment, and he said-- he told me that we, who had come off the front lines of world war ii, got to know people we never would have known before and we saw what we could do together. we did nothing less than save the world from tyranny. defeat the notion of democracy in the world so we did big things together and when we were elected to congress whether as a democrat or a republican or independent, we worked together just as we had

in world war ii. that sounds a little romanticized at the end of the day, politics is politics, but there was a different spirit that per vaded the united states at that time and i wish there was some way to come back to that, the spirit of what we can do when we come together. >> 1974 to 1994, richard nixon's post presidency. >> it's remarkable, yeah, it's remarkable for so many reasons. richard nixon becomes the first president to resign the presidency, which he does reluctantly, but because he's compelled to do so because he knows from republican's minds that he's going to be impeached if he remains in office and will likely lose his trial in the senate and will be, you know, he will be suspended from the presidency. so he leaves the white house

and goes into more or less self-imposed exile at his home in southern california and decides to devote himself to the causes that he found inspirational in post-presidency, just as jimmy carter did. in richard nixon's case it was elevating america's position in the world and he uses the position of former president and the relationships that he had engendered when he was in politics, to go across the world to learn more about the problems in different parts of the world and how they perceived the united states. and against all odds, richard nixon becomes a trusted advisor to ronald reagan, to george herbert walker bush. bill clinton of all people, bill clinton it was campaigning against the presidency of richard nixon, they become friends and bill clinton had tell you he still takes out a letter from richard nixon, a letter that nixon wrote shortly into his presidency, giving him

advice, very simple practical advice on how to manage the burdens of the presidency. so in so many ways, richard nixon is the phoenix of former presidencies, presidents, rather. he rises from the ashes of the presidency and becomes an important force as a normal president. >> in fact, bill clinton was president when richard nixon died, that we covered all of that on c-span. the clintons were right in the front row and bob dole speaking as well. >> if i may, he says something really important that richard nixon would have wanted him to say. clinton says, as he's eulogizing richard nixon, we need to-- i'm paraphrasing a bit. we need to judge richard nixon not just on one incident, just on the misdeeds of watergate, but by the entirety of his political career, which is essentially what richard nixon

was campaigning for as a former president. that's what he wanted. he didn't want to be known just for watergate, but the broader accomplishments of his presidency, including, i think, importantly the opening of china and the things he did in the foreign policy arena. >> i would presume that bill clinton would want that as well, somebody who was impeached, but had eight years as president. >> and how prescient on clinton's part. i think that clinton would want the same words to be spoken at his funeral, to eulogize him. don't just judge me on impeachment and monica lewinsky, judge my entire life and career, look where i devoted my life and energies and appreciate the public service i rendered to the nation i loved. >> donald trump, two impeachments, at what point does it overwhelm as a political tool and a legal

tool? >> there's unprecedented nature of his presidency not only that he was impeached twice and the bigger issue, the fact that he won't recognize a free and fair election that unseated him from power. that's a vitally important part who we are as americans. you don't have democracy without the observation of the peaceful transfer of power. we need to realize that as a nation. this is a myth that the election was stolen. that is going to be the thing that shrouds donald trump's legacy more than anything else. the fact that he has jeopardized our democracy not observing things at its very heart, the peaceful transfer of power. the next call comes from aoki in crab orchard, west virginia. hi. >> whoops, we're not getting

okie. i'm not hearing anything, are you hearing anything? >> i'm not. >> let's try ken in annapolis, maryland, ken. you're on book kv with mark updegrove. your question or comment. >> yes, i'd like to make a comment, that johnson of this country and signed civil rights, that the democrats was the south and that happened and all the democrats senators switched to republican party and democrats, that was the start showing white backlash when he signed civil rights things and it's going on today. you have trouble with the white groups and stuff resenting the fact blacks getting treated, getting some rights, and this affects whites and i-- >> thank you, sir, let's-- ken, let's leave it there, i think we've got the point, mr. updegrove. >> the backlash we see when

certain things happen. no question. if you look at the arc of progressism in this country we take leaps forward and pushed back a step or two before we take another leap and that happened at the enactment of the civil rights act and voting rights act. happened after we elected a black president, it's almost inevitable. again, when we do something really big to go forward inevitably, there is something that pushes us back. peter, if i can just go back, let me just restate something i said before. i said that donald trump did not observe the peaceful transfer of power. he did, he left washington and joe biden took the oath as our 46th president, but he has not recognized that. i want to make the distinction. because he didn't continue to mount an insurrection to remain in power and again, i think that's an important distinction, i apologize for making that misstatement. >> back to your book, second

acts. we've talked about several presidents and their secretary acts and ones who had it. what about the first ladies? let's start with our old friend lady bird or jacqueline kennedy, talking about 20th century presidents, go ahead. >> one of the reasons that i wanted to write this book not only because you see the evolution of what you can do with a post-presidency, but also because it answers this fundamental questions, what do you do after the leave the most powerful position in the world? where do you go from there? and in some cases it's an existential question for presidents. what do i do now that i have this time on my hands? i'm a private citizen. how do i conduct my life, how is my next step and what's the next chapter look like? it's the same for various first ladies, in many cases, they, like their husbands feel certain liberation not having to go into a role every day, in their case they weren't elected for? it's an unofficial role, that of first lady.

you're serving your husband and you're serving your nation by being in a role, but we didn't elect them to that role so in some cases it's extraordinarily liberating. i know that barbara bush, and laura bush in the state of texas, just as lady bird did, found great meaning in their lives after the white house. they were able to devote themselves to some degree to the causes that they still held onto, and they still were passionate about. in the case of barbara and laura bush, literacy, hence, our being at the texas book festival here today and lady bird johnson's case the cause of conservationism, the preservation of certain natural areas. she was an environmentalist to her core, but they also are able to devote themselves to family, something you almost invariably not neglect during your time in the white house, but you realize you have a higher calling at that time and you have to serve the needs of the american people sometimes

to the exclusion of your family. >> one of my favorite side stories in your book "second acts", barbara bush in houston after the '92 election, bought herself a car and drove herself, was at the grocery store and somebody said to her are you barbara bush? and her answer was oh, no, she's much older than i am. >> and barbara bush driving to the store, a mercury sable that was bought to her by her husband. >> and my wife and i had at bushes over to a rental cottage we had at kennebunkport seven years ago, and the next day i was speaking for an event at the kennebunkport public library and i was walking barbara bush to her s.u.v. and she said george and i are coming to the library, and what

are you talking about. >> i'll talk about this for 40 minutes and then questions. she said make it 30 minutes and no questions. >> so i spoke for 29 minutes, beat her, and got off the stage. >> randy from louisiana, go ahead. >> i just want to make a comment on first ladies. bess truman did not want to be first lady. she didn't like that at all. and also, of franklin roosevelt, mistakes he made 9066 and the appointment of joseph kennedy as ambassador. thanks. >> well, bess truman, i mentioned the humble existence that harry truman has in the wake of his presidency and of course, that's bess truman, bess truman was in heaven in

independence, missouri. it was home to her. every summer during her husband's presidency, she would go back to independence knowing that she was leaving him alone and it was tough for him, but it was solace to her, it gave her vitality and strength in the bosom of her family and to be back in the heart of her community and she very much enjoyed that as a former mirs lady. if you ever get a chance to go to the truman residence in independence, it's quite striking to go through that house and see how humbly they lived and there's one thing that struck me, when i was there just a few weeks ago, there's a small government-issued calendar that hangs by a thumb tack in the kitchen and she's scratched off every day just like so many americans might have at that time and you realized what typical americans and at the same time extraordinary americans, harry and bess truman were. >> we've got to ask what were

you doing at the truman library in independence? >> i was fortunate enough to see the brand new exhibit at the truman library. they revamped it during covid and a stunning job taking a more contemporary look at harry truman's extraordinarily consequential presidency and while i'd been there before, i went up to the second floor and the national park service allowed us to go up and i never saw the truman's incredibly modest bedrooms and we went up to the attic and truman famously said, after being asked what he's going to do after he gets back to independence as a former president, he said i'll take the grips up to the attic. the grips being the suitcases and i have no doubt what did he, modest harry truman took them up in the attack and they unpacked a wonderful new life. >> and a book, matt wrote it

about harry truman's road trip. his friend new yorker, getting a speeding ticket on the pennsylvania turnpike and driving himself and mrs. truman out there. so i think that matt algeo was the author. i hope he was. >> and i wrote about it in "second act", they take a trip to new york where their daughter margaret was living with her husband and grand children and they have no idea the kind of attention they're going to stir by embarking on this road trip. as you pointed out they didn't have secret service protection, they would go to a diner and people would rapidly call those to the community. come to the diner the trumans are here and couldn't believe that the former president and first lady would be in some random diner in the wilds of pennsylvania, but there they were. >> a few years back, c-span put

on a wonderful series on the first ladies, it's on our website. every single first lady up through, i believe, michelle obama is when we were doing the series and it was wonderful, even though i had a part in it, it was still wonderful. i had the opportunity to interview laura, barbara bush, and rosalynn carter. and so, it's just, it was a real historic series so if you're interested in first ladies, i commend you to our first ladies series. rosalyn carter has been at the side of jimmy carter throughout his post-presidency. 95-year-old rosalyn carter, who in many ways may have held more power than any of them, in so far as she attended cabinet meetings. they didn't try to hide it. she was sitting in, taking notes studiously, she was in many of the meetings that he had with foreign leaders, different heads of state. she was there by his side and there is no disputing the fact

that she was his most valued and trusted advisor, in the same way that we, i think, can assume that lady bird johnson for lyndon johnson as so many first ladies and their husbands. and they had made no secret of it. mrs. carter, too, i was able to interview and i'd recommend the series on first ladies and she did so much to destigmatize mental health in this country. and continues to do so. my wife and i went to see nem in plains, georgia, i believe it was mother's day when we happened to be there and my wife and i realized we were going to have lunch at their home and we had talked so long that we had to leave to catch our planes. so mrs. carter packed us a lunch complete with a recycled

pab paper bag and we had the honor of eating a packed lunch by rosalyn carter as we scrambled back to the airport. >> and the back, "harry truman's excellent adventure", it's matt algeo, and we're talking with mark updegrove c-span, go to c-span.org, and you'll see all of mr. updegrove's appearances on c-span. we're smack dab in the middle of austin, texas, the state here and we've been spending the last two hours with author and historian, mark updegrove, we've enjoyed your time here. >> thank you for a great conversation and what you do for book tv.

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