robert caro. i actually i discovered part of story in the lbj library, but i also discovered the bulk of it through. waldron's, fbi, which i had declassified about a 1000 pages and in that fbi file. i found the letter that waldron wrote to the man who outed him to the civil service commission, which was the bureau ocracy in charge of these investigations. it's a heartbreaking letter, but that to me, i think was one of the it was probably the the the most moving part of the book, i think and i think the most sort of representative story that i tell, because this was someone who was extremely close to lbj. we were all familiar with the walter jenkins right there. walter jenkins, who was lbj his senior aide, who was a who was arrested at the ymca for having sex just a couple of weeks before the 1964 election. that was a front page story across the country. this was another gay scandal that did not become public. but lbj was really worried about it. he was actually he was he was concerned that this st

have accepted it at penguin random house, including editors who have worked with authors such as robert caro, steven pinker, elizabeth gilbert and ray kurzweil, and publishers weekly also reports that book sales were down nearly 3% in the first half of 2023, from 363 million books sold in the first six months. of 2022 to 354 million sold. so far this year. publishers weekly writes that, quote, the boost provided by prince harry spare made by orthography, autobiography, memoir is one of the only three adult nonfiction subs categories to have a sales increase in the first six months. avel had the largest increase, up 6.6%. the two categories most closely associated with stay at home activities during the pandemic, had the largest declines as sales of home gardening books dropped 17 and a half percent and sales of cooking entertaining titles fell 15.4%. and finally, in publishing news, simon and schuster is releasing a new memoir by kassidy hutchinson, the former special assistant to president trump. she was a key witness for the house select committee to investigate the january six attack on t

passage and writers tend to look to other writers for guidance and one of the greats out there is robert caro, who has written books about lyndon b johnson and his of the books that he wrote about president johnson. he had a passage that began to understand lyndon baines johnson, to know the 36th president of the united states of america is to understand the character of the nation. and so in a very deliberate both to him, to the place that to sonny's life deserve, i will read you this quick passage. know dasani, lashawn coates to follow this child's life from her first breaths in a brooklyn hospital to the full bloom of adulthood is to reckon with the story of new york city and beyond its borders with america itself. it is a story that begins at the dawn of, the 21st century in a global financial capital, riven by inequality. it is also a story that reaches in time to one black family making way through history, from slavery to the jim gross crow south, and then the great migrations. passage north. there is no separating dishonest childhood from that of her matriarchs. her grandmother, joani

robert caro, the great biographer of lyndon johnson, wrote that power doesn't corrupt. it reveals. and i think that we all got a revelatory moment about brad raffensperger in 2020 with the release of that tape that showed him getting pressure from the most powerful person in the world to do something that he thought was wrong. and he resisted the pressure. he didn't do it. and so i guess my question that's to your credit, obviously, my question for you is, since we're trying to provide some guidance to younger reporters to cover this subject as they are interacting with elections officials in their states and localities, how would you advise them to discern when somebody is simply implementing the law in a in a faithful way scruple ously following the regulations? and when is somebody trying to twist it and produce a particular outcome? first of all, i would recommend that you become a subject matter matter expert. in georgia, we actually had two people. one of them is here today for georgia public television. the other one is ajc reporter. but they just kind of dove into, you know

now it's just so illuminating to me that whole story of robert moses but told through the eyes of robert caro who he's still on his third, fourth, fifth act writing lyndon johnson. yeah. so my question, you know about the power broker, how many of you on the panel have even thought about that story or. we listened to it on audible and. you mentioned jane jacobs, but i see the city in completely different outlook now. yeah, you know, on every bridge, every road, every new housing project, etc., you could anybody comment on the power broker. well, what did to the south bronx is without conscience. i think and i read the book years ago and moses. he, he he a vision. but it was it was very he didn't think through. i know if it was inherently evil, but think that the result of many of the choices he made thank god that they stopped the thruway through greenwich village that he wanted. but the south bronx divided. the bronx was divided. and i think that yeah, yeah. but it's in some ways it's an example of of absolute power and the that he had, there was no accountability from him to anyone he might