there is $50,000 in total prices. the competition is open to students grades 6 through 12. for all the rules, go to studentcam.org. [music] >> this week on "q&a," historian and author edmund morris discusses his newly released book, the last in a trilogy about teddy roosevelt. it is called "colonel roosevelt ." >> i want to go back to the first words you wrote in your first of three books about theodore roosevelt. he started off with a prologue new year's day 1907 at 11:00 precisely, the sound of trumpets echoes within the white house, and floats through open windows,

out into the sunny morning. do you remember what knew you were in when you had to write those first words? p: >> it was a mood of complete despair because i have been trying to write without success. i read in the guinness book of world records that on that day teddy roosevelt shook more hands than any president. i thought i could see the book growing out of the deception, when he received the american people. and for months i researched the day, discovering to my amazement the dense and detail the newspaper records.

i am sorry if this mass of detail and had to write a prologue in which the reader meets the president, as if the reader was in this line. and never wanted to take the stylistic liberty of saying you are there. i wanted it to be straight history. to develop the technique of writing a prologue in the third person which gives the impression it is written in the first person was so difficult that when i wrote that first line i did not think of is going to be able to finish. it took me about a year to write the prologue. >> that was in 1979. this is 2010. here are the last words you wrote in your final book, one of three, 1 million words, 2500 pages later. as part of a class exercise, paying tribute to the late colonel, thomas maher wrote, "he

was a full filler of good intentions." >> thanks, brian. you just gave away my last line. >> you told me years ago you had already written that last line. >> it was written in my head mo or less when i wrote the first line of the book. i was doing research on theodore roosevelt's birthplace, new york, which in those days was a disused library full of dust the parchment papers and records. i came across this yellow manila envelope full of schoolboy essays written shortly after his death. some class exercise. the children were asked to write the persistence of the president. i came across this one essay with this one sentence, he was the fulfiller of good

intentions. i knew in 1979 that no matter how long it took to write the three volumes, that was going to be last line. >> when did you physically write that last line? what time in the last several months? >> i wrote it in january of this year, 2010. i called my wife up from downstairs and said, "come look at this." as i wrote it, she stood over me while i type it out. and that was the end of 30 years of work. >> this is a very broad question, but what has this experience been like? >> it has been enriching, life enhancing. educational, because i am not an american. i am not american-born, as you can tell from my accent. i am an american citizen who came here in 1968, wanting to learn about my country of

adoption. i could not think of a better way to learn all about america, its character and its history, and it's essential principles, then by studying the life of theodore roosevelt. >> back in 1999, i think the last time we talked, it was for your reagan book, "dutch." there is a video of that moment. i asked you about the early introduction to theodore roosevelt. let us watch. >> there was a preliminary apprehension. i was a small boy in kenya. at the age of 10, i looked in the civic history that was published to celebrate the 50th anniversary. it had this historic anniversary reaches this historic photograph of theodore roosevelt coming to nairobi, kenya in 1939 when his great safari. i remember identifying as a small boy with that picture, the

smile, the snarl, the spectacle. something about him attracted me. half a century later, i wound up writing his biography. >> is there a second edition of the 3 per -- three parter? >> it will have to come out on september 40, 2001. that will be the centennial of his inauguration. >> are you on time this time also, with the third book? >> i was just thinking thank god it did not come out on september 14, 2001. that would have been three days after 9/11. i do not think anybody in the country read a book for the next two months. as it happened, it was slightly delayed and came out after thanksgiving, just when people found the need of reading something about a positive presidential force. it would have been a disaster if

it had come out when it was planned to. >> is this one on schedule, the new one, the third one? >> yes. >> how have you changed your mind about theodore roosevelt in the last three books? >> i have been increasingly impressed by the quality of his intellect. it was obvious from the start he was a superbly bright man, but i thought his smarts were primarily political. indeed, they were through most of his middle years. but once he left the white house, in march 1909, and began a life of journalism and book writing, the quality of his mind deepen and broadened to an extraordinary degree. some of the essays he wrote about the conflict between science and religion and imagery in medieval literature, and subjects like that -- in the

year 1911, when he was completely out of it, his essays will -- for impressive. there rlect reading in english, german, and french. some italian. an enormous catholic intelligence and where edition. to think this man was also an extraordinarily successful president of united states is to realize that he was, as somebody once said, a polyglot. the man of many, many dimensions. >> in the middle of all this, your book "dutch" came out. the question i am going to ask you is what is the difference between writing about a man who has been dead for years versus a man who was alive? what are the experiences like? >> a journalist asked me that question after i had the contract for the reagan biography. is it easier to write about and

a live person or a dead person? i had not thought of it. i was struggling to think what to say when my wife shouted out, "dead is easier." of course, this journalist used that line to begin his article in the new york times. she got a t-shirt a couple of days later which was "dead is easier" all over the front, which she wears frequently. however, i think they both have difficulties. to write about a dead person is to be a prisoner of the existing material. if there is not any material on something important, the material happens to be evaporated or was never set down, one cannot chronicle that event. but if you are writing about a live person, you have to deal with the live sensibilities not only of that person but of his family, his contemporaries, his friends.

in reagan's case, i was writing about a living president of the united states. so i had to deal not too much with his sensibilities, because reagan was so sure of himself he did not care what people broke or thought about him, but his wife, his children, his friends, and the american people. so that posed problems, too. >> who did you get the closest to in the theodore roosevelt family? how many of his family were you able to talk to? >> i interviewed him this son, his second and a son, archie, shortly before he died. there was also alice roosevelt when she was pretty ancient. descendants, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, who have to certain extent and helpful. i guess the most useful was archibald roosevelt jr.. he is quite a fixture here in washington in the 1980's and

90's. of all the roosevelt descendants, he was the one with the best mind. he spoke 16 or 17 languages. his intellect was enormous, very much like his grandfather's. when i published my first book about teddy roosevelt, a party called me up and said, "i read your book and was staggered by the number of mannerisms that you describe that i thought were my own mannerisms that turned out to be my grandfather's." >> back when we talked in 99, you mentioned the people who were alive, the family and friends. you talked about nancy reagan. i want to run that and get your reaction to what you said about that. >> she has always been throughout her life very insecure, very suspicious, and totally besotted with her husband. and if she had any inkling or

any suspicion, should i say, about a writer who was quick to seem less than great and less than perfect, it would have cost of these problems -- it would have caused obvious problem. i preserved a friendship with her which was quite genuine on a superficial level. she gives a good lunch. nancy is fun to be with. if i had a deep conversation -- >> looking back on the 11 years since this book came out, any thoughts about anything that book brought up, the relationships you had? >> i sent her the first copy the did before it was published, with a letter saying, "i know this is not point to be what you were hoping for. i hope as the years go by you will realize, if not from

reading yourself but from what other people say, this book shows that your husband was a genuinely great president, whatever his private feelings. i just hope that gives you some consolation for the fact that you were honest about him." looking back at "dutch" more than 10 years ago, i looked at it as the happiest period of my life. i had an enormous sense of accomplishment with that book. in many quarters, washington is perceived as a failure. i heard you last week, during your interview with a couple of historians. i know it was widely criticized at the time. but it also got at the center the kind of reviews a lot of authors would die for. it sold over 300,000 copies. it is still selling. i would not change a word of it.

i regard it as my best book. i am enormously happy i had the unique privilege of being able to see a sitting president in power and right about that experience. >> why did you consider that the happiest time of your life? >> because i had done something original, which is what all riders want. i think a pioneered a new form of biography. over the years since, other books have come out which use similar techniques. the poet laureate of great britain, for example, wrote a biography a couple of years after "dutch," a romantic poet. i have forgotten his name for a moment. it used the same device of an imaginary meritor. -- narrator, and questions back and forth between the narrator and other points of view. these techniques have been more and more part of the new nonfiction language. i have been watching with great

interest. >> the couple of years ago, you wrote a book about beethoven. why? >> i have always loved music. what i like his literary challenges. to write about ronald reagan was a literary challenge because he was a difficult man to penetrate. teddy roosevelt is an enormous challenge because he is so enormous and multifaceted. it is a superhuman challenge. to write about the composer is to write about music, which is a language almost beyond the power of ordinary language to describe. as mendelssohn once remarked, music is a superior language to audible speech. the challenge in that case was to write a short book about beethoven which used language to communicate the essence of music. i found that a delightful challenge. >> why beethoven among all the

composers? >> he is probably the most complex character among the great composers. but is a composer of equal stature, -- bach is a composer of equal stature, but his personality is difficult to get out. >> you can the united states in 68, lived in london some time before that, born in kenya. when we last talked, you had an apartment or house over on capitol hill, and a place to live up in new york. what has happened since? >> i left washington shortly after the publication of "theodore rex" in 2001. we moved to connecticut. i have a department in new york city. i divide my time between kent, connecticut and new york. >> three books. the first one, "the rise of the

theodore roosevelt," was about what iraq? >> that was his pre-presidential life and ends when he hears in new york that president mckinley has been assassinated and that he as vice president is now president of united states. >> when did you write that -- where did you write that? >> in my apartment in new york. >> the second book came out in 2001, "rex." what is that era? >> his presidential years, 1901 to 1909. >> the third one which is out right now is called "colonel roosevelt." >> that is the final 10 years of his life, 1909 until 1919. >> given what is going on in the country right now in the united states, what can we learn from this final book about what happens in a country where

people are unhappy, or in his case he was a third-party candidate. when did he run as a third-party candidate, and why? >> he ran as a third-party candidate in 1912, but exactly a century ago, in 1910, shortly after he had come back to the country after having been a year away, he became the spokesman, the oracle, of this new force arising in america called progressivism. it was a largely middle-class movement whose common denominator apart from passion was a mounting dissatisfaction with government, with federal government, a feeling of exclusion from the tight relationship between congress and corporations and capitalistic privilege.

so this white middle-class passionate movement developed in the later years of his presidency, largely inspired by his own swing to the left. it more or less drafted tampa back into politics as its spokesman in the summer of 1910. so the midterm elections that subsequently took place exactly 100 years ago marked the emergence of this new progressive party. it was not quite a party at. but it was a formidable movement, which in two short years after that election mutated into a real party, the progressive party of 1912, and fought the most successful third-party candidacy in our history. >> why did he not run in 1918?

>> he was at the end of his very successful presidency. he was full of smarts, and young. he was not yet 50. but he sort of knew in his heart of hearts that if he had another term, which he could have had on a silver platter, if he had served another four years, he would begin to be corrupt, begin to be too self righteous, too domineering. it was never a question of financial or political corruption, but he sensed he had had too much power to long, and he deeply believed that an american president should serve only a finite time, and follow the example of george washington and retire after two terms. >> briefly go through how he became president. who picked him to be vice president, and why? >> he was picked as vice

president by william mckinley in 1900, largely to keep him out of the way because he was already, by a pretty universal consent, destined to be president. mckinley took him as his vice president, and that second term, mckinley lost in only a few days, because he was shot in the fall of 1901, precipitating young 42-year-old theodore roosevelt, the youngest president we ever had. >> he served almost three years, and then another four years. how was he reelected? >> it was not really a reelection. he was elected in his own right, in 1904 by his own power. i think it was the biggest margin in that time. he would have had a similar majority if he had run again in 1900, which he could have. he could have run as many times

as he liked. >> when did it start after he left in 2008 and getting ready for 1912? when did he think of doing it again? >> he went to africa on a gigantic safari which lasted almost a year. a lot of dribs and drabs. mail would region by a naked runner, letters from friends in america. he began to realize president taft was turning out to be a pretty ineffective successor, and that this is a desire for him to come back and articulate the hopes and aspirations of the progressives was getting stronger as well. it was not until he returned in the spring of 1910 and discovered he had been missed during his year abroad, and how urgent the political priorities were, that he reluctantly

allowed himself to be coaxed back into politics. >> who was pushing him? >> at first, it was governor hughes of new york, a progressive governor who needed political help there. i would go into the details, but roosevelt reluctantly agreed to give him a favor and help him campaign for a primary in the fall. by making that fatal decision to help out the struggling governor, he found himself sucked back into party politics. by the fall of that year, he was articulating all of the new principles of progressivism. >> when did he signaled that he was ready to go? >> to run for the presidency? he signaled that in january of 1912. why then, the pressure for him to run was so enormous that he really could not resist it. and to be honest he had in his

heart ambition which began to dominate him. like all men of great gifts, when they give up power, even though they might give it up for principle reasons, they begin to hanker for it the moment they give it up. he hankered for the presidency during his four years out of power to such an extent that he agreed to run again in 1912. >> he said he was not yet 50 when he left the white house. we know he died when he was 60. he only had 10 years. we talk about this. how sick was he threw his life? >> his health seemed to be excellent. he was a strong, florida, enormously energetic man. he did have medical problems. the thing he always had a bad heart. his health problems began to be

manifest around 1911, 1912. he began to put on weight seriously. he began to have arteriosclerosis. he had chronic malaria in his system from his years of service in cuba in 1988, -- in 1898, the spanish-american war. as his life progressed, he began to be more and more subject to illness. he went to the amazon in 1914 and explored the river and very nearly died of a tropical fever. >> when you set out to get to know him, what year was it originally? >> when i set out to get to note -- >> him. your first book was in 1979. when did you start the process? >> it was, oddly enough -- it was after richard nixon resigned the white house.

nixon, as you may recall in his farewell speech to the white house staff -- somebody started to "theodore roosevelt. -- started to quote the door roosevelt. "as if they're young flower she lived, and as a fair flour she died -- flower she died." i believe nixon was talking about his mother and i got curious what caused theodore roosevelt to write these words. it was his beautiful young wife at the beginning of his political career. i became interested in this real life, and began to write a screenplay about it in 1975, i think it was. and as i wrote the screenplay, i got more and more interested in him as the character.

the book grew out of the screenplay. a beaucoup out of a book. here i am, 3 volumes later. >> where did you start to see what he was all about, the places that you rummage through? >> i began to get a physical feel for him, which is important for a biographer. one must have the ability to imagine this person in the room, or with invisible distance. one must have a palpable feeling of the subject or it is impossible to write a book. i began to get that feeling after about two years of research, after i had been up to the badlands of dakota, where he was in the 1980's, after i had been out to sagamore hill and held in my hand his gold lot

of hair from the head of his dead wife, alice. after i had read his diaries at harvard, and turned over the pages his hand had turned. i remember coming across one page describing his honeymoon night with his beautiful alice lee, and i was naturally interested to see what he wrote about that light -- about that night. in his handwriting, he said, " our sacred happiness cannot be written about." the distinct feeling that i, future biographer, was being addressed by him -- this is private. stay out of my life. that is when the consciousness of him again. >> how long was he married to alice? >> for years. >> what did she die of? >> she died of bright's disease, the same disease that took off

woodrow wilson's wife. >> what was bright's disease? >> it is acute clot below nephritis. -- globulonephritus. >> kidney disease. alice, his daughter, was around in my lifetime. she was married to a former speaker of the house from ohio. is there any connection there? >> at first, he treated her away to his sister to look after, the little girl. he just gave her away like a sack of salt and went west to recover from the death of alice lee. but when he came back to marry his second wife, who happened to be his childhood sweetheart, edith kermit roosevelt, she insisted on taking this child back as the first child in her

own family. so little alice became the first of six children and grew up to be a complex and extremely interesting woman, whose portrait i painted in quite a lot of detail in "colonel roosevelt." i made a point in this book of describing all of his children. making them real characters and historic ones. by the time he came back from africa, there were all on the edge of adulthood, and becoming more and more interesting in their own right. >> what can you tell us about the other five kids? when did he marry his second wife, edith? >> 1886, which was only two years after the death of alice lee. and it was an extremely happy marriage, extremely successful. she lasted as long as the a

fenestration of harry truman. -- she lasted as long as the administration of harry truman. theodore roosevelt was the first one. then there was kermit. then there was another girl, florida -- ethel. then there was clinton. and there was archy. they had -- then there was quinton. and there was arhcy. -- arhcie. alice, the first to be born, was the last to die, in 1980. ted was a wonderful soldier. he came back in world war ii to be a general. he went over on the day and died of a heart attack a few days after winning the medal of honor. he is one of the most highly decorated soldiers of both world wars. archy was very similar, in much

decorated soldier who died of old age in the late 1970's. ethel died -- a full was just a housewife to most of her life. she dedicated most of her life to preserving the memory of her father, preserving sagamore hill, his home. alice became alice, the famous princess alice. quentin, the youngest, brightest, and most promising of the children, was tragically killed as a fighter pilot in world war i. i make a great deal of that tragedy in my book on his last years, because i think that single tragedy destroyed theodore roosevelt himself. it was because of his death just a few months later at the age of 60 -- it was because of his death -- it was the cause of his

death just a few months later at the age of 60. >> when is the movie coming out? >> it has been optioned for several years, but it has just been taken over by taylor hartford -- hackord. -- hackford. i believe it is being looked at by hbo. "i have a hard copy of your -- >> i have a hard copy of your first book, reissued. are the reprinting them? >> yes. "the rise of the theodore roosevelt" is coming out in a new hardback edition uniform with the other two books, so the complete trilogy is going to be available this season as an irresistible gift. [laughter] >> i want to go to an episode i

find so many people do not go -- do not know about. you have as much detail as i have seen on it. that is the assassination attempt of theodore roosevelt in october of 1912 in milwaukee. and you say at the end of your book that that may have been part of what killed him in the and, that that was still left in his system. would you go back to the beginning and talk about how the assassination came about? the attempt -- it was not an assassination. >> in "theodore rex," on the day tr became president, i explain how an unemployed tavern keeper in new york reacted to the death of mckinley and the ascension of theodore roosevelt by having a vision in which the dead president, president mckinley, emerged from his coffin and pointed at a month -- monk who was manifestly theodore

roosevelt dressed as a monk, and said, "avenge my death. kill this man." that did occur in september of 1901. that same man, john shrank, in september of 1912, tracking tr around the country as he is campaigning for the progressive party, hoping to shoot him at some point or other, mrs. several opportunities to assassinate him. -- misses several opportunities to assassinate him. finally caught up with him in milwaukee in september of 1912, in circumstances uncannily similar to those which happened when reagan was almost killed in 1991. he shot teddy roosevelt in the chest as he was coming out of a hotel on the way to a speech.

roosevelt collapsed into his limo, not realizing at first how seriously he had been shot. john schrank was taken out by security guards. tr, instead of allowing his escorts to taken to hospital, insisted on going through with his scheduled speech, marched on stage with the milwaukee auditorium, threw open his jacket, exposed this spreading mass of blood, and said, "it takes more than that to kill a bull moose," and spoke for almost two hours, at times nearly falling off the stage. the audience was mesmerized, as you can imagine. and somehow he got through the speech, and then allowed them to take him to the hospital. he survived, of course. as i know from watching reagan

recover from his, to be hit in a chest with a bullet that stops an inch or two from your heart clarifies the mind wonderfully physicalcts one's condition forever afterward. >> they did not remove it? >> it would have been dangerous to remove it. they left it there. for the rest of his life, he walked around with a slug in his chest. >> a rubber seeing at the american history museum a glass case with picture of him and his speech. and then i remember seeing a short in north dakota, near his ranch, a white shirt with a whole. where are they keeping all of that now? i think that shirt belongs out there, but have you seen it? >> i think the shirt and the perforated speech with the bullet hole going through it both belong to the theodore

roosevelt birthplace in new york. at least that is where i last saw them. it is pretty creepy to go there and look at them. >> what happened to john frank? >> he was found mentally incompetent, epergne a schizophrenic. he spent the rest of his life in jail, dying i think in the 1940's. >> you also talk about how roosevelt went over to him and grabbed him with his hands. was that all about? >> the security men were rustling this guy to the ground, just as they grabbed john hinckley in 1981. one security guy was trying to break his neck. roosevelt called out, "do not kill him. bring him here." they brought him, and in this oddly gentle gesture, roosevelt grabbed his face, looked at him,

and said, "why did you do it?" looking into this guy's face -- you can see very clearly in progress at the time -- you can see straight away that dull expressionless look which reveals insanity. roosevelt said, "what is the use. taken away." he was taken away, interdicted, and sent to jail. >> what happened with the remainder of the campaign, with the other candidates? how long was he in the hospital? >> he was in hospital for 10 or 12 days. it took tampa -- it took several weeks before he began to recover, by which time the campaign was practically over. he made one final speech in madison square garden a couple of nights before the election in november 1912. the other two candidates for president taft, running for reelection, and governor woodrow

wilson of new jersey. both of those men, being a gentleman, said it would stop campaigning for as long as the colonel was incapacitated. >> how did the election come out? >> the election came out as roosevelt knew it would come out, which would go wilson winning, because the third party candidacy of the progressives split the republican party and elected woodrow wilson. >> summer, the actual totals on the vote. my memory is he got 27% of the vote. as he said in the beginning, he got the most vote of any third- party candidate. what did you learn in writing about this third party candidacy that would be of value in 2012, if there is a third-party candidate?

>> the candidacy -- the party's candidacy did produce a progressive minority in the senate, which had a good deal of power as a swing unit. what i think is of more relevance to today's political situation is that when a large minority of the country believes itself to be disenfranchised, he excluded from power -- excluded by a combination of shared privilege between lawmakers and corporate executives and professional politicians -- when this large constituency begins to feel disenfranchised, the become extremely angry, very passionate, and very unified. the tea party movement, which in no way matches the sophistication of the progressive movement,

nevertheless has got their reunifying feeling. these people feel excluded from power and want to show they can get power back. the fact that the progressive party eventually dissolved away is perhaps of some encouragement to the leaders of the two main parties right now. right now, the third party threat, i think, is quite real core of the presidential election of 2012. >> what did they do wrong in 2012 that prevented him from getting elected? >> if teddy roosevelt had been nominated by the republican party in the spring of 1912, he would have brought all these progressives with him. they were mostly republicans. he would have then had that huge vote and would without question have been elected president in 1912. of >> i found a lot of

interesting notes in the back of the battle. in mr. tom edition -- i do not have the first book with me. but you had these biographical notes, these historical notes and chronological notes in the back, full of a lot of interesting stuff. where did you get that idea? i have not seen that before? >> i wrote it for footnote fictitious like you, brian. -- fetishists like you, brian. [laughter] when one is resurging, you find interesting things that do not fit into the narrative. i have a long biographical footnote about his memory, which is all sorts of examples of this phenomenon. if i had done that in the course of the book, it would have held up the story. i felt the footnotes for the most appropriate place. >> when did you write all of

these footnotes? >> as i was doing it. >> as you went along, you stopped, wrote them, and put them aside? >> that is the joy of the computer. when i wrote my first book on enormous sheets of manuscript paper, i would have to do all the footnotes in microscopically small handwriting at the bottom of each page. then if a paragraph was moved to another chapter, i would have to cut out the footnotes and attach them. but now, working on a computer, one can attach the footnotes directly to the text, and they just follow, find their place like tadpoles, wherever you move your text later on. >> what was your first book you wrote on the computer? >> i began to write on computer have with through a "dutch." >> had you already done a significant amount of your roosevelt book?

>> if yes. i had done about seven chapters, which a completely rewrote 15 years later when i went back, because i had changed as a writer than. "theodore rex," which followed "dutch," was more or less a new book. >> how have you changed as a writer? >> i think i was just that much older and wiser. when i started "theodore rex," i was not very hip as a student of presidential politics. therefore i found it difficult to write about his presidency when i did not understand the white house. having spent all these years in reagan's white house and seen the presidency in operation, i could go back and rewrite it from the point of view of somebody who had seen how it works. i could understand the nature of the presidency.

>> we talked a lot about you being around ronald reagan. did you ever took a look the number of days you were in the white house during that last term of his? >> i did not. i came and went quite clearly. it was to most of 1985 and 1989, plus all the time i spent with him after he left the white house. >> when we visited in your home on capitol hill years ago, you showed us it your card system on writing a "dutch." did you do the same thing with the door your -- with theodore roosevelt? >> yes. i have yards and yards of cards. i suppose some day i will do something with them, but right now i have been stashed in my house.

>> when he spoke in tuskegee alabama, why was that an important moment in his life? >> he had a close relationship with booker t. washington from the beginning of his presidency. that was the first person he telegraphed to come to washington and consult with him. as everybody tends to know, he also entertained at booker t. washington to dinner in the white house and created a national scandal by sitting down to dinner with a black man, which had never been done before. the relationship became complicated later on.

he -- when washington died, roosevelt went to give his final tribute. >> you wrote that archibald roosevelt jr. speculated that roosevelt probably was born with a bicuspid aortic valve instead of the normal tricuspid. people with the problem also -- often compensate for it in early life, but get a telltale heart murmur, which is probably what the doctor at harvard heard when he warned him to lead a sedentary life. "want him back in 1880, when he graduated. -- >> he warned him back in 1980, when he graduated. you have a problem with your part, and i advise you to live a scholarly it life and not do anything to physical. roosevelts reaction was to do everything -- climb mountains, but a vigorous life -- live a

vigorous life. i am going to live life at the fullest and die at 60. that is exactly what he did. >> what did he die of? >> a pulmonary embolism is the general conclusion, although i did put together a compendium of all his medical information and showed it to a former chairman , into a doctor's son. the both had the feeling of was primarily a heart problem. a failure of the heart. >> the year he died? >> he died on the feast of the epiphany, january 6, 1919. >> here is a biological note. his memory was as comprehensive as a was photographic. it went far beyond the normal politicians knack of remembering names and faces, although his

ability in that regard was phenomenal. what he saw or heard, and in particular what he read, registered with almost mechanistic clarity. how did you discover that? >> everybody commented on his memory throughout his life. there is ample testimony. i came across a letter he wrote his son, kermit. there was a poet who wrote about living south of the border. roosevelt said, "i remember the poem very well. it goes like this." he wrote about this entire to stanza poem by this obscure poem i had never heard of. i looked it up, found when the spawn was published. he wrote that letter in 1914.

the poll was published in 1898 in the atlantic monthly. i looked up that issue of the magazine and found out that roosevelt himself had an article in that same issue. in other words, in 1898, looking at his own article, he had come across this poem, registered in his head. i came across the words he had written in 1914, and i could see there were not copied from the magazine because there were several minor mistakes. but otherwise it was word for word, what he had written, what he had read and memorize 14, 15 years before. quite incredible. >> this is a historian graphical -- historiographical note. iraq his public career, he could be cavalier, even with the scripts of his major address is printed in his collected works.

the improvisational humor he used to temper his seriousness can only be imagined, along with the radiance of personality that in fused these frequently dull texts with like -- infused these frequently dull texts with life. >> his humor was like mark twain's. it came pouring out all the time. transcriptions of his speeches tend to be from the typescript he would hand to reporters. so his improvisations, his witticisms, the jokes he would tell are not there in the transcripts. but there is so much testimony from people who knew him that he was hilariously funny. when he wanted to be funny on paper, as in the long letters he wrote describing his grand tour of europe in 1909 and his participation in king edward vii's funeral, these letters are

so funny they could have been written by charles dickens or mark twain. they have been published by a book -- as a book. one of the delights of working on him all these years has been to write about somebody who was so funny. >> on the three roosevelt books, which one did you enjoy the most? and which one was the hardest to write? >> "theodore rex" was the hardest, because it was a political struggle. my nature is to write about events, action, and character. i am not very happy with issues and policy and stuff. rex was hard to write. the one i have enjoyed writing most has been this last book. because the story is so negatively -- a narrative so fascinating, so constantly

changing. he is running for president one moment, exploring the longest river and tributary of the amazon in 1914, and an apostle of the american participation in world war one. the subject matter is constantly changing, and there is a very tragic death scene at the end. all writers love to write death scenes. >> another footnote. this is a biographical note. churchill dined with the roosevelts in albany and incensed his hosts by slumping in his chair, puffing on a cigar, and refusing to stand when women entered. >> roosevelt used to say that winston churchill the american novelist was a gentleman. winston churchill the english politician is someone you would not care to meet. when he was in england for edward vii's funeral, churchill

tried to meet with him and he refused to see him. i became intrigued as to why roosevelt should have this animus against winston churchill. i went through it and i think is two prima donnas. churchill admired roosevelt and consulate wanted to meet him. roosevelt, the older man, regarded churchill as a bulgarian -- vulgarian, a political turncoat. i think he was jealous of churchill pep literary abilities, because when he was younger he was a better writer than roosevelt was. basically a conflict of personality. i worked with bob on theodore wrecks, on "dutch." >> is he still active in his mid

'80s? >> he is already asking what i want to do next. >> what do you want to do next? >> i have not decided. i just know it will be short. i would not mind writing about another musician, or for that matter another writer, but no more presidents. >> why not? >> there is no precedent more interesting to me than theodore roosevelt. >> where would you put ronald reagan, next to theodore roosevelt in your interest? >> pretty well on the same level. i found reagan quite fascinating, but for a different reason. he fascinated me because of his remoteness, and because of his unconsciousness of who and what he was, whereas teddy roosevelt knew exactly what he was about. and >> are you glad this is over? >> i am. it is about time.

>> three books, as we said, and theodore roosevelt. "the rise of the theodore roosevelt," "theodore rex," and this brand new book by edmund morris, our guest. i think you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> for a d.v.d. copy of this program, called the number on your screen. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at our website. these are also available as c- span podcast. -- podcasts.

>> the redesigned lookn -- booknotes website -- you can view the programs, read the transcripts, search the database, and find links to offer web sites. the brand new look and feel, a helpful research tool, and a way to enjoy authors and their books. >> coming up on "prime minister's questions," david cameron talks about proposed spending cuts and combat forces in afghanistan. also remarks from newt gingrich on the incoming republican-led congress. >> we are doing this because we inherited the biggest budget deficits since 1920, and it is no good labor talking about cuts. they were planning 20% cuts. we are just having to introduce measures to deal with the mess that they made.

>> nowrom london, prime minister's questions from the house of commons. labour leader ed miller band continues his paternity leave. government cuts to police departments, and on the progress of training afghan >> i am sure that the whole house will wish to join me in paying tribute to ranger aaron mccormick of 1st battalion the royal irish regiment, who died on remembrance sunday. his commanding officer has described him as the epitome of the irish infantry soldier. tough, selfless, good humored, and full of compassion." he showed astonishing bravery, leading the way in clearing improvised explosive devices for the safety of local civilians and his fellow soldiers. we send our sincere