stretch from it is today. you consider that the things that we take for granted today when we go to the doctor, things like the instruments being as germ free as possible, or the doctor has washed his hands before he's decided to work on us. and we use the term loosely for doctors when we're talking early medicine. a lot of these doctors in our region were self-taught or they had worked under somebody else who had been self-taught and they were getting ready to retire, so they would just learn as they went. >> our lcv cities tour continues the weekend of march 31st and april 1st from little rock, arkansas, on c-span 2 and 3. every week we feature an hourlong conversation from "q and a." here's this week's encore "q and a" on american history tv.

>> this week on "q and a," our guest is michael korda, author of "ike, an american hero." >> michael korda, when anybody writes about you, they often to your storytelling. so, i've got to start off by asking your favorite ike story. >> i would have no problem with that. >> what is it? >> i think it will be ike -- my favorite ike story is absolutely his relationship with general douglas macarthur and what each

of them had to say about the other. because it's -- what i tried to do in the book is open up these people and show you what they were really like. and make human beings out of them instead of historical figures and the relationship with macarthur is just a fascinating relationship. explained so much about ike. >> what did you take away from their relationship the first thing you think about? >> the overriding vanity of macarthur, and ike's ability nevertheless despite the great disparity in rank, to work very loyally and very, very productively for macarthur for seven years. >> where were they together? what was the relationship between the two of them? >> well, you know, it's better to start in a way with the end and with the beginning.

when they were both five star generals, supreme commanders, a lady came up to macarthur and said, general macarthur, do you know general eisenhower, and macarthur said, yes, ma'am, i do, best clerk i ever had. >> did eisenhower ever hear that? >> and when an aide after the war told general macarthur that ike had had a mountain named after in him in canada, macarthur had an aide get a map and he took a magnifying glass and had a look and he said for the terrain it's a pretty small mountain. so, i tried -- one of the fascinations to me in writing this book was to explore the relationship, of course, between ike and other people, between ike and marshall, and ike and

mamie, between ike and churchill, between ike and montgomery and also between ike and macarthur, because ike spent seven years when somebody asked ike, how well he knew him, ike replied, which was very unlike ike, yes, ma'am, i studied drama under general macarthur for seven years. >> where did you go -- well, let's start at the beginning. when did you think you had a book called ike? >> well, i wrote a biography, and as i wrote that, because i was a great admirer, so it was a pleasure to write. it began to occur to me more and more that grant and eisenhower resembled each other in many ways. the drinking problem that grant had left to one side. first of all, they were both brilliant generals and successful generals, victorious generals. and grant's strategy was the winning strategy for the union

in 1854 and 1855. that strategy very much formed what ike did when he landed in europe in 1944. he was an admirer of grant. they were both small town boys. they both grew up poor. they both went to west point and were uncomfortable there for some time and didn't rise and shine in the west point cadet hierarchy. their approach to war was very similar, and they were both two-term presidents who two terms are in my opinion vastly underrated. i think they were both good presidents. ike a better president than grant. ike i think was one of our best presidents. so, the more i began to think about ike and read about ike, the more i discovered i didn't know and wanted to know and the more i liked him. in 1951 irving berlin musical, a famous song "they like ike."

and that became ike's political theme song through no choice of his own. but the truth of the matter is as i began to read particularly the letters and cards between ike and marshall and the correspondence that ike had with his wife mamie, i began to like ike. and for a biographer that's the first big step. it's very hard for me to imagine writing a long biography of a man or a woman for that matter whom halfway through the book you begin to dislike. i never had the problem with ike. the more i read, the more i admired him. >> you are the editor in chief emeritus of simon and schuster, what does that mean? >> it means i'm retired, but i edit a number of authors. and i'm very happy doing that. but i don't go into the office anymore. >> you live in dutchess county, on a horse farm. >> on a horse farm.

>> what's it like? >> what's it like. well, we have not that many horses. at the moment we have five. and our maximum capacity is six. but it's still a lot of work and a great pleasure. i ride every day. my wife margaret is an active competitive rider, and it's a major part of our lives. by the way which ike would have shared. he loved horses. he was a good rider. it was the form of exercise before he started to take up golf that most interested him. >> you've written a book on horses. >> yes. horse people. and i wrote a book with my wife margaret on how to care for horses. horse housekeeping and, of course, a book on cats with my wife margaret called "cat people." >> how many years with simon & schuster? >> 47. >> 1950 --

>> 1958 i came to simon & schust schuster. >> from where? >> from cbs of all things. i was a script reader at cbs for about a year and slid my way into book publishing which i'd never given much thought and stuck. not only stayed in book publishing, but stayed at the same house for nearly half a century which is very unusual in book publishing. >> how did you use your british accent? >> well, by small degrees rather than in one big jump. but my british accent was never that firmly affixed because when i was a child i was evacuated to the united states late in 1940, and i didn't go back until 1947, so i'd already lost a portion of my accent, and i went to school in switzerland and i lost part of it and now i think i've lost pretty much all of it. >> when did you find out you were a writer? >> i've always enjoyed writing.

and when i went into book publishing i somehow felt that i couldn't write. i shouldn't write. that it's wrong to compete with your own authors, for one thing. and then gradually i that writing was something that comes naturally to me. interests me. coaches me involved. it keeps me thinking about other things. for years i thought of it as a hobby until it became in some cases too profitable to be treated as a hobby and in other cases too difficult to be treated as a hobby. and i've always zigzagged between one thing and another. i've been a novelist. i've written self-help books like "power." "queenny" which was made into a tv movie. and it was only with the opportunity to write "grant" that i finally realized what i

probably should have realized when i was 17 or 18, which that what i'm really cut out to be is a biographer and a war historian. it's what always interested me. when i read, i read biography and history, military history for the most part. i suddenly realized i'd been preparing myself for this particular craft for most of my life without ever thinking that i was going to do it. so, when i sat down to write "grant" and now i've written "ike" it was like being released, like being at the beginning of the track and they fired the gun and you run, i loved it. >> when you were here in 1999 for book notes, you told me you were a man of the left. >> a moderate. >> but then you've written two books on grant and eisenhower, i don't know how you characterize them, but they are certainly not known of people of the left except the right wingers during the eisenhower years thought he

was a man of the left, he was a communism, i guess. >> in the views of many. >> how do you find yourself attracted to both grant and eisenhower under those circumstances? >> i don't think of grant politically quite frankly. he ran as a republican but a republican meant something quite different in the civil war and post-civil war days than it seems to me today. grant ran as a republican because of his respect for lincoln. i don't think that grant had major political ideas although he was a quite effective president in many respects. ike is a political conundrum and i explore that in ike considerably. i don't think i was ever at ease with many of the decisions of the republican party. i think he could just as easily have run as a democrat and indeed harry truman offered to let ike run for the presidency and he, harry truman, would drop down from the presidency and run as vice president if ike did

that as a democrat. ike was not particularly tempted by that. as a kansan, he knew more republicans than democrats. and was beginning to feel himself pulled to the republican side. but i would characterize him as a very liberal republican. ike said remarkably that he thought that if any american political party tried to abolish or take away social security that in the long run that american political party would not be heard from again in american life. he was very strongly in favor of social security. he was a much, much more devoted and hard worker to bring about civil rights than he is given credit for. he did more for civil rights i think than either jack kennedy or lyndon johnson, but he didn't seek the applause and the acclaim for it, because it was simply not ike's style, and therefore he's never had the

praise for it that he deserves. when they tried to keep black children out of the schools in little rock, ike had no hesitation. he did not send in peace officers or the fbi or united states marshals. he ordered out the 101st airborne divisions, one of the divisions that had dropped the night before normandy and had been under his command to escort the black children through the mobs into the schools. ike understood the use of force. he also understood if you were going to do it, you didn't fool around. you faced the segregationist with a mass group of 101st airborne troopers and got the job done. so, in many respects i think ike is a much more liberally minded president than he is given credit for. and also a man who devoted himself to the presidency.

second volume of his presidential memoirs is full of waging peace, and he waged peace i think just as hard as when he was a general he waged war. >> if he were sitting -- well, first, have you ever met him? >> no. >> if he were sitting here after you finished this rather large, you know, biography of eisenhower and you had a chance to ask him a few questions, what would they be? >> i'd love to have ike be able to tell us what it felt like on the evening of june 4th, when he post poneld tponed the invasion normandy for 24 hours because of bad weather and what it felt like when the water was still bad, the seas were high, he had 170,000 men at sea. he had 3 million men at his command, 1.7 million american,

and over a million of british and canadian. he had 7,000 trships and 11,000 airplanes and all of that responsibility was on his shoulders. he didn't pick up the phone to washington. he didn't ask anybody for advice. he simply sat there having listened to the weather report and smoked solidly for about three minutes in total silence except for the ticking of a clock, and then said, well, i don't like it any more than you guys do, but i think we have to go. and then stood up and walked h think is remarkable, sat and wrote a small piece of paper what he would say on the morning of june 6th if the invasion failed. that everything that could be done by courage and by planning and by bravery had been done. that he had been obliged to withdraw the troops from the beaches and that the

responsibility for what had happened was his and his alone. i think that is the key to understanding dwight d. eisenhower. that he was willing to undertake enormous responsibilities and was willing to undertake them completely. he took responsibility for things. his devotion to duty, to courage. his willingness to shoulder these extraordinarily heavy burden by himself and alone and to make up his mind what he wanted to do and how to do it and see it through, these are very, very rare. most striking thing to me about ike is the strength of that personality and the intelligence that was behind it. >> which of the presidents have you known personally? >> i knew ronald reagan because i had edited his autobiography and his book of speeches. i edited a book of speeches by jimmy carter.

i edited six or seven books by richard nixon. that's about it. those are my presidential authors. of them, i liked best ronald reagan who was an absolutely wonderful and genial fellow and great fun to be around and wonderful storyteller. i myself like telling stories, but ronald reagan was one of the best storytellers i've ever heard. >> you told us a story when you were here about the cookies and we've got on our book notes website if people want to read it. i want to ask you about that you sold us that simon & schuster paid $8 million or $9 million for the auto biographer, did simon & schuster publish bill clinton? >> no. >> he was paid similar, $10

million or $12 million. but. >> if he was paid $10 million his books earned out $10 or $12 million. he was an astonishing, huge best seller. ronald reagan was not. >> you told us he only sold 22,000 copies. >> i won't vouch for that amount but it was disappointing. >> what sold the bill clinton book and why not ronald reagan? >> well, for one thing bill clinton wrote his own book and is an extremely clever writer and a good writer. that, by the way, is notten common among presidents. grant's memoirs is probably the most eminent work of literature in a nonfiction field in america. it's by any definition as much of a classic as "moby dick" is

in fiction. ike's story of the second world war is to my mind one of the best written and certainly the most fair minded books about the second world war that anybody has ever written. >> did he write it? >> he wrote it himself. absolutely wrote it in long hand. i know that because his editor joe barnes is a friend of mine at simon & schuster. it sounds like ike. it's a wonderful book. you could pick it up today and recommend it to anybody as a book to read about the second world war in europe. >> did jimmy carter wrote his own book? >> he wrote his own speeches. i believe he wrote his own books, yes. i know his editor. and he's very much a stickler for having his books exactly the way he wants them. he wrote a big novel which i helped edit some time ago and he was, though, receptive to certain changes basically he absolutely wanted it his way and got it his way, so he writes his

own books. and clinton does the same. ronald reagan i have to say does not sit in that category. he was a very good writer. his letters and his diaries are extremely well written and very readable even today. but when it came to his autobiography, i think he felt that that was somebody else should do it for him and it was, in fact, done by somebody else for him and it showed. >> you told us earlier in this conversation that you still edit david mccollough. >> yes, i do. >> what is his secret to success? and how successful is he compared to history book writers in the past? >> i would say that he is probably the most successful writer of history and biography in the united states today and has been for a large number of years. certainly since the publication of his book on truman. what his secret is, i'm not quite so sure i could answer it.

if i knew it, i would do it. i think it's in part that he writes wonderfully well. it's in part that he has tremendous empathy for the period and for the people he's writing about. it's in part that he never forgets the biography of history has to be told as a story. it has to be told as a story so you can read them as if you were reading a novel with a beginning and a middle and an end and a continuous story that pulls you along. that sounds obvious, but probably 90% of the history of the biography that is published is not readable as a story. >> what's his next project? >> i'm not at liberty to say that. unfortunately something only that david mccollough could tell you. but whatever it is he could tell us. >> and you'll edit it. >> yes. >> do you have a favorite david mccollough story?

>> well, my favorite david mccollough story is that he sent me the most wonderful picture taken at his house in maine with a lovely handwriting. he has the most wonderful handwriting which i always envied about the -- he wanted me to have this -- and i'm paraphrasing, this photograph that showed the distinguished historian receiving the news that he has been awarded his second pulitzer prize with his customary dignity and oit this wonderful color snapshot of david mccollough. holding the telephone in one hand. i think it's important in people that they be able to enjoy -- and david certainly does that. and i'm very distrustful of people who don't enjoy their own

successes. >> when would we have seen you in that same position? >> well, certainly when i get "the new york times" best seller list i was just bold ovewled ov. >> which book? >> "ike." i've been on the best seller list. i've been number one on the best seller list. >> which one? >> "power." and i think i got number two with "queeny." but, you know, i put so much thought that feeling and energy into writing about eisenhower that i came perhaps this was just a personal obsessive interest on my part. so, when the book got out there and hit "the new york times" best seller list, i was overjoyed. that's just wonderful. because i wanted people to both to understand what a great man eisenhower was and also to

understand two things which are extremely important to me and which form as it were the structure of ike. one is that i want to put eisenhower in the context of the great events that formed his life and that from middle age on he helped to form as he rose to positions of greater and greater power. the other is to remind people because it's a continuous story that simply because we won the second world war does not mean that we were fated to have won it. there were many, many chances that we had to lose it. we could have lost it in 1941, we could have lost it in 1942, we could have lost it in 1944. we have to understand because we look back on it and know we won it, doesn't mean that eisenhower sitting where he was could be sure he was going to win it. ike thought the normandy

landings had no more than a 50/50 chance of success even if he had good weather, and he had terrible weather. and we have to put ourselves in ike's shoes to understand the stress and strain and to understand also that this was a war in which terrible things were done, but in which our law had it happened would have been catastrophic. a world dominated by nazi germany and by a militant japan would have been unmadimaginably different and the credit for the victory has to go to eisenhower and the way he fought that war and the way he planned that war. also i wanted to explore because it's fascinating to me how it was that a boy, a boy who grew up poor in abilene, kansas, and came from a family that was

mennonite, as you know the mennonites are bearded and often german-speaking farmers predominantly, who avoid alcohol, gambling, smoking, and are pacifists, part of their religion is militant and absolute pacifism. ike's mother converted to mennonite when she married ike's father. and then converted later to become a jehovah's witness which is, again, an extreme pacifist sect, so ike grew up in not only a family but extended family and among neighbors all of whom had in common a deep and militant belief in pacifism. so, it has to be carefully

explored how it is that a boy from that background should grow up and become a great general. ike's mother who was an extraordinarily -- when she saw ike off on the train to west point carrying his suitcase, she came home and one of ike's brothers said it was the only time he had ever seen his mother cry. she cried not because ike was leaving home, because ike was leaving home to become a soldier. the most unthinkable thing possible for somebody who was a jehovah's witness and matter to married to a men mennonite. he grew up in abilene when it was still a frontier town. it was in a frontier town in process of becoming a respectable town.

the streets were mud. he saw as a child a pistol fight in the streets outside his house and remembered that one of the participants used a nickel-plated colt, a peacemaker revolver, and abilene which had been the haunt of wyatt earp and calamity jane and wild bill hickok andwere lined with bars brothels was in the process of transforming itself into a town with more churches than brothels and bars. and a part of that transformation was the arrival there of this mennonite group from pennsylvania like the amish that changed the entire complexion of the town and turned abilene into a very different town from the sort of raw frontier town it had been. ike came from that background. and for him probably the most

enormous and unexpected and unimaginable of all was when he went to west point on the train and saw for the first time going through new york the sea and the hudson river, it was unimaginable. he came from a town that's surrounded by probably more miles of dry land than you could find anywhere in the world where the local river is for a very good reason called the mud river. and curiously enough, which i find marvelous, so many surprises to me exploring ike's life, he was intended to go to annapolis and become a naval officer. he had never been to the sea or smelled it. but he knew a military education, a naval education, was the only way a poor boy like hi