. >> but you are bill moyer's baby. >> what do you mean?>> when he started, bill moyer put his hand on charlie and said, go with my blessing, or whatever. [laughter] business -- you can choose, in the course of your career -- you can choose different kind of rhythms to be in. reporters.ock they wake up in the morning. they have a press conference. they meet a lady on the 104 bus. she is not a reporter. she announces in the morning, today i will be at the press conference of the city council vice president. when you watch evening television, she is there. she is in the back row. she is the star of her own tempo. bringing up the rear everywhere in new york will stop -- in new york. and i think it is kind of neat. it should be acknowledged that there are people who go to work and want to tell you, this just in. i want to get it on and want to get it right and want to get it fast. >> i am not doing that. >> that is the one extreme. and then there is bill moyers. >> we have to put it in the context of a full season. you have got theater, dance,

. >> but you are a bill moyers baby. >> what do you mean?n he started, bill moyers puts his hand on charlie and says, "go with my blessing!" >> the thing about this business is, over the course of your career, you can choose different rhythms. >> charlie: exactly. there are jock reporters, wake up in the morning, with have a press conference. some lady on the 104 bus, not a reporter, but sits in the back of the bus and announces this morning, today i will be at the press conference of the city council vice president, and when you watch evening television, she is there. she is in the background! she is the star of her own show! she's sort of just bringing up the rear everywhere in the audience! (laughter) i think it's kind of neat. but, of course, as i was suggesting, it should be acknowledged that there are people who go to work and they want to tell you this just in and want to get it right and fast. >> charlie: but i'm not doing that. >> no, there's the one extreme and then there's bill moyers. >> if you look at what we do here, we have to

he told bill moyers he feared the change you talked about was coming. you have also written about he felt he had to get civil rights to establish his credibility so he could do the things that were so important to him, to push opportunity even further. i wonder if you could talk about -- did dr. king give him credit for that? they were obviously on the same page. they were divided later by vietnam and by hoover. did dr. king give him credit? >> i think andy can answer that better than i can. relevant is the wrong word but he certainly was involved. when you look at everything from headstart to higher education, the food stamp program, medicare, medicaid. i think it is important to know, race was an issue in those programs. we couldn't get the elementary education act through. there were two problems. the catholics wanted help for parochial schools and the evangelicals and the secular urban jews didn't want any help for parochial schools. both had the power to block it. what johnson saw as the killer problem, congress was beginning to look at this as a b

bill moyers, johnson's long time aide said that the president was 13 of the most complex and interesting and difficult men he had ever met. [laughter] stan 11 son, dr. king's close aide, said he was anything but the plaster saint that white america so wanted him to be. so i thought that we might begin our discussion today not at the beginning of the civil rights bill, but at the end on july fourth, 1964, because i think this exchange offers a little bit of a window into the complexity of their personalities and their relationship. it was the fourth of july, president johnson had come home to texas after signing the bill two days before, and he seized on a quote from his press secretary that he had been in continual touch with dr. king. why do you say that, johnson said? that's the last thing the president has been in continual touch with dr. king. ready said he said i've seen from time to time dr. king, why do you say that, johnson demanded. well, he said, you saw him at the ceremony. i say, why do you say it? because i was asked, because they had seen you there. i'm sorry he was there,

. >> my friend bill moyers said to me he couldn't serve two masters. >> there is a hierarchy. ultimately, you serve the president, the white house, the the administration. the press is an important part of our country. that is part of the service you're providing. first and foremost, you are there to speak for him, accurately represent what he is doing, why he is doing it come and take questions, and some heat for him, and for what you believe. this is where it matters most. what you believe is right when it comes to what he's doing. >> is it that i have to spend our case all the time, our responsibility is to sell our story, rather than my responsibility is to try to help this person who wants to tell a story as best i can, and is there a difference? clearly, your interest is make the president denies it look as good as he can. as good as he can. >> we certainly tried. i, and others who work in communications in the white house, we try, and explained, and defend what he is doing. we try to explain in a way that reflects what we believe. he's doing things for the right reasons

bill moyers. there are a lot of politics in all of this. how do you stay independent? >> what's so interesting is that when you're bringing up some of these names saying to myself, streisand funds mother jones? honestly some of this i'm not even aware of. i don't know. there's never been anyone else telling us what we should or shouldn't cover. "mother jones" has a reputation as a fiercely independent muck raking magazine. >> corn run the washington bureau and -- >> david broke the 47% video which is certainly one of the biggest scoops of what has been a very illustrious career and the whole -- >> in your book anybody disappointed? >> i've received some in the social media world i've gotten some critiques from the left from people who said we're upset that i essentially humanized them too much but that's what my goal was to do. these guys had become these two-dimensional characters and i wanted to paint a full portrait of who these guys are. there are certain people who believe that they're evil and matter what and they're entitled to their opinion. but i certainly did

. >> i think was bill moyers who got the call for mississippi saying they have found them when he wasn the white house. julia chaney-moss, can you tell us where you were on that day when you learned? home with my mother and my sisters and my brother, ben. >> and the white house called? >> no. we did not get a presidential call. what hadd you learn of happened? , i will preface it with before they left, before mickey, j, and and he laughed, j had said to us -- had left ,jay said if they were not at a certain hour comic get a list of phone numbers that we should start calling. so when they were back, we began to make the call. day --not until the next well, that we were officially informed that they were missing because they weren't able to be tracked anywhere. >> david goodman, for those viewers and listeners who are younger who weren't alive back in 1964, can you talk about how big of a story this was nationwide, the impact it had on the country? some stories say 1964 changed america. had was 17 years old and just graduated from high school. my grandfather used to say, if you have a q

my friend bill moyers went back with her to stamps, arkansas. >> the black part of stamps started rightfellow's fishing? >> well, yes, there and behind us. at the -- at the railroad track. this was more or less no man's land here because, if you were black, you never felt really safe when you simply crossed the railroad tracks. you still had to go all this way. it was like an international tarmac where anybody could get you. you were really in the black part of town when you crossed that little bridge and the pond. then you were safe. then, if you didn't know everybody, at least everybody knew who you were, you know. and as a child, it was the chance to have some protection. i used to have to walk over here. oh, gosh, i hated it. i had no protection at all over there. i had an idea of protection on this side. i had my grandmother on this side. i had the church, my uncle and all my people were on this side. so i had an idea of protection, but there i would be all alone. and i loathed it, walking those railroad tracks. bill, i tell you, to show you how much things don't change, i'm not ev

case that members of the press feel like i serve them more than him -- >> charlie: no, my friend bill l moyerssaid you can't serve two masters. >> there's a high yarky. you're there to serve the president, the white house and your country, and the press is a very important institution in our country and, you know, that is part of the overall service you're providing but first and foremost you're there to speak for him, to accurately represent what he's doing, why he's doing it, take questions and some heat for him and for, you know, what you believe. this is where it matters most, what you believe is right when it comes to what he's doing. >> charlie: i'm interested in the mindset of the press secretary. is it that i've got to spin our case all the time? my responsibility is to sell our story rather than my responsibility is to try to help this person who wants to tell a story as best i can, and is there a difference in that? >> i -- >> charlie: clearly, your interest is to make the president of the united states look as good as he can, in this case. >> well, we certainly try to -- i'll say a