kennedy. >> and his brother said that lyndon johnson was afraid to fail. most people who know him best said he was afraid to feel like his father. he was afraid the red for the presidency, he would fail. that i think is why he did not run. >> how badly did he beat lbj? the final tally was 806-409. that is not a realistic tally. when they got to wyoming, he did not have the necessary votes. if only he can keep from getting the majority of the first ballot. in the back room, kennedy comes close. he did not have the necessary votes. the chairman promised teddy kennedy that if it comes down to his delegation, he will give the last five votes of that delegation. see it is coming down to wyoming. walter cronkite said there is teddy kennedy hurrying across the floor. he is hurrying over to the wyoming delegation. you see him saying something to the chairman this as wyoming casts 15 votes for john f. kennedy. after kennedy has the majority, a number of states did. it was close that he was going to mak

>> no, kennedy. and then after he died, it made it possible then for president johnson to be able to push forward the 1965 voting rights act, and the '64 civil rights act, he had teed it up, in other words, at that point, based on his cumulative understanding of what was happening, based on the pressure from the streets andbased on the inside pressure from the administration, based on the understanding that there was an international force to be dealt with as well? and now you may speak, roger wilkins. [ laughter ] >> my mother told me there would be moments like this. [ laughter ] "don't be on a stage with colored women" that's what she said. [ laughter ] but the point that i would like to make is, that from inside, i don't tell the story often, but here we are in the down and dirty, so i'm going to tell you something. john lewis of snik was beaten by officers on horseback and trudgens in their hands. and they really beat him. and i always believed from those years that john was the bravest man i'd

what had robert kennedy done? >> at the time that johnson starts running against jack kennedy for the 1960 democratic nomination, he has been the senate majority leader for six years. he is in the greatest majority leader in history. he made the senate work. he introduced his own bills. it was the center of governmental and ingenuity and energy in washington. he was the most powerful democrat in the country. they called him the second most powerful man in the country, second to president eisenhower. for the last two years he had been running his brothers. presidential campaign, robert kennedy. why? >> well, he left mccarthy's committee eventually. there was a time, and he is frank to admit it, when he believed something had to be done about the communist conspiracy in this country and that mccarthy was the only person doing it. considering a large part of this book is about how bobby kennedy change, it is interesting. it is an evolution. all that happened was i got older. i do not think that is all that happens. h

kennedy. had some kind of a confrontation? >> the next time the action had a conversation was probably at the democratic convention in 1960, where president kennedy was there. how has he been in their? >> lyndon b. johnson was 62. i did that very quickly. bobby kennedy was born in 29. >> there was a great deal of difference in age. what have lyndon johnson done until the time he was selected? what had robert kennedy done? >> at the time that johnson starts running against jack kennedy for the 1960 democratic nomination, he has been the senate majority leader for six years. he is in the greatest majority leader in history. he made the senate work. he introduced his own bills. it was the center of governmental and ingenuity and energy in washington. he was the most powerful democrat in the country. the cut in the second most powerful man in the country, second to president eisenhower. for the last two years he had been running his brothers. >> you say he worked for joseph mccarthy. why? >> well,

now kennedy... the genesis of it was in the kennedy administration but it hadn't taken any form or gotten anywhere. he comes back from that ranch and makes the war on poverty speech, his first state of the union speech. that's why this book in effect ends there. and he says in this unbelievable line "too many americans live on the outskirts of hope." think of that line. he says "we're going to end poverty." think of the ambition of that. here's the president who says we're going to end poverty in the united states. so so the circumstances of his youth, at the end of this book you say look what he's done in seven weeks. >> rose: look what you've done in 30 years. right here. one, two, three, four. >> (laughs) >> rose: thank you. >> my pleasure. >> rose: a masterful job. >> thank you. >> rose: robert caro for the hour. a study of lyndon johnson. this book "the passage of power" as lyndon johnson in dallas succeeds a dead president and holds the country together. thank you for joining us. see you next

kennedy never said that. so i would give johnson credit, not for an additional commitment, because i don't know that his commitment was any greater than the kennedys, but i think for having the legislative acumen to get the thing passed. and it was really, really hard to get the thing passed. five months of debate to get it through. and nothing else was going to be considered while this thing was being considered. and johnson did it. >> i think -- >> roger, if i may. we're at the end. and i want charlayne hunter-gault's voice to be the last on this. i want you to answer the question from the audience. this person writes, i read your book many years ago and was moved by your story. how did what happened to you shape your decision in years to come and shape your career? >> it's all in this book. [ laughter ] but on lyndon johnson, i will say -- no, it shaped me -- i couldn't be an activist as a journalist, but i could be a passionate reporter for the things that i was seeing, and at the time that i entered, bla

kennedy. jacqueline kennedy. i have informed him, i had been instructed to four -- inform the operator when he called there was -- there were to channel the call through me. i talked to him and explained what was going on. we were in palm beach. we talked for 10 or 15 minutes about various things and that was a common occurrence whenever he would call. i would talk to him. >> what did not mrs. kennedy take the call? >> she did not find it necessary to talk to him all the time. she informed me when she got around to it she would call him and say hello but i do not know that she ever did. i am not sure. >> your book has been on the best-seller list and you have been on the book tour. how many different cities have you been to? >> alessi. new york, twice, kansas city, san diego, san francisco, dallas, houston, chicago, and washington, d.c., and there's more to go. >> what have you found the public to be interested in? >> they're interested in the fact that this is a book that paints a portrait of mrs. kennedy. tells

if kennedy had not. tell us the story. >> thank you. >> and it was young people i just did all this research. i'm living with this now in a way that i didn't even live with it when i became the first black sturpt at the university of georgia. that was to me a solitary thing. but i was encouraged by what else was going on with the students in the movement. we have the president of ernie and the little rock nine and ruby bridges who would over in new orleans who was even in a way more poignant than you guys. she had to walk through this mob. we talked about the continuity of history. when barack obama was running for president he went to selma. and one of the things he said there was i stand on the shoulders of giants. and i was so happy to hear him say that. asser knee said and others have said, black people have struggled for equality since they were brought over here in chains. it built and it built. as i was writing my book about the students who actually did change the minds of the kennedys, i had to

kennedy, jacqueline kennedy. and i had informed -- i had been instructed to inform the operator that, when he called, they were to channel those calls through me. so i talked to them, and i explained to them what was going on, that we were in palm beach at the time, and we talked for 10, 15 minutes about various things, and that was kind of a common occurrence whenever he called. >> why did mrs. kennedy take the call? >> she just didn't find it necessary to talk to him all the time. she informed me when she got around to it, she'd call hello and visit with him for a while, but i don't know that she ever did. perhaps so, but i'm not sure. >> your book has already been on the bestseller list, and you've been on a book tour. how many different cities have you been to? >> well, let's see, new york twice, kansas city, san diego, la jolla, dallas, houston, chicago, and washington, d.c., and we still have more to go. >> what have you found the public to be interested in when they've been questioning you? >> they're just

and so he's defending kennedy

hoover did not like kennedy. robert kennedy did not like him.obert said he did not show any emotion at all. he just delivered the news. they see him clapped his hand into his face in shock and horror. >> the question was about the oath. what happened when lyndon johnson talked to robert kennedy after he was shot? >> he calls him from the plane. he asked him two things. should i take the oath of office in taxes or wait until i get back to washington? he's not really asking. he knows he wants to take it in taxes and for robert kennedy to agree it is the best course. he was the wording of the oath. the attorney general said i was really appalled that he would call robert kennedy, 26 minutes after he learned his brother's death, the man he hates is now his brother's success are on the phone asking him for the former details of how to take office. marie is on the plane and takes the oath. i said, how was his voice? she said, like steel, controlled. he should not have been doing that. she said i was sorry to be doing it but it had to be done. she was

i think ed kennedy handled it well. and you trust your reporters. >> i wanted to ask jack a little bit about the theology of all this. in my research i found a "new yorker" article contemporaneous, talking about the controversy and the debate which sounds like it could be something that would be in "the new yorker" in 2012. it says in part, whether a promise extorted as this one was in an airplane several thousand feet up as any moral forces a question for theologians, i suppose kennedy should have refused to promise anything, thus making sure to miss an event no newspaperman in the world would have wanted to miss. i do not think kennedy imperiled the lives of any as charged. he probably saved the few. in withholding the announcement of an armistice you prolong the shootings. i wanted to see if you could take us back in time, put yourself in ed kennedy's position, sort of talk about the theological arguments of embargoes and the right of the public and the world to know. >> theology is certainly my specialty. i would sa

board of education, president kennedy and robert kennedy were racial liberals. they were comfortable with social equality. they were comfortable around african-americans. which distinguished them from most of the predecessors in the office of the presidency, but still nobody knew what the next step was. in fact, the next steps were driven by things and people who were outside of the office of the president of the united states, outside of the executive branch. the next steps were driven by african-americans and whites in the south. >> so john f. kennedy first had to get the presidency. part of his exceeding to the presidency, he had to deal with the issues of civil rights. some of this that was going on that kenneth mack has described after eisenhower's presidency. how did he do that and how did he view civil rights as a candidate before he got into the chair as president? >> one day, shortly after i was hired by kennedy, i had been campaigning for him on foreign policy grounds. although he had supported the jury trial amendment in 1957 of the first civil rights

he is defending kennedy as by the way, i think he should have, because he thought kennedy was finally

michael kennedy, 1984. michael kennedy,accident aspen, colorado, 1997. john f. kennedy, jr.died while piloting his plane, plunge into the plunge into the 38, 1999. his wife karlyn in the event. question, what is the background of mary's untimely death? >> well, speaking to friends of the kennedy family immediately after the event, they basically said she struggled with depression for a bunch of her adult life, and that she also had problems with alcohol and drugs. and so i must say after watching that series of tragedies that you just put on the screen, i remember senator ted kennedy's used to say he really resisted the notion that there was some sort of kennedy curse. le would say our family is blessed and a lot of these mulcy&we have other families experience as well. and mary kennedy's tragic end has prompted her best friend, carrie kennedy, to write about bringing more attention to the problems of clinical depression. so the kennedys always try to take tragedy and make something good come out of it. >> carrie kennedy wrote a moving essay about clinical depression. and t

he is defending kennedy as by the way, i think he should have, because he thought kennedy was finally resisting what they were doing and had become so willing to be compliant as he put it, they had gotten out of the habit forward is -- there is quite a large number of books written by war correspondents and some of this book deserves to be up there with the best of them. there two reasons for that. it is a very good expression of what it's like to be a war correspondent. he was a hell of a good reporter and given a lot of responsibility and in considerable danger from time to time. just as a good story by a war reporter, he did an excellent job. the second part is as you might guess since the date of the story is being sacked by the ap and he writes consistently about the problems he had and here's the story that the war is over. he wants to tell the story and he is so mad and so fed up that he decides he is going to run the story. he has done the right thing and he checked with the censors and he thinks the ground is withholding the story. you see it as years of being frustrated. kin

robert kennedy -- [ laughter ] robert kennedy, berth marshall

robert kennedy jr among them. he's a passionate and ut spoken environmentalist who has fought legal battles on behalf of a dozen franchises. after 16 years of marriage, he and his wife had separated. she had struggled mightily with alcohol abuse over the past several years. tonight multiple sources say she was found by a maid in the garage of her home in new york, apparently having hanged herself. mary richardson kennedy leaves behind four children ages 11 to 17. the richardson family has said in a statement, that, quote, our beloved sister will be sorely missed and our hearts go out to her children who she loved without reservation. >>> up next, their stride made them beautiful champions, but at a steep cost. we investigate the world of these prized horses. sarah... will you marry me? i think we should see other people. in fact, i'm already seeing your best friend, justin. ♪ i would've appreciated a proactive update on the status of our relationship. who do you think i am, tim? quicken loans? at quicken loans, we

they were not restored for ed kennedy. ed kennedy also faced court-martial. the correspond epts were given military rank and they were subjected to the military code. that was another big concern in this case. >> that has been one of the criticisms and most recently in a place that was moved yesterday. if you saw that, it was written by the son of a person who had been the stars and stripes correspondent and one of the valid points is whether kennedy advised his superiors of the existence. >> that's an interesting problem. today if you have a story that is like this, you can actually talk to your editor because of satellite phones. in those days, you couldn't send a cable saying i want to talk to you about a story that i would like to break the embargo on. the line between london and paris was not a good line. the argument has been made by somebody last night. this is breaking the embargo. that's not a very that doesn't tell you that much and he didn't have time to dictate the story. so i have to understand that they didn't allow the back and forth of the hom

they were not restored for ed kennedy. ed kennedy also faced -- possibly faced court-martial. the correspondents were given military rank and they were subjected to the military code. so that was another big concern in this case. >> anyone else here? yes. >> -- kennedy notified the london desk the existence of the embargo, that has been one of the criticisms of him all these years, most recently a piece that was moved yesterday in "huffington post." if you saw that, it was written by the soon of a person that had been the "stars and stripes" correspondent, and in fact had been there prior to kennedy and 16 others. there are some responses to this book and your public apology in that piece that ran yesterday. and there are some valid points in there. one of which is the question of whether, in fact, kennedy sufficiently advised his superiors of the existence of them bar go. >> let me start. >> you start. >> that's an interesting problem. today, if you have a story that is like this, you can actually talk to your editor because of satellite phones. in those days, you couldn't se

they were not restored for ed kennedy. and ed kennedy also faced possibly faced court-martial the correspondents were given military rank and they were subjected to the military code. so that was another big concern in this case. >> okay. anyone else here? yes? >> kennedy notified the london desk and the existence of the embargo, that has been one of the kricriticisms all of these years and in a piece of "the huffington post," a stars and stripes correspondent had been there prior to kennedy and the 16 others and there are some responses to this book and your public apology in that piece that ran yesterday and there are some valid points in there. one of which kennedy sufficiently advised his superiors of this embargo. >> so that's an interesting problem. today when you have a story like this, you can probably talk to your editor because of sat line phones. you about a story that i'd like to break the embargo on because it's not practical. the sensor wouldn't let you send it. paris wasn't a good line. it's not like you cou

he certainly didn't talk to ed kennedy.t knee jerk reaction red to a public repudiation of kennedy in the worst possible way. if you look at what ed kennedy did, there were a lot of lessons that were right. i spent more time as an editor than as a reporter. we said good things about editors. they do matter and count for a lot. good editors make a big difference. clearly in this case we had our lead reporter on the story. his name, his background and scope of coverage experience lent credibility as no other. he thought about it. he never made a knee jerk reaction and waited 96 minutes from the time that the germans's announcements began before he published. he was very thoughtful. he went to the military. he told them the story how to go. even then he went back to his room for 15 minutes. the desk handled it well and ed kennedy handled it well and you trust your reporters. >> i wanted to ask jack a little bit well the theology of all of this. i found a new yorker article contemporaneously talking about the debate that soups

president kennedy and robert kennedy were both air ball liberals. they were comfortable with social equality. they were comfortable around african-americans which distinguished them from most of the predecessors in the office of the presidency, but still nobody knew what the next step was. in fact, the next steps were driven by things and people who were outside of the office of the president of the united states, outside of the executive branch. they whether driven -- the next steps were driven by african-americans and whites, segregationist whites, in the south. >> so harris wofford, john f. kennedy first had to get the presidency, and part of his rack seeding to the presidency, he had to deal with some of the issues of civil rights, some of this that was going on, that kenneth mack had just described, that after eisenhower's presidency, how did he do that and how did he view civil rights at that point as a candidate before he actually got into the chair as president? >> one day, shortly after i was hired by kennedy, i had been campaigning for him

kennedy and lyndon baines johnson. >> all right. so now it is afternoon. so good afternoon. and remembering that we're honoring two presidents george washington and abraham lincoln here's a little something from abraham lincoln that seems fit for this afternoon. the probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. that seems to be very appropriate for our conversation about civil rights and the united states. we enter the panel having look t at the cold war, the personal responses of people like ernie green of the little rock nine in terms of what was happening in terms of the violence. and the movement by both truman and eisenhower though they may not be supporters of social equality to do some things to move the country forward with regard to civil rights. now we come to the terms of john f. kennedy and lyndon baines johnson. typically regarded by people who think of the modern civil rights movement as two presidents that were very much associated w

he was robert kennedy's deputy attorney general.d what is the reason for the call, you know, johnson from air force one calls robert kennedy, a few minutes after he is learned that the brother he loved so much is dead. to ask him the formalities of how he takes over his brother's position. and catsenbach said you know, cohave told me, cohave called any one of a hundred government officials, forget the wording of the oath of office, we all knew it and i spoke to johnson's secretary who took down the oath of office. i said well what was it like. he said well catsenbach voice was like steal. he said robert kennedy's was not. i thought you shouldn't be doing this. as i went to the door leaving after he had been very carefully laying out the things on both sides, why johnson cause he said you know to till the truth, the fact that lyndon johnson called robert kennedy at that moment os, i was appalled. >> yeah. >> it's an unbelievable story. the detail that you are able to ring out. history, the way you made it come alive. your passion for

jack kennedy went to harvard. a lot of the kennedy people went to harvard.uthwest texas state teachers college. he describes that as the poor boys school. i went to the poor boys school. you went to the southwest teachers college because you couldn't afford to go to the university of texas. and he knew that. all his life he knew he had been cheated out of an education, and he was -- he was ashamed of it. >> when you get to the assassination, take us through. what was it like for johnson? we understand so much about it, but give us the perspective from the guy who suddenly realizes with all the tragedy that he has just gone from being a nobody to being the most powerful man in the world? >> well, i'll start in the very moment. he is riding in the third car behind president kennedy. there is the crack of a gunshot. most of the people think it's a backfire from a motorcycle or a firecracker going on, but the secret service agent who is sitting in the front seat of johnson's car knows in the instant that it's a hunting rifle. he whirls around and grabs johnson's