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paul sparrow, director of the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum in hyde park, new york. mr. sparrow talks about the papers and artifacts housed in the library and provides a rare look at fdr's personal book collection. this interview was conducted at the museum in president roosevelt's private study. brian: paul sparrow, director of the fdr library. what is this room, and what kind of history was made here? paul: this room is totally unique in the presidential library system because it was the only room actually used by a sitting president at a presidential library. he first started construction in 1938. he assumed he would leave office at the end of 1940, at the end of his second term as every president before him had. but because of the rising tensions in europe, the democratic party nominated him for a third term, and he was elected. so, when this library opened in june of 1941, he was still president of the united states, so this became the northern oval office. he was up here on many occasions. he entertained political leaders like winston churchill and did a lot of his meetings here and did radio broadcasts from here.

--of his fireside chats fireside chats were conducted from here. and he really conducted the war in europe and the pacific from this room. brian: of the 30 fireside chats -- how many were there? you said four were done here. which ones? paul: technically, they are called fireside chats. there were several other radio broadcasts. he did two christmas eve broadcasts from here. the september 7 one in 1942 was one of the fireside chats. in december of 1943, the christmas eve broadcast he did from here, the fireside chat, it is a very interesting broadcast because he had just returned from tehran and cairo, where he had met with winston churchill and josef stalin. they talked about the united nations and the idea that this was the first time the big three, churchill, stalin, and roosevelt, had gotten together.

so he came here to sort of rest and recuperate. he had his whole family come and stay at the big house. he was communicating to america what the war meant, how we were going to fight the war, and the scope of this global battle. he was talking about the russian front and how the american-british forces coming through africa and up into india were putting pressure on nazi germany and the success they were having in the pacific. it was a period where there was a turning point in the war. prior to that in 1942, early 1943, the allies had really struggled. the nazis and japanese had won victory after victory but suddenly the tide had turned, and now with this big three meeting, it was an important point to communicate to the american public was that there was going to be an end to this terrible global conflict and that he had a vision for the world after the war ended. that the united nations was

going to come together and sort of create a body for governing world peace, as he had hoped the league of nations would, and this new united nations would be an important organization moving forward. brian: what is the story of the portrait over your shoulder? paul: franklin roosevelt really did not have a home up here. his mother's home was in springwood and he would live at his mother's house wen they were here. they had a study in her home, so from 1933 to 1941 that was his office as president when he cam. she loved that because all of the foreign leaders and political leaders would come to her home and she would entertain them, so she enjoyed that. there is a funny story which is that when he decided to donate the property to the federal government so they could build the library, he had a big public signing ceremony where he and eleanor signed the deed to the federal government. only they didn't own the property. it still belonged to sarah, who was not totally pleased with this so she had gone to paris. they had to fly over the deed so she could sign it and they could sign it over to the federal government.

so during so during the lead up to the building, sarah wanted to create something special, so she had this portrait commissioned and gave it to him when the library opened so she could look over his shoulder and make sure he did not make any mistakes. brian: the story of their relationship -- how close were they? the idea that she went to college with him -- and upstairs in the home, didn't she have a bedroom right next to his? paul: there are three bedrooms on the second floor. they have corner bedrooms and there was a bedroom in the middle which eleanor slept and after franklin came down with polio. they had an extraordinary relationship. sarah is sometimes maligned as being this controlling figure, but she was really an inspirational figure in so many ways. the grandchildren really loved

and adored her. from an early age, she devoted her life to franklin. very difficult childbirth. doctors told her she could never have another child. they knew this was going to be their only child. james roosevelt, almost 25 years older than she was, had had a child from a previous marriage but he was much older. they had this household, the three of them. growing up, fdr had everything he wanted. he was an indulged child. they traveled the world, went to europe every year. he had sailboats and everything his heart could desire. they had a home in new york, had a home on the border of canada and in maine. they were very close family. she wanted to make sure that he had everything he could have. i think it is one of the amusing stories that sarah delano thought fdr was successful because he was a delano, not because he was a roosevelt. they were very involved in the china trade.

they had made and lost fortunes. they sailed across the pacific in a clipper ship. she was a cosmopolitan woman and understood the world beyond america's shores. their relationship -- until 1941, when she died, she remained a source of strength for him. he turned to her in times when he needed someone to believe in him. i think that is the essence of it. there was conflict between eleanor and sarah because sarah played such a dominant role in franklin's life. it was their home, and she built a house for the two of in new york, it was a duplex and on one side was frank and eleanor's home, and sarah's on the other. sarah had a door built on every floor so she could go

back-and-forth. she was definitely a strong presence, but a strong support for him. she was in boston for part of the time, and in cambridge part of the time. that is sometimes overplayed, but there is no question that she felt like she needed to be around for him. franklin was not a great student. he did what he needed to do. he was involved with harvard, crimson the school newspaper, and he was saying in later years that he was a journalist, too. he would say that when he had of press conferences because his years at the harvard crimson. but he was very independent from her even though she was living in the same town as he was. what is more interesting is after he graduated, when he met eleanor, he sort of fell in love with eleanor. he told sarah they wanted to get married and she was not a fan of this idea at all. she told him he had to wait a year and they could not announce it. they had to keep it secret. they had to wait a year before they announced that. she did everything she could to distract him.

at the end of the year, franklin -- they were committed, and they got married. at that point, the conflicts between eleanor and sarah began to evolve. eleanor became a mother and raised five children, there were differences in how you should mother. sarah had been doting and devoted. her whole life was dedicated to franklin. as eleanor became more politically active, she had a life outside of family. and i think if there were conflicts between them, it had to do with the changing role of women happening during that period, and particularly, eleanor's political awareness as she became part of the world with the first labor unions and the women's movement, and became an active political participant, not just a mother. brian: we are standing in the study of fdr, which he used. he died in 1945. where is the library in relationship to new york city, and how easy is it for people to get here? paul: hyde park is two hours north of new york city, right on the hudson river. going back a little bit, there is a reason a number of the

leading families lived up here. roosevelts, vanderbilts -- there were a number of very important american families who lived along the hudson river, because it was essentially america's main street, particularly in the colonial era. it was a very important throughway for moving goods into new york, which is a major seaport and hub for trade with europe. so this was a very important area. once the trains were built in the 19th century, it became easy, 1.5 hours, two hours, to get from new york into this area. there is a train station in hyde park and even a siding on this property -- when roosevelt was president -- that they could essentially store his presidential car when he would come up. it was easy for him to get from washington to here or for him to get from new york to here. the family had apartments in new york almost throughout his entire life. they went back and forth frequently.

but, it was easy to get here. and, it was one of the reasons that as franklin matured as president, he could come here and feel like this was his home. he had to places he could get away. the polio center that he really created, warm springs. and, here. he could relax, he could indulge in his passions, walking in the woods, seeing the birds, having his friends over, being with his books, being with his stamps. this was a place he really was comfortable. brian: so, how did paul sparrow get here? paul: i was involved with the television business for a long time and then became involved with museums. when the newseum opened in washington, d.c., i spent 16 years there and became immersed in the idea of "how do we tell history in new and different ways?" i think it is one of america's treasures. and when the opportunity came to become involved in the national archives, i had been a client almost my entire career.

i love the national archives. it is one of america's great treasures. when the opportunity came to become the director of this institution, i realized this is a dream job for me, something i had been preparing for my entire life. i am a storyteller, and this is the greatest story in american history. i feel like franklin roosevelt was our best president, and franklin and eleanor were an important political couple. the most important political couple. roosevelt served 12 years through the worst crises of the time. the great desir ii. he was a leader that transcended in some ways what a political leader had been prior to that. he fundamentally changed the way the federal government interacts with its citizens. when he became president, america was in its most dire state. 25% to 35% unemployment.

millions of people were homeless. people were literally starving in the streets. the federal government had no role helping them, no mechanism to help them. roosevelt said that is not right. this is a government by the people, of the people, and for the people, so we have to support the people and find ways to put people back to work, help them provide for their farms, to improve the environment. he faced one of the great environmental disasters in american history because of terrible land practices in the midwest. they had plowed their prairies, not planted any trees, caused the dustbowl. you had to stop this erosion of soil, he understood. the civilian conservation corps planted 2 billion trees from texas to canada, and those wind stops essentially prevented further erosion and transformed the landscape of the american west. he created a safety net for americans who were losing their jobs, losing their homes, and that has changed everything that has happened since then. we can argue about the policy,

how much did the federal government do? how much should it pay for these? there is no question that there was a fundamental change in the relationship between the federal government and american citizens. brian: back to you, where did you grow up? paul: long island. i went to college at uc santa cruz. i have an unusual background. i was a music major and then a documentary filmmaker before i went into television. i am not the traditional archivist or academic historian. but i did come up as a storyteller. so almost all of my work in television was finding stories and then finding the best way to tell a story. brian: what kind of documentaries did you do? paul: the first documentary i ever made was about elephant seals. santa cruz is one of the breeding areas for elephant seals. just a few miles from uc santa cruz, i did a documentary film

about elephant seals. i was originally hired to do the sound recording. on my first day of shooting on the first documentary, we were standing on the beach and the cameraman was standing next to me. and i saw him running down the beach, and i was like "where are you going?" and he was running as fast as he can. i turn around, and there is a bull elephant seal 10 feet behind me, charging at me, ready to kill me, and i jumped on the sand dune to get away from him. that was my first exposure. i said "this is an interesting job. i should look into this." brian: what did you do in television? paul: editor, then producer, then executive producer. i was in washington for most of my career. one of my more interesting exploits was as the producer for "america's most wanted." i used to help catch criminals, which was a fascinating way to see the power of television in communicating with people. it was really one of tv's first interactive programs, where we would put people's picture on, put a phone number up, and

people would call and the police would arrest them. it showed you there was a real-time phenomenon that could happen with television. it really made the world a better place. we helped return 35 missing children, caught 1000 fugitivesn children, caught 1000 fugitives, 10 people off the fbi's most wanted list. it was an interesting period. brian: how long have you been a director here, who owns it, who do you answer to, and how many people work here? paul: the library is part of the national archives, and there are 13 presidential libraries right now. there is about to be 14 with president obama. this was the first federal presidential library, so i work for the archivist in the united states. there are probably 30 people who work here overall in the sort of editorial and functioning side, our museum curators, an archivist team. we have an important role to play in this community. we have a visitors center and we do a lot of public programming. we try to make this facility available. we are an island of national archives inside a national park.

so like he did in a lot of circumstances, fdr put two different organizations in charge of the same thing. he gave his home and the property to the national park service but he gave his library and the property of the library to the national archives, so the other facilities nearby are eleanor roosevelt's home and the top cottage, which is where he was going to retire to. it is fully wheelchair-accessible. no threshold on the doors. the door handles are low, the windows are low. he really wanted to live there when he left the white house. these are part of the national park complex and part of what we think of as the roosevelt legacy here in hyde park. brian: how many square feet are devoted to exhibits? do you have a foundation, and what does it cost to run all this? paul: we have about 12,000 square feet of exhibit space.

we did something unusual, we kept some of the storage space and put glass walls up so the public can see things like part of the art collection and fdr's car, which is a legendary car that allowed him to drive it even though he was paralyzed. it has many of his ship models. he has an extraordinary ship model collection. so the visible storage area, it allows people to see behind the scenes into some of the storage we have. there is a foundation, the roosevelt institute, our 501(c)(3) partner. the way it has structured the library system is the federal government will pay for the preservation and storage of the actual records, the archives themselves, and the materials associated with the presidential library. they will pay for the staff to maintain that, but they will not pay for ancillary things like educational programs, new exhibits, technology, outreach. so we need private money to do

those things. the model created by franklin roosevelt was that all the money to build the building was raised privately, and everything he owned was donated to the federal government and they agreed to manage and preserve it. one of the things that i think in this generation particularly, people have a hard time with, is timeframe. the national archives has to think on a timeframe of hundreds of years. if you think about our great founding charters, declaration of independence, constitution, the emancipation proclamation, these documents are hundreds of years old, so we have to be thinking about what historians and students 100 years from now, what are they going to do to look and understand the roosevelt administration or other presidential libraries?

you have to look at a time frame where you are balancing the delicate preservation of these pieces of paper, the books, the artifacts, with the need to share them with the public. everything here belongs to the american people, and fdr wanted people to come to hyde park to study him, to see his collection. he knew if his papers were just in some federal building in washington, d.c., people would not really understand who he was, because his character was formed by being here in hyde park. brian: what is the cost to run this whole thing? paul: to be honest, i cannot give you a number. because the way the government works, there are five different budgets for security, maintenance, staffing. and the roosevelt institute contributes money. i would say the overall cost is somewhere in the $7 million to $9 million range, but we do not have a single budget. we had almost 200,000 visitors last year. we were very lucky.

in 2014, the great documentary maker ken burns did a wonderful series for television which looked at teddy roosevelt and eleanor roosevelt and franklin roosevelt, and it was a fantastic series that really raised public interest in the roosevelts. we saw attendance really starting to climb at that point. i have been here less than two years. i am a newbie to the roosevelt legacy family. in that period, what we tried to do is expand out. a new permanent exhibit opened in 2013, right before the roosevelt series came out, which was helpful. the narrative that we tell in our permanent exhibit was 13 years in the making, they had put together a group of historians in 2000 to say that if we are going to rethink what the presidential library should be, how do we tell that story? how do we confront the issues? how do we deal with the controversies? how do we admit his failures and celebrate his successes? the entire exhibit was reconceived. it really is one of the most successful presidential libraries, because enough time has passed where we can honestly

deal with things like the japanese internment. so our temporary exhibit right now, we have an exhibit of the incarceration of japanese-americans during world war ii. it features extraordinary pictures that really documents the process of these japanese-americans, many of whom were american citizens. 80,000 were legal american citizens and their constitutional rights were violated by a man that i and many americans think was one of our greatest champions of civil rights. and yet because of hysteria at the time and the pressure of the war, because of the nature of the japanese surprise attack on pearl harbor, these people were singled out and put into these camps. so, by looking at the narrative, by looking at that story, we can examine the inner workings of the roosevelt administration. more importantly, put a lesson out there for people. say, here is what happened, why did it happen, and how can we prevent it from happening? in the 1980's, a federal

commission determined it was in fact a mistake. the federal government apologized. ronald reagan sent letters to all the survivors of the camps, and a $20,000 restitution payment was made. by having the ability to be academically honest, to be intellectually rigorous in the way we are investigating this legacy, we are giving great credence, saying this was an extra ordinary man during extraordinary times. he made mistakes, he made great strides in changing our politics. if you want to learn more, come and visit. brian: in this room, there are a lot of books. in this library, there are a tremendous number of books. how many books did fdr have in his collection? paul: he had an incredibly inquisitive mind. there are 22,000 books in fdr's personal collection. we have about 50,000 books here total in the library, many of which were acquired after he died.

and our research books, reference books, books about the roosevelts. he had 22,000 books. there are 914 books in this room alone. every book in here was selected by fdr to be in this room. this room is almost identical to the way it was when he died. nothing has changed. some furniture was moved. but this is basically as it was on the day franklin roosevelt died. he served four years in this room as it is. the books are fascinating. he has an entire bookshelf of all the winston churchill books. that was one of the most extraordinary friendships in american history between two leaders. every time churchill came up with a new book -- he wrote 15 million words. every time he came out with a new book, he would sign it and send it over to fdr to look at and he would provide little notes in them. sir winston churchill inscribed one book "a fresh egg from a faithful hen." the two were very close.

he has one of rudyard kipling's books, he loved rudyard kipling. we have a book here by robert louis stephenson, one of his favorite authors. it is a first edition robert louis stevenson. when you open the cover, there is a little watercolor right there glued into the front page, with robert louis stevenson's signature. naval history. he had a truly world-class collection of naval history books. he collected ship's logs, first-person manuscripts. he loved collecting these. he loved the books written by people who were on ships. major battles. his collection of naval books is quite extraordinary, and if there is one book in his collection that had the biggest impact on his presidency, it is a book by a.t. mahon. it was published in the late 19th century. he has three volumes of it.

one was his older brother's, one was given to him by his uncle. and this book was influential in how the russians developed their navy in world war i, how the japanese developed their navy in the japanese war and in world war ii. it is about how large naval fleets can influence military conflict. it was very influential. he was assistant secretary to the navy in world war i. he helped rebuild the american navy. and how he prepared for world war ii. so the book really gives you insight into things he was interested in, and you can tell that he was almost insatiably curious. brian: what is the story of the english version of "mein kampf"? paul: in 1933, the first english translation of adolf hitler's "mein kampf" was published and it was called "my battle." president roosevelt read and spoke german fluently, so he had read the original german, "mein kampf" in the original german. he understood the message that hitler was giving his people. hitler and roosevelt came to power at exactly the same time.

at the frontispiece of the book it says, "this has been so heavily expurgated as to not reflect the true story. if you had read the original, it would tell something very different." almost all of the vicious anti-semitism had been taking out of the english translation, so that is typical of how he was keeping up with what was going on in the world. he had a very cosmopolitan view of international politics, and was able to discern what was really being said versus what was being said to the people. brian: there are almost 1000 books in this room and another 21,000 books in this library. where do you keep them? paul: they are kept in a special room that was designed by fdr himself. in the big renovation and restoration done in 2013, all of the upper archive storage rooms are where the documents are kept and they were updated. that room is kept exactly as it was. it still has the original bookshelf, extra wide aisles so he could get up and down it with

his wheelchair, and original clamshell cases he would put his speeches and documents in, so he could keep them on his lap in his wheelchair and look at them. he really intended to work and use this as a repository for his material after he left the white house. the library, one whole side of the book stacks, are fdr's books and then the others that were acquired after he died or might have belonged to other family members. he started collecting books as a child. he created a little stamp, a little roosevelt crest. when he got the book, he would sign his name, write the date -- sometimes he would put the location he got it -- and occasionally, he would write little notes in it. he was an avid reader of detective novels. one of the interesting stories is about a book called "the star-spangled virgin," which is

a mystery that takes place on st. croix, and on the front he has his name and date and he has written a note. on this page is a description of a motorcade going through town and the protagonist is on the side of the road. when he realizes who is going by, he says, "that is mr. new deal." he made a little notation on the side, and this is 1939. he has time to make a reference and read a book that mentions a trip he had made. brian: why 300 bibles? paul: it is very interesting. a number of those bibles were family bibles. there are a lot of them in dutch. but he collected books, and bibles were one of the areas he collected in. there are 400 or 500 books about religion, about every kind of religion. a lot of them about

christianity, but other religions as well. he had this whole collection of bibles. one of the bibles on display is a dutch bible from 1650, the family bible. it was used all four times during his inauguration. he is the only president ever inaugurated four times. it is a large book and it reflects his belief that family is important. he was not a traditionally sort of devout christian, and yet he used references from the bible in his speeches all the time, and he used them as a way of making a point. he believed the bible was very effective in providing advice on how people should act. how do you convince people to do the right thing? he thought the bible was very effective in doing that, which is why he quotes it all the time. he had almost a sermon-like quality to many of his most important and powerful speeches. if you look at the d-day prayer, put out on june 6, 1944, a point

at which he did not know whether the greatest military assault in world history was going to be a success or failure. it is a very personal prayer, and it reflects his belief that we are at a critical moment in world history and his belief in him him the american people comes through in that prayer. [begin video clip] >> almighty god, our sons, the pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. lead them straight and true. give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts. steadfastness in their faith. they will need your blessings. their road has been long and

hard. the enemy is strong. success may not come with rushing speed. but we will return again and again. we know that by thy grace and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. [end video clip] brian: how do you, in the 21,000 downstairs, how do you separate his grade school time, college time?

paul: they used the library of congress organizational system. they are essentially organized by subject matter. there is a bookshelf full of history books about new york state, dutchess county, hudson river, hyde park, other towns. we are in dutchess county, new york. he was very interested. he actually had the document, the deed of sale, for hyde park from 1689, i think it is, between the dutch settlers and native americans who lived here. it is in dutch. he has all sorts of early records of the development of new york state, early families of new york state. he really cared and was interested in this. he had amazing naval history books. he also had an enormous number of books about american history, international history. he had a collection of all his speeches, which were bound. he would give them as christmas presents -- even to his wife. merry christmas, here are my speeches. him him him he had an enormous collection of natural history books. he was a birder from a very early age. he used to collect and stuff birds. you can see a number of them at the home in springwood. he had the complete set of audubon birds of america, but a range of other natural history books, because he was deeply interested in how natural

history worked. he planted 250,000 trees on this property alone in hyde park. he described himself as a tree grower. there is a very funny story, during world war ii he had a christmas tree farm and they would sell christmas trees. winston churchill came famously and spent christmas at the white him and spent christmas at the white house after pearl harbor in 1941. they don't have the same tradition in england of ornamented christmas trees. they sat on the portico and the white house and watched the lighting of the christmas tree. next year, fdr had a christmas tree shipped to churchill at 10 downing street during the war. he wanted winston churchill to have one of his christmas trees. brian: can the public walk through where his private books are? him paul: no, but there is a glass door where you can see in. you can see the bookshelf with new york and dutchess county history.

because of the security involved in preserving these books, the public is not allowed. brian: what are the rules about people touching these books? does anybody get to read them? paul: we do have a public research room open to the public. you can go into the research room, ask for certain documents for speeches, for books. over time, certain documents become fragile or they become so valuable, like the pearl harbor speech. if someone wants to see the original draft, we have to bring out a reproduction, because that speech is both fragile and priceless. some speeches, some material, we create reproductions, which we share with the public. other times we will bring the box out, you sign it out, and you can look through the material. many of the books are available for people to look at in the reference room. they can't take them home, but they can look. there are some books, again, that have become so fragile or valuable that they can't be

checked out. if they are shown to a historian, there is usually an archivist holding the book. we have to think in terms of hundreds of years. we want these materials to be available three generations from now. so the preservation has to balance with the accessibility. one of the guiding strategies for the national archives is called "make access happen." there is a digitization process, where we want to digitize these documents, put them online, make them as widely accessible as possible. not everyone can come to hyde park. you create archives, people come to you, and you show them things -- it does not work as well in the modern world. we have to make digital copies and make them available as widely as possible. brian: how much is available online right now? paul: about one million documents online on our platform called "franklin." 19 billion pages of documents

here, that does not include the books. about one million of them are online. all of the speeches are online. this is a fabulous thing. it was supported by at&t, they allowed us to digitize all the master speech files and link them up when there was audio available of the speeches. you might have six or seven or eight different drafts of a major speech, and you can see all the drafts with all his handwritten comments and sometimes notes from advisors, and you can go back and watch the evolution of these speeches. everyone knows, in his first inaugural address, one of the most famous lines in presidential oratory is "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." that line does not show up until the seventh draft of the speech. brian: did he write it? paul: there is some argument, but he gets credit for it. there is no question that it was a seminal moment in the opening part of the speech, yet it came as they were evolving the speech, as they were trying to craft a message.

what did he want to say to the american people? what was it they needed to hear at that moment? when you study a lot of his speeches, listen to his radio broadcast, particularly the fireside chats, you realize he transformed the way presidents spoke. the radio was an intimate device. prior to that when presidents spoke, they were speaking to crowds and they would project and speak in a way that was very sort of stiff and formal. when he was governor, he started the idea of the radio conversations. when he became president, he perfected the idea of having a personal conversation. he envisioned his neighbor sitting across the kitchen table from him when he would do his fireside chats. the best example of his political persuasiveness is his first fireside chat as president, which was a few days after he took office. he was the last president inaugurated in march, march 4, 1933. four years later, he was the first president inaugurated in

january. the first thing he did was shut down every bank in america, a bank holiday, because thousands of banks have failed in the weeks running up to his inauguration. on the sunday night before the reopening of banks, he gave his first fireside chat. brian: that was one of the shorter ones. paul: fairly short, but an extraordinary speech. he said, "i want to take a few minutes to talk about banking." and as will rogers said, he did such a good job of explaining the banking crisis, even bankers understood it. he explained we were going to reopen the banks and explained how banks work. you give banks your money and they lend it out, the money is not just sitting in a vault. bank runs had been such a problem. he decided he was going to

reopen the banks only in the 12 federal reserve cities. the reason he did this was he knew he had enough cash in the federal reserve banks in those cities that if there was a run, he could load a truck up with cash and meet the demand and end the fear. he was so persuasive that at the end of the first week after the banks reopened, there was not a run on the banks. more than $1 million had grown back into the banks. he had ended the banking crisis simply with his words. that is a sign of a sign of a great leader. brian: relate the fireside chats to today. we have a president today who tweets. back in the day of fireside chats, i read one of the reasons they did the radio chats is because the newspapers were all biased against him and this was a way to go around that. is that true? paul: every president wants to find a way to talk directly to the american public. they think if they can get their point across and get the media out of the way, they can convince the public they are right. franklin roosevelt felt very strongly he needed to be able to communicate directly to the american people. what is interesting about the journalism community back then, it was two different subgroups. there were photographers and

reporters who covered him, who loved him. adored him. and there were the rich publishers and owners, who detested him. brian: why? paul: because he had shifted the financial responsibilities for the upper class. he had changed the taxing system, changed the power of labor, shifted the balance of power so where capital had been dominant and labor had been submissive, he tried to balance it. he encouraged labor unions, encouraged legislation to restrict the power of big capital and big money. the 1% were very disturbed about this. they considered him a traitor to his class. one of his ancestors had been partners with alexander hamilton to create the bank of new york. his family was part of the 1%, so they perceived him as a traitor. the changes he was making to do that, he understood you had to bring the working class up if you were going to get the economy working again. you had to have purchasing power, had to give them decent

jobs, had to make them feel like they were part of the economy so that you could lift homeownership, bring people back to the farms, do the things you had to do to have a healthy economy. it was a herculean task. the journalists who covered him -- when he would do press conferences in the white house, he would sit behind the oval office desk and the press would stream in. they would surround him, smoke cigarettes, do all sorts of things. he would have this back and forth. he had over 900 press conferences during his presidency. and and there would be a back-and-forth. sometimes he would say, this is off the record. he knew a lot of them by name, he would make jokes, feed them tidbits of information. this whole time, eleanor roosevelt, his incredibly effective political partner -- when he wanted to find out what was going on in the world, he would send eleanor roosevelt out. she would tour the united states. she would go into coal mines, visited the tuskegee institute, and she would come back and report. if he wanted to test out an

idea, he would have eleanor talk about it first in her column or one of her speeches. if it created a ruckus, he could say, that is my mrs., i can't control her. she just does whatever she wants. if it was successfully perceived, he would incorporate it into his policies. they were a very effective team, and she was a media powerhouse. people don't appreciate her impact. she wrote a column every day for 20 years, six days a week. she had radio shows, she was on television after franklin died and after the war. she was a very influential person and a voice that spoke to helping those most in need. brian: in the museum part of this, there is a picture of fdr in a wheelchair. i have got, right behind me, is one of the wheelchairs that sits in this office all the time. you talk about the media and you say that we have only seen him

in one of these in a public photo four times. why? why did the media not show this? paul: what is interesting is several things. it is not a traditional wheelchair. this is a kitchen chair built on a couple of bicycle wheels. with some wheels in the back. the first half of fdr's life, he was very healthy. he did not get polio until his late 30's in 1921. at that point, he went into almost seclusion. he had been vice presidential candidate in 1920, a nationally known public figure, he had been assistant secretary of the navy. he was determined he would walk again. the american public knew he had polio and knew he was lightly crippled. when he appeared at the democratic convention in 1928, he got an enormous standing ovation. he staggered up. he would use steel braces on his legs. people knew he was crippled in some way, but very few people

knew he was completely paralyzed from the waist down. there was tremendous prejudice back then about people who were disabled. there was a widespread belief that if you were physically disabled, you might be mentally disabled. they wanted to downplay his physical disability. the press was not allowed to photograph him in his wheelchair. often when he was doing speeches or bringing people into the oval office or this room, he would be transferred from the wheelchair to one of his chairs, so he would be sitting in a chair when his guest or the press arrived. if a photographer at a public event -- say he was being helped out of a car or put into a wheelchair or being carried, they told not to take photographs of that. there is a lot of newsreel footage, if you look at the outtakes, where before he comes to the podium, the camera pans away. once he is there, the camera pans back. as soon as he is done speaking, the camera pans away again so you don't see him leaving the podium. this was a very important secret for the white house to keep. they did not want people to

understand the extent of his disability, and they wanted him to project confidence and vitality, energy. of course, he did, he was incredibly dynamic. everybody who met him was enthralled by his enthusiasm. by his articulate presentation of ideas. and you see all of these pictures of him in the campaign, he was always standing strong. he had an enormous chest, very strong in his upper body. he worked out constantly. you are much more likely to see footage of him in a swimming pool, where he looks just like everybody else, than you are to see him in a wheelchair. or to see him with his crippled and withered legs. brian: when did you first get interested in him personally? paul: i have been interested since i was a child. my mother, who is from connecticut, went to college in virginia. she would tell stories that when people down there referred to president roosevelt, they never used his name. they just called him "that man

in the white house," and that he was a very unpopular figure. she would tell stories about his life. she was born in 1916, so she lived through this entire period and believed he had been america's greatest leader. she was also an enormous fan of eleanor roosevelt. she was a scientist, so she felt their support for research and education were vitally important. she had instilled in me a love for the roosevelts and a real interest in history. my family were mostly scientists, so they were expecting me to go into the world of science. i went on a different path. the storytelling always fascinated me. there are so many extraordinary stories about franklin and eleanor roosevelt that it is hard not to be a fan. brian: back to the books. did he read when he was president and did he ever write a book? paul: he published several books

of his speeches, but he did not ever write a book on his own. he had a screenplay that he is -- had written that in the 1920's he was trying to sell the hollywood movie studios. it was a spy mystery, pretty awful, no one bought it. he wrote the foreword to a book on whaling ships of new bedford, but he never wrote a book that was published. brian: what does the director do? paul: nothing. i have the greatest staff in the world, they do all the work, i talk to people like you. what is extraordinary is the commitment of the people who work for the national archives. they believe in the mission. they are deeply committed. we have people who have been here 10-15 years who have dedicated their lives to this institution. brian: where do they train? paul: most of them go to college in library sciences or museum studies. the world of archives is changing. there are certain core, fundamental functions you have to do in terms of the way you preserve documents, organize them, put them in collections,

how you make them available to the public. some of those functions have not changed significantly, but the world of digitization has changed the way we think about providing access. if you are going to be at an archives, you have to think in terms of 100 years, not tomorrow. brian: how often in the history of running libraries do have somebody who came out of television and journalism, instead of coming out of history or archival training? paul: i don't know. there have been a number of people who were authors or journalists who have risen to library director. a lot of times directors have a more outward focused mission, so if you have a competent staff, i don't have to worry about whether the records are being properly maintained. because i know they are. so, my job is to help raise money, try to increase visibility, do public programming, connect with the community, interface with the

rest of the national archives and federal government, park service. it is not as important that i have technical archival skills. what is important is i know how to be a manager, a leader, give the team the support they need. brian: what would happen if -- we have watched this new president suggest cutting a lot of things in the arts and humanities. what one happen if they cut all the money from the federal government to run a place like this? paul: you adapt. i think the federal government has fluctuated in the way they fund things and what is important. there are certain key functions of the federal government. the national archives maintains all federal records. you can't really do away with the national archives, they are an essential function of government. they keep congressional records, records of agencies, presidential records, make them available to the public, to congress. they provide a function that cannot be changed. if they were to cut off funding

to presidential libraries, you would see a greater shift to private support. it would be very difficult to raise the money necessary to support an institution at the level and quality of these institutions. the presidential libraries are the very finest examples of research institutions and museums. everything that is done is done to preserve this material and make it accessible. it is possible we could shift to private funding, but it would be very difficult. brian: in the museum, there are lots of new charts. one of them that caught my attention was in 1933, united states government spent $4 billion. in 1941, $34 billion. 1933, 24.9% unemployment, in the middle of the great depression. in 1942, 4.7% unemployment. does it say, then, that when there is war that is good for the country? there is more manufacturing and more people have jobs?

him paul: there are two different things going on. one is that federal spending that started in the 1930's was not primarily military. most of the early spending had to do with job creation, infrastructure redevelopment, creation of new regulatory agencies that provide support for farmers, homeowners, civilian conservation corps. most of that was money going into the american economy but not primarily military. and military buildup does not start until 1938-1939. then 1940, when fdr talks about the arsenal of democracy and they start transforming the industrial side of the american economy into a military complex. there is no question that in times of extreme economic distress, government funding is critical to maintaining economic stability. again, we can argue the policies, we can argue how much government should be involved,

how much we should let the market determine. the market had failed. at this point, the government had to step in because the market was incapable of making a correction. when you have smaller crises, oftentimes the market is capable of making adjustments and getting back on track. in this case, the federal spending for military, which created massive deficits, provided for full employment. in that case, yes, the creation of employment was driven by military spending. if you look at the chart, unemployment is dropping dramatically even before the massive military spending kicks in. brian: i was talking to bob caro recently about his books on lyndon johnson. he points out that fdr was incredibly important to lyndon johnson. do you have any personal history of that relationship? were there other politicians he was responsible for preparing to run for office? paul: one of the things fdr was a genius at was detecting talent. he saw something in lyndon johnson. the way lyndon johnson first sort of became a political

figure in texas was through the distribution of works project administration and other federal funding that were going to the districts. this was a very controversial issue at that point, the idea of federal money going to state and local projects. so lyndon johnson was able to use that as one of the conduits for that cash to build a power base. when he came to washington and served in congress, he was one of fdr's most loyal supporters. he was still a fairly junior congressman, but he believed in fdr's mission. if you look at almost everything he attempted to do during the great society years, he was trying to fulfill the work of franklin roosevelt. he truly believed his war on poverty, the idea of lifting up those people who were most in need, the civil rights agenda, civil rights act and voting rights act, these were things directly related, direct descendents of the work of franklin and eleanor roosevelt.

there were few people he idolized more. as a matter of fact, when i was visiting the ranch and one of his daughters were showing me something fdr had given lyndon johnson, she said it was his most prized possession. so yes, there was a deep influence there. fdr influenced an entire generation of political leaders, not just people who served with him but people who served in the armed forces during world war ii. every president served, up until bill clinton, every president served in world war ii. ronald reagan famously said he voted for fdr four times. he is on the minds of all politicians as they judge themselves.

he was a great pragmatist. he is often labeled as a sort of liberal, progressive communist, but when you look at his actual policies and the way he would compromise with congress, he was a pragmatist on top of everything. in the early part of his administration, he supported the growth of labor, but in the later part when he started building up for the war and becoming the arsenal of democracy, he shifts his focus to industrialists. he has to work with big business. he creates a system where they were getting contracts with a guaranteed 10% profit margin, or whatever they spent, because he knew he needed big business to invest in infrastructure he needed. he was a pragmatist. what do we need, what was the most important thing? we had to rearm to prepare for the global conflict. so he was a pragmatist on top of everything and i think the best politicians of both parties look at his success in changing the way government works, look at his success in moving legislation through congress, and use that as a role model for how they can be successful. brian: what would he feel today if he saw that we are $20 trillion in debt and we are going to have to change things in entitlement like his social security plan in order to pay for it? paul: fdr believed everyone

should pay their share. he was committed to righting income inequality, but in world war ii everyone suffered from rations. the amount of gas you could buy, beef, everything was rationed. every american was impacted by the war. there was no just other people, just the military that has to suffer. everyone was equally engaged. there was not a single american who did not know someone directly involved in the war or fighting overseas. there were 10 million americans in uniform during the war. he believed that had to be equally spread about. he understood there was going to be a massive deficit during the war, but he also believed that the rebuilding of the infrastructure was going to create an economy that when the war ended, we would be a major economic power in the world and would be able to pay those expenses down. there were sacrifices made throughout. if you look at one of the most important components of the entire administration during the war years, were the war bond efforts. they put massive efforts into

getting people to give money to the federal government. these were not taxes. a war bond is you give the federal government money and at the end of the war, they will give it back to you with a 1% or 2% interest. he was not just taxing, he was saying, it is your duty as an american citizen to support the federal government in this war against fascism. do you want liberty, do you believe in america, do you believe in democracy? if so, you need to contribute. it is a different attitude then we have today, where most of the burden of military service falls on a small sliver of the population, 1% or 2% provide almost all the military support. it is no longer a shared burden. i think that is a bigger problem than the idea of saying, we have massive deficits. the reason we have large deficits is because we are not equally sharing the burden of

doing the things we need to do domestically and internationally. brian: paul sparrow, the director of fdr's library and museum. thank you for joining us. paul: thank you. ♪ announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q-and-a.org. "q&a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

announcer: if you enjoyed this week's "q&a" interview with paul sparrow, here are some other programs you might like. jan jarboe russell talks about her book "the trains of crystal city," about a u.s. internment camp in world war ii. paul reid discusses the biography of winston churchill a he co-authored titled "the last lion." and allen weinstein talks about his work as archivist of the united states. watch these anytime or search our entire video library at c-span.org. announcer: it next, your calls and comments live. andoon, the house gavels in legislative business begins at 2:00 p.m.. ranks tonight on the communicators -- there was a column in championing average people who never wanted to be techies

companies,ging the the industry, to serve those people. first of two conversations with one of the most well-known technology experts, walt mossberg. see believe we are going to in the next 5-10 years a big worst of new stuff. burst of new stuff. artificial intelligence, virtual reality, all kinds of new ways of driving cars. we have a taste of it but we will see a lot more of it. all kinds of things going on in your home. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 p.m. on cspan2.