just recently this tape emerged of the 3-year-old john talking about family historian arthur schlesinger. >> john, what happened to your father? >> um, he's gone to heaven. >> reporter: that boy, who the nation called john-john, of course grew into a dashing man. who himself died tragedically in 1999 behind the wheel of a piper plane he was piloting at the age of just 38 off the family's beloved cape cod. his wife died too that night, and her sister. once again the kennedy clan gathered together to mourn, led by john's uncle. it reminded us again of the whispered phrase, the kennedy curse. >> well, i don't sub skrub to the curse thery. i think the common thread is life in the 20th century is risky. we tend to see people of immense wealth as people who are somehow removed from the dangers, risks, pitfalls of life and of course that's fantasy. they seem to be the family that has everything, but they don't. one of the things they don't have is control over their own destinies anymore than anybody else does. >> three years ago, the death of ted kennedy reminded us of how the last surviving b

as arthur schlesinger junior noted 100 years after sam's death, every close student of washington knows half the essential business of government is transacted in the evening, where the sternest purpose lurks under the highest frif olty. sam's art was to guarantee that the men and women never focused on the purpose that lurked beneath his perfectly cooked meals. thank you. >> can i take questions? >> time for questions. >> you mentioned a great convergence of public causes in the post-war period and you listed the great number of private interests that he represented in washington. did he ever take an interest in advancing humanitarian or public cause at all? and could you elaborate a little on the nature of been but the fer. >> could you repeat the question? >> sure. the question was could i elaborate on the enmity between sam and been butter. ben butler was a senator from massachusetts. he vacillated between being a democrat and republican. he's probably most well known for debacles during the civil war, he was known as spoon's butler, he was the military administrator for new orleans

and then on the cover, arthur schlesinger says about your book, "at last robert mcnamara speaks out on vietnam ..." >> guest: yeah. oh, well... c-span: "...and clarifies and explains his role in that tragic episode." >> guest: yeah. c-span: which one's right? >> guest: his statements that he released in the book, he prefers to term "clarifications." i tried to get him to release as much as he possibly would, and i think dr. schlesinger agrees that he's illuminating his role in the conflict through the quotes released. i think he doesn't want to say that he is now speaking on vietnam, because he's afraid people will come at him and ask him more. he's trying in a sense to have it both ways. i think he agreed with me that it was terribly important for him to speak to my generation and to start coming forward. i mean, time is short and -- and history is urgent at his back. and bill clinton was advancing towards the white house even as we finalized these quotes. but he's a very complicated man and he doesn't want to open himself up to barrages of questions and everybody after him about it.

. >> since you were last here, the 8 1/2 hours of conversations between arthur schlesinger and mrs. kennedy have been released. here's just a small excerpt from it, and i want you to tell us -- again, this sounds like a different voice in what she was saying. >> it was so funny, because jack was thinking of being president and how awful it would be and so many things to do. but he never did them. i mean, he could have made his council on human rights or whatever it was into something -- you know, gone ahead with it, equal opportunity, whatever it was, he could have done more with it. he just never wanted to make any decision or do anything that would put him in any position. so, what he really liked to do was go in these trips, and he never -- jack would say, you can never get an opinion out of lyndon on any cabinet or national security meeting. he'd just say, you know, that he agreed with him, just keep really quiet. >> were you there? >> i was in the house. i talked to arthur schlesinger before he went into the room to interview her on each occasion and after he came out, but i wa

arthur schlesinger said whenever check presidents during wartime and courts have given the president many defeats with the enemy soldiers the other institution that i describe has done an extraordinary job to expose errors and abuse of the government. in the traditional vein but it is about revealing a more complicated system. and with two others 10 racketeers inside the executive branch but also affix monitors and the inspectors general that are independent watchdogs that did an extraordinary job to report that to congress and finally human-rights organizations got lourdes networked and powerful waves with people inside the government, military, of the press, bringing pressure to the government that there was a of course, like this describing the use and how they work the reason gitmo is open today not because of obama's but congress basically prevented him from closing gitmo. that is a very powerful check on the presidency. this is a rich description from those below the radar screen. it sounds complicated. vindicated the basic system of checks and balances the basic framework esta

arthur schlesinger used to say and immensely interesting subjects my watch history take place and i a.m. and form to buy it. what happened to russia and china rican say america better remains strong in the years ahead. they get very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> we have a lot of discussions in the movie you have a process that is 10 weeks long distilled into two hours brought of necessity the timeline is rearrange but it is the true story of what happened. of the vetting we got to the end of the process and senator mccain determined to he wanted to pick realized we could not win within eight listed. it was a difficult set of circumstances outspent by $200 million. president bush approval rating in the thirties and obama was speaking to hundreds of thousands in europe and a fervor for his candidacy to figure out how to win. and the person who said we should look at sarah palin. >> are you proud of that moment? >> that moment freezes and the slows down in my brain. [laughter] lease spent a couple days at the jersey shore. i remember every aspect of the moment. i can smell

arthur schlesinger used to say history was immensely interesting subject and every now and then i sit back and watch history take place in the world and i am informed by it. what is going to happen to russia and what is going to happen to china? i can say but i can say and we all say that america better remain strong in the years ahead. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> the founder and editor in chief of the "the american spectator" leaders and r. emmett tyrrell, jr.. visit spectator.org. >> some books being released this coming leak. international government needs to work together to create a fair global market in the unfair trade. how the broken financial system destroyed the middle-class. cronkit recalls the life of walter cronkite. peter edelman, advise it to robert kennedy from 1964-68 provide an analysis of income inequality in so rich, soap for, why is so hard to end poverty in america. inboard to battle rand and forced, shiloh, vicksburg and chattanooga the campaign that doomed the confederacy, jack hearst studies the battle between general grant and

he tailored that to arthur schlesinger, the great historian. he said john kennedy knew history like you do. i don't know history. i need you for history. for someone else, something tailored to the others. and they all stayed. >> rose: when did he began to reach out to mrs. kennedy? to comfort her? >> constantly. from the very beginning. >> rose: a telephone call here. "what can i do"? >> yes. >> rose: they had to plan the funeral. >> well, he does even more than that. that very night... you know, i said that night is remarkable. he gets back to washington and there's so much on his plate. there's a memo there from the budget director saying, you know, we're in the middle of the budget process, you have... you have two weeks to sign off on the budget. but that night he goes and gets two sheets of stationery from the oval office and he writes a letter to john-john and he writes a letter to caroline and he that has time to do that. it's like his mind... if you're interested in power, you say here's a man assuming all the reigns of power and knowi