individualism grow where we make our own decisions rather than somebody from the top telling what to do. mark scales, the founder of freedom and the author of, 25 books, including the making modern economics. as always, we appreciate grace, jfk in the presidency. >> mark updegrove. we're sitting here in the shadow

of the texas state capitol in austin. texas has played a rather outsize role international political world, hasn't it? >> absolutely. for texas goes, america goes in many respects. that has never been more true than today. texas has always sort of lead the way for america in so many respects. we had three presidents from here in the last 60 years. lbj, president george w. bush and president george w. bush, so texas is an outsized presence in american life, and texans wouldn't have it any other way. >> you have worked with one of those presidents as well. well, have you worked with all three in some capacity? let's start with lbj who is right here in boston -- austin. mark: i with the director of the presidential library from 2009 to 2017 and now, the presidency

or the lbj foundation. i've written several books including one that we will talk about today, "indomitable will: lbj in the presidency." but one of the reasons i wanted to be the director of the library now 13 years ago was the fact that lbj is one of our most consequential presidents and so many respects. i think he is known for -- predominantly, but there is so much more to his legacy. and while vietnam is a vitally important part of that legacy, the laws 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 changed our nation and allowed us our most important ideal, that all men are created people, that

egalitarianism that defines we are as americans. it is lbj who brings that to fruition and i didn't think that he was recognized for those accomplishments, so i very much wanted to come to the lbj library to illuminate americans on what lbj means to america. particularly in the 21st century. how the things that he did during the course of his presidency continued to resound in today's america. >> why did you move from the library to the foundation and what is the difference? mark: the library, as most are, is run under the auspices of the national archives, the public side of the public-private partnerships that are presidential libraries. when i was the director, an employee of the national archives, now i'm on the private side of that. we help the national archives run that institution, putting

money and resources into the library to make it even more for the american people. >> one of the things that the johnson family did was release all the audiotapes from the oval office. what was the reason for doing that? that was a pretty big gift to the american people, wasn't it? mark: a gift to history in so many respects. harry middleton, more or less the inaugural director of the lbj presidential library and then a speechwriter for lbj in the white house found out about the existence of these tapes, the secret telephone tape that lbj had made during the course of his presidency after president johnson died. they were given to him by a secretary who was charged with holding them in her custody until the president died. the president asked that there be a seal on those tapes are 50 years which would mean that we would be opening them next year if he had gotten his wish.

but he realized the importance historically of these tapes in documenting the presidency of lyndon johnson and in some ways, in documenting the presidency in general. they really get a glimpse into what the presidency looks like for not just end johnson, for any president. as a consequence, he took these to labor and said we think these are important, we think they should be processed, made available to the american people. and lydia johnson, to her everlasting credit, unflinchingly, without listening to a word of these tapes and how they reflected on her husband gave 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 the american public no, these are the crown jewels of the lbj presidential library archive. >> well we are going to listen

to one. this is lady bird talking to president johnson and here is one of the audiotapes. [audiotape] >> mrs. johnson is calling asking if she could speak to the president. you want to listen for about one minute or which you rather wait? >> i thought that he looked strong, firm, and like a reliable guy. during the statement he was a little breathless and there was too much looking down and i think it was a little too fast. not enough change of pace. throbbing voice at the end of sentence.

there was a considerable pickup in drama and interest when the questioning began. your voice was noticeably better and your facial expressions, noticeably better. the mechanics of the room were not too good. but i heard you well throuout, every benefit. i did not hear the question is clearly. >> well, the questioners won't talk. >> mark updegrove, what are we listening to? mark: 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 we did. you were a little breathless and you hurried a little. some shots were better than others. ultimately, she gave him a b plus and i will tell you a story

about that tape. as you know from going to the lbj library in the museum exhibit, we have headsets where you can hear some of these conversations in the context of that part of the exhibit and on the 10th floor of the library, there is a headset where you can hear president johnson giving what was famously or infamously known as the johnson treatment where he was applying is very unique brand of persuasion. and on the other one, you can hear some of the other 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 the johnson treatment on one of those handsets and michelle obama was listening to lady bird johnson talking to president johnson on the other headset. and as she was listening to that conversation, she said barack has got to hear this. and she walked across the 10th

floor, she got him off of his phone, brought him over to her phone. he listened to that conversation, but the handset down and said some things never change. so he can very much relate to the wife of a president giving an unvarnished critique on his performance and he appreciated it very much. >> we are going to look at your book "indomitable will" about lbj in the white house. i just want to go through some of the descriptions that people gave of president johnson. this is jack valente. i frankly didn't understand him. harry middleton who was a staff assistant to the president said there were just too many nuances in him. warren rogers who worked for hearst newspapers said that he was the most overwhelming human being i've ever met in my life. a friend of yours at one time,

he has passed, he was with time magazine for so many years. even larger and more important than ever, and he was in charge for every second according to marion means. joseph califano. the lyndon johnson i worked with was brave and brutal, compassionate and cruel, incredibly intelligent and infuriatingly insensitive with a shrewd and uncanny instinct for the judgment of his adversaries. mark: he was a jumble of contradictions. i think bill moyers, who might be quoted in there as well said he is pretty much every adjective in the dictionary. he was extraordinarily mercurial, extraordinarily complex. he was capricious, unpredictable. i think everyone saw a different side of him. he treated everybody differently. he was able to read people really effectively and get them

to rally around his will, hence the title of the book, "indomitable will." and i think that ability to read people meant that he treated people vastly differently one person to another. incredibly complex man, incredibly formidable presence, and i think incredibly consequential president. >> what would you grade him? mark: c-span, as you know, peter does this marvelous poll among historians, i believe 140 back in 2021, last year. and lyndon johnson was in the top quarter of all presidents. not at the pantheon with franklin roosevelt and abraham lincoln and fort washington, not in the greats, but in the near-great category. that is exactly right would put him, in a latter part of the near great category with eisenhower and harry truman in your roosevelt and jack kennedy.

i think that is where lbj -- ronald reagan probably belongs there, too, for a variety of reasons. every president has a mixed legacy. vietnam is clearly the darker side of the lyndon johnson legacy, but again, if you look at the loss of the great society, absolutely transformational. >> at what point in vietnam become the overwhelming definition of president johnson rather than civil rights, voting rights, etc.? mark: i think the tide turned around 1967. the american people really started doubting our presence in vietnam, and the offensive that happened in the first quarter of 1968 really turn things irrevocably. shortly after that where a series of battles throughout vietnam, the u.s. military won

resoundingly in all of them. that is what we fail to remember at this point. but the fact is, the american people realized that no 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 a 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. and i think that was done for two reasons. principally, it was because of his health. 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 as franklin roosevelt did, dying in

his fourth term in office. but i also think he was thinking about the vietnam war. you wanted to use the balance of his term to find a peaceful resolution which ultimately eluded him. i think he knew in his heart of hearts that it would be extraordinarily divisive in america. it would further divide american and a time when we needed really to be united. >> mark, you quote president johnson as saying the president only has one year to get things accomplished. mark: it is true, and you can see it. lyndon johnson is elected 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 through this mandate that political capital, regardless of the popular

mandate that he got, is ephemeral. in fact, he says when a president is first elected, he is a giraffe. six months later, he is a worm. while lyndon johnson is standing tall in the presidency, he got as many of the laws of the great society through as possible, what he might not have anticipated here is the founding controversy around vietnam that would come later in his term as president. >> when he was senate majority leader -- and i might be misquoting you -- you 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 quotes right? mark: he was certainly the most powerful senate majority leader of the 20th century. there is an argument to be made for being most powerful senate majority leader of all time. we did have a president place, dwight eisenhower, a pretty

hefty presence as well, but there is no question that if washington was a jungle, in many ways, lyndon johnson was the king of the beasts. >> what was his relationship with eisenhower during those years? >> it was very harmonious, a great example for what i partisanship can look like when we are more united as a nation. they worked together very closely on a variety of different initiatives, including things that affect us today like the eisenhower interstate highway system and the creation of nasa. the soviet union had launched sputnik in 1957. we realized 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. and that with the work of congress and the president putting it together and ultimately, as you know, we would go to the moon ahead of all other nations and what was a

tremendous reflection of what our country can do when we work together. >> before we move on to other residents and other presidential history, you spent a bit of time talking about president johnson's father, and his attitude, especially toward the ku klux klan. mark: i do. we were just sitting in the shadow of the state capital 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 political office. he got lyndon johnson intoxicated about the world of politics, but you are absolutely right. the ku klux klan at that time in 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 toe the line. lyndon johnson's father refused to do so. as carol, and his physical peril.

they threaten his life and there were several lights are johnson's father and uncle stood awake on their porch with arms at the ready in case the ku klux klan came. they defied the ku klux klan, refusing to yield to their racist and bigoted wishes, and i think that with a lesson to lyndon johnson, too. 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 right thing lyndon johnson. at least, as president. >> the role of ladybird in lyndon johnson's political career. >> there is no question that she was an absolutely indispensable asset to him. she was somebody you could rely on completely, could trust completely. she knew how he thought. she knew his heart. she knew his mind. i think in many ways, lyndon johnson let his demons roam

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. often, she saw the very worst in him and would expel all the while. his greatest doubts about himself, knowing that she would talk him off the ledge. but also, she was incredibly astute. she had an incisive political mind which she relied on. i think in so many ways, she was his most trusted, reliable and able, in many respects, advisor. >> why do you refer to george h w bush and george w. bush as the last republicans? mark: well, 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, who was the governor of the state and spent a lot of

time in the mansion to our right and to the statehouse to our left, this is a different political party. george w. bush strove not only to bolster democracy in our country, but throughout the world. he was pro-immigrant. in many ways, it was not a nationalist, he was not xenophobic. it is a different republican party today and when the bushes talk to me on the record for the last republicans, i think they expressed concern that donald trump would be not only the standardbearer for the republican party, but at the time, a possible successor to them in the white house. we had spoken before donald trump became president in 2016. the last interview that i did with them for the book were in the latter part of 2016 and

donald trump had yet to be elected president. >> what was the relationship between the bushes? mark: i think there were a lot of misconceptions. as you know, there were 70 misconceptions about that relationship. there was the thought that george h w bush was schooling his son behind the scenes and saying son, you're not doing this or that right. telling him how he should behave in the role as president. and in some ways, undermining his presidency. anyone who knows george herbert walker bush knows that that was a complete fallacy, so 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 course of their lives. and essentially at the end of the day, it is a love story. if you look at george h w bush's influence on his son in the white house, it was that of a father, not one who had preceded

him in the white house. he knew the rigors of the president. he knew the demands of the job. he wants to be there as a comfort to his son, somebody who his son could come to just to relieve himself of the burdens of that office, even for a moment, with somebody who knew the burden but he was carrying. but george h w bush's attitude was "we've had our turn in the white house, now it is your turn." my role is to support you as best i can, and i am here if you need me, but if you don't need me, i'm going to stay out of your way. >> two very well-known first ladies with the bushes as well. mark: barbara and laura, incredibly strong and important first ladies. also important counselors to their husbands, people that they 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. formidable first ladies in the same way that lady bird johnson was. >> and barbara bush was known as the enforcer. mark: for good reason. you 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. again, i think a very important asset to her husband. also as you know, wildly popular. she was in so many ways america's mother. there was a matriarchal presidents -- presence not only in the bush household, but throughout america. >> and we are sitting right here at the texas book festival created by laura bush, as you know. she was the first lady of the

state for six years before becoming first lady of our country. and she took this template, this book festival template and brought it to our nation. now we have the national book festival in washington, d.c. every year because of laura bush. who is also, by the way, like barbara bush, a devoted reader. all of the bushes were voracious readers, but barbara bush and laura bush loved a good book. and barbara bush being a librarian knew the power of the book. books have a way of speaking to us in ways that other mediums simply don't. >> mark up the growth, how did you get in the presidential historian business? mark: it is a fair question. i had been on the business side, i had risen up through the ranks at time magazine on the business side for selling advertising space and i would go from the west coast to toronto to run the

independent canadian operation initiative. but principally on the business side i had editorial. i oversaw editorial as part of my responsibilities. and then i went back to new york where my career had begun to be 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 just devote myself to something that i thought be more meaningful, began writing a book on presidents after they leave office, like the bushes, who i spoke about earlier. i, too, am a voracious reader of presidential history and i never read a book about presidents after they left office. they are fascinating chapters in the lives of these presidents in so many ways. they reveal their character in ways that their time in the white house did not. so i wrote a book called second

acts: presidential lives and legacies after the white house and that led to my second act as a presidential historian. >> and welcome to austin, texas and book tv's in-depth program. our guest this month is presidential historian lyndon johnson foundation president and abc consultant mark updegrove. here are some of his books we are going to be talking about for the next two hours. second act, which he just mentioned. presidential lives 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 we've covered a bit of. the last republicans, about the bushes, came out in 2017, and his most recent is incomparable grace, jfk in the presidency. we 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. see if we can stop markup to growth, some presidential historian questions. (202) 748-8000 if you live in the east and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. we set aside a third phone line for text messages only. you can text a message to mr. updegrove. (202) 748-8003. please include your first name and your city, if you would. and we will scroll for our social media sites that you can also contact us with. just remember,@booktv is our handle on that. mr. updegrove, i'm going to start with where i was going to finish and i have a note here that says jfk. was he a legend, was he an

ideal? how realistic is his reputation? guest: is mixed. his reputation is outsize for a variety of reasons. number one, because he was cut down in his prime at the age of 46, before he had finished his term in office. and wouldn't stood very tall in the presidency, a competent very significant things for our country in the world. also, you have to remember -- being spun by the kennedy family and acolytes. they still had presidential aspirations with bobby kennedy and later with ted kennedy, so it served their interests to embellish the legacy of john f. kennedy, and i think two, because jfk became a martyr by being struck down by an assassin, we can look back at his presidency and see that he would have things differently.

we can look at vietnam and civil rights and some of the turbulence that we experienced in the 1960's and say if jack kennedy had been in the oval office, things would have been different. that may or may not be true, we will never know. but i think that those are things that have had -- help furnish the kennedy legacy since he was assassinated in 1963. host: the relationship between jfk and lbj. they called each other names, or at least, their people did. guest: well, i think you've talked about jfk and lbj. let me talk about that and then we can go broader because it is complex. jfk and lbj i think begrudgingly at times admired each other. i think lbj would concede that while jack kennedy was a back-venture in 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 has great potential. and when he died, lbj said that jfk waa great public hero. i think jfk would concede that lyndonohnson the somebody who knew power very well because jack kennedy in the senate needed to get something done, he had to go through lyndon johnson as the majority leader in order 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 original balance which he desperately needed 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 something were to happen in the office. that is why you pick a vice president. so you can have somebody who can do the job if you cannot continue to do so. so there was respect between

them. they might have looked askance at one another at various times, but they respected one another. when you pan out more broadly, there was great suspicion between the kennedy and johnson cans. 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 despise one another. it was bobby kennedy who had a great influence on the kennedy white house and his acolytes are called lyndon johnson uncle corn. they denigrated him and lyndon johnson i think saw that and disparage them in kind by calling them the harvard's, which was to suggest they were out of their depths in the white house. host: we are going to play one more lyndon johnson recording audio tape. this has a little bit of a reference to the kennedys. this is.you will know which on let's listen.

[audiotape] >> i want a report on the number pple assigned to kennedy the day he died and the #two b now anif mine areotess, i want them right quick. and i mean six less. i won't even go to the bathroom if i have to have more people in here. i don't know who has charge of the white house police. there are about 10 to one around here f what we need,o you get rid of him today and tell me i amot going through that kind of stuff amore. if i can't ever go to the bathro, i won't go. i will just stay white behind his black head. i don't need a people following me to church. one man cret service, one driving the c, maybe two or threbend me is all right. but yesterday i had six sen up in there and i got a call

this morning saying that because i rned out, you had to increase your securi. >> isn't so. >> of course it's not so, but i don't want the figures. if you don't do it, i'll commit suicide. host: mark updegrove, why was lbj so concerned about the number of secret service agents he had and how many jfk had? guest: i think he didn't 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 and his funeral on november 25, 1963, against the wishes of his secret service, and he did so to show the world we are not going to be deterred by this violence. and i am going to show up and pay my respects to the 35th president who did so much for my political career in this country.

and i think he took that spirit into the presidency as well. he didn't want all of these distractions to his presidency. he wanted to show the american people that he was not afraid. host: mr. updegrove, we are going to start taking some calls and then we will come back into the presidents. let's hear from cornelius who is in alexandria, louisiana. cornelius, you are on. please go ahead. caller: god bless polk tv and everything. i love all the stuff on c-span and everything. mark, my question for you, i had a lawyer here in his name is richard burns. and he worked with big jim garrison down there in new orleans and stuff. and his son is still alive, dimitri burns. and they knew something about the jfk assassination. authors were always calling them all the time. i just wondered two questions for you.

one, if you ever heard of richard burns in alexandria, louisiana, and two, there is a guy named abraham baldwin, his first african-american secret service agent. he's got echoes of daley plaza. he knows something about the jfk assassination. he says the secret service set him up or something. but president biden -- host: at think we got the idea. let's hear from her desk. guest: i'm afraid it is probably not a satisfying answer, i've not heard of them. obviously if the kennedy assassination is something that continues to loom large in the imaginations of the american people, we could certainly 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 gerald ford several times who was, at that time, the lone surviving member of the warren commission and he told me that i've always subscribed to the lone gunman theory in the absence of a more credible theory they could be backed up. i've not closed the door on the notion that there could have been a greater conspiracy, but i don't believe it because nobody has come forward with evidence that was suggested, or that lee harvey oswald alone was not responsible for this horrendous act. and i agree with president ford. i would also say that there is a new book by paul gregory, one of the few people who knew lee harvey oswald, a neighbor who had taken russian lessons from lee harvey oswald's russian wife , who was relatively close to the oswald's, as close as anybody was. and he saw in the harvey oswald somebody was very capable of

committing the assassination of a president, somebody who wanted that kind of fame or infamy, as it ultimately has become. and who had actually attempted an assassination against a government official before in his life, so he solve the harvey oswald as having the motivation, as having the traits of a psychopath such that he would commit an act that horrendous. host: if i am getting my timeline right, jfk and lbj were scheduled to be here in austin that night. cast: that is correct. host: there was an event happening here. guest: exactly right. they were to go from the house where president kennedy was obviously assassinated here to austin, in the shadow war we are standing right now for 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 the fences between senator yarborough, a very liberal democrat, and lyndon johnson, a more moderate democrat vice president at the time. in fact, if the president wanted to mend those fences, he could have done so in washington were both of them live. he didn't have to go to texas, their home state. in actuality, i think kennedy's real motivation to coming here was to raise money. put money in the democratic warchest for the coming election in 1964. john conolly, the governor at the time, and then barnes, who was a rising star in the democratic party here in texas assured president kennedy that if you were to come to texas, that he could raise $1 million for the democratic cause. that was a lot of money in 1960. 19 623, excuse me. i meant the 1964.

i think that compelled jack kennedy not only to come to austin, but to go to houston, to san antonio, to fort worth, and to dallas and of course, as you mentioned, he was supposed to come here to round out the trip is you're spending a night at the lbj ranch just 70 miles from here. host: 59 years ago, that a session nation happen in dallas. -- assassination happen in dallas. is it still a stain in texas? does it still affect texas politics? guest: it was interesting, i was doing several events after the book was published in as you hear from the call, it was still very much top of mind. when people thought of john f. kennedy, a thought of the assassination. i heard a lot about it in dallas. the texas book depository in the museum exists, museum paying tribute to john f. kennedy, the

site where lee harvey oswald perpetrated the murder of president kennedy. there is still a presence in dallas, but it really is on the mind of folks in that part of the world, anyway. i couldn't quite have imagined had i not gone up there to talk about john f. kennedy and of course, 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 is still very much a part of the consciousness in particular of those in dallas. host: carlos in studio city, california, you're on the historian mark of the group. 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 lyndon

johnson was. very, very well-educated. it was very rare for her to seek that kind of education and really work hard to be thought of as a smart woman. she became a very, very good businesswoman. i'd like to hear you speak more on that. guest: thank you for the question. i am a 4 -- former resident of studio city and i love that part of the world. i appreciate your question and the place where you live. lady bird johnson was a great advocate for education, as was lyndon johnson. lyndon johnson is, in my view, our civil rights president. he can also lay claim to be the education president. lyndon johnson ported federal-aid into education the first time, a profusion of federal-aid through the secondary education act, higher

education act, both put into law in 1965 which as i mentioned was really the high time of the great society. lyndon johnson's first year in the presidency after winning in his own right. that fundamentally change the educational landscape. lady bird johnson was educated here in austin at the university of texas. she had to unveil headstart 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 is important to note had seen this firsthand and i think he had a very orbit of chapter in his life when he taught school in texas, close to the mexican border, to a group of impoverished, largely, mexican american schoolchildren. this was between lyndon johnson's jr. and senior years

at what is now texas state university where he was trying to get enough money to finish out his education. in order to do so, he taught these school kids in this small school, and he saw through their eyes what bigotry and hatred and poverty and racial injustice looks like. and that never left his consciousness. 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 of color, he would say remember those mexican-american school kids. remember them as you e thinking about this legislation and how transformational it can be an american life. i think you're absolutely right. lyndon and lady bird johnson were united for the cause of education and difference in the number of people educated in this country and the quality of their education at large. host: and as you wrote in the

hill publication last year, president johnson knew his own support of voting rights reform would hurt his standing with voter throughout the south just as it had when he championed the civil rights act the year before, but johnson stood resolute, famously asking what the hell is the presidency for. did jfk move civil rights forward? did he escalate the vietnam war during his ministration? guest: the answer is yes to both, but i start with the vietnam war. yes. kennedy believed that we had to hold the line on communist insurgency in vietnam. he subscribed to the domino theory 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 there was a very aggressive bureau in the

soviet union and those in beijing would be emboldened by that victory, and we try to take countries of greater geopolitical significance. so president kenny 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, kennedy moved very, very cautiously on civil rights -- civil rights through the bulk of his presidency and in 1963, when martin luther king brought the civil rights campaign to birmingham and went to jail and penned his famous letter from a birmingham jail, consciousness around civil rights was beginning to be raised. so finally, kennedy made a speech that elevated civil rights to a moral issue. it had never been put in those terms before, but the american

people hearing it civil rights was 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 more aggressively the civil rights act so 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. s advisers warned him not to do that. they said in the presidency in your own right and then try to push civil rights once you get the mandate of the american people. and lyndon johnson knows he had this opportunity and that that, too, can be ephemeral. and he looked at his advisers and says what the hell is the presidency for? he makes a tax cut which was allegedly the priority of john f. kennedy's priority when he comes into the presidency accidentally. he gets the most votes through

and the civil rights act again is a game changer for our nation and its promise. our most sacred creed, which is that we recognize all people equally. for the civil rights act, we simply didn't have that as part of america. host: we are pleased to be right in the middle of the texas foot festival with mark updegrove. he is the author of several books including these second acts, presidential lives and legacies after the white house, which we will get into in just a few minutes. "baptism by fire: eight president who took office in times of crisis," "indomitable will: lbj in the presidency," "the, last republicans" looking at the push presidencies is an "incomparable grace: jfk in the presidency. we've got about another hour and 15 minutes.

(202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 for those of you in the mountain and pacific. and a third phone line set aside for text messages. (202) 748-8003. please include your first name and your city if you would in sending those text. and our next call comes from michael in boston. michael, we are listening. caller: good afternoon and thank you c-span. peter, one of my favorite hosts and mr. updegrove, i think you are giving a really solid convincing. i have to say i respectfully disagree. i was born three weeks after john f. kennedy was assassinated, so i will be 59 years old in five weeks and lbj was my president. the way i look at that legacy is

i can see the parallels the of the end of the civil war. and i will explain how. congress created the 13th and 14th amendments, but what they did, and this is due to the work of black people as well, but what they did is they added a clause about citizenship now being just born on land. no way that would continue to south america. how can i say that? the voting rights-civil rights act which came about because of the work of u.s. black citizens at that time also added the cause that these were going to now apply to immigrants and aliens from other countries, largely latin america. host: michael, i apologize i'm going to interrupt you here. what exactly would you like mr. of the graph to respond to if you could phrase it shortly? caller: i can absolutely phrase it shortly. i'm going to say that, and i wish i could debate you, that i

view it as lbj at the start of --. great society programs were actually health programs and by quality-of-life stats which show the u.s. and the black communities still being systemically oppressed. host: great, i think we got the gist. we are going to leave it there. anything you would like to respond with? guest: michael, i appreciate your question interviews. that is the wonderful thing about being americans, we can all have our own perspective on a president and his legacy. i think that i look at the laws that lyndon johnson put into place, as i mentioned, as being transformative in terms of the situation that we faced on race since our founding. in so many ways, the issue of race defines who we are as a

nation and shows us at our very best and our very worst. lyndon johnson had towed the line on segregation for a great deal of his career when he was in the house. in his early years as senator, he did so knowing he would not have been viable as a politician in this state of texas, which was, for all practical purposes, a part of the deep south. but when he became majority leader and was accruing more power, i think he put the weight of the majority leader position in the senate around the civil rights act of 1957, but for its symbolic importance, being the first piece of legislation since reconstruction. and when he became president as they mentioned the moment ago, he really uses the pulpit to elevate the plight of people of color in this country, to raise consciousness about what they were going through and to put 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. where in florida are you, and then go ahead with your dinner comment. caller: i'm calling in from broward county, florida. if you not familiar, we just had five of our school were members replaced by the governor and that is relevant here because i'm going to ask you to please come visit. i think that is part of the reason we got in trouble, because i pointed out we were the county that got masks span, but it was briskly grandparent genocide and they were using the kids as smallpox blankets, actually brag about it on video. just recently, three days ago, trump was announcing some serious issues.

and here is the issue. that is where historians come in. they tried together race, but he started all this stuff, and that is why they were open genocide in the first place. they claimed eugenics was a way to justify slavery. here in the south, both health care and education have been starved because it is viewed as a game. our schools are designed to have 20% succeed, 20% fail, and 60% to do ok. you won 100%. host: we appreciate your statement, michael. we are going to leave it there. this is a good little segway we have here. we have a text. this is from rich in orange, california.

getting a chance to talk about baptism by fire, one of the books. who we talked a little bit about how john tyler, ended up in baptism of fire? was it simply an accident? guest: it was an accidental presidency, and that is the reason that he was in "baptism by fire." this was a series of presidencies or presidents that were faced with unprecedented crises. and john tyler, our 10 president faced an unprecedented crisis, which we had never seen 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 the vice president's powers are after he becomes president upon the assassination -- or the

death, rather, other than incumbent. so we didn't know what to do. john tyler believed firmly that he had the power that his predecessor had, and many believed it was his responsibility to uphold the policies of william henry harrison. he believed he was his own man. and i think that is a very, very important precedent. 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 that if a vice president takes over after the death of an incumbent, he or she -- hopefully at some point in our history -- has the presidential power in his or her own right and can exercise it as they see fit. not as they predecessor might have seen fit to enact policy and make decisions. host: mark the growth, you also have thomas jefferson in

"baptism by fire" and you write that the election of 1800 with the most scoreless in american history. why is that? guest: that was written right into thousand nine, it might been supplanted. we talk about the fragmentation of the media today. but we have had the fragmentation of partisanship in media through other periods of our history as well. certainly there were some the different parties in 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 the president. there was one political party and that with the federalist party. when jefferson becomes president, we had split into two parties, the federalist party which john adams was a part of,

and the incumbent president had been vice president of george washington, and the republican party, which thomas jefferson helped to found. we didn't know what would happen in a two-party system. we still 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. it was in existential crisis. it was extraordinarily important that we saw out of that election a peaceful transfer of power, which indeed did ensue. thomas jefferson governed for all americans, not just those in his party, and he did that as well. again, that is a president -- precedent that was extremely important in order for our nation to remain viable in the democracy that we claim ourselves to be. host: here is a quote from george washington which you have. a two-party system kindles the animosity of the past against

another. fuhrman's occasionally ride, and insurrection. guest: and that sounds awfully familiar today at a time and we've had a two-party system for over 200 years. that is fundamentally what it is to be american, to a certain degree. we are here because we can hold our own beliefs, express our own beliefs, vote for the candidate who is most attractive to us. that is what makes us different. naturally, we are defiant in many ways of our differences. this time is no different than other times we experienced in our history. that is what history tells us. harry truman used to say there is nothing new in the world, but the history you don't know. we seen it all before. that said, we are facing existential crisis today because there are those who don't observe or have said that they would not observe the peaceful transfer of power, and that is a

threat to a democracy. that is something that 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 said, "baptism by fire" came out in 2009. going back to your "1800 was the most scoreless election." is it too early to judge the 2020 election at this point? guest: i think it probably is, we probably need a few more years to give context. it takes that much time at least for passions to cool. we talked about the evolving and passions were so deep around vietnam, it took us at least two generation to get a more dispassionate look at the presidency. for george herbert walker bush, it took a little time. it was a less divided time in

our history when he left office. essentially the crises that he was dealing with, the end of the cold war, the reuniting germany, some of the gulf war, all those things were resolved by the time he left office. i think in his lifetime he was one of the few presidents that actually saw an even-handed assessment of his presidency, but we need a longer lens in order to evaluate history with any degree of passionate. host: one of the things i learned was that john adams was halfway to boston by the time thomas jefferson got sworn in as president. guest: and that's something that we might recognize going back to 2020. we had not seen the peaceful transfer of power between 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 of march 4, 1801, and started the long ride back to quincy, massachusetts, and was well on his way to baltimore when thomas jefferson was sworn in as our third president. host: here's a tweet for you. mr. updegrove, in your book, "incomparable grace," you mentioned an election count discrepancy in texas and that nixon ceded the presidential race in 1960. how is this different than what we experienced in the 2020 election with possible election fraud? guest: well, i think there was alleged to be fraud, not only here in texas, but in illinois as well. john f. kennedy won the presidency by a scant .2 percentage of a points, just

118,000 votes meant the difference between president kennedy or a president nixon. and there were many who urged nixon to contest the election, including even dwight eisenhower said he might want to consider doing that. and offered to raise money to pay for legal aid. that's a remarkable thing. nixon, however, was a statesman. he was deeply concerned, as john f. kennedy was, about our foreign policy. this, as i mentioned before, peter, was at a time when we were at the height of a cold war, when soviet aggression was very real. and nixon didn't want to throw the nation off balance in the eyes of the world by showing 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 president simple 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. host: myrtle beach, south carolina, you're on with author and historian mark updegrove. please go ahead. caller: hey, good afternoon to both of you. thoroughly enjoying this. ever since november 22, 1963, i'm 66, and ever since that date i've followed politics, read politics, worked local politics, that kind of thing. anyway, my question is going to lyndon johnson. actually i have two. one is was there anybody that l.b.j. detested more than robert kennedy? guest: thank you, sir. the answer, i can't know the

mind of lyndon johnson. i am 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. i think one of the things he could agree with in talking with bobby kennedy is they wanted the best for our country, and they wanted some of the same policies. but in terms of personalities, they were vastly different. i think lyndon johnson saw robert kennedy as a difficult i can't, somebody who was the beneficiary of nepotism, and that's hard to argue when you consider the condition deinfluence, the kennedy patriarch, joe kennedy very much wanted to see his son, bobby kennedy, in the attorney attorny generalship anden couraged his son to appoint him to that position. and lyndon johnson as bold-faced

nepotism, and in many cases it was. robert kennedy, in kind, saw lyndon johnson as somebody who was crude and boorish, somebody who 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. host: mark updegrove, this is marcus in new york. question, which president used the most expletives? [laughter] kind of a contest, wasn't it? guest: i would say, you know, it's interesting in delving into the kennedy presidency, peter, i was surprised at the number of expletives that were routinely used in the kennedy white house. lyndon johnson was no stranger to profanity, he used it often.

it was more the barn yard variety. i think i'm currently reading the good bake by peter baker and susan glasser on the president trump presidency called "the divider," and i will tell you the number of expletives, particularly those beginning with the letter f, really surprised me how it was really so much a part of the pattern, the everyday pattern of language that went through the trump white house. i was a little surprised by that, and perhaps a little put off. so i'd say based on the limit knowledge i have of this subject, i would say that donald trump, at least in that case, wears the crown. host: this is a quote from you in 2015. "my guess is that he'll have a relatively active post-presidency in the same vein as a jimmy carter and bill clinton," referring to barack

obama. how did you do in 2015? guest: 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 after they leave office. the reason i wrote second acts is because you can see the evolution in this role. we start with a very humble harry truman, who leaves the white house the most powerful position in the world and goes back to the very humble existence that he had more or less before he left for washington in 1935 to become a u.s. senator. he would then become vice president briefly, and then become president upon the death of franklin roosevelt for almost a year. and he goes back to independence, missouri. he lives in the same house that he and bess lived in prior to

their departure. independence is a very small town. bess insists that he go mow the lawn. i mean, 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 the washington, in so many ways, having suffered a huge defeat at hands of ronald reagan. reagan capturing 51% of the vote to jimmy carter's 41%, unable to gain re-election in office. he retreats back to plains, georgia, and wonders what he' going to do with his presidency, and he decides insteadf just making a presidential library 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 for him as president. those were peace making and human rights. essentially provides the template for the modern activist post presidency. so in terms of barack obama, i would say he's not quite jimmy carter, but he has raised over, i believe, a billion dollars around his presidential center, which will have a very robust policy institute and will be in a position not only to put it, to devote itself to the causes that he continues to be passionate about, but to serve his legacy in pursuing those causes after he's no longer with us. prior to jimmy carter, herbert hoover was the longest surviving post presidency survivor.

what did he do? guest: for the long time, he was a convenient scapegoat for franklin roosevelt. and 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 incredible important thing, and a reflection of american humanitarianism. again, he wanted to get back into public service, but roosevelt found it very convenient to blame him for the ravages of the great depression. that's politics. that's the way things fall. when harry truman becomes president, however, taking over for franklin roosevelt, a

democrat, just as roosevelt was, he taps this republican, former president had she either hoover, to do -- president herbert hoover precisely what he had done in world war i, to feed a war-torn region and ensure that they got food as that part of the world healed itself from the ravages of war. he then puts hoover on committees to make sure that we're spending federal dollars wisely and hoover almost single-handedly saves you millions and billions of dollars by reorganizing departments in the federal government. hoover was forever grateful, peter, to harry truman for bringing him back into public service, and the two formed a very unlikely, but very deep friendship when they both left the white house. they were friends for the balance of their lives. and again, it shows in so many ways the best of what it is to be an american. we need to remember those things

in a divided america today. host: together back to harry truman as well, he left washington in 1953, but he did not have secret service protection until after j.f.k.'s assassination, is that correct? did i get that right? guest: that's exactly right, and neither did he have a presidential pension, nor did he have office space allocated to him by the federal government. none of the he monthliments that are given to former presidents today were given to harry truman. so harry truman saved off what would have been almost certain bankruptcy but for the sale of family farmland near independence, missouri. if he hadn't sold that land, he would have been in dire financial straits. among others, lyndon johnson sees his plight, and they put together a law that gives former presidents a modest pension, modest at the time, he was compensated about what a c.e.o.

at that time would have made, substantially less proportionately than c.e.o.'s make today, but enough not to be financially embarrassed. he also gets office space and franking privileges, which is really important, because truman wanted to answer every letter that was sent to him. and when he produced his memoir, for instance, people would send him the book asking him to sign the book, but they didn't send a return address. so truman, being the kind soul that he was, would not only sign the book, he would have his assistant make out a return address, and he himself would pay for the postage. so he made no money on his memoir, which would have made him financially solvent because he didn't have those franking privileges. host: ever since maybe gerald ford, presidents seem to be quite well financially in their post-presidency, yes? guest: that's correct. i think ford was 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. he had made a modest sum of money as a congressman, and then as president, there are a lot of expenses that won as president, which the american people might not realize. he didn't leave with a great deal of money. he sold his memoir for a pretty fair amount of money to then-publicker harper. he still didn't have a great deal of financial resources to fall back on. he joined certain corporate boards, went on a speaking circuit, something he called the rubber chicken circuit. he would appear in pro am golf tournaments sometimes for an honorary. so i wouldn't say he made a living from it, peter, but he certainly benefited from having been a former president and made a fair amount of money before he died in 2006. host: the clintons, the obamas, ronald reagan, they all did

pretty well financially, yes? host: they did. in fact, ronald reagan was roundly criticized after leaving office in 1981 for traveling to japan to make a series of speeches for a million dollars, which was unheard of at the time. jimmy cart her done the same thing for considerably less money, and there was less scrutiny. but was that too much money? should he be going abroad and making that kind of money? was it a conflict of interest? that's done pretty routinely and with less scrutiny today than it was in another time in our history. host: new york city, thanks for holding. you're on with author mark updegrove. caller: good afternoon. it's a pleasure to speak to both of you, especially is you, peter. good to be on with you once again. i have a question and comment to mr. updegrove. my first question is, which presidential historian do you enjoy following, and my comment

is, it's the worst-kept secret that l.b.j. was miserable during his time as vice president. people close to him said that he was very surly, he was drinking a lot, realizing the limitations of the office, people when he was senate majority leader, there was a saying that nothing could get done in washington unless l.b.j. said so. so basically, you know, there was times he wanted to employ, before walter mondale, when mondale employed a vice-presidential staff and office during the carter administration, that actually started with l.b.j. l.b.j. floated the idea of a full-time vice president and vice-presidential staff and an office adjacent to the west wing, but it was short down by j.f.k. host: we got it. your favorite historians and l.b.j. as vice president. guest: let me tip my hat to him for being a very astute historian himself.

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, i revere doris kerns goodwin and michael bech loss and richard norton smith and doug brink live, my friend who's here at the textbook festival today. they all make an important contribution to our history, and i wouldn't want to single out one or the other. you mentioned society earlier. i worked with hugh at "time" magazine. he was on the business side, he was on the editorial such, the church side verse the state side. but we came together on a partnership around a number of number of different programs. i think he was a particular influence to me. he was a writer of the presidential campaignsly, but he also became a very important historian by giving us a first draft of history, looking at those presidents in real time.

i found his work available when he was alive, and i continue to find his work and archives valuable as a historian myself. he's absolutely right r. lyndon johnson almost reluctantly accepts the second spot on the ticket in 1960, knowing that he would have relatively little effect on the presidency as vice president. but he does so because he knows that 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 ads somebody from the south at a time when there were greater fissures between the democratic party in the south and north, partly due to the progressive stand that some democrats were taking on the issue of civil rights. so in the vice-presidency, lyndon johnson was almost like a caged animal.

he reflexively exercised power, and having none in the vice-presidency or very little in the vice-presidency 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. they included him in all the social occasions and other things, but i think there's no question he lacked political power in that office. host: how far behind j.f.k. was l.b.j. through dallas on that motorcade? was he in the next car? guest: no, he was several car lengths behind and, of course, that car sped to the hospital in john f. kennedy's wake. 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, which is on the runway at love field in dallas, and the cabin of air force one is stiflingly 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 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 in the spirit of the military, don't leave any soldier left behind. 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 president are you from william henry harrison, it was important to show the american people and the world that they were speaking that oath and taking the presidency, it was a formality, yes, but it shows, it was a manifestation of the transfer of power from a deceased president to his vice president. host: who'd idea to have jackie kennedy standing right there with him? was that l.b.j.'s idea? guest: l.b.j. asked a kennedy 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. host: barbara in buffalo, please go ahead with your question or comment.

caller: good afternoon. i'm calling to ask about who you used as your historian. the president that inspired me the most about l.b.j. was robert caro. i can't tell you how his books captivated me, and also doris kerns goodwin. i don't know if you mentioned robert caro. i can't tell you, i can never that into politics, and i lived in d.c. for a brief time in 196 on 0, believe it or not, but when robert came out with his books, they were just captivating, and getting into his personality, and i fell in with him. i didn't like him before. host: all right, thank you, barbara. in fact, robert is still working on volume, isn't he? guest: he's still working on what will probably be the last volume. i can't imagine there would be

another in that very exhaustive history of lyndon johnson's entire life. i think there's no question this is definitive. robert caro has been working on this series of books on lyndon johnson since the late 1970's, and he has jet to deliver his fifth volume, which i believe will take the reader 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 presses a in his own right. so he'll take us through probably the height of the great society, through the requesting quagmire of have the, and will follow him back here to texas, where he retreated to the l.b.j. ranch and died just four years and two days after leaving washington in 1969. so i would certainly put robert

caro in the category of our most important historians. there's no question that his:celling of lyndon johnson's life is important for so many reasons. i think caro would tell you it's not just a comprehensive biography of lyndon johnson's life, it also uses johnson as a lens into his time. through johnson, you can see what washington looks like in all its nuances. that's another reason that i think his telling of the lyndon johnson story is important. barbara, i'm with you. that's a very important name to add to that list. host: let's remind viewers that you're a long-time c.e.o. of the johnson library, now president of the l.b.j. foundation. how much time did robert spend down here in austin? guest: a great deal of time in the reading room. that's something the american people should realize, what a valuable resource presidential libraries are so historians like

me and to others who simply want to know more about their history. if you go into the great hall of the l.b.j. library, you ascend a great giant marble stair kase, and it takes you into the great hall, where the presidential seal is etched in transfer teen marble, and you can look up at four, a series of windows across four floors, and you can see through the windows the archives. many of the boxes containing the archives of the johnson presidency. they're a beautiful, brilliant red, and they have gold presidential seals on them. and it's meant to nod toward the transparency with which we treat our presidential records. that's why what we're talking about with the issue with donald trump is so vitally important. those presidential records don't belong to a president. er? used by the president, but under

the provisions of the presidential records act of 1987, they belong to the american people. and they're put under the care of the national archives. in many cases, they are transferred to the presidential libraries of that president. underred auspices of the national archives. if those records have been processed, they can be accessed by scholars in the reading rooms in those institutions. so it's vital the important, not only to understand our history, but a reflection of the transparency, which is one of the hallmarks of american diplomacy. host: our next call from susan in massachusetts. susan, you're on with author and historian mark updegrove. caller: well, mr. updegrove, i'm embarrassed that i'd never heard of you before. you sound like an incredible historian. very fair and balanced and such a broad understanding of just the gifts that our president since eisenhower, because that's my frame of reference.

i could talk to you for 10 years, just pump you with a million questions about all the presidents that i've admired for various reasons, from both sides of the aisle. but i'll ask you two quick questions. even though i've lived in new england for many years, and i am roman catholic, i grew up in a family that was very grateful to see john kennedy be elected president, but i come from maryland catholics, and deeply admiring the family, for instance. and the ken tees' wealth was ill gotten be, their men were extremely well behaved and cads and they weren't really adhering to the faith in the way that they conducted their personal lives, although the women were

quite extraordinary. so i wanted to know a little bit about how sargent sleeve, because i know he was so influential later, especially with the wonderful eunice sleever in founding special olympics. i think he was a conscience in the kennedy administration, and i was just wondering how the kennedy brothers sort of treated him. i was curious how they viewed him even though their sister married him. host: susan, thank you. i think we got an idea. we're going to let mark updegrove riff now. guest: first of all, susan, thank you for the call, and thank you for now hearing of me. spread the word. [laughter] your sergeant was about sargent sleever and where he fit into the kennedy family. the answer is they had enormous respect for sargent sleever, and

when he but together the ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country ideal, he charges sargent shriver from trying to figure out how to put it in place. 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. among them is sargent shriver, he not only puts together the founding blocs around the peace corps, he also asks him to head up his war on poverty, which was one of the most ambitious planks of l.b.j.'s great society. it's great society. it's a vitally important position in the johnson white

house. not only did john f. kennedy, and by extension the kennedy family have faith in sargent shriver, so too did the president lyndon johnson. i'll just mention the catholicism of the kennedys for a moment. i'm not catholic myself, so i won't comment on whether the kennedy brothers upheld the catholic ideal and the religious tenets that are at the heart of catholicism, but i will say that it was very controversial that john f. kennedy was a catholic when he threw his hat in the ring for the presidency in 1960. we had to grapple with that as a nation. would john f. kennedy serve the pope in the vatican or the people? he made a very important piece at rice university, saying he was first and foremost an american. as president, he would serve the interests of the american people. and i think that lays the ground work for the very important speech that barack obama would make at the national constitution center in 200 #,

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. both helped us to get over the controversial of electing a person of favorite in the case of john f. kennedy, a person of color in the case of barack obama. host: and you're watching book tv on c-span2. this is our monthly "in depth" program, one author, his or her body of work, and this month we're pleased to be in austin, texas, with historian and author and l.b.j. foundation president, mark updegrove. here's how you can contact us. we've got a little less than 30 minutes to go. 202-748-8000 for those in the eastern and central time gleams. 202-748-8001 for those of you who live in the mountain and pacific time zones. and you can send a text message as well to, 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 in free mount, nebraska. kent, good afternoon. caller: yes, good morning or afternoon, something like that. say, enjoyed the program. was a 13-year-old student in junior high when john kennedy was killed. so i remember that well. and i remember, just a pree caller said, all this controversy about him being catholic, and, well, let's face the truth and realize his brothers were adulterous men, having adulterous lives, and where there's sin, there is problems. and mark, i appreciate your

work. you certainly have done a lot of 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 climate on the back of the car had a weapon discharge. right? host: thank you, kent, in nebraska. it's kind of funny, mark updegrove, about half the calls have been about j.f.k. even though we've talked about several 20th and 18th century presidency or 19th century presidents. guest: you're right, and it shows the indelibility of moments in our history. this was somebody who was 13 yearold when the president passed. imagine that kind of impact, the kind of impact that something like that might have on a young 13-year-old. there were other moments like that in american life, too. we certainly saw it with 9/11. i talked about the election of barack obama, and i think the

insurrection that we saw on january 6 will probably want to be one of those moments too, one of those moments where we are taken out of our workday, our busy lives, and when something stirs our attention, and i think we reflect auto 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 often as the first thing that comes to mind. host: good morning is in bloomington, illinois. please go ahead. caller: i have a question of mre democratic national convention in 1960. it was reported that over the

years that sam raveburn, speaker of the house, had advised l.b.j. or one of his aides that he was going to be given the nod for the vice president by by j.f.k., and what it when it was over he should take it. i think that's pretty well document in history maybe. i believe it is. but in any case, my question has to do with bobby kennedy's attempt to dissuade his brother, j.f.k., from eventual nomination to l.b.j. there was also a story reported years ago that bobby kennedy or one of his aides went outside the hotel while the convention was taking place and went down or up two or three flights on the fire escape to surreptitiously enter into the same suite where i believe his brother and his aides were

conversing or convening to discuss the vice-presidential nomination. host: hey, george, that's a lot of information, but can you just tell us very briefly why your fascination with this particular topic. caller: well, i was a sophomore in college when this took place, and it was very shocking, of course, the assassination. but that's not directly related to my call, but bobby kennedy was well known to have a neutral contempt with l.b.j. host: all right, we got the idea, thank you so much. mark updegrove, the election of 1960. guest: well, i think that the caller was absolutely right. sam rayburn had a huge texan, speaker of the house, very powerful in his own right. first advised lyndon johnson not

to take the spot as vice-presidential nominee on the democratic ticket. and then he came back the next day and l.b.j. said why are you telling me to take it when yesterday you told me not to, and rayburn said because as sure as god made little green apples, if you don't take the nomination, richard nixon will be our next president. and i think lyndon johnson became convinced of that as well. the caller is absolutely right. bobby kennedy did come down and urged lyndon johnson to with dray 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 tells me to drop my name, i will. it's important to note the kennedys were not monolithic. they had different attitudes about lyndon johnson. the kennedy patriarch, for instance, had enormous respect for lyndon johnson, so much so

that when jack kennedy has aspirations to be the vice-presidential nominee himself in 1956, taking the second spot to adlai stevenson, he said you shouldn't take that spot unless lyndon johnson is at the head of the ticket. if he is, i'll fund the ticket. i'll pump money into it. jack kennedy vies for the nomination, there's a near miss in 1956, and then sets his sights on the presidency in 1960. but it's important to note that i think both jack kennedy and his father had enormous admiration for lyndon johnson. bobby kennedy was, as we discussed earlier, looked upon lyndon johnson very differently, and looking out for his brothers' interests, tries to talk lyndon johnson out of it. host: president obama was the first sitting senator to be

elected since j.f.k., right? did i get that right? guest: he was vice president. sitting president. that's exactly right, yes, that's correct. host: richard nixon, j.f.k., and l.b.j., all knew each other from capitol hill. guest: they did. host: what was their relationship, if any, especially the r and d part that have relationship. guest: 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. it's really important to note, too, that we don't have civil rights in this country without the support of northern republicans. southern dixie kratz stood in the way of civil rights legislation, and for many years because of their outsized power in the congress' upper and lower chambers could stave off that legislation, could effectively use tactics to defeat

legislation that was being proposed. so l.b.j. needed northern republicans to get civil rights through. but it was a very political landscape. we did you not see the divisions that we see today. i remember talking to george mcgovern some years back, did a series of interviews with him, and i asked about that bipartisan spirit, which in so many years defined washington of that moment. and 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 very notion of democracy in the world. so we did big things together. and when we were elected to congress, whether it be as a democrat or 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 pervaded the united states at that time. i wish there was some way we could come back to that, the spirit of what we can do when we come together. host: 1974 to 1994, richard nixon's post presidency. guest: 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 republicans' mind that he's going to be impeached if he remains in office and will likely lose his trial in the senate and will be suspended from the presses a. so he leaves the white house ignominously, goes into self-imposed exile at his home

in southern california, and then he decides to devote himself to the causes which he found so inspirational during the course of his presidency, just as jimmy carter jimmy carter did in his post presidency. in richard nixon's case, it was elevating america's position in the world. so 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, he before the accident a trusted adviser to ronald reagan, bush, and to bill clinton of all people. bill clinton, who was campaigning against the president a of richard nixon, they become friends, and bill clinton will 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 it

manage the burdens of the presidency. in so many ways, richard nixon is the phoenix of former presidents. he rises from the ashes of a departure from the presidency and becomes an important force as a former president. host: in fact, bill clinton was president when richard nixon died. bob dole spoke as well. the clintons in the front row. guest: he said something really important that richard nixon wanted him to say. clinton says, as he's eulogizing him, i'm paraphrasing a bit, we need to something richard nixon not just on one instant, 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.

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. host: i presume that bill clinton would want that as well, somebody who was impeached, but had eight years as president. guest: and how appreciate weren't that was on clinton's part. clinton would want the same words to be spoken at his funeral, to eulogize him. don't just judge me on my impeachment and the misdeeds around monica lewinsky. judge me on my entire life and career. look at where i devoted my life and energies and appreciate the public service that i rendered to the nation i love. host: donald trump, two impeachments. as what point does impeachment as a political tool overwhelm it as a legal tool? guest: well, i think that there's certainly an unprecedented nature of donald trump's presidency, not only

because he was impeached twice, but i think the bigger issue is the fact that he won't recognize a free and fair election that took him from power. that is a titlely important part of 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 presidency more than anything else, the fact he jeopardized our democracy by not observing the thing at its very heart, a peaceful transfer of power. host: the next call comes from oakee in crab orchard, west virginia. ok, i apologize for that. i'm not hearing anything. are you?

let's try ken in annapolis, maryland. ken, you are on book tv with mark updegrove. please go ahead with your question or comment. caller: yes, i'd like to make a comment. when signed the civil rights, the democrats want to stop, and that happened, because all the democratic senators and the republican party and democrats, that was historic showing of backlash with what he signed the civil rights thing, and it's going on today. so you have trouble with white groups, presenting the facts, they're getting some rights. host: let's leave it there. i think we got the point. guest: the backlash we see when certain things happen, i think there's no question. if you look at progressivism in

this country, we take great leaps forward and then get pushed back by a step or two before we take another leap. that certainly happened after the enactment of the civil rights act and voting rights act. it 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. i think that's a have i important distinction. host: back to your book "second acts.

what about the first ladies? let's start with our old friend, lady bird. or jacqueline kennedy, we're talking about the 20th century presidents. go ahead. guest: one of the reasons that i wanted to write this book to wr, again, not only because you see the evolution of what you can do with a post presidency, but also because it answers this fund metal question, what do you do after you leaf the most powerful position in the world? where do you go from there? what do i do? i'm a private citizen. how do i conduct my life? what's my next chapter look like? that's the same for various first ladies. i think in many cases they, like their husbands, feel certain liberation and not having to go into a role every day, in their case, that they weren't even elected for it. it's an unofficial role that of first lady. you're serving your husband and you're serving your nation by

being in that 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 here in the state of texas, just as lady bird did, found great meaning in their lives after the the white house. they were able to devote themselves to some degree to the cause that has they still held on to, they still were passionate about, in the case of barbara and laura bush, literacy, hence 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 were able to devote themselves to family, something you almost invariably have to not neglect during your time in the white house, but you realize that 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. host: one of my favorite side

stories in your book "second acts" was barbara bush in houston bought herself a car, 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, or something like that. guest: she's driving to the grocery store herself. i think she had a mercury sable bought for her by her husband. my wife and i had the bushes over to a rental cottage that we had in kennebunkport about six orson years ago, and the next day i was speaking at a benefit for the kennebunkport public library, and as i was walking mrs. bush to her secret service s.u.v., she said, mark, you know george and are you coming to your speech tomorrow. and its i know, i'm honored. what are you going to talk about? and i said, well, i'll talk about the presidency for 40 minutes and then take 10 minutes worth of questions. and she looked at me and said, make it half an hour.

no questions. she had heard enough people filibustering in her life in public service that she simply didn't want to do that again. so i spoke for 29 minutes, peter, and then i got off the stage. host: randy in louisiana, please go ahead. caller: just want to make a comment on first lady. bess truman didn't want to be first lady. she didn't like that at all. also of franklin roosevelt, two of the first mistakes he made were 9066 and the appointment of joseph kennedy as ambassador. thanks. guest: well, bess truman, i mentioned the humble existence that harry truman has in the wake of his presidency. of course, that's bess truman. she was in heaven in independence, missouri. it was home to her.

ever summer during her husband's presidency, she would go back to independence, knowing she was leaving him alone. it was really tough for him, but it was solace to her. it gave her vitality and strength to be in the bosom of her family and to be back in her community. she very much enjoyed that as first 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. there's one thing that struck me when i was there just a few weeks ago, and that is there's a small government-issued calendar that hangs by a thumb tack in the kitchen, and she has scratched off every day like so many americans might have at that time, and you realize what typical americans, and at the same time, extraordinary americans harry and bess truman were. host: we got to ask, what were you doing at the truman library

in independence? guest: i was fortunate enough to see the brand-new exhibit at the truman library. host: revamped, right? guest: back during covid. they've done a stunning job of taking a more contemporary look at harry truman's extraordinarily consequential presidency. while there, i went up to the second floor of the truman house, because the national park service allowed us to go up. i had never seen truman's incredibly modest bedrooms. we went up to the attic, and truman famously said after being asked what he's going to do after i gets back to independence as a former president, and he said i'll take the grips up to the attic. the grips being the suitcases. and i have no doubt that's exactly what harry truman did. modest harry truman took his luggage and cart it up to the attic, and they unpacked to a brand-new life. host: there was a wonderful book a couple of years ago, and matt i believe wrote it. it was about harry truman's great road trip driving the new

yorker, his brand-new new yorker, getting a speeding ticket on the pennsylvania turnpike and driving himself and mrs. truman out there. so i think matt is the ought your of that. i hope he was. guest: and i write about it in "second acts" as well. they take a trip in their automobile from independence to new york, where their daughter, margaret, was living with her husband and their grandchildren. and they have no idea the kind of attention that they're going to stir by embarking on this road trip. as you pointed out, they didn't need service protection, so they would go to a diner and people would rapidly call those throughout the community and say, hey, come to the diner, trumans are here. they couldn't believe the former president and first lady would be in some random diner in the wilds of pennsylvania. but there they were. host: 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. it was one of, even though i had a part in it, it was still wonderful. i had the opportunity to interview laura, barbara bush, and rosalyn carter. it was a real historic series. so if you are 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. guest: 95-year-old carter, who in many ways may have held more power than any of them, insofar as she attended cabinet meetings. they didn't try to hide it. she was sitting in, taking notes studiously. she was in some of the meetings he had with foreign leaders, different heads of state. she was there by his side. and there's no disputing the fact that she was his most

valued and trusted advisor, in the same way that i think we can assume that lady bird johnson was for lyndon johnson, as so many first ladies are to their husbands much the difference with jimmy carter, he made no secret about it. i will say about mrs. carter, too, i had the great privilege of interviewing her, as you have, peter, and i too recommend your series, it's fabulous on first ladies. i've learned a lot from this serious, but she did so much so destigmatize mental health in this country and continues to do so. a personal anecdote, my wife and i went down to plains, georgia, to see them several years ago on, i believe it was mother's day when we happened to be there. and my wife and i realized that we were going to have lunch at their home, and we had talked so long that we had to leave to catch airplanes. so mrs. carter packed us a mrs.a

lunch, complete with a recycled paper bag. and we had the honor of eating a packed lunch by rosalyn carter as we scrambled back to the atlanta airport and here to austin. host: well, that book that i was referencing earlier is harry truman's excellent adventure, it is matthew, and we have been talking with mark updegrove, who has also appeared on c-span several times, not just today. so if you go to cspan.org, booktv.org, you will see all of mr. updegrove's appearances on c-span. well, we are smack dab in the middle of austin, texas, state capital on one side, governor's mansion over here. the texas book festival going on. we have been spending the last two hours with author and historian, mark updegrove. we certainly appreciate your time here in austin. thank you, sir. guest: thanks for the great covering and thanks for what you do at bo with