>> funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company supporting this program since 2002. and american express. >> there's a saying around here, you stand behind what you say. around here you don't make excuses. you make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up. and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places are where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it when you know where to look. >> rose: additional funding provided by these funders.

and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. from our captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: tonight we close the year by remembering some of the people we lost in 2013. these men and women lead lives of purpose and consequence. they enriched our culture through their inventions, their art and their enterprise. all of them left an impact on the world that we live. many appeared on this program over the last 22 years and here's a look back at some of those conversations. >> it was clearly time to take care of the rest of life. >> rose: yeah, right. >> so i and my family were immediately moving to paris. >> rose: you owed family big time. >> big time.

>> rose: that year, that book as i remember six years in the making, was it. >> it was. >> rose: so you moved to paris and do what? >> well, do exactly what you hadn't been doing. pay attention to the rest of life and don't-- don't think about politics. and don't worry about whose's up, you know, whose's bill is up for a hearing today. and you know, whose sister is in trouble in idaho. >> rose: but what did you do there? did you write? did you-- what did you do other than eat and drink wine. >> well, i must say i probably didn't drink as good of wine as pierre. >> rose: pierre salinger, another guest on this program. >> but i drank a lot of wine, smoked some good cigars, wrote for esquire. >> rose: did you love france and did you love paris. >> i came to love paris. >> rose: but you didn't in the beginning. >> it's very hard in the beginning. >> rose: why? >> i was completely out of water. first of all when you write a book as long as that book was your interpersonal

skills are gone. you can barely talk to your best friend. and all of a sudden i was supposed to be talking to people hi never met in a language in which i had had no training. so this didn't work too well at first. >> rose: but did they know who you were. >> oh no. >> rose: did they know you were an "esquire" magazin magazine-- poet. >> they didn't even know that. i couldn't tell them what i wanted at the lunch counter, you know. >> rose: they didn't care did they? >> no. but we found ultimately they treated us beautifully. >> rose: did you-- why did you come back? >> i came back to get to work again. >> rose: you are now writing a book about -- >> about joe dimaggio. >> rose: why did you choose dimaggio? >> well, dimaggio is, in my view, the first guy who got too familiar to us live in this country. and it's an interesting story of what happened to fame in america. you know, the rules of the game changed. and they changed while dimaggio was out there. because fame became

celebrity. and the idea that you would be famous forever for having achieved something was gone. it was replaced with the idea that you were famous because perhaps simply because you were famous. >> rose: right, exactly. >> i think that a good building enhances your existence. makes it better. makes you feel better about yourself. makes you understand what it is like to live well or to work well. this is so-- i believe in entitlements, not just the usual ones, medicare and social security. but i think there's an entitlement that has been completely lost. i think we're entitled to better than we get in our cities. >> rose: and we're not getting and that is a single criticism of architecture in america in terms of public sector. >> it's a criticism of this country in terms of its attitude, its willingness to

invest in it, its absolute lack of understanding of what it means. >> rose: have your standards pore importantly your taste, more importantly your appreciation changed? >> i think it's broadened because i think the art itself has grown broader and deeper. and i find i'm always learning something new. and when i get discouraged because i see too many bad buildings then i see one that just knocks me off my feet and that makes everything okay. >> jack was really, he dominated by his father in the early stages. i mean even when he was president. and-- . >> rose: how did his father dominate him when he was president? >> well, his father wanted, he says bobby is going to be attorney general. bobby didn't want to be attorney general. jack didn't want him to be attorney general, you know?

father had said in 195 in the saturday evening most article, he said jack is going to be president. bobby is going to be attorney general and teddy's going to be senator, all at the same time. and he was making that prediction come true. and jack couldn't confront his father. so he sent in cliffford, clark cliffford and george smaters, you know, to try to persuade his father not to insist on bobby. and his father said forget it. bobby is going to be attorney general. and bobby became attorney general. >> rose: a great story about that, he went out in the middle of the night and whispered it's bobby, it's bobby. >> exactly. exactly. >> you know, i've been back to vietnam several times. i've interviewed the general who was the commander of the communist forces. and in my estimation a really brilliant general, enemy though he was. how long would you have gone

on fighting, i said to him. he said 10, 20, 50 years, a hundred years, whatever it took, you know, regardless of the cost. and when you are a report never vietnam as i was, you would see these piles of enpeabody's. we called it the body count. and we proceeded on the theory that if we killed enough of the enemy it would break their morale. but what happened is you kill 5,000 in a battle, and six months later, go back to the same place and there will be another 5,000 back replacing them it wasn't a war for territory. it was a war to break the morale of the enemy and we never found a breaking point. and in the end instead of our wearing them down, they wore us down and finally the american public said enough already, let's get out of there. >> i tried to run for a fourth term, the people through me out. and when they wanted me to come back i said no, you through me out and now you

have to be punished. >> rose: i don't remember this groundswell for you to come back. >> oh, yes, and i will tell you when, in '93 when the people had to chas between david dinkens and giuliani, they didn't want that choice. they knew that both were not-- . >> rose: they would rather have had you. >> as i walked around the street 10, 15 times a day people would say so me, oh mayor, you must run again. you must run again. and i would say no. the people through me out and now the people must be punished. and we would laugh. it was said half jocularly. >> rose: you were half serious. >> half serious. >> rose: all right. i came to washington with the labels that the right wing conservatives put on me. they were their labels. they never said is this the way would you behave under these circumstances so when the circumstances came and i would behave like chick coop does, they said he's deserted us. i hadn't done a thing. i just stood right there. >> rose: but did you things and i want to talk about aids specifically, that rallied a lot of liberals

around you. because they thought you, certainly later in your term as surgeon general were carrying the battle that needed to be fought against some people who were opposed to you within the white house. >> that's right. but i think the liberals expected as did the conservatives, that when i wrote about aids it would be a treatise of moral censure and it wasn't it was dealing with six people where they were and the conservatives didn't like that but the liberals loved it. >> i believe that a lesson for the last ten years proved that they want democracy. because millions, particularly young people, choose that way. what means they want democracy. very simple. they want to be independent. they are able to take care about their self, compared with opposite case, when russia was-- what it meant. that people were slaves.

they thought that someone will take care about them. not themselve will take care about them. but someone, general secretary, president, state will take care about them. and i realized for the last ten years that millions people are prepared to change mentality, moreover, millions people change mentality. today particularly again young people, they are free. they prove themselves that they are able to take care about themselve. >> rose: but there is always this specter. you say they're free but you just told us how putin wants to take over the media. >> yeah. >> rose: do you fear him. >> i think that really putin is able to put me in jail. he's able to put in jail everyone he wants, because they system, the old system

in russia, their system in russia is so bad. and if putin will think that it's rational for him to put me in jail, will do that. >> can anyone seriously conceive of mrs. clinton or ms. jones or mrs. stewart or any of us being indicted for a trivial mistake of that kind on a real estate loan application to a bank that knew all about it. that is ridiculous. it isn't a serious possibility. and it doesn't need to be investigated. >> rose: okay, tony, so what do you think about whitewater then. >> i wrote a column the other day because i felt that our business, the journalists, the newspaper business especially, had ignored this most serious, most thorough investigation of a good many of the charges against president and mrs. clinton. namely the report to the resolution trust corporation by the san francisco law firm of pillbury, madison

and sutro. hundreds of pages, very detailed. each charge examined in a very dispassionate and lawyer-like way. and each in turn rejected resoundingly. and you wouldn't know that mostly from reading the newspapers or watching television because the answers, the result of that investigation has had about 1/100th of the publicity of the great charges which turned out to be empty bags of wind. >> there's a great saying of pablo picasso which is terrifying me. which is that by the time he reaches the age of 60 a man has learned everything he needs to know about life. and it's too late. and-- . >> rose: great. >> and you know here mi, i've come all this way. i do believe there has been a sea change in my life. he also sense that there's a difference in the way people appreciate me now. >> rose: i'm sure. >> and i'm-- i can't tell

you how grateful i am. >> rose: has it made you happier? >> yes, yes. i've gained a very deep level of confidence from it, you know. i know who i am. and you know i'm okay okay with that. >> i saw him when i was very young and he made the album which became the genius of ray charles. >> rose: right. >> and watched him call out the wrong notes and stuff in the orchestra, quincey jones was in the production room with-- and it was an amazing moment for him because he understood the orchestra, orchestration. and quincey always said, you know, that's where i learn how to write for the big orchestra. he also was the ultimate musician with other players. the respect and the fear sometimes came out. >> rose: fear? >> fear because he could hear everything. >> rose: yeah. >> and i think he was the king of tempo. he would find something in a

song that would become his, as i think one of his favorite people was count basey who could take a song and find the right tempo. ray absolutely could do it. and when we got involved in this album, which unfortunately is the last of the ray charles album, but i watched everybody we worked with get inspired. and when i say fear, it's probably high, highest respect you can give anybody is when you care about somebody within when a movie is really working, we have an out of the body experience. i'm not talking is not the psychic network. >> rose: you have seen too many movies. >> no, i haven't. has this ever happened to you, come on, charlie. you're so wrapped up in the story that you really aren't aware of where your car is, pad, where you're going to have dinner what is going to happen tomorrow. you just only care about what is going to happen to those people next.

when that happens it gives us an empathy for other people who are there on the screen that is more sharp and more effective and powerful than any other art form. i'm speaking to somebody who loves to read. i love to read. but the movies do touch us more deeply i feel than any other art form. good movies. great movies. >> i was raised in a home in which my mom fought for civil rights in the 1950s and my dad was an immigrant in china and i grew up north of here in new york. and i grew up thinking that in politics, you know, the right thing to do was to serve the poor. >> rose: to serve -- >> the poor. that seemed to me that that is sort of what politics was about. and then through a long strange journey i ended up being part of the religious right. >> it is increasingly, in a cynical society with more and more distrust, it more and more people are

disaffected from it. and therefore what david is talking about, they aren't paying attention or they don't believe in any matters. and when that happens nothing is going to get done except those that have a narrow selfish interest. >> with all the experience you have watching politics in action, what was surprising. >> maybe it's not a new revelation, blinding wisdom. but how difficult the system is to move, number one. and how anybody who is in public life should be aware of the system that our founders set up to make it very difficult to make change in this complicated society. that's a good thing. we're afraid of government. but it wasn't set up so you can't make it operate. that's the difference now. >> rose: there has been a great trivialization of virtually everything in our society, and in that it makes it all the more important for a president to get anything done, to focus on one or two things and keep coming back to it over and over again. bill clinton's great

strength, of course s that he is a really superb communicator but that he is also very, very, very bright. and he cannot help himself from getting into everything, and talking about everything. and dealing with everything. and so the news message, is not focused. is not precise. >> rose: i love the play, thought it was funny. i thought it was short. an hour and a half. i thought it was -- >> people came out of the theatre within you were looking for a short play. >> why not. >> yeah, people come out of the theatre they were alive, they were interested. they were laughing. there was a lot of energy coming out of the theatre. and i said this is something i would like to be a part of if i want to go back to theatre. and i have to admit that it wasn't a huge stretch for me. >> rose: why do you say that? >> well, because it's something that i said you

know, i understand this, little did i know that it was a lot more difficult than i thought. but looking at it i said this is something to come back to the theatre with instead of some, you know, costume drama and a funny hat. >> how did the director influence the way you saw this? >> a, he directed before. he knew it a lot better than i ever could have. he guided us along. he is a great director. he understands timing. >> he understands comedy. >> he understands comedy, tension. one thing he said was you don't want them to laugh here because that breaks the tension. yes, you could get a laugh but you don't want it, keep it going, keep it going and give them the laugh later. all that kind of stuff. i came from this visceral point of, and then i started to learn a lot. >> he would call anywhere from midnight to 2:00,

sometime -- october clot in in the morning depending on what time zone he was in the campaign, midwest to fall west and i would be asleep sometimes. and i wasn't sitting there waiting for a phone call but it was a rit sul-- ritual. at some time the phone would ring. and i would pick up the phone. i think i slept next to the phone for obvious reasons. and it would be john ehrlichman, the old man wants to talk to you, a boss or whatever, people refer to, the candidate wants to speak to you. and richard nixon very clear voice, very familiar, bar i tone voice and he would talk about how are things back in new york. how are things, how is john. we got to push and hang in there and don't let them get-- there will be ups and downs. he knew there were going to be downs. and then they would go along for i don't know, seven, six, seven, eight minutes. usually i'll very

passionate. he was doing the talking. then his voice would get a little bit-- his talk would become a little bit more mixed up, slightly incoherent. gradually trail and then it would sound as if he was going off the deep end. his voice would get weaker and incoherent, and boom, fell upon the buzzer. next, i would think that the next morning there would b be-- nixon would draw some-- hold out by his keepers or something. but next morning he was up bright and away. >> this was his way of going to sleep. >> years after the campaign. had dinner with elicman in santa fay. i said when i was writing this book, john, what was that all about. he said well there was this ritual. he couldn't sleep. he is an insomnia ak and the only way i could put him to sleep would be to give a huge, a good size belt of scotch, and then we got to

talk. some kind of a soliloquy, a monologue, that was his ritual. you were the one, the omni present ear. >> when i started covering the white house quoi belong to the white house correspondent association, the dus were $2 a year. the only raison d'etre was to have a dinner in honor of the president once a year, when i sarted writing for the white house i could wloing the association but i couldn't go to the dinner. >> what year was that. >> that was in '61. >> 30 years ago you couldn't go-- 38 years ago you can't go. >> so in '62 the women covering the white house went to pierre salinger and we said president kennedy should not attend this dinner if we can't go and we're members. kennedy agreed and that was the first time we started to get to go. can you believe that? rrz no, i can't. >> i know it's very, very

hard to break down the doors of the national press building. all these clubs, sigma delta chai, i don't know about the overseas press club. >> rose: what is your great regret? >> my great regret, well, you always monday morning quarterback every story. >> rose: whether you should have gotten to a story before. >> sure n terms of water gait, i didn't know monica loo inski, all of these things, where was i and dow have some sense of i was there but i wasn't. maybe i should have known more. i think you monday morning quarterback every story you do, really. you always know you can do better. >> there were two areas in which i work that i found great-- well, i found great satisfaction in several areas. but there were two in which i work that i found really not only satisfying but very

loving, very interesting. and one of course was that i work very hard on the history of the house and of the nation. i was a chairman of the buy centennial committees in 1976, 1987, 1989. and also -- >> always says this say great scam, everything is going to turn 200 some day. >> including you, maybe. >> but i hope that in the doing, that i could inspire in some ways, at least record in many ways, the constitutional history. >> i mean the most striking thing about the campaign if you stand back from it, people talk now, the public keeps say bill clinton was elected only 43% of the vote and so for. they never said that about

richard nixon who was elected with 43%. i think what is really striking is that here you had a president, george bush, who had not committed any felonies in which we were aware. and who was generally thought of as a nice man. and had nobody angry at him. >> and had been commander in chief. >> and very successful war. you have running against him ross perrott, who half the voters think is mentally-- not mentally but emotionally too unstable to president. and you have bill clinton, this hey seed from arkansas who has got political baggage you wouldn't believe. and those two guys get 62% of the vote against an incumbent president that tells you country was mad and wanted change. >> it's the way people think in this particular social situation, gets to be the way they celebrate their

lives or the way they practice their lives, you see. so if you are's doing it together, the thing which reflects that most adequately would be the blues or jazz. to me jazz is a way of stomping the blues or getting rid of the blues. >> jazz is a way of getting rid of the blues. >> right. but first, you see it's a very realistic thing. you confront the facts of life. that's what our slave ancestors, yours and mine did. it woke up and realized that they were slaves. >> uh-huh. >> that's a fact. now-- camu says the fresh question and our philosophy is the question of survival. you say well, dow cut your throat? or do you get yourself together enough to be ready to stomp it by 9:00 that night. >> i say that my style is the absence of style.

and yet it is obvious because people say they can tell by reading a passage that i wrote, i mean when they read my books they know it's my book and not someone else's book. >> is that good? >> sure. i think it's good. because it has a certain style, a certain zing. >> because it has a certain sound. whether it's a zing or-- i think of style as sound. and this comes out of attitude. my attitude toward the characters in letting the characters tell the story. letting the characters each scene is scene from a character's point of view. >> the idea came from a client of mine. i asked a client because i had changed jobs twice because they were paying the men 50% more than they were paying me.

and you know when you're earning $13,000 and the guy next to you is making 19 or 20, that's quality of life. that's take a vacation money or buy a car money. and as i started to do business, i was an analyst at the time, research analyst. an when i started to bring in institutions on the research that i was doing, i wasn't being paid what the men were making. don't misunderstanding me, i was making a lot of money, a couple hundred thousand a year, back in 1967. and i asked a client. i said where can i go where i can get credit on the business i do. what big firm can i go to. because i was with small firms. and he said to me don't be ridiculous, buy a seat, work for yourself. and i told him don't you be ridiculous. and he said i don't think there's a law against it. >> rose: there is no prohibition of a woman on the exchange. >> that's right, so i took the constitution of the new york stock exchange home and i studied it. and i decided that's what i

was going to do. >> rose: what did you do then? >> well, it took a little while because i had problems getting sponsored. i knew people but when i asked them to sponsor me they were running out of the door. >> rose: why was that? >> well, you know, not everybody-- people like things status quo. >> one day after my dad bought my first guitar when i was about 11 i started traveling on the city buses, in beaumont texas. and i paid my 3 cents for the token. >> that's what it was back then. and of course they got to know me so well that i-- it didn't cost me any more. coy wide free because i would bring me -- >> staying in place, you could wide free. >> i would go back to the back of the bus, you know, and be out of the way and i would just sing up a storm. and i would get downtown and get off and i would bug the people on the streets. i would just walk along singing, you know.

and actually the first time i guess was after a couple of years after that. and i was down at what we call like the penney arcade. and in beaumont on pearl street. and it was the sundays. and there is nobody downtown on a sunday hardly any more. and there wasn't then. but i got up on the shoe shine stand, the fellow was there shining shoes if anybody did come by. and i just set up there and was playing and singing and all of a sudden one or two people come by, a couple come by. three or four getting out of church or out of a movie or something. and they would stop and just listen for a minute. all of a sudden people started throwing nickels and dimes and quarters and a dollar bill too. and when it was all over with i had $24 and something. and i had never seen that much money in my life. i went crazy.

the arcade was right behind me, you know. so i went in the door and laid the guitar down and i just played machines and just had a ball. and i don't remember ever getting home with any of that money at all. >> that happened to you a lot, didn't it. >> that's what happened to me a lot in my life. >> whatever happened to the money. >> it is interesting that you found out, i mean early on you found out that you could earn your way by singing picking. >> well, it was something, it grew into like a religion to me, country music. oh, i loved it. i just loved it so much. and when i knew that-- when i did finally find out that i could, the people liked to hear me as much as i liked to sing to them, well then, you know, i could make a living at this. >> do you know what you had? i mean frank sinatra said i think one time joyce jones is the second-best singer in america. johnny cash said people asked me who is my favorite

country artist and i say you mean beside george jones? way long jennings said if we could all sound like we wanted to we would all sound like george jones, is that what it is, the sound that you have in. >> i reckon so. i don't know, some of us are blessed in this business with a little different sound in our voice. our vocal chords, i guess. and if you have that little bit of soul or whatever if takes, and you put it all together, everybody i think is in music especially the fans, they look for that one thing different in an artist. and luckily i guess i just, i guess i had it. and like i say, i've been very fortunate lucky man. >> when i was a youngster going to school most of the wisdom was handed on to you

on proverbial-- and one of the things that your elders would say to you especially so you're going to school was the-- and depends alot later than the spade. so and i wrote a poem called digging, it was by a social logical shift from being a farmer sung in the field to being the scholarship boy writing to being the poet and so on. but but then i went on to write poems about archaeological finds and so on. and i think this is quite a natural image for what poetic activity is. >> writing the best poetry you can. what's that about? >> well, that's about redemption, really. >> redemption. >> yeah. but just because making your

soul, i any for someone who is a writer, it's a sense of self-justification, a sense of having made sense or made something of it is depenld ent upon the mysterious verification that comes with the sounds and words being put in the right order. there is a sense of you have advanced yourself a bit to arrive at where you were already. it's a very curious experience, the writing of-- the reading of, an exciting reading which carries you out with a sense of yes, yes, yes. but you arrive at a place somehow that you-- and i think it is to do with wholeness and a sense that all that is possible, i

nearly got done, you know. >> i want to you read something, if you will. this is from you picked it, the spirit level. and it is mint. >> i like this poem because it went farther than just my own memories. that opened up. i think i know it by heart but just in case. >> okay. i would do the same. mint, it looked like a clump of small dusty nettles growing wild at the gable of the house. beyond where we dumped our refuse and old bottles. unver dant ever, almost beneath notice. but to be fair t also spelled promise and newness in the backyard of our life, as if something tallow let tenacious saunt erred in green alleys and grew rife.

the snip of scissor blades, the light of sunday mornings when the mint was cut and loved. my last things will be first things slipping from me. let all things go free that have survived. let the smells of mint go heady and defenseless like inmates liberated in that yard. like the disregarded ones we turned against because we had failed them by our disregard. >> rose: thank you. >> asking yourself who you are, that say mehta physical question, i don't feel like discussing eight augustin today. >> rose: but you are comfortable where who you are? >> oh more or less. we're all imperfect and all very aware of our imperfections and we try to get better. >> rose: then help me understand what you mean. when you look at -- >> i never want to be

completely satisfied. satisfaction is the ebb me of progress. i always want to be dissatisfied about something. there hauls has to be a mountain to climb or dragon to slay. >> or mountain to climb, or journey to take. something to chall ing you to -- >> you got to wake up in the morning and want to do something. >> rose: where does it all come from for you which is an inevitable question from you. is it reading, is it conversation. >> all of the above. >> rose: the interviews. >> yeah, i talk with people. we kick ideas around. we do a little thinking and analysis on my own. >> rose: in a sense you are constantly in search of -- >> i got a friend just retired from the fbi. last job was in dallas. i called them there to talk to them once and got his secretary. he was on the phone. i was talking to his secretary. he goes you know what the boss says about you. he says he's a sponge. he's going to remember everything you say. he's a sponge. well i'm a sponge. ims's always at work and always absorbing information, that's who mi.

>> rose: but are you also fascinate approximated by motivation and what makes people tick. >> oh yeah. >> rose: and that sense of how they make decisions. >> and for the most people the people i write about are motivated by the same thing. love of country. they're people who prefer ord to chaos and try to bring order out of chaos. you know, people who try to do the right thing. >> i love the idea of-- i love the excitement of going. i have never been board with the idea of going to film, of course obviously many feel are boring it goes without saying. >> is it any different than from any other art form in that there are few really good ones? >> there are more good films than there are good plays. >> yeah. >> and if i were to go over the 40 years of my film writing career and make a list of the films i liked numerically it would far

outnumber the number of novells that i liked in that period of time. although we all know that there are some good and great novels written. >> you see more films than novels you like. >> yes. i have been very fortunate in a way. a lot of very fine films have been made and a number of very reputable ones have been made during my time and in the time i've been writing. -- said that i critic depends on the artist who was at work at the time he was writing. and good luck has been mine. a lot of good artists working at the time you're writing. >> yes. >> what is it about the film as an art form that you like so much? >> surprise, and familiarity. the sense of being embraced by something that i have known for a long time very well and the knowledge that that may contain something pleasantly novel for me, something expanding.

i'm not talking about thrills or plot twists. i'm talking about extended experience. extended knowledge of my own experience that comes from these films. film is in a sense a rathe rather-- form i have always thought because it is so easily powerful. i mean there's nothing easier than a chair in a film theatre and being seduced or overwhelmed. but beneath that ease, that there is a tremendous strength, a tremendous imaginative tickle that i get, that everyone gets from films. >> since the time i was a little kid i was very blond when i was tiny. and you know, god was very kind to me, took my hair away when i was about 30. but you know there are is something for every 500 or 600,000 cubans that are made who look more typically

latino they throw one or two in to check out everybody and make sure you know to find out what's going on on the other side. but basically, most of my parent-- both my parents were more typically latino looking. i guess i have my brother and i have an older brother and i guess we both were the result of a recessive genes. i had an irish great, great grandfather who em grade-- emigrated to cuba many generations ago so it came down to me. and it was confusing because in my household we were very cuban and yet when i went outside in the world i had to relate to a latino community that didn't particularly relate to me that way, but also constantly eavesdropping about you know hey look at that-- you know, hey, coming, you know i encountered so many negative kind of attitudes growing up that i said damn, you know t would be nice to get out of your own skin. so that kind of in the long

run ends up leading to, i guess a creative way of looking at the world. and wanting to-- when you become a writer you do so in a way because you have a lot of questions you want to ask. and you're looking for answers. and my own experience, feeling sort of, wanting to fit in, not quite fitting in and sort of being on the high february is what they call it these days. you know you're always searching for answers. and the only way you can find those answers is by asking certain questions. >> one of the reasons i think the public has been somewhat discouraged is that politicians in both parties are have promised too much. and things at the government cannot easily do were promised to be done. and we're going to solve the problems of crime and drugs. and we're going to take care of public order and bring the economy back and doing a lot of things that require very fundamental changes in social attitudes and in a culture of the country.

so it is not unnatural that people when they see these problems still continuing, despite the efforts of many to deal with them, are somewhat impatient. secondly, i think there is been a misconception about what washington is like and what in the case of the congress, the congress is like i was shocked to hear just before the election that a focus group in texas, a young worker was asked what would it be like to have dinner with your congressman. and he said i would be picked up in a huge limousine and driven to a great mansion and waited on by many servants. and i would be given food that i had never seen before and didn't know how to eat that sort of vision of the city is as long as some kind of a space novel. most members of congress, both parties live very ode

lives and work very hard. and it's not at all the gilded life that-- that young man had in his mind. you know it's really difficult to ask deep questions in the context of an auction room. that was your favorite. you showed these artworks up there like, like so many slaves being auctioned off. and your question was how much should i pay for this stuff. how can they be such fools as to pay that kind of money, without for a moment leaving the possibility that intelligent people are interested in it. intelligent people discourse intelligently about it. because the art itself is intelligent work paid by intelligent people. you made it seem like a commercial sideshow. >> i went to sir case, i

liked it because it was very big and it had a lot of different schools. and i had always been writing and i was always playing in bars, in bands, since i was 14. i thought i would go into journalism, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. >> rose: yes. >> okay, and be sitting where you are doing what you are doing. i did not think i would be doing what i am doing. and i went to journalism school and they were teaching me the first week the triangular paragraph. so you know a little information, a little bit more information and sum up and no opinion. they didn't want an opinion. so that was it for me in journalism school. >> rose: if you had opinions you wanted to express. >> it hadn't formalized in my mind that obviously that kind of journalism wasn't for me. i was-- if hi had more gumption probably would have wanted to be in a drama

school, in a drama school as i took film and i took directing. but i never had the gumption to take acting, which is what i really wanted to do? >> rose: why not? >> i just didn't think i could do it. i would do it in private but i just couldn't do it i thought i was better off as a director. i did a play by the automobile graveyard and i gave myself a nonspeaking role as the director. i played to my strengths. >> rose: when was the first big moment as a musician? >> oh, that's interesting. the first thing though is interesting, the big moment as a musician, playing with the velvets. this coheesiveness in writing songs and having them come to life like that. that was amazing. i mean charlie, seriously, i was a guy playing bar bands.

i mean i wasn't a singer. i wasn't up front. i was way in the back. you know. >> rose: on the guitar. >> on the guitar playing my three or four chords. and you know it was like you would just play the top 20. you know, and they were all pretty of the same. and you know, there was the lead singer which was definitely not me. and when we formed the velvet underground, i had some songs. we would get together. and i, you know, if you wrote it you were the one who sang it. i think that's the way it worked, how we ended up that way. >> in retrospect first of all i muddled through by working very hard. but in retrospect what i did was assume that if everybody was doing it one way there had to be a better way.

>> rose: yeah right. >> and so around that we built a culture where trying things was allowed and where failing was allowed. and nothing bad happen. so that just the desire to do differently was one. the second was we worked harder than anybody else. i always thought that no matter how right or wrong we were we without outwork the other fellow and so we worked very hard. and thirdly, we were very clear about what we wanted to accomplish. we wanted to be the best car insurance company that ever existed. and lastly, maybe, we set a standard of integrity, a standard of openness, a standard of self-revelation and self-examination which attracted very good people. and we were always very happy to pay very good people a lot of money. so that's how we did it. >> do have a philosophy about giving all this money you've made away? within not exactly.

the money i have is a function of the great american capitalist system. and i'm the american dream. i would have done the same work with the same ability and the same effort for a lot less money. but happened the way it happened. getting to this point and having this money and examining what to do with it, one has to think about either give it away or the government takes two-thirds when i die, better give it away. >> give it away. >> rose: and better give it to things that you care about, that are a reflection of who are you. >> one of my criteria is i have a right to have fun with it. >> we were a microcosm of power in new york city. the paper was essentially we constructed it to be a antidote to the "new york times" because "new york times" was so dominant at

the time i came to the paper in sending a received wisdom to the city. and nobody was saying wait a minute, it's a great newspaper but in the world of the new york in the 1920s and -- course were eight ten great broadsheets, there were a lot of smart writers. and so the new york observer was a meant to diagnose power in new york, b meant in a weird way to provide a-- to the "new york times" and then of course the third thing was that it was meant to be tremendous fun and a reminiscence of what newspapers could be. >> rose: why did you leave? >> i thought that i had driven the car as far as it could go. and you know, i wanted to learn something new. and i want to learn something new. and i, i have a sort of a evangelical mission to save the part of the print media

that i love. which is to me sophisticated, arcane, little bit of throw back to the 20s. but also 21st century medium that the internet was a direct assault on. >> there is nothing as inspiring as to know that the ideas for which you have sacrificed will triumph in there. one of the things that we were constantly aware of throughout, 24 hours a day, was the fact that the ideas of liberation were much alive. that our people inside the country were fighting back. that international community

irrespective what the government in power in the country, whether it was liberal or conservative, fully supported our struggle. that was the source of tremendous inspiration. and it has-- tested the moorle of all of us, very hard. and therefore therefore we were very strengthened inside prison because of the knowledge that our-- was not in vain. and that had the possibility of us coming back to play our part as part of a greater-- of the freedom fighters. was always possible. and this sustained us.

and also to share these experiences with a man some of whom you have cited, was a tremendous experience. >> i was asked once what i would like as my epitaph. and in the 19 vi 0-- 1960s i had this jacket which i loved. you know, one of those adored rags that i never want to part with. and i came back, it had been covered in mud and blood and honey and there was this, i still chuckle now. this thing pinned to it. sick more cleaners. it distresses us to return

work which is not perfect. i want that on my tombstone please. another thing about the theatre, about acting is of all the arts and crafts, we are the nearest to what is transitory about life. and when we've gone, so is-- it is very nice that su have it, but it is a fair reflection, the art of the moment. and when we've gone, it is gone. statutes of snow was what david gary described at, carving statues of snow. >> if, in fact, this would be your last day before you went to your great reward what would you regret not doing? >> well, i really haven't ever thought about that, charles. and i can't give you a good answer. i can't. >> rose: all right.

>> i know where i would like to be. i would like a daughter here and a son and a glass of whiskey and a nice, nice. >> rose: cigar. >> absolutely. >> rose: longevity has its rewards, doesn't it. >> it does, indeed, yes. what is that saying, the past isn't past, the future is-- the past isn't passed, the present is uncertain and the future doesn't exist. >> you were rather rebellious as a young man. >> yeah, uh-huh, very much so. >> rose: but you were not very religious. >> no, not at all. >> rose: at all. you didn't go to the synagogue. >> well, if i went i went with very bad grace and got out as quickly as i could. i wasn't-- i was very rebellious about that. >> rose: and then you got involved with the world jewish congress. >> uh-huh. the stunning moment was when

i was going to moscow and he opened a book which he does every day, i happened to notice him and he read with his lips moving. and closed it and put it back. i said what is that he said that is the daily portion of talmud. i said how long does it take to read it. >> seven years. >> i said wow, so i think there must be something about this religion that has got to keep people together, has survived all the persecution all over the years, so i finally decided after learning a little mortal mud that i would start to read the bible. and of course, i read it with the commentaries and when i have problems i discuss them with him. and i found it immensely fascinating captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

. >> funding for charlie rose supporting this program since 12002.

a kqed television production. like old fisherman's wharf. reminds me of old san francisco. like jean val jean. >> theeries and cholesterol and -- calories and cholesterol and heart attack. >> like an adventure. >> it remind me of oatmeal with a touch of wet dog. >> i did inhale it.