daisy and well as an enormous volume of photographs. nearly 2,400 stils series.d in this burns has always rejected using the voice of god approach to narration, relying instead on contemporary voices to bring his words to life. in the roosevelts, you will hear some of america's greatest herman asward franklin and marilyn street as elmore. ken burns, like his films, he never becomes outdated. me in welcoming the club member ken burns. >> thank you all very much for coming.

i'm so happy to be back at the press club. it's really been a home base for our long arduous for the film.urs exception. e -- i do feel compelled to edit. was negative three years old back then. though i was already working not yetlls, i had perfected what we call the ken effect quite then. i also feel, now that you war, that ihe civil reminded you 24 years ago, in the, when we came with civil war, that i reminded you felt aboutm sherman newspapers men. he hated newspapers men so much was sure if they killed them all, there would be news breakfast.efore and, of course, unfortunately,

unscathed withpe the rooseveltss roosevelts, thol eleanor, who held twice weekly news conferences with first time a the first lady did that -- and franklin, because he had been an the harvard crimson, felt that had made him a newspapers man himself and loved to develop and cherish the development of personal relationships with the newspaper that he crowded in -- men -- for crowded in 998 times news conferences during his presidency. equally adeptas at manipulating the press and making them feel like they were ushering them into his private world, though he did have a special purgatory for displeased himo with his writing. them the -- he called ancientclub, from the instantaneouslytant

stricken down from telling a lie. you were in that club, you were not in his good graces. of walk it back a little bit. he'd often confide to the reason he'dt the criticized him so heavily had less to do with their writing sob who owned the paper. and he was merely taking it out messenger. first of all, i do not come here assistance of hundreds of people. tose of you who had a chance watch last night's film, there was a credit sequence that went many, many minutes that thanked, quite correctly, hundreds of people. all, because this is public television, we are dependent not on our sponsors our underwriters. there's a huge and very important difference between them. take aould just like to moment to thank the bank of our solewhich had been

corporate sponsor since 2006 and throughs to be involved 2020. they have been an enlightened us.oration that has helped i'm also grateful to pbs itself and the corporation for public broadcasting, for major funding. i also am grateful to the national endowment for the humanities. i began this business an awfully ago and i had the great good fortune to work with duffey, who, joe turned up today, not like a bad penny but as a welcome old friend. to have joe here. thank you, joe, for all the support you and subsequent aboutans -- there must be a dozen now since you -- that have been supporting our work. sustained support of the arthur davis foundations, contributions, significant individual contributions from jack taylor roselyn. we also enjoy the support of a

called the better angel society and john and jessica fullerton. and joan newhouse newton and bonnie and tom and the file foundation, have all contributed film. and i would literally simply not support,ithout their nor would i be here without the support for the corporation for for mybroadcasting and long-time production partners, 35 years, the washington, d.c. based public affiliate, sharon rock felrockefeller. extremely grailtful to our network. i think the best in the business. a place in which we are saturated, buried in information, a little bit more on that later. but we also enjoy one home where

know reliably, whether it's our children delving into issues science or nature, whether it affairs orblic artistic performance, whether it affairs or history, we have the best place on the dial, and that's pbs. honored that my president, paula, is here today. like about what we do, it's them. forthe pick that they set me. these films are also not made by person. writers have that and reporters, are notmost part, who having to -- now having to blog thato video posts, have luxury of working alone. but i also have what i think is even the greater luxury, of in anipating extraordinarily collaborative medium. peoplere are many responsible for this film, paulrs and producers,

buckham, that help us collect the more than 25,000 still photographs that the 23, 2400, that into the final film. same to the never-before-seen photographs, moving pictures, all the sights from warm springs,n to where the roosevelts made their them united states park service sites that opened their doors and let us film at ungodly hours. but the most significant person involved in this project has collaborator,ime collaborator of 32 years, here, i'mrd, who is also to say happily with his justdiane, and we have been making films together for beginning long time, not, again, editing your text --

war, but we began when he was an advisor on a film sel celibatee the shakers, and another film on the turbulent demigodthe southern hewey long. we have been making history together. and we have been talking for almost all of those about making a film or a film series on one or more of the roosevelts. has written two extraordinarily great books on on franklints, roosevelts's early life. one of them is called before the trumpet, which takes him from his birth to his marriage to eleanor. is one ofcond, which the greatest biographies i have ever read -- please run to your notepads to jot this down -- a first-class temperament that takes franklin roosevelt from his honeymoon to his election of

governor of new york. remarkable story, and it is a remarkable story about an extremely complicated human being overcoming one of the most illness you can imagine and still managing to become president of the united states. part of the story we want to tell. so now that i have completely buried the lead, i will be rescued by myron, who is to say thatorrect for the last seven years, jeff and i and our team have been producing a seven-part 14-hour ofies on the history theodore, franklin and eleanor roosevelt. began broadcasting this series nationally in an unprecedented fashion last showed thee they first episode and then showed the first episode again at 10:00. each subsequent night, we'll show another episode until this 20th. saturday, the we believe it's the first time, short of a national tragedy,

network hase shown -- taken up an entire prime time and then some. from 8:00 until midnight, an hour out of prime time, for one single show. we're very happy with public television's confidence in the work we've done. few moreike to spend a minutes, before the good part where i have a chance to have an tell you ath you, to little bit about what we're trying to do. last night, who saw saw the table-setting episode in which we set in motion what is complicated and intertwined and interbraided i'vetive that i think that ever undertaken. i certainly think that jeff thinks so as well, even though we have tackled together a history of the civil war, baseball, jazz, second world war, and are working on the the war in vietnam. we were drawn to doing all three in part because of that avalanche of information that i mentioned to you earlier. we live in a media culture in

we think we know everything. we have lots of information and understanding. we are drowning. and one of the default positions this excessive information is we tend to form superficial, conventional wisdom about the subjects we think we know about, either those happening today or those that took place in the past. and so it seems that for almost entire history of the -- of this country, since the have been, we compelled to focus either on theodore, and there are a lot of books and very good books and films on him, or franklin, and a hasof good books, and jeff written two of them, and franklin and eleanor and a little bit less on eleanor. no one has put it together as the complicated family drama that it is. i guess this has to do with the fact that in that superficial theodore andok at say republican and we look at franklin and eleanor and say

democrat, and we think we can segregate them into their own silos.ual it is interesting as individuals, and certainly franklin and eleanor as a pair, is exponentially more interesting if you have the opportunity to get to know them concert. and that's what we've tried to do. it is a complicated, russian novel of a story that has not only these three primary but dozens of secondary and tertiary characters. and of course, a world that they compelled and a world that compelled them, that is, dealing 19th century, coming out of the civil war, the of monopoliese and trust, the roaring 20's, and age, the second world war, and the cold war, from when theodore roosevelt was born in 1858, when our series began, to when eleanor dies in 1962, when our series ends this coming

dealing night, we are with a century, 104 years, an century, in so -- in a place and time where so much of the modern world was created, and these three people are as world asle for that anybody that i know. we say and we say with conviction and confidence in the opening of our film, which you might have seen night, that no other family has touched as many americans as the roosevelts, and that is true. you only need to stop and think in.t the world we live if you've ever flown out of you're in --port, you're in something that franklin roosevelt did, or took a drive on the skyline drove or blue ridge parkway or rode the chicago, expected in the tennessee valley to see turnedcome on when you on a light switch, or in the northwest or southwest, you have

traveled over thousands of bridges built during their era. you have seen or attended thousands of high schools. you have driven on miles and miles of roads that they originally blazed in this country. and more importantly, you will or you are enjoying security check. you like the idea that our government takes its soldiers their college education with the gi bill. thature you're thrilled your children do not work in mines seven days a week, 14 that there are such concepts as a minimum wage and live hours. think you are certain that big monopolies ought to be at least regulated, if not broken up. i think you enjoy visiting our national parks and national other sanctuaries of the beautiful wildness that our has preserved, in large part, thanks to these two

extraordinary presidents, theodore and franklin roosevelt. legacy, this is only a small, small portion of their legacy. they, of course, raise questions are not always positive. way want to in any suggest to you that the film a've made is in some ways valentine to these three human wayss, that it is in some worship., hero in fact, we are interested in telling a complicated portrait of their great strengths but their great weaknesses and flaws and my goodness, ladies vividntlemen, they are on display with these three characters. their deepportantly, wounds, and that's, i think, where the subtitle of our time in.s this is the roosevelts: an intimate history. feelg said that, i qualified in the early 20th century to have to warn you that

tabloid history. we are interested in getting to know them. we often debate in our films the between a top-down history.nd a bottom-up this has been for many years the argument in history. also about so-called ordinary people, women, minorities, labor, people like me, for whom the real history of america is written? that it is a mixture of the two. and even in a film like this, we engage a top-down bottom-up history to tell something more complicated, et cetera.ow, but this is also an inside-out history. i don't mean to suggest that ways filled with psychobabble, but we're curious peoplehere these three came from. after all, it is a family drama.

we want to understand about parents. we want to understand about their childhoods. to understand about their spouses and their children and their lives within their families. feel that by understanding it, particularly people,e three ordinary and ladies and gentlemen, biography has been a constituent almost everyk of film we've worked on. it is hugely important to understand the world they created, and that is essentially the world we have inherited, at and socialpolitical fashion in this united states. it is hugely important to where they came from. ad just stop to consider for moment the topicalness of their story. the central question of theodore's time, the central question of franklin and eleanor's time is the central question of our time. government?role of what can a citizen expect from his or her government?

what is the tension between ideology? and what is the nature of leadership? formoes character leadership? lifeoes adversity in create character, which in turn forms that leadership? questions we ask, the testing we apply to our own asders today, and they are relevant now as they were back in the time and vice versa. essentially an exploration of their lives, inner and outer, the way they this country, and to try to deal on the fault line of that. that sameve in an age media culture, whose default position is also to lament the heros. of we're constantly saying, oh, and doing a film like this, and a film like this has brought out myriad comments that herost don't make anymore. but let's just remember that we are expecting, in this

superficialalti, expecting perfection in our leaders. let us examine the very nature the word hero. it is, we get, from the greeks. greeks in no way defined it as perfection. in fact, they understood hero --heroism to be a very complex negotiation, sometimes a war person's obvious strengths and their equal and not-so-obvious weaknesses. and it is that negotiation, it and withar sometimes, these three people, it is indeed heroism.at defines achilles had his heel and his hubris to go along with all of his strengths and fine characteristics. and maybe what i hope in some ways -- people ask what do we

want from the series, and we say we want you to enjoy what we think is a rip-snorting good story. we might also want you to reexamine the way in which we superficialatty, so we might gain a little bit more tolerance in our conversations. justthing will not be black and white. now, the roosevelts provoked that in some people. but what we've tried to do is offer a nuance portrait. let's consider the oldest of them for just one second. theodore roosevelt, born in a sickly asthmatic child. childhood thatn he was not destined to live. hiseard a doctor telling parents that he was going to die very early on. all his life to remake his body, to turn it said --as his father get action, be sane. and all his life, theodore

as hard as heed could to maker and remake -- to and remake his body. he never escaped the asthma that child.ed him as a but he did remake his body and he became somebody. family,branch of the the oyster bay branch, was also ofceptible to a good deal depression, susceptible to alcoholism, susceptible to illness. and he felt all his life that he just toe in action, not escape is the specific gravity of his physical element but to escape the dark gloom that seemed to overtake him when he constant, frantic rush. he once said black care rarely behind a writer whose pace is fast enough. it's a wonderful 19th century way of saying

something very understandable in 21st century, which is you can outrun your demons. and theodore roosevelt spent his entire life not for a moment hesitating trying to outrun his demons. if you look at the oldest can think of in an comment -- an theodore roosevelt -- it is an amazing life, dedicated to this specific gravity. and he also had to overcompensate for a deep flaw, his wonderful father, a man he adored more than anyone else in life had. an mother was unreconstructed southerner and not fighter husband in the civil war. he did what many wealthy people did in that time. he paid someone else to fight for him. and this was a flaw which ate at made him,oosevelt and i feel we should also say,

habits,all of his great and may i say this evening, youode 2, his presidency, will get to meet theodore roosevelt in all his wonderful all of the great things. you know, he always thought that if you didn't have a crisis on your hand as a president, you couldn't be judged a great president. example of sterling that, as david says in our film, many people thought he was the crisis. [laughter] and perhaps we were lucky that have a major crisis on his watch. but his presidency is a model of engagement with its citizens. the united states was in a period not dissimilar to now was a huge disparate between the wealthiest and the poorist. the middle class was under assault. and theodore roosevelt rose to the rescue. he understood that government had to be an agent, a player in a complex dynamic between was unchecked and between the worker that was not

a fair deal.are or and he did that all his life. alli invite you to revel in of the great strengths and delights of getting to know theodore roosevelt. definitelye, he's the person that you go out and have a beer with or drive across with.untry and i engage you to spend this week driving across the country roosevelt.re but he did have this thing. he thought war was a good thing. day onreckless that san juan hill. he was disappointed he didn't get a disfiguring wound. was very proud of the fact sufferedre regiment had the worse casualties, to the horror of the united states army. horror of the united states army, he lobbied -- something you never do -- to win. you never do. you are honored with the congressional medal of honor. look at theodore roosevelt. as you will see in our episode which is tomorrow night, tuesday, he pushes his four sons

as close to world war i and to mostt and danger, with the horrible tragic consequences you can remember. to weigh make you want very carefully -- and i would urge you not to make a final weigh very carefully these twin polls of one of the presidents,dinary theodore roosevelt. franklin, we know his story, we think, pretty well. infantileicken with paralysis, polio, at age 39. up to that point, he had been the pampered only son of his older father james and his much wife.r they pampered him and instilled in him, thank goodness, all the optimism that any child has ever had. but he was essentially a very lonely child. a little bit too thin, a little bit too ambitious, a charming, as he tried to hit all the marks, all

his more famous cousin theodore, as he too tried emulate his preposterous and trajectory to the presidency. it's only when he could not take thiser step that extraordinary empathy entered into him and he became what we the greatest president of the 20th century. and arguably and for a lincoln not difficult anymore to say, but has come up to parity eyes as arguably the greatest president in american history. is infuriatingly manipulative and we need to take franklin balance those scales in the same terms. andvite you to watch as he eleanor, in this episode tonight and in the next one, begin to from theodore roosevelt, who dies at the end of our third episode. then 4 through 7 is really largely about franklin and

eleanor and the world that they well as the ghost of watching overis everything magnificently, and never fails to make an some kind in each one of those subsequent episodes past his death. saving perhaps the best for last. eleanor roosevelt, though not a president, as we say in the film, was the most consequential lady in american history and arguably the most important woman in american history. is, as jeff word likes to say, a miracle of the human spirit. she should not have escaped her childhood. she -- her father, the president, theodore roosevelt's elliott, was a hopeless alcoholic. he was also mentally ill. very young. she spent her whole life, you idolizing him unnecessarily, i think. exquisite was this

beauty, but very remote, and was daughter'sd in her looks and called her own daughter granny. by therents were dead time eleanor was 10 years old. she and a younger brother, for always feel responsible, who died in her of delirium throws tremors many years later, we to grim and pious relatives. terrified ofutely everything. but out of these experiences, she began to notice that if she other people, she could be loved. and she decided to translate that problem, that fear, into action. every day she got up and she faced her fears. it's an amazing thing. i've got four daughters that i of.o proud my second daughter was terrified cleaner.cuum whenever it was roaring, she had to be out of the room or asleep

house.of the but one day, when lilly was a year and a half, two years old, wherelked into the room the monster was roaring and walked over and sat down on it. [laughter] and in our family, sitting on vacuum cleaner is our idea of what you do in life. you move forward and you face that worries you the most. and eleanor roosevelt sat on a cleaner every single day of her life. the nationalm on parks and it was said of theodore roosevelt that he had eyes, that hes could maybe see around the and understand what was going to happen in the future. i believe all three of these remarkable i believe all three of these remarkable people had distance in their eyes and no one more so than eleanor. liberated from having to represent constituencies as her favorite uncle and her husband

did, she could see all the oming issues of race, poverty, women, children, labor, of absolutely everything that is on the front page of our discussions today. on every issue, a testament indeed to the human spirit. these are our three roosevelts. flawed, wonderful, deeply wounded, who all basically reduced their philosophy into one spectacularly simple equation -- we all do well when we all do well. it is very fashionable today, ladies and gentlemen, to blame the united states government on absolutely everything. it is now somehow something other. but we are only to blame either by not voting or by voting for the wrong people for however that government is. and if you don't like it, stop moaning and complaining and do something about it. that's what the roosevelts did.

and theodore roosevelt said, he government is us. you and me. thank you. >> that's right. we have enough questions to go for two hours, so please, i apologize in advance, i think maybe do a rapid fire. i'll try to ask it and you just give the answers as quick as you can. that would be great. >> i have brief, nine-part answers. >> sure. seven parts. t.r. and f.d.r. were strikingly different personalities with t.r. being boisterous and brilliant and child like f.d.r. being charming and manipulative. which of the figures did you find harder to grasp and why? >> that is interesting all the adjectives describing theodore are all positive and two or

three of them for franklin are negative. so there is a little bit of a scale we didn't feel comfortable doing. they are both equally disturbing and equally magnificent. franklin roosevelt is the much better president and the much better in some ways human being i think. you will be infuriated by his manipulativeness and opacity and at least early on his sort of over meaning ambition. they are all complicated people. william shakespeare was described as having negative capabilities. the ability to hold intentions when the rest of us want to make a judgment, whatever it is, we have to superimpose on the other. and the best figures in our lives and in our drama, our art, our literature is where we have held the very complicated facets of a human being in tension. i think that's what we tried to do in this series. >> most historians rank f.d.r.

just after lincoln and washington on the list of great presidents with teddy not far behind. that being the case, why does it seem the roosevelts have faded in the public's view compared to, say, reagan and j.f.k.? >> when you live in a media culture and a consumer culture that is focused on this all consuming and thereby disposable moment, blissfully unaware of the historical ties that brought us here or those ties that will take us away, it's very understandable that we'll forget our past. but each one of those presidents that you mentioned, jfk and particularly ronald reagan whose great hero was franklin roosevelt, you begin to understand how they shaped, particularly franklin roosevelt, shaped the world we live in today. it may be just the myopia of our existence that we don't have distance in our eyes, backwards or forwards to understand the centrality of the roosevelts to this present

moment. >> the roosevelts lived in years when public figures could preserve a modicum of privacy in their personal lives. how did this affect your research and ultimately your ability to create an intimate portrait? >> well, you know, they wrote a lot. they are hugely important. so they have been written a lot about. we tend to romanticize as simpler those early days. simpler like the 1930's. when the greatest economic dislocation in the history of the world happened. simpler like the 1940's when the greatest cataclysm in history happened. franklin roosevelt was the most accessible president ever. he had 998 news conferences. those reporters who may have turned off their news reel cameras just as he went into the process of standing up or sitting down and the sweat dripping, painful process which we would not do today, we'd be grasping for every single moment of it to feed hungry maw.

nevertheless, knew exactly what it cost him to stand up, to sit down. understood even more intimately what was going on in the dine amics of the administration and in the pressing issues of the world. we now have a presidency surrounded by a gigantic moat, a bubble we call it, that does not permit, we think, him or her to understand us but, in fact, it's the other way around. we don't understand him and so default again to that conventional wisdom. i think we know as much about the roosevelts. we also know a lot, a good deal with their private life and that's been extremely helpful especially with regard to the letters of daisy sukely you mentioned later that have given dimension to what has been often a one-dimensional portrait of franklin's very complex personality. >> f.d.r. and eleanor each drew on a wide circle of friends and supporters. both professionally and personally. what did they draw from one another? >> well, as much as our

tabloids sensibility wants to accent their differences, this is one of the most remarkable if not the most remarkable partnerships that i've ever come across in my life. she was his conscience, the conscience of his administration. he was the pragmatic politician who knew how to get it done. he betrayed her with an affair when he was assistant secretary of the navy in the 19 teens during world war i. had an affair with her social secretary. that, in some ways, became a liberating moment for eleanor roosevelt. i think it's important to understand that sometimes out of this adversity great things. it gave her already spectacular social conscience a kind of goad that allowed and permitted her to go out however angry or wounded she was into the world abdo the kinds of things she did, become the kind of woman she did. they never lost sight of each other. they knew where each other was and in good times and bad, when they were mad at each other and when they weren't, they were

working together. and how important for the rest of us the thing they were working on was us. that is to say they had translated their problems and their adversities and figured out as jeff says in the opening of the film it would be helpful and theodore is the same it would be helpful if he taught other people how they might be able to escape the things that afflicted them. >> we have a question. what did your research reveal about eleanor's alleged extra mayor daley relationships? >> nothing. she had spectacularly close we would call them intimate and passionate friendships with a number of women some of whom were committed to one another. beyond that we don't know anything. i would also remind you the film details not only these relationships and their tenderness and genuineness, but also her just absolute passionate relationships with three men other than her husband though not sexual that were in her life. at the end of her life she was

living with another man who she said i have loved more than anyone else. i invite you to stay tuned to episode seven to find out what that is. >> i'm glad we asked the question. [laughter] >> thank you for your answer. some press media related questions. f.d.r. was famously accessible to the press. carefully cultivating his media image at press conferences and over martinis. can you talk more about his relationship with the press and how it shaped his historical image? >> that is a really good question. he was famously accessible as i describe. i don't think it shaped his historical image. in fact, the image that comes down to me is this one that i was describing a little earlier, a sense of how kind of naive earlier times were, where they turned off the camera, that the secret service would turn off your camera or confiscate your film or it was just a gentleman's agreement that we wouldn't cover the

degree that their president was afflicted with polio. there's discretion but it is in no means naive. they knew as franklin roosevelt visors knew that to see this process, there were many audiences and all of this was on full display so if it was a secret it was a secret held by hundreds of thousands of americans who got to meet the president or see the president or hear the president up close and in person. but he -- this is, you know, a sort of red herring about him. they knew about it and didn't think it was necessary. they understood that if people pitied him as you would do if you saw and understood the full dimension and jeff and i are as proud of that part of the story telling as anything, to tell the full dimensions of what polio meant, most people say, he got polio and here's what the press didn't show and leave it at that.

it's really important and a good deal of our fourth episodes the 1920's is dealing with what it took for this human being, still a human being, to actually figure out how to go from being paralyzed for the rest of his life to being president of the united states. and it is a hell of a story. they understood if they pitied him that was political poison and everything was over. >> how important was radio for f.d.r.'s leadership? i know you'll say it's important but if you could elaborate on that, please, ken. >> jonathan alter has a wonderful, wonderful passage in our film about the time he is delivering the first of his fireside chats and, you know, theodore was a master at using the press and using the bully pulpit and using the great moral office that both men felt the presidency had to become to communicate to citizens about what they thought their country needed. and they were really good at campaigning for that.

but as alter says in our film, every politician had up to that point talked like this when communicating with their citizens. and franklin roosevelt could talk like this. he could lean into the mike and he could explain to you about the banking system. he could tell you what the bankers had done wrong. he could tell you what the whole principle of banking was. he could tell you that hoarding had become a very unfashionable pastime and he really hoped the next day monday morning when the banks quit their bank holiday his cheery name for it, that you might put your money back in the bank. and the run that had been expected the next morning didn't happen. people put their money back in just as their president told them to do. a lot of it had to do with the way he spoke to them, just like this, in the intimacy of their homes, leaning in, which is what happens when you lower a

voice. and you create an intimacy. it's not manipulative. it's smart. it's good. it's right. and it works. as it was said after that speech, eight days after he was inaugurated, that he had saved capitalism in eight days. and there's good evidence that that's exactly what he did. >> why didn't the political opposition use f.d.r.'s polio against him? >> i'm not sure they used that against him. the principal argument against him was he was a traitor to his class and a socialist and a communist and i'm sure if they were convinced he wasn't born in this country they'd go after that, as well. [laughter] >> but, you know, there was concern that he was not up to the task. roosevelt had hired a journalist. let me repeat that. roosevelt hired a journalist to

write a report on his health and that journalist in turn with the urging of the roosevelt campaign hired three independent doctors who all attested to his health. so one of the doctors was a republican and said he couldn't guarantee above the head. but then as a result of that article, roosevelt and his team felt compelled never to come in -- comment on it again. they would say it's not a story. as much as people tried to bring it up and it became less the polio and more his physical health as he visibly decayed in front of his fellow countrymen and women that became an issue and certainly was an issue in the third term and a huge issue at the fourth term. but people weren't willing to throw the captain over in the middle of the second world war. >> was it wrong for the press, journalists, to cover up f.d.r.'s disability?

>> i don't think so. i think my argument would be and jeff and i have talked a lot about this, that i'm not sure that theodore roosevelt -- that franklin roosevelt could get out of the iowa caucuses today. that is to say, that we would be focusing on the extent of his illness. we would be distracted by the superficial things and not the content of his character or the content of his programs. and we would be distracted by that, certainly many commentators would say that he couldn't possibly be able to have the stamina to get us through any crisis. and this is the man who handled the two greatest crises since the civil war -- the depression and the second world war. >> a slight elaboration. how do you think f.d.r. would have fared in today's media and political environment? >> well, you know, i say i don't think but then again having franklin roosevelt after something it is hard to imagine. we did have a democratic senator from georgia, max

cleland, who was a triple amputee from the vietnam war. we're doing a series on the vietnam war and we've interviewed him. he made it to a fairly high level of political office, united states senate. and so i would never say never on franklin roosevelt. i feel the same way about theodore. you know, he was irresistibley himself. people loved him even for his coke bottle glasses and his harvard accent, his upper crust stuffy accent and nasally voice and rotund characteristics. they loved him because he didn't try to be something else other than he was. but he was hot and excitable and that may have jared with the cool medium of television. he might have had ten howard dean moments a day. and maybe not gotten out of iowa. but look. i don't put it past any three of these roosevelts just being handed the ball and being able to run down the field to the end zone.

>> how were the voices selected for theodore, franklin, and eleanor? >> well, you know, we have a remarkable supporting cast and one more edit and this is it. we do like third person narrators. jeffrey ward has been my collaborator who writes the third person narration all of his life. we are very, very proud of that and we believe that in the beginning was the word and that the word is not the enemy of images and that they can co-exist and so our films are very much written in the third person and read spectacularly after being written so spectacularly by jeff by peter coyote. but we did want to temper that voice of god which by itself sometimes is just a voice telling you what you know, which is like home work rather than a voice sharing with you a process of discovery which we would like. and so we have for the last 35 years tempered those -- that third person voice with a chorus of third person voices reading diaries and letters and

journals. we've had theodore roosevelt a number of times and had various actors reading him and wanted very much to try one of the finest actors of our day in paul jamadi and i think you'll agree after last night and certainly in the next couple evenings he is just spectacular. his agent wrote today and said, good casting. [laughter] >> it may have been him. and we agree whole heartedly, whoever that was. ed herman has played franklin roosevelt, has got that hudson valley lock jaw down perfectly and has played him on the stage and the small screen and the large screen for many, many years, and has really taken him in. and then most fortunately we're able to get a little known actor named meryl streep to do eleanor roosevelt. it was a transform tiff name. all of you should remember that s-t-r-e-p.

i believe she is going places and has a future. we were lucky to get her early on before she broke out. she is obviously the greatest actor of this or any other generation. r gift to us is inkale culeable, unmeasurable, and we don't have the words to thank her for what she brought to our production. >> a few personal questions. don't worry. did you get good grades in history as a young person? [laughter] >> yes, i did actually. and i was -- it was the farthest thing from my mind of what i was going to do. i knew from age 12 i wanted to be a film maker. that was it. the fact i did well in history, i remember bumping into somebody from junior high who said, you were so good in the world history class. we all knew you'd be an historian. i don't even remember that. i remember the history class and liking it but i don't remember ever giving the

impression that was where i was headed. i was headed to be a film maker but was fortunate enough to bump into history very early on. i'm completely untrained and untutored except by the genius of my dear friend jeff ward and all the other advisers we employed to do this. the last time i took an american history course was 11th grade where they make you take it. >> how do you juggle so many projects at once and how do you select your projects? do you take requests? i apologize for a three parter. >> you mean like sing a song? i'm not a very good singer. i don't think you want to take requests. we are working besides promoting the roosevelts, which is itself a full-time job, we have five films in production. we are, and they're all in various stages, so it is not juggling. it's just timing and management. it's like playing -- plane landing. this has already landed and is taxiing up to the gate.

we have a couple on final approach, the histories of cancer, which will be out next spring. i'm executive producer and cowriter and sort of senior creative consultant. i am producing and directing and writing with my daughter and son-in-law sarah burns and david mcmann a two-part history of the whole life of jackie robinson, not just 1947. jeff and i are in the middle actually more than half way through editing with our colleague sarah buxtein, a ten-part, 18 plus hour history of the war in vietnam which will be out in 2017, early 2017. then we are already shooting a massive series called i can't stop loving you about the history of country music and we're also begun shooting early stages a biography of earnest hemingway. we have four or five films threatening to sort of go from development and ideas into production.

once they do, we'll start talking to you about them. i'm already in discussions with pbs to talk about what the 2020's look like. it is very clear jeff and i sort of feel that if we were given a thousand years to live we would not run out of topics on american history. >> you have a new app that draws from your many documentaries. you describe it as not a collection of your films but as an entirely new way of looking at american history. can you tell us a little more? >> well, that sounds like it as written by somebody in p.r. so we have an app called the ken burns app. what it attempts to do is sort of take moments, little tiny scenes from all of the films. you know, up there, 25, 26, 27, whatever it is, and sort of curate them among the themes i've seen take place. the recurring themes that i've seen take place in american

history on innovation, on art, on politics, on war, on hard times, and on race. and we just added a new thing on leadership and we'll continue to add them as we continue to add films. it's a way to access all the films. at any point anybody can jump and go look at them from pbs.org or you can go to i-tunes or netflix if available there and get the films. but this was a way to curate these themes from many different films and show the it's rican history, how related. i don't think there are cycles to history. i don't think we're condemned to repeat what we don't remember as sort of lovely as that statement is. i do think human nature remains the same and superimposes itself on the randomness of events and it becomes the amateur historian's responsibility to try to perceive some of those patterns and to reflect them back and the app is just a way to curate in a much more manageable way

the magazine wire decided it would take three and a half, five and a half days to watch all of our films back to back not including the roosevelts. we're into the fourth day, sixth day and this is a way to sort of get samples. >> thank you. we're almost out of time. i would just like to make a few two-point part conclusion. first of all i'd like to remind you of our upcoming events and speakers. this wednesday september 17th john stump president and ceo of wells fargo. this friday, september 19th, larry boro president of cbs corporation. on september 23rd former senator jim webb of virginia. second i'd like to present our guest with the traditional national press club mug to add to your collection. you now have this. >> i now have a complete set. >> and your new national press club member card. >> thank you. [applause]

>> and the last question, with 45 seconds left, have you ever considered doing a documentary on the palins and if so where would you begin? [laughter] >> so this is a very important question. i think i would begin in russia so that i can have the best view of the pailins that one could possibly have. and this would be another dynamic american family. in fact, i just read a recent news report in which there were punches thrown at a party and so we know it's not going to be lacking for drama in any way. >> thank you, ken. thank you all for coming today. e are adjourned. >> next a discussion on the

challenges facing american youth. then a debate between the candidates running for iowa governor. after that, in a white house ceremony, president obama awards the medal of honor to two vietnam veterans. >> c-span campaign 2014 debate coverage continues monday night at 7:30 eastern with the pennsylvania governor's race between republican governor tom corbett and democratic opponent tom wolf. thursday night at 9:00 nebraska's second congressional district debate between lee terry and state senator brad ashford. next saturday the iowa u.s. senate debate between democrat bruce brailey and republican joni earns th. more than 100 debates for the control of congress. >> now the discussion on the challenges facing american youth today. from "washington journal" this is just over 30 minutes. >> joining us now is damon

williams with the boys and girls club of america and he is the head of training and youth development services. he is a senior v.p. at the organization. thank you so much for being here this morning. >> thank you. it's a true pleasure. >> i want to start very basic and have you just explain what exactly the boys and girls club of america is. what does your organization do? >> sure. we're one of the oldest youth serving organizations in the nation, been in existence over a hundred years and have over 4100 club sites across the nation serving more than 4 million youth. our mission is to serve children, particularly those who need us most, and we focus in the three key areas. they're academic achieve ment, ensuring young people have a space that really fosters good character and citizenship, and, last and definitely not least we really focus into the healthy lifestyle of helping young people to have a healthy lifestyle. we do that in the out of school

time space. that's after school, during the summers. it's that space, the highly complimentary space to schools but we believe absolutely essential to developing america's leaders for today and for tomorrow. >> many children that face obstacles to achieving exactly the schools you filed a report recently. it sounds a little ominous. tell us what exactly some of those challenges are. >> sure. we have a generation of young people today who it's estimated won't do as well as their parents did a generation ago. candidly that is not good enough. when we look at the educational achieve mentdata from a global perspective we see our young people graduate at a level that ranks only 27 out of 28 developed nations. we think about these issues in terms of poverty. our children are, in this country, being raised in 1 of every 5 young persons is raised in a state of