beard they have learned words like e-mail skype, text, tweet twitter iphone, ipad, itunes, itouch. but i'm confident alan lark's generation has conquered these new devices in vocabulary much the same way they fought against the axis powers in world war ii another testament to their adaptability. their new motto would be we would text among the beaches and tweak them on the seas. -- tweet them on the seas. this afternoon and remembering that generation, fighting the war that defined them, and to those that preserve our freedom, we wish to argue. if you are veteran or the spouse of a veteran, would you stand and be recognized? [applause]

i am thankful they chose the history department as the vehicle for remembering their be loved alan. i'm especially grateful to his wife to whom i'm truly indebted. in less than a decade, the larkin symposium has become a signature program. we are proud to have distinguished speakers over the years who contributed to our understanding of the american presidency. last year we targeted the presidencies of nixon to obama and had a dynamic duo of woodward and bernstein. what a treat it was to have them along with ken neftali on our stage. today's guests have also made great history. david mccullough is america's preeminent historian meaning he has devoted his life to making the past, live.

-- come alive. we are more informed because of his labors. let me explain precisely what that means to all of you who might have trouble discerning what historians do for a living. in fact, i can tell you my neighbor still wonder how i managed to mow my lawn in the middle of the week. so here is what we do. we research what we believe actually happen. we listen to those who tell us what happened. and then we try to decide what we come to believe happened. along the way, we establish credibility by making you believe that what we are telling you actually happened. in short historians make history. indeed, according to today's guest, you can't be a full participant in democracy if you do not know our history. president provost perry, i know you understand that fau needs us as much as it needs engineers and biochemists. there is no one better and demonstrate why historians are needed then david mccullough.

whether he is writing about our founding fathers, the american revolution, the panama canal americans in paris, john adams teddy roosevelt or that great brooklyn bridge wheor the wright brothers. david mccullough is able to show that we are a nation of readers. honestly, i have wanted to introduce him for years we.have hosted helen thomas, daniel ellsberg, madeleine albright, and lincoln historian mark neely. in my estimation there is no greater contributor to the ongoing challenge of discovering who we are then david mccullough . as the new york times keeps reminding us there is no one better at social commentary. today it is about his latest book "harry s. truman." for the next hour, put aside the knowledge that david mccullough has written multitudes of books. he is a yell graduate in in discredit her -- a yale graduate, a two-time pulitzer prize-winning author, he has won the national book award twice

that he received the presidential medal of freedom and he has open before a joint session of congress. i can say here if david mccullough were to get that chance again, perhaps you might remind our legislators of the words lincoln once used in congress. "we cannot escape history, and we will be remembered in spite of ourselves. we shall nobly say or meaning they lose the last best hope of earth." david mccullough reminds us of this hope as well as the disasters that come when we run astry. what matters is not the fame or glory of his work but what matters is is relevant. and most important his being here today to remind us of truman's relevance and why we need to remember world war ii and those who have gone before us. i'm so thankful to david mccullough and ms. gambell for being here. it is like having one of the among us, our own version of "downton abbey." ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome, mr. david mccullough. [applause]

mccullough: thank you. thank you. thank you very much. i want to thank the university, first of all, for the honor of taking part in this program. this series. and thank all of you for coming out on such a fabulous day. i just got here from boston. [laughter] so you know how thankful i am. one of the clearest lessons of history is that there is no such thing as a self-made man or a

self-made woman. and that almost everything of value is accomplished as a joint effort. very rarely does anybody ever do anything alone. and in know that from personal experience because in my career, beginning back in the time when john kennedy was president, i have beneen assisted in every way professionally in my work by my editor in chief and my, the star i steer by, my wife rosalie. and i would like her to stand up and let you -- right down here. [applause] we have five children and 19 grandchildren. and she's mission control.

and secretary of the treasury. and the best answer -- dancer i have ever danced with in my life. i would like to just start with a couple of conclusions i have come to about history. first of all, there never was a simpler time past. i'm always annoyed when i hear some of these supposedly wise members of our society going on at length on a talk show about, that was a super time. no, it was not. it was different but it was not simpler. imagine being here on, in this country in 1918, 1919, for example, when over 500,000 americans died of influenza, a disease they do nothing about.

did not know where it came from. 500,000 people. that is our present-day -- population that would be one million people. 500,000 people was more than our entire loss in all the military services of the deceased and killed in world war ii, the worst war, the world has ever known, the worst calamity the world has ever known by far. and a big part of the life of my subject today, harry truman, had to do with war not just the second world war, but the first world war. and he was a man of far more complexity thamn most realize and that most people realized at the time. he was also an american very

worth considerable study. as a life, not just as a president. and i today hope to talke a about why knowing his life helps immensely with understanding his role in world war ii. but to go back to the some of the basics about history history should never, ever be boring. it should never be made boring by boring teachers are boring commentators on television. history is human. and that's the essence of it. it is about life. when in the course of human events. begins our great declaration of independence. human events. and human beings make mistakes. human beings can do vile evil,

mean cruel things, but human beings can also rise to surpassing heights in performance in life and in being a kind and gracious and worthy person deserving of attention an respectd. or in art of musi -- or music or poetry or the theater. and make no mistake -- history is not just about politics and the military. politics and the war. it is about the entire human experience at our best and our worst. and nothing ever happened in the past. there was no past. nobody lived in the past. they lived in the present. it was their present and not ours. nor did they have any idea how things were going to turn out in the long run any more than we do

in our time. no such thing as a for seeable future. and those are all points to keep in mind when examining the protagonists of history. and certainly with a man like harry truman. the fact for example that harry truman to pleasure from reading latin is something nobody at the time ever knew. no reporter every bother to ask him about that. he was supposedly the failed haberdashery that never went to college. yes, he was a failed haberdasher and he never went to college. the only president of the century or our century, this century, who never went to college. and yet, that never stopped him from reading. and he read history mainly. that was his real interest, but he read shakespeare and the bible and chaucer. and he read in latin. cicero and the rest. this supposedly failed nobody

from independence, missouri. and as i hope i can make clear today in what i have to say, the fact that he had failed did him worlds of good. he failed again and again or was set back by circumstances behind his control, which seemed in his value to society, and seemed any hope he had for achieving anything, but he never let that get him down. i'm presley working on a book about the wright brothers. which will be published this spring. and the wright brothers never went to college. in the wright brothers read history and shakespeare and the great masters of the english language, english and american. they were interested in architecture and art.

they were not just a couple of small town ohio bicycle mechanics who got lucky. pand they a -- and they also failed again and again it their mission to achieve flight. today we're staying at the marriott hotel. today, looking out from our window from the 11th floor, i saw a number of birds go by. hawks, vultures, seagulls -- there were the birds --the my brother studied in order to achieve what they did. and one of the treasures of the collection taat the library of congress, the wright brothers papers -- private and business papers -- is a book about that big kept by wilbur wright is he was studying the birsds on the beaches at kitty hawk. in there he writes "no bird

ever soared in a calm." and that was exactly their approach to life. the old irish saying, amymay the wind always be at your back. if you want flight, it has to be coming straight at you. you only take off when the wind is against you. and that is exactly what happened with harry truman again and again, and he knew it. the seeming disadvantage of the moment could be the rankings of what he hoped to achieve. i was recently asked to come to mit to give a talk on failure. the professor called me and said he was going to introduce a new course on failure. because the students there at mit are so fixated on success they don't seem to realize that failure is part of life. and he thought it was time they have a course to remind them

that failure happens. and it can happen to you. if you are working in science and technology, it can have adverse effects on many people in serious ways. and we wonder if i would give a talk about why the french failed in their attempt to build the panama canal. i said i would love to, because it is a great story, with quite a lesson to learn. and then i never heard from him. about four months later, i ran into them i said, what happened? he said the course was a failure. [laughter] nobody wanted to take it. but we should take it. and i think the lessons in the story of harry truman are very, very valuable and to the point for just that reason alone. when mr. truman retired from the white house, went back home to

independence, and he hadn't d riven a car for 8 years. and been driven everywhere, and they got in the car to go out to dinner at friends house. the freiniend had moved during the time the trumans were in the white house and they were at a different address. and he was having trouble finding the house. bess says, why don't you ask for directions from somebody? so he pulled over and walked up the path to the front door of a house. knocked on the door. man came. hse said, could you tell me where the operatives with? yes, of the street -- second left, turn left. fourth house on the right. truman thanked him. the man called after them say

did anyone ever tell you look like harry truman? truman said, i hear that often. the man said, must make you mad as hell. [laughter] now, of course, there is only one way that story could've gotten around and that is that harry truman told it on himself. when i -- i grew up in pittsburgh in a very republican family. and i was 15 at the time of the 1948 election. in high school, but i was very interested in history and politics. i try to stay up to hear the toucome. -- the outcome. the outcome did not get recorded until 2:00 in the morning, and i was tired. the next morning, i woke up and i said, my father was shaving. i said, who won?

he said, truman. like it was the end of the world. and about 40 years went by, and i was back home -- same house, pittsburgh with my father and we were after dinner sitting and talking about the country and the world. he went on, as he often did about how the country was going to hell. and then he said too bad old harry is not still in the white house. and that's been the trend of our country. to finally realize what kind of a man harry truman indeed was and how much we owed to him. keep in mind that harry truman not only instigated, created the marshall plan. but he recognized israel, h e

desegregated the armed services with one sweep of the executive pen, he got us through the berlin airlift, which was one of the crucial, crucial test of our country after world war ii. and successfully, effectively. he created the cia but limited , limited only to collecting information. he created the national security council. he fired general macarthur when it was right to fire general macarthur in order to substantiate the rule of the elected executive the president of the united states over the military. and he saved south korea. by deciding to go into korean, what we call the korean war, the most difficult decision of his

presidency. and he made the decision on the use of the atomic bomb. along with that, he was the first president to recommend hawaii iand and alaska become states. first president to visit mexico or think that might be a good idea for the president to visit our next-door neighbor. a president who knew the names of every single person who worked at the white house, whether they were a maid or butler or chef. nkewand would introduce people to them when guests came to the white house as if they were someone of consequence, which in his eyes, they were. he never lost sight of who he was. he said, i tried never to forget who i was, where i was, where he came from, and where i would go back to. he to who he was, and because of that, he was not trying to prove that he was something other than

what he was ever. he had no airs. he put on a airs. there was nothing synthetic about him. what you saw was what was him. and the real thing. and in many ways, though he is often for trade is being the least prepared to be president in many ways he was as well- prepared as anybody could possibly be for that impossible job because he had served in the war, in world war i, in combat. because he had come up through one hard time after another. he worked on his father's farm for 8 years. hard hard labor. when he said that after he suddenly knew he had become president, he said to a group of reporters, have you ever had to bail -- load of hay fall on you? he was talking from experience.

he knew what it was to be deeply in debt. he knew what it was to suffer humiliation. his father had invested badly lost what little money had in the town. trumans had to leave independence and move into a very modest neighborhood in kansas city. the only job his father could get was as a nightwatchman. but he did not let that get him down. and he didn't let his political life take away his joy in reading, and in music and in history. he's the only president i know of who went to hear the washington symphony -- excuse me. and he did so if they were playing one of his favorite composers, chopin. he would take the score with him. you see that is not the harry truman most people imagine.

give him hell, harry. when he was out on the campaign, he would give themhell. he said, i just told the truth and they thought it was hell. he was right. of course, when he was running against dewey for election -- reelection because he accepted the job after roosevelt's death. so he was up for the first time to be reelected. nobody thought he would win. they did a poll of 50 top correspondents on all the newspapers around the country covering the campaign. how many thought truman might win. none. nobody could win. yet he won. he won by 2 million votes because nobody was paying attention to the huge crowds that were coming out to see him. and nobody was paying attention to what he was saying. and how he was saying it.

now, the fact that truman did not go to college not be taken to mean he had an insubstantial or an adequate education. if you go back and take a look at the curriculum and the final exams given in public high schools in this country and for chicken in the midwest, you realize that high school education at that time was very good, public high school education. i've seen the final exam for history classes, independent high school. half the history majors in college could pass that test. he kept corresponding and kept in touch with using was teacher and his history teacher through most of their lives in his own all away the way. charlie ross was a classmate of his and he and charlie ross bragged they had read every book

in the independence public library. i think they did. they lessons from not just leadership of the lessons of how to behave in life are replete in the whole truman story. he did make mistakes. he did have his failings. he could, he had too often a snap answer. he had not taken time to think about the situations efficiently. and he hadn't had much experienced yet with people of great weatllth and advantage and social and educational standing. he'd never in his life known anyone like -- franken roosevelt. he did not know franklin roosevelt.

franklin roosevelt paid him no attention whatever none. had no interest in him. it was all right for truman to be his running mate because the political bosses met one steamy july night at the white house and said for t president truman was the manhe. he said if that is what you want, fine with me. he would have preferred james bird or -- or henry wallace. but it was not that way. and then came the 1946 election. congressional election. and the republicans swept the country. and truman cambee back, president

truman came back from having gone out to independence to vote symbolic election vote on his part, but he took it seriously. and he got to union station in washington and only one member of his official family, white house family or cabinet, or congress came to the station to greet him. and that was dean anderson. of course, truman never, ever forgot that. a friend does not forget. he got off the train alone reading, carrying a book. i've tried for years to find out what book he was caring but with no luck. but that moment when he was

about as low in the standings of the country or could conceivably have been as low as he could have stoo at any point is when his attitude towards the job and his freedom as it were, to do what he thought best was unleashed. he came -- it brought a new lease on life, freeing him from the shadow of fdr, to be himself, not trying to be like anybody, let alone fdr. he was free to take charge. to be himself. and show what he could do if he had to do it. and he said to bess in a memorable sentence a private letter to bess i'm doing as i

damn please for the next two years. to hell with all of them." and that's when he really started to roll. that is when all of these greedy competence come in. therefore, it seems to me, that is an example of what, o ne brilliant example of what we can all learn from that career. when he did take office in 1945 at the death of franken roosevelt, it was one of the worst points in the history of the world. and certainly no president ever came into office with anything like the burden he would have to assume. the war had taken 196 and

999,000 american lives. which as he knew was more than three times the american , in which he fought in combat. at the current rate the war was costing more than 900 casualties a day. just for us. he was commander-in-chief of an armed forces exceeding 16 million men and women. let's not forget that. the largest naval armada in history. and more planes, tanks, guns and money than ever marshall by anyone nation in history.

in the critical last act of the most terrible war of all time. he did not know churchill. he did not know stalin. he didn't even know his own secretary of state. that is how much he had been left out of it all. but he also had to make the decision about using this new weapon. a subject that he had been excluded from. he was brought in on the secret after he became president. and what a decision to have to make. but in the three months of american battles in the pacific his three months, nearly half the total of the three years war in the pacific had already fell by the way. think of that.

mainly, the terrible cost of okinawa and saipan. general marshall thought the cost of an invasion of japan would cost a minimum of 250,000 american casualties. and to no one with the allied forces in the pacific, to no one did it look as though the japanese were about to quit. there was no one in his government, nobody in his cabinet, nobody in his military guidance, who thought the weapon should not be used. nobody. and there is almost no conceivable chance that the decision would have gone otherwise by anyone who was in

that office. certainly not if franklin roosevelt had still been alive. did truman consider the weight of the decision? of course he did. but truman also had to consider the weight of the casualties being inflicted upon japan by our air raids, call them everyday ordinary air raids of b29's with regular bombs, the horrors of all that. and how could he someday face in american public and tell them he never used this weapon, which might have ended the war, which could've amounted to 250,000 or more casualties. just the americans. and he was also thinking of what the japanese casualties would be. he made the decision. and the war ended after

hiroshima. hiroshima took somewhere 80,000 to 100,000 lives, one weapon. probably another 50,000 or 60,000 died in the aftereffects of injury in the next several months. so it may be said that perhaps as many as 160,000 people died in that horrible moment. and more, of course, additional numbers died at hiroshima. this sounds cold and it sounds impersonal. and i do not mean it this way. but it is a reality of looking at these figures and the decision in the context of the time.

if you look at world war ii, which i have spent a lot of time studying, and all you look at are the number of people killed or the casualties, you would have to conclude -- that is all the evidence you had, the numbers -- you would have to conclude that world war ii was a titanic, incredibly destructive conflict between russia and germany. with some peripheral warfare going on elsewhere in the world. the number of russian deaths was something between 10 million and 11 million people. the number of german deaths almost entirely military, was between 4 million and 5 million. somewhere between 15 million and 60 million german and russians

were killed in the war, not counting the endless numbers that stalin had shipped off to nowhere and disappeared. a number maybe even as great as the holocaust, which we may never know. the scale of that war, these two giant dictatorships going at each other with all they had, is he on our reckoning. nor should we forget that in the years since the use of the atomic bomb, thank god, it has never been used again. and maybe, had it not been used then maybe had it not been used on a living target, as it were, maybe some other creature would have come along who would use it in an even more disastrous,

terrifying fashion. i do not think we can predict what might have happened, what might have been. i also have to say that i have very little patience with those historians or critics who see something so vividly clear to them in hindsight as to make the people who were actually caught up in the situation look rather selfish or not very wise. we were not in the place. we were not living then, in the roles of responsibility and duty that they had to fulfill. whether they were in the service or in the government or simply trying to do what they felt was best as an american, as a patriot, in a time of crisis.

the years of growing up in world war ii are very vivid with me still. i saw as a child a big industrial city, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, i remember when the skies at night were bright red. the mills were going full blast. the closed wind drove -- window to the bedroom. it look like black sand on the windowsill. it was soot from the mills. we thought it was an exciting time because we would collect scrap and fat for the war effort. our neighbor down the street was the air raid warden. in school, we were told that pittsburgh was helping to win the war. that we were part of an effort to win the war. and we had jewish children in

the classrooms whose families had escaped from germany. we had heard about what that was all about. i truly think my own interest in history began then. the first time i ever realized there might be something happening in someplace other than where i lived was when i came out of the mosque, a symphony center for opera is in pittsburgh, where my brother had taken me to see an opera. i was very young. he was not much older. we came out onto the street, and everybody was talking. pearl harbor had just been attacked. it is the first memory i have of something happening elsewhere in the world that everybody was excited about. of course, we live in a different time. a very different time.

but lots of us still remember those days. and remember how we rose to the occasion as a country. and i just finished reading george w. bush's very good, small biography of his father talking about how the generation of those who served in world war ii never talked much about it. and why they did not do that why they did not talk about it brag about it. i am fascinated by the way today , anytime anyone scores a touchdown in a football game they do a whole dance of celebration. part i terrific? -- aren't i terrific? you did not do that then. he joined the team and played the rest of the game. there is less look at me, i am a celebrity. as truman once said, he did not

like the advent of television because it will make everybody become even more synthetic in politics. how right he was. his postpresidential years are extremely interesting. he was out of the white house. for nearly 20 years before his death in 1972. he said a number of things that we have to remember. one of the things that he did he refused to take any position on a corporate board. he refused to lobby for fee. he refused to give speeches for of -- a fee. he said it is demeaning of the high office of the presidency.

changed a bit, hasn't it? [laughter] when he found out the kennedy campaign was going to start having a $1000 dinner fundraiser, he said there goes democracy. in this last presidential campaign, there were $50,000 a plate dinners, including one here in boca raton. this is a different time. and i think it does not mean that we might not find some people would like to carry on the integrity and the leaf -- belife in standards that someone like truman example five -- exemplified. all he had was his army pension. he came home and only had about $117 a month. and change.

he earned some money from the publication of his autobiography. he thought that was acceptable. and he was certainly right. it was. and he never changed. never became, in any way, all of himself -- full of himself. i had the good fortune to interview many people who knew him, were in his administration. were his neighbors, his friends. a surprising number. and they all said, if only the country could have known the real man, what he was like. if only the press had asked him a different collection of questions. and their respect for the man and the gratitude they felt towards the way he seemed to exemplify what he felt was the best of the part of america

middle western values, that encouraged modesty, encouraged self-control encouraged loyalty to friends. encouraged hard work. harry truman was up at 5:00 every morning. and he worked all day long, into the night. he took his responsibilities, he took the burden of his responsibilities, with the utmost seriousness. and it agreed with him. he was in better health when he left the white house than he was when he came in. he never wanted the job. think of that. but he wound up with it. and he just felt that you had to do the best you could. an awful lot of it he got from his mother. he was devoted to his mother. she was a woman a very strong

values. when his mother died, some of the less than sympathetic rest -- press kidded him about what a mama's boy he had been and how hard it was going to be. of course it was. i would like to close with a scene that i feel tells us a lot about mr. truman and the america that he came out of. on april 13, 1945, first day in office, was the lowest moment of his life. he had a burden inflicted on him like no president ever had. no one in that office ever had more worries to contend with. and he received a letter from his sister. his sister, mary jane, was a

remarkable individual. and he adored her. he adored her not only because she was his sister but was very intelligent. she had good sense. and she wrote him a letter on april 24, 1945. abreast of all the trials she was enduring back home. dear harry, we have had so much mail i caps on -- cannot remember all the details. i have lost seven pounds last week. no wonder, breakfast is the only meal we have had from the time since you went into office. only breakfast we had on time

since we went into office. someone called for pictures yesterday. said he was an artist from washington. i told him i was sorry but that mama had all the picture she could pose for at present. mary jane's recurring theme was the considerable the service he had done to them by becoming president. [laughter] of immediate concern was whether he could get home for mother's day or whether she and mama would have to come to washington as he suggested they do. may 1, 1945: i hope you can come, but if you cannot, we can persuade mama to make the trip. tell me if you have any suggestions about what you would like me to bring in the way of clothes. i want to look my best and get momma fixed up. it is a large order on shut -- such short notice. [laughter]

i arrived home yesterday and found mama inclined to go. i went to kansas city to get whatever is necessary. it is pouring down rain, and i have lost my voice. dr. graham said i should stay in. i am hoping that i can get everything ready to go friday. however, call me wednesday instead of me putting a call for. call as early as you can. if i cannot go shopping tomorrow, i do not see how i can get it done. [laughter] understandingly, he wrote, you have done fine under this terrible blow. [laughter] i interviewed a presbyterian minister who lived a few houses away. who used to take mr. truman, go with mr. truman on his walks.

he took his early-morning walks everyday. this very nice man accompanied him on his walks. and i said, did you talk a lot? he said, we talked all the time. i said, do you remember anything unusual the president said? he said, well, one thing. he always talked to a tree along the way. he did? he said, yes. that gingko tree on maple street. they are huge, they live forever. this is reputedly the oldest tree in independence. i said, what did he say to the trade? he said, you are doing a good job. [laughter] [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> no trick questions. >> no trick questions, guaranteed. it is a great pleasure to be part of the symposium, having spoken last night here in florida. and of course, to be here to moderate this session with a truly great historian, who has done so much to promote the study of history and deepen the love of americans for history. david mccullough's great

contribution to the study of the american presidency, especially through his works on harry truman and also that great biography of john adams. how many of you have read that? [applause] host: it is a truly brilliant book. and his study of theodore roosevelt, all of these have contributed so much. as historian of truman's foreign policy, i remain ever grateful for david's biography of the man from missouri of whom we have heard him speak this afternoon. david mccullough helped change how truman has been viewed and revealed some marvelously parts of truman's character and the extent of his presidential compliment. he was, as david portrayed him both a great president and a

good man. that is a terrific accommodation. today we will have the opportunity to question david. there are microphones of both sides of the stage. please get your questions ready and come forward. i have been requested to suggest that they be questions rather than extensive comments. so that david mccullough can be heard in response. i want to get things under by asking david a question myself. and asking you how you go about your work, how you have accomplished writing these incredible books. mr. mccullough: i do not know. [laughter] host: that is a short answer. mr. mccullough: i have a

wonderful wife. host: that is an advantage she has over me. [laughter] mr. mccullough: i say that because i do not know that i would have had the courage to have embarked when i did. on a full-time writing career. if i had not been with the complete support of my partner. now, i did not used to say this publicly. but i feel why not? i had never undertaken a subject about which i knew very much. if i knew all about the subject, i would not want to write a book about it. for me, writing a book is the adventure. it is the quest, the journey. it is an education unto itself.

and no one life is a subject, it is many subjects. it is many people. it is often from the secondary characters you learn the most about your major character. so learning about the lives of abigail adams or mr. truman or the people helped to the brooklyn bridge is part of learning about that story. i was raised professionally, as a journalist, on a where when, why, what, who. and i have been far more interested in the who then when, where, and what. i believe in what akins -- dickes -- dickens said, make me

see this person. make me understand the setting in which these things happen. so i never, with a rare exception, have never written a scene that takes place somewhere that i have not been. now, this may sound weird, but i write a chapter or two or three before i go there. that way, i will have a better idea of what to look or when i get there. i will know it before i get there. invariably, the setting particularly an outdoor setting is much bigger than i imagined. the wright brothers' house is smaller than i imagined it to be. people ask me how much of my time i spend doing research and how much of my time i spend writing.

which is perfectly fine. nobody yet has ever asked me how much of my time has been thinking? thinking particularly about what you have accumulated from the research is as important as any part. you come back with a lot of mementos from a trip and spread them on the dining room table. it is only when you sit there and start looking at those objects that you realize which of them are more important than others. it is very much like being a detective. not that i have ever been a detective, but i love reading detective novels. host: what is the process of your writing? how do you go about doing that? mr. mccullough: i do not think myself as a writer. i think i am a rewriter. you have to be somewhat schizophrenic to write.

there is the writer you and editor you. once the writer you has had his chance editor you takes the pile of paper and sits down under a tree with a pen and shows the clown, a monkey, how it should have been done. you have to separate yourself. no hard feelings allowed. then you write it again. and i work, as you know, so we might as well make it public, i write on a typewriter. a manual typewriter. [applause] and i sometimes think that it is writing the books. and i cannot change. i bought it when we first decided i was going to write a

book about the johnstown flood. i have been writing articles for a living. magazines, mainly. for about 15 years. but i had never undertaken a book. since i went to work for time life we were issued a standard typewriter. so i thought i'd better get one of those. because i cannot just write this on my college portable. i bought it in 1965. $50. it was 25 years old, secondhand. and i have written everything i published since on that typewriter. [laughter] and there is nothing wrong with it. [laughter] it was built before the notion of planned obsolescence.

it was built to last. i had to put new ribbons in and get it cleaned once in a while. knock on wood we intend to keep going, me and my typewriter. [laughter] [applause] host: we are delighted to hear it. we have a large lineup of folks. but bring our first question forward to mr. mccullough. >> thank you, mr. mccullough, for your efforts. i read that the japanese knowing we had the bomb, wanted to surrender. but in order to save face, could not surrender to the united states. and trying to do so through russian conduit. and the russians boarded this effort. is there any truth to that? mr. mccullough: some. it was not a consequence. -- of consequence.

our relations with russia were tenuous at best. they did not trust us. we did not trust them. truman, at that point, had more trust in stalin then he should have. truman like people and did not see what a monster stalin was. but he did not make decisions based on what he thought about stalin. but no, i do not think so. it was a decision that had to be made. best that it was made. in the long run, we are all the beneficiaries. however, that does not mean we should not ever debate it or discuss it or consider moral issues involved. we should never not consider moral issues. i would say that even if i were

not sitting here. whoever said war is hell -- who was it -- sheridan, was understating it. it is worse than hell. it is madness. particularly when innocent people, people not in uniform have not done anyone any harm only thing they have done is be where they were when it descended upon them. , look what is happening now. the cruelty. host: i would just like to complement what mr. mccullough is saying. i do not think there is any basis for the suggestion that the japanese were on the verge of surrender and the soviet union was holding up peace terms. there is no basis for that.

let's turn to our next question. >> with your knowledge of the presidents, is there a trait or set of traits you see in all the presidents? mr. mccullough: successful presidents or all presidents? there is one trait. an interest and knowledge of history. all of them have had that, no question about it. and they were readers. if you have a sense of history you realize if you are president , you are one link in a long chain. there will be more to come after you. the world did not begin and end with your arrival in the white house. truman had 87% positive standing in the country in the first

weeks or months of his presidency. everyone thought he was wonderful. then he eventually plummeted down as low as jimmy carter got. he also said, quite wisely, that you have to wait at least 50 years to judge a president. you have to wait for the dust to settle. more now than ever, we have to wait for these secret things to come to light. has anything new come to light about the atomic bomb decision in the 20 some years since my book was published? nothing of substance. do you? host: i would say the weight of the evidence confirms truman in his decision. the preparations the japanese were making for the invasion of the islands reveals previous

claims they were on the verge of surrender does not hold up. it is a confirmation of what you wrote in the biography. mr. mccullough: to answer your question, most residents -- presidents who do not let the attention, the polishing of the apple that goes on corrupt them with a sense of how spectacular they are, who keep their balance , they are the best ones. the fact that truman could surround himself with people taller than he was, better educated, more knowledgeable about foreign policy, it did not bother him in the slightest. one of my favorite moments was

when he was about to appoint general marshall secretary of state. he thought marshall was the greatest american of his time. far more admiration for marshall then franklin roosevelt. he was about to appoint marshall secretary of state. one of his intergroup, my guess was clerk clifford said, mr. president, i think you ought to think twice. he said, why is that? he said, if general marshall becomes secretary of state three or four months ago by, a lot of people would say he would make a better president than you are. truman said, he would make a better president. [laughter] but i am the president and i want the best people possible around me. we have had a number of presidents in recent years who do not want anyone around them that might upstage them. that is a real sign of knowing who you are.

one key word to harry truman is courage. he had phenomenal courage. but it was courage of conviction. that is different. and he had very strong convictions. which he did not always live up to. who does? but that is important to understand. host: next question. >> i would like to ask you about your views of bess truman and their relationship. mr. mccullough: their relationship was superb. he adored her. maybe you have been to the truman house in independent. everything about the house is her house except for one little nook in the front parlor on the

first floor, which is harry's little place where he had his books, his reading chair, his lamp, his music, his records, as they were called, and his old granddad. [laughter] medicine that was required. [laughter] no pictures of himself around the house. i was just in a home belonging to a very well-known politician of our day. and every room, his own office had 12 pictures of him. [laughter] what is this that happens to people in those jobs? bess was wise. superbly educated.

socially delightful. the most impressive lady she had ever met. period. when they went to europe, he and she had no trouble whatsoever being with the hoi polloi of europe. just being themselves as americans. was it not enough to be proud to be an american? that was that generation. when harry truman got caught in the mountains at night, his unit got caught by german artillery. and his own unit had never been under fire before. everybody ran. except harry truman, the captain.

and eventually, by cursing them all out, he got them to come back in and continue with their duty. but in his letter to bess, he said the reason i did not run is that i was so scared i could not run. [laughter] he was entirely honest with her all his life. and fortunately, he was writing this kind of correspondence before he became president. and it never occurred to him he would be a character in history. fortunately, he lived in a generation when people wrote letters. so we have his heart being poured out to bess truman, year after year. it is valuable material by which to get inside of the lights and times of the real man. future historians have almost nothing to work with. we do not write letters.

host: you picked incredible couples. john and abigail and harry and bess. mr. mccullough: except bess destroyed a lot of her letters and abigail did not. abigail, in my view, is one of the greatest americans ever. their use of the english language, if you take a look at truman's 1948 whistle stop campaign speeches, they are not eloquent. they are not rousing tribute to american heroism. they were not franklin roosevelt or jack kennedy. but they had nouns and verbs. [laughter] they did not say like, you know, or actually. [applause] >> with your scope of history

do you see a repeat of history from the concept of studying the 1930's with hitler slowly rising and now, the slow rising of, let's say isis. do you see a parallel between the world turning their heads away from reality that is coming? mr. mccullough: i do not know. i think there is a difference. i do not believe we ever had the atrocities -- the atrocities committed by hitler were kept secret. the atrocities being committed by isis, they are flaunting on television. they may even be doing them in order to let the world see how cruel they can be in their mission. if you take -- there is a three

letter word at the heart of all of this -- oil. if you take that away, who the hell are they? truly. the only reason they have the only reason they have this grip on us is because we are addicted to oil. that is no small product. look at any one of your route 95's. i am not sure that our policy towards this terrible threat is the correct one. people ask, what would harry truman do? i am not sure i know the answer to that. it would depend on what the people around harry truman were telling him. how they were informing him. one of the reporters asked him

how do you make a decision? he said, well, i meet with my advisors and my cabinet. we decide something has to be done about this. then i asked them for their device. they give me papers and so forth. then i retired to my study and read it all. i get some thoughts about what should be done. then i meet with them again. and i make a decision. he said, what if your decision turns out to be the wrong decision? he said, then i make another decision. but you have to make decisions. and postponing these things hoping they go way we were talking earlier this afternoon about the berlin airlift. what a tough decision that was. and truman had a point of view.

we stay in berlin, period. so they started the airlift. at one point, one of the military people reported to him they had figured out how much tonnage in supplies one of their planes could carry. how many planes they had. how many planes could land on the airports available in the berlin area per day, given weather restrictions etc. totaling all the arithmetic, they concluded it was impossible. absolutely impossible to supply berlin with enough to keep it going. and then somebody said, why don't we build another airport? well you got to have those

people who are going to say, how about building another airport for two or three? you do not give up. you keep it going. there's an old theatrical adage trust your show. trust who you are, what you believe in. what your country stands for. and do not get carried away with yourself. it is interesting. i have been looking back at what some of our recent presidents have said about harry truman. very interesting. the most full of praise and truman, given how many times he talked about him, was ronald reagan. the opposite party, to say the least. george bush senior, he referred to the biography. host: yours. mr. mccullough: it was a big fat

biography. i told my editor michael, who writes wonderful history, if you have not read his books. i said, this book is getting very long. it is getting to be a very big book. he said do not worry about it. it is a big life. host: next question. >> i think you already answered part of the question i'm going to ask. do you think that truman was prepared well enough to meet stalin at potsdam? mr. mccullough: he was not. he was not prepared enough by his predecessor for a lot of things they needed to know. roosevelt really ignored him. roosevelt had no interest in him.

roosevelt was on his last legs. he was struggling to maintain his sense of responsibility. but it was a shame. no president came into that job so ill-informed. there was a difference between being prepared and being informed. he was prepared for the difficulties setbacks, heartbreak. the attacks on him. the mud thrown at him. he was prepared to handle that as well as anybody ever to the job. because you have been in the world for a long time. the use to say there were two kinds of horses in congress, show horses and working horses. he prided himself that he was a working horse. he prided himself as a man who

had use working horses on a working farm for much of his life. >> he had staffed with him who were prepared to deal with stalin? mr. mccullough: he had people who knew about stalin in a way that he should have known. but there was not time to listen to them. truman came back from potsdam realizing he had not learned. >> thank you. host: our next question. >> i have the big fat biography with. mr. mccullough: do not fall asleep reading it. it will crush or just. -- your chest. [laughter] >> we you please comment on president truman's actions in recognizing the state of israel and along with his related set

-- relationship with eddie jacobson. mr. mccullough: the story of truman and eddie jacobson would make a wonderful play. there are so many stories about it, i hardly know which to use. eddie jacobson came to the white house to make the case for the recognition of israel. and truman said, i know why you are here. and then, i cannot remember exactly what eddie said. it is in the big book. but truman turned in his seat and looked out the window. and then he turned back and looked at eddie. tears streaming down his face. nsaid use son of a bitch. i cannot go against you. he was not going against him.

he would have done it anyway. toughest obstacle he had to face was general marshall. he was not for it. not because he was against jews. it was not for it because of the military reality of the situation. it was a brave decision. just as the segregating the -- d segregating the armed forces. a president, when he takes office, ought to call in an expert and say, make me a list of all the decisions i can make without having to go to congress. and then get busy. [laughter] >> thank you. host: i know there were other folks who may have wanted to ask a question. we are very grateful for your being here today. thanks so much to the sponsors

of the symposium. thank you so much. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-spanhistory. >> monday night on the communicators, policy director for alliance science and technology, carl nebia. >> the last>> two administrations have written memorandum on the spectrum. when i first started in spectrum management in 1979, i came out of the marine corps. i did not know anything about spectrum. most people that i met and

worked with did not understand much about spectrum. now, everybody realizes the part of our daily lives, our ability to communicate. we stay in touch with our family. >> monday night at 8:00 eastern on the communicators. on c-span2. >> today, hillary clinton entered the 2016 presidential race. here is a look at shirley chisholm's announcement from january, 1972. she was the first african-american u.s. congresswoman and served senate terms -- seven terms as a democrat from new york. [applause]

rep. chisholm: i stand before you today as a candidate for the democratic nomination of the office of the president of the united states of america. [applause] rep. chisholm: i am not the candidate of black america, though i am black and proud. i am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although i am a woman and equally proud of that. [applause] i am not the candidate of any political board or fat cat or special interest. [applause]