[ Music ]
>> Sponsored by the
James Madison Council
and the Institute of
Museum and Library Services
and the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
>> Nancy Cordes: Hello, and
welcome to the 2021 Library
of Congress National
Book Festival.
I'm Nancy Cordes, Chief
White House Correspondent
for CBS News.
And I'm here with three
esteemed authors to talk to them
about their latest books.
They are David O. Stewart, the
author of George Washington,
the Political Rise of
America's Founding Father.
Kai Bird, author of The Outlier,
the Unfinished Presidency
of Jimmy Carter.
And James Oakes, the author of
The Crooked Path to Abolition,
Abraham Lincoln and the
Anti-Slavery Constitution.
If you want to learn more
about our authors you can go
to LOC.g-o-v, LOC.gov/bookfest.
Now before I begin, I want to
let you know that we're going
to save at least
the last 10 minutes
of this 30 minute live event to
respond to audience questions.
So you can start submitting
your questions right now.
The theme of our National Book
Festival this year is Open a
Book, Open the World.
So I want to ask
our three panelists
as we kick off this event
to tell us how have books
opened the world to you?
And Kai, perhaps
I'll start with you.
But I'd love for this to be
as much of a conversation
as possible, despite the fact
that we are separated
by technology.
So please, all of you feel
free to jump in and weigh
in on what the others have said.
>> Kai Bird: Thank you, Nancy.
Books, well.
You know, I've written six
biographies now and a memoir.
And in each case, the
motivation is for me to try
to figure out what happened.
So with Jimmy Carter, I,
as a young man I was a
reporter here in Washington DC.
And was reporting on the
Carter Administration.
And I didn't understand a lot
about what was happening
at the time.
And certainly didn't
understand his defeat
to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
And so for years, I was curious
to try to revisit this era
and figure out what exactly
had been happening around me.
And to figure out what had
happened to Jimmy Carter
and who was this most
improbable president who came
from the Deep South and most
improbably won the '76 election.
And you know, was he
a failed president
or just a very successful
ex-president
as many Americans think?
And actually when I
got into the archives,
I discovered otherwise.
That he was a very
consequential president.
So books do that.
They change your mind.
>> Nancy Cordes: David?
>> David O. Stewart: Well,
I'd have to say it's
always mattered to me.
I was the six year old kid
who read the encyclopedia.
Sometimes mocked for it.
And I just have always
loved reading history
and stories, true or not true.
And I think it's how we
get our minds to work.
It's, you know, one
of the striking things
about George Washington
I discovered researching
about him is he didn't have
a very good formal education.
Just did two or three
years of school.
But he was a self-taught guy
who spent his whole
life accumulating books
and reading them and
caring about them.
If he'd came on problems that
he couldn't deal with very well,
he would look for a book
that would help him.
So I just think it's a wonderful
gateway to someone else's mind,
somebody who's thought
about things that--
in a way that's going to be
awfully interesting to you.
>> Nancy Cordes: How
about you, James?
Were you a six year old
encyclopedia reader, as well?
>> James Oakes: Well, not quite.
But books were in many ways
the things that took me
out of my world into
other worlds.
And that's what they do.
And it can be a novel,
it can be a history book,
it can be a science book.
And that's what's
always been for me.
And writing books, my experience
of writing books is similar
to the points David made.
When you got into another world,
like the 19th century world
of [inaudible], and
you deal with--
deeply deal with people
like Frederick Douglass
or Abraham Lincoln,
to me it tells me--
it teaches me to be
humble about the past.
To recognize that people
at the time may well have been
a lot smarter than we are.
May have understood
things better than we do.
And it's important
to analyze the past
and to analyze it
empathetically.
That's what I think
writing books is.
>> Nancy Cordes:
One of the things
that I thought was fascinating
about all of your books,
all of which have been
heralded for provided us
with a much deeper, more nuanced
appreciation of your subjects
than we had before, was the
fact that you all chose subjects
that we might think we know
everything about already.
Abraham Lincoln, George
Washington, Jimmy Carter.
So I'd love to know from each of
you how you chose your subjects
and what lead you to
believe that there was more
to their stories that
hadn't already been told?
>> Kai Bird: Oh, well, I
stumbled into Jimmy Carter
because I was looking
for a new book project.
I'm adrift if I'm
not writing a book.
And I got the notion that
I wanted to do a president.
And you know, the good thing
about presidential
biographies is
that there are presidential
libraries.
And this is an enormous
resource,
an archive that houses all
of their presidential papers,
classified and unclassified.
And the declassified papers.
And I knew six years ago
when I started this project
that Jimmy Carter's
papers were largely open.
Probably 75% of them are open.
And unlike, for instance,
Ronald Reagan's,
which are 85 or 90%
closed still.
Carter's papers were accessible.
And so I knew for a fact that
I would find great new stories,
anecdotes about the
Iran Revolution
and the Hostage Crisis
and his grappling
with stagflation in the 1970s.
And it was just a great story
filled with colorful figures.
Like Miss Lillian, his mother,
who was an eccentric Southern
gentlewoman who spoke her mind.
And Billy Carter and
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cy Vance,
and Hamilton Jordan,
and Jody Powell.
These were all very colorful,
outspoken Southerners
who were very colorful figures.
And so I had a lot of
fun doing this book.
>> Nancy Cordes: How
about you, James?
How did you go into
this project,
convinced that you were going
to be able to tell us something
about Abraham Lincoln that
we didn't already know?
>> James Oakes: Well,
I had a suspicion
that I would find something.
Because the books I've been
writing over the past decade
and a half have sort
of have been prompted
by the questions I had when
I finished the previous book.
I finished a book about
Frederick Douglass
and Abraham Lincoln wondering
why time took so long
for slavery to be
abolished [inaudible],
that produced my next book.
When I wrote the next book,
I realized that there
was something going
on in the United States
and American politics long
before the Civil War began
that helped me explain what had
happened during the Civil War.
One of the things I picked
up was this constant talk
about the Constitution
and the references to it
as if it were an
anti-slavery document.
And I was raised to believe, I
was taught at a fairly young age
that the Constitution was
what William Lloyd Garrison,
a great abolitionist,
said it was.
A pro-slavery document.
[Inaudible] people who, as I
said the last time, I respected,
were very smart, like Frederick
Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
And thousands and
thousands of others.
Who didn't believe
what Garrison said,
who believed the
Constitution was by
and large an anti-slavery
document.
So I started looking and seeing
where that stuff came from.
And able to show how-- the
way Abraham Lincoln talked
about slavery cannot
be understood outside
of his understanding
of the Constitution
and the way he treated slavery
and the way the republican
party treated slavery during the
Civil War.
And not be understood outside
of their understanding
of the institution.
It was very, very different
than the understanding
I had [inaudible].
>> Nancy Cordes: And David, in
your case, you really managed
to give us a much different
picture of George Washington,
particularly as a young man,
than I think we would
have expected.
Did you know going
into this project
that you would be
able to do that?
>> David O. Stewart:
Well, it was a little
like the scientific method.
I had a hypothesis.
And I hoped it would
turn out to be true.
I had done three books
on the founding era.
And whenever I went out
and spoke to real people,
which is always the best part,
many times I would be asked,
so who was the most
important person?
And I would always
say George Washington.
And after I had done that a few
dozen times, it occurred to me
that maybe I was missing the
point and I ought to look
into this Washington guy.
And it just seemed to
me as I looked at it
that he was an extraordinary
politician.
And we don't think
of him that way.
We think of him as a
soldier, we think of him
as a farmer, as a patriot.
But not as a politician.
But he was a very deft
political operator.
And so I wondered where
did that come from?
And there is a trajectory
I was able to discover.
Where he has an early great
success as a very young man
in his 20s, early 20s.
In military matters,
diplomatic matters.
And then he sort of
crashes and burns.
He has real failure.
And it's largely because he's
gotten more responsibility
than he can handle.
And then he reacts badly to it.
And he behaves badly.
And then there is a period which
is often ignored, the 16 years
when he's not a soldier,
he's back at Mount Vernon,
he service in the
House of Burgesses,
he's a legislator longer
than he's a soldier.
He becomes a county court judge.
He service on his church
vestry, which had lots
of public responsibilities.
And he learns how
to deal with people.
How to lead.
And it's an extraordinary
reinvention.
And by the time he then
becomes commander in chief
of the Continental Army in 1974,
he's the George Washington
we know, that we recognize.
The fellow who left
public service
when he was 27 years old is not.
That fellow was brash, unwise,
sarcastic about his superiors,
and the fellow by the time--
by 1774 when he takes over--
1775, he takes over the
Army, he's George Washington.
And that reinvention is a
fascinating story to me.
And it's there, you have to sort
of coax it out, but it's there.
>> Nancy Cordes: Wow.
You know, one of the things
I often find myself doing
when I'm reading a great,
really detailed book
and I imagine a lot of readers
have the same experience,
is I start picturing the
author, you know, writing it.
How did they do this?
Where did they get
their information?
How did they collate it?
Can you just kind of take
us inside your process,
each of you?
How much time do you
spend researching?
How far afield are you going to
get your first person documents?
Are you writing while
you're researching?
Or are you, you know, working
in two very distinct phases?
A research phase
and a writing phase?
Just give us a little
insight into your process.
>> Kai Bird: Well,
let me jump in here.
Actually, when I wrote my
first biography on John McCloy,
some 30 years ago, I spent
years doing the research.
And outlining each chapter.
And I sometimes spent more
time outlining the chapter
than I did writing the chapter.
And on my second book, I
threw away that approach.
And so, on the Jimmy Carter
book, this time around,
I spent a year doing some
research and spending five,
six months in his archives.
Copying thousands of
pages, about 20,000 pages
of archival documents.
I did a number of interviews.
Dozens of interviews.
And then I started to write.
And I try to write every
day, just a little bit.
I give myself a target
of 350 words per day.
Well, that's not very much.
My wife complains, you know,
you're not working very hard.
But it's-- it has to be
good 350 words that are part
of a narrative and tell a story.
So I go to sleep every night
thinking about what funny,
clever anecdote that I want
to write up the next morning.
And then I get up and
that gets me started.
And so, you know, writing
a book is a hard thing.
It's a daily process.
And so I attack it by
doing little pieces of it.
And after, you know, if you're
writing 350 words a day,
after a few years,
you've got a narrative.
And then of course you're
going back and editing.
And you're always
doing more research,
because you actually never
know what you don't know
until you start to write.
And then you have to go back
into the archives or go online
and find this fact or that fact.
And so it's a very-- very
complicated and hard process.
But it can be fun.
>> Nancy Cordes: Do you ever
find yourself getting swept away
and writing 700 good
words in a day?
>> Kai Bird: Sometimes, yes.
>> Nancy Cordes:
How about you James?
>> James Oakes: I have to
say, it's never fun for me.
>> Nancy Cordes: No?
>> James Oakes: No, I find it
excruciatingly painful to write.
And I have amnesia
about how I wrote.
I cannot tell you.
I pick up a book I wrote and
I say when I did write this?
I don't know.
>> Nancy Cordes: Wow.
>> James Oakes: Where
this came from.
And every-- I can say that
every book I've written seems
to have been written in
a very different way.
From-- but one book was a set of
[inaudible] work, reworked it.
It was written in a
very traditional way,
I went to the archives,
[inaudible] website.
I wrote in the notes.
But that's the last time I
ever wrote a book that way.
[Inaudible] tell you.
They sort of come from
the questions I'm asking
and whatever I'm asking or
problem I'm trying to fill out,
to explain is where
I go looking.
[Inaudible] and not in
the same place every time.
Find them in unexpected, I
find things I didn't expect.
And I start writing it down.
And piece by piece in
how a book [inaudible].
Not something I-- is easy.
I will say, I will say, I
enjoy revising a lot more
than I enjoy writing.
>> Nancy Cordes: Yeah.
I would agree with that.
How about you, David, has your
process evolved over time?
>> David O. Stewart:
It's probably changed
some, but not a lot.
I do start out reading
some general books,
you know, for the era.
Or you know, with
Washington, you know,
big biographies of him.
And then I stop doing that.
Because you know, they start,
you know, it's more of the same.
And I really focus on the
original materials we have.
With Washington, it's, you
know, 80 volumes of papers.
They're full and been put
up online and you know,
Hamilton's papers, and
Adam's, and everybody else's.
It's an amazing resource.
But I want to get their voices.
You can hear in the actual
words they choose themselves
and it's a beauty part of
working in the 18th century,
that these people are actually
writing the stuff themselves,
and it's not speech writers.
And you get a much
better sense of them.
And that's really
what I'm after.
And so, that is a major
part of what I do.
Because Washington's life
has been done so much,
much of the material
was available online,
which is amazing.
My first book was
just 17 years ago
and there wasn't
that stuff online.
I tend to research
and then write
and research and then write.
I can't just research everything
because I'll forget it
by the time it's
time to write it.
And I love the writing part.
It's my favorite part.
And I get impatient because
I want to start writing.
And there are some
passages that just come.
And there are other
passages where it just feels
like I'm taking out the trash.
You know, I'm washing
the floors.
And I'm just getting it done and
I'll fix it when I revise it.
So they're different
experiences.
But, you know, the
writing part's the fun.
>> Nancy Cordes: We are getting
some really great questions,
so I want to go to some of
the audience questions now.
The first one is what
is one feature of each
of these presidents that their
successors can and should adopt?
We are in such a
punishing political era,
what do you think it is
about each of the presidents
that you wrote about that might
see them through in this era?
Kai?
>> Kai Bird: Well,
the presidency is an
enormously difficult job.
You know, each day, the
president has to grapple
with dozens, not
just one or two,
but dozens of issues
and personalities.
And politicians.
And ordinary people.
And Jimmy Carter, I think,
was very good at the job.
He was later criticized
for paying too much
attention to detail.
But you know, that meant
he was reading actually two
or 300 pages of memos
from his staff every day.
And writing marginal comments.
And making, you know,
decisions based on facts.
And studying the issues.
I mean, he would get--
he kept farmer's hours,
like he always has.
He rose at 5.30 in the morning,
he was in the Oval
Office by 6 or 6.30.
He was sometimes
conducting meetings by 7 am.
And he's had a 12
hour working day.
And then he'd have a
dinner in the White House.
An official dinner, and then
he'd go back to the Oval Office
and have a few more hours.
I mean, he worked
very hard at this.
And he hated to sort of
be making political deals.
He wanted sort of to
do the right thing.
And you know, I would
argue that he is a model
for what the kind of
president we want.
That he actually was one of
the better read presidents.
He's one of the most
intelligent, hard-working,
and certainly one of
the more decent men
to have occupied the White
House in the 20th century.
So these are qualities
you'd want in a president.
Hard-working, attention
to detail, and integrity.
>> Nancy Cordes: David?
>> David O. Stewart: Well
you asked for one quality,
Washington certainly, you know,
he worked 12 hour days his whole
life, that's just who he was.
And but I think the thing I
would urge any successor of his
to try to adopt was his
commitment to integrity.
He always understood that the
most important thing he did was
embody the presidency.
That the presidency was a
unique office in our system.
He stands for the whole nation.
And you know, he
can't be a goof.
He needs to be someone
we respect.
Someone we think is working
hard and is thinking hard
and cares about people.
And that, you know, I
think Washington modeled
at our birth what we
expect from a president.
And he's-- that's been his
greatest gift to the country.
And, you know, that's what
I would urge any president
to make number one.
>> Nancy Cordes: James,
was there something
that perhaps surprised you about
Lincoln's character or strategy
when you were researching
him that you think might make
for a good model for
current day politicians?
>> James Oakes: Well the thing
that has always amazed me
about Lincoln is his ability
to think very strategically
and in a very savvy
way as a politician.
He was [inaudible],
who especially
if Lincoln, he was [inaudible].
And everything he said and
did [inaudible] and yet,
he was able to do that without--
while maintaining a commitment
to a set of ideals that
got him and the country
through the greatest
trial it had.
You know, he's the only
president whose entire
presidency was consumed by war.
And he got the country
through that
by maintaining a very difficult
and contentious coalition
that would support this war
and see it through to the end.
And in the process, destroy
the institution of slavery
that had been the
cause of the war.
Every single step he
took was controversial.
He could not be thin-skinned
about the criticism
that was leveled at him.
He just kept his eye on the
goal of restoring the Union,
undermining slavery,
and not losing support
of what he needed
to get that done.
>> Nancy Cordes: I think this
is a really interesting question
from one audience member.
Who asks how much of a role did
these early leaders' families,
and associates, much like
a modern day cabinet,
play in their early
presidencies?
Today, the first lady
and the family plays
such a significant role
in providing support.
They are so visible.
How did the family structure,
the structure of advisors
around them, shape
their presidency?
David?
>> David O. Stewart: Well,
Washington had possibly the most
talented cabinet we've ever had
and there were only
four people in it.
But he had Jefferson
and Hamilton
and that was a pretty
good start.
And he-- and they
fought like cats
and dogs during cabinet
meetings.
And I think he loved that.
I think he really enjoyed
having them talk out the issues.
He preferred to be the umpire.
He didn't like to get into the
back and forth with people.
But he wanted to hear
smart people talk.
And disagree with each other.
He always wanted
that as a soldier,
he wanted it as a politician.
And get the benefit
of their views.
He was going to make
the final decision,
there was no doubt about it.
But he did want that
sort of errand.
We don't have any good records
about Martha's contribution.
She clearly was terribly
important in many ways,
both to his own wellbeing,
they were a devoted couple,
but also striking the right
social note was very important.
We've never had a president,
we had to know how he was going
to act, how his family
would act.
And she was gracious where
he could be kind of stiff.
And that was I think a
great contribution she made
to the success of
his presidency.
>> Nancy Cordes:
James, how about--
>> James Oakes: Well,
as I'm sure you know,
Lincoln's marriage is an
extremely controversial subject.
And it'd be very
hard to make the case
that the marriage contributed
in any significant way,
even if you don't accept
the most scalding versions
of the marriage [inaudible]
that his presidency relied
heavily on Mary Todd.
I could go back to his childhood
and say that, you know,
what we do know about the
family he grew up in is
that it was an anti-slavery
family in a slave holding state.
And that he once said
I always hated slavery,
I can't remember a
time when I didn't.
And if you take that family
background as a given,
then his ability to grow,
learn, during the Civil War,
move with the tide
of public opinion
and guide public opinion.
I think that family background
was [inaudible] [inaudible].
I'm not so sure.
>> Nancy Cordes: And Kai,
you wrote, obviously,
not just about the Carters'
marriage but also the influence
of Jimmy Carter's
mother on his career.
>> Kai Bird: Yes,
oh, absolutely.
Well, Rosie, Jimmy Carter's
Rosie is Rosalind Carter.
And she was extremely
influential.
She was-- she had a
sharper political mind
in some ways than Jimmy did.
She was more attuned to, you
know, the political costs
of his decisions and she was
constantly trying to urge him
to take into account the
politics of a decision
and not just simply
do the right thing.
So she for instance asked him
well why do you have to work
on the Panama Canal Treaty
in your first term when it's
so controversial and going to
be politically costly to you?
To get those votes
in the Senate.
And Carter brushed
that off and said no,
I've got to do this now.
Now he was also very
heavily influenced
by Lillian Carter,
his outspoken mom.
Who is the only explanation for
who Jimmy Carter was in terms
of coming from the Deep South,
an extremely segregated,
racist society, where his
own father believed fervently
in white supremacy.
And the segregation laws.
And Carter had none of that.
He didn't have a racist bone
in his body and it's all due
to Ms. Lillian, who just raised
him to understand that blacks
and whites were equal.
And as a nurse, she treated
blacks in the same way.
Carter also, you know, speaking
of Washington's desire--
George Washington's desire
to have a team of rivals
in his cabinet and hear
dissenting voices and arguments,
Carter was like this, too.
He came in determined to have
a wide spectrum of views.
And so, for instance,
he appointed Cy Vance
as his Secretary of State.
And Zbigniew Brzezinski as
his National Security Advisor.
And he did this over
the objections of--
against the counsels
of many people.
Who told him, you know, these
two men can't work together.
And they have two
different worldviews
about how foreign
policy should be made.
And indeed, I show
in my narrator,
Zbig Brzezinski was a
near poisonous influence
in the administration.
Constantly leaking
and undermining the
Secretary of State.
And giving-- giving
Jimmy Carter bad advice.
He always wanted to use
military force, he always wanted
to confront the Soviets,
because as a Polish aristocrat,
he hated the Russians.
And so he saw the
whole US foreign policy
through the worldview of
sort of this Cold War lens.
And I argue he sort of hijacked
the Carter foreign policy.
And Carter, generally,
he couldn't manage this,
unlike I guess George
Washington.
He couldn't manage these
two countering worldview
and different points of view.
And it sort of undermined
his presidency in the end,
particularly when it came to
dealing with the Iran Revolution
and the Hostage Crisis.
So it's a complicated
but very human story.
You know, personality matters.
The individual in
history matters.
And that's of course, the
strength of biography.
>> Nancy Cordes: Wow, well,
much like the CBS Evening News,
the 30 minute mark here has
come around way too quickly.
So, I want to say a deep word of
gratitude to our three authors
for joining us this evening.
David O. Stewart, Kai
Bird, James Oakes.
I want to thank all
of you for joining us
and for submitting
your questions.
And I know you're going to
keep enjoying the National
Book Festival.
And you can do that by
going to LOC.gov/bookfest.
Thanks so much.
Until next time.
See you later.
>> Kai Bird: Thank you.
>> James Oakes: Thank you.
>> David O. Stewart: Thanks.
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