prof. brinkley: was martin luther king jr. your hero at that point or one of your heroes westermann -- your heroes? prof. leuchtenburg: definitely. prof. brinkley: what about the death of kennedy, when he was killed. do you have any recollection of ?ow you process those grim days prof. leuchtenburg: i suppose all of us in this room knew where we were or how we felt. i taught at columbia for 30 years. and i knownew york each of us has a story to remember where we were. i went down to a shoe store in hastings, where shoes were being repaired the i talked to the man. he did not talk to me. he stared. i thought he was having a psychotic episode. then he told me what had happened. i remember driving the car on the way home. racing, racing, turned on the television, and then hearing the cronkite, the president. and then remembering that .errible weekend that followed happened. else that the next week, i went into my graduate lecture course at columbia. there was a large group of students. obliged to go on with the class because that

prof. brinkley: could anybody beat franklin roosevelt in 1932? is it possible? should you think he could be a democrat in 1932? prof. leuchtenburg: the only possibility of defeating him would have been for the nomination. the democratic party, that late, still labored under two thirds rule. in 1912, a candidate, champ clark of misery o --f missouri, garnered enough votes, but because he could not get two thirds, it went on ballot for ballot until woodrow wilson was nominated. in 1904, the validate went on -- the balloting went on for 103 roll calls before they could find the president. fdr was a very popular, powerful two-term president from new york state. it was not clear that he could overcome that advantage. as against hoover, it was clear that any democrat was going to be the victor. i once puzzled something out that i had not seen elsewhere. franken roosevelt, in 1932, is the first democrat to enter the white house with the majority of the popular vote, 50% or more, in 80 years. that is how republican our country was. since franklin pierce in 1852, a few de