1988 United States House of Representatives election in Wyoming

Transcription

>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. [ Silence ] >> John Cole: Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Library of Congress. I'm John Cole. Up until this week, I was the director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, which was created by Daniel Boorstin when he was librarian and way back in 1977. You're going to get a little reminiscing here today at this session. I am now the -- this is my first week as officially the first Library of Congress official historian. So I'm pleased to make that change, because for many years I've been very interested in all parts of the Library of Congress and its history. And I also started my career in CRS. So we have a special welcome to CRS and some of his chiefs and assistant chiefs. One of the ironies in this -- and I don't see -- Pam, are you here? The person who's taking my place is the director of the Center for the Book. Pam Jackson will be in a little later. The Center for the Book was created in 1977 to stimulate -- to have -- Daniel Boorstin felt the Library should do more for the general public in stimulating interest in books and reading. And there should be -- and it was a private public partnership created by publishers, funded in the beginning with eventually the Library of Congress picking up the salaries of the Center as it grew. So today we are a partnership that includes both the new Young Readers Center, which is located in -- not new anymore, 2009, located in the Jefferson Building. The Poetry and Literature Office is now part of the Center for the Book. The National Book Festival is an area where we've played a major role since the beginning. But here at LC, one of the favorite programs has been the one you're attending today. And these are Books and Beyond talks about new books that have been published based on -- and that have a special connection with the Library of Congress. And often it's based on our collections, and other times it's based on projects. And we also make a point of promoting the Library of Congress's publications. And when we -- as the publishing office comes out with books, we provide a forum. All of these talks are filmed for the Library of Congress website, and they started in 1996. And so we are approaching 400 of these talks, which really give you the slice of American scholarship, and also books related to institutions, not just the Library of Congress, but primarily the Library of Congress. And so it's been successful, and we're pleased that you are here. The format will be a presentation, in this case, by Steve Hess, then a quick opportunity for questions and answers, and a book signing here in this room. And the books are on sale for the Library of Congress staff discount, which is ten percent off. As I said, the programs are being filmed, and so we are -- please turn off all things electronic. And we also will close the doors since we have some noise outside. I want to just one more story, actually, relating to my early history. When I got interested in the history of the Library of Congress, I was able to move into a position in the old Collection Development Office, because I knew I needed to learn about collections. And one of the very first curators I met -- and this was in -- it would have been 1968, actually, as I was making the move into the Library as a whole, was a wonderful man named Milton Kaplan [assumed spelling]. And he was the curator, among other things, a prince, a political prince at the Library of Congress. And in 1968, I met Milton, and he had just published a book with a fellow named "Stephen Hess", and it was called "The Ungentlemanly Art: A History of American Political Cartoons", which is another side of Steve's many interests related to politics. And it was eventually -- and Steve doesn't remember this, but it was through Milton that we met. But Steve also then later produced a book called "American Political Cartoons: The Evolution of a National Identity". And you came here for a book talk with your coauthor, Sandy Northrop. And this is a very handy book now in paperback, which I'm also going to try to have you sign as part of my Stephen Hess collection. [Laughter] Stephen is right -- currently is a senior fellow emeritus in government studies, that's a wonderful moniker, at the Brookings Institution. He began his career in Washington as a young speechwriter for President Dwight Eisenhower, who members in this audience, most of you will remember, but for some of the younger ones, was President from 1958 to 1961. Steve also served on the staff of President Nixon and was an advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. He also has been professor of media and public studies at George Washington University, and has published many books on many topics. The most recent one that we talked about a little bit was based on the Moynihan Papers here at the Library of Congress, and it was a biography of Mr. Moynihan. As I mentioned that I met Steve through books and political cartoons, another part of his world. And we're just so pleased that he can be here today. The procedure is after the questions and answers, we will have a book signing. And that needs to start by 1:00, so there will be time for Q&A, though, as well. Here is the book we're celebrating, and here is the first sentence in this 760-page revision of his earlier book, "America's Political Dynasties from Adams to Clinton". Here is how he starts it actually in the Acknowledgement page. "If there was to have been a Rip Van Winkle moment in my life, it would have been in February 2015 when I awoke with the desire to rewrite 'America's Political Dynasties', a book I had put to bed a half a century earlier." I will let him take it from here. Please welcome Stephen Hess. [ Applause ] I'll take my book off so you don't -- >> Stephen Hess: Okay. >> John Cole: Stumble [inaudible]. >> Stephen Hess: John, it is always such a pleasure to be introduced by you. [Laughs] It always reminds me of President Eisenhower's favorite cartoon from the old Saturday Evening Post, which showed a man stand like this saying, "Our next speaker needs all the introduction he can get." [Laughter] And even talking about my monitor, I worry about introductions, not with John, but otherwise. I was going to give a talk in Athens some years ago, and thought maybe I had best get my resume translated into Greek. So when I went over there and gave it to the person who would introduce me, who of course, spoke perfect English, and he looked at what I gave him, and he said, "Mr. Hess, what is your title at Brookings?" And I said, "Senior fellow; senior." He said, "Oh, yes, it's been translated as 'Ancient gentleman'." [Laughter] So I'm here today as an ancient gentleman emeritus. And of course, I always wanted to connect my books and so forth to the Library, and this one particularly because all the research 50 years ago was done right here. But John mentioned my connection with Milton Kaplan. So the Library actually went back to the first book I ever wrote, which was called "Hats in the Ring." In 1959, it had come out by Random House. The problem was it was a little thin. And I figured I'd better get some cartoons to make it more weighty. And I came over here, and met this very nice man who was very helpful, Milton Kaplan. And in the course of the friendship, he said, "Well, you know, there had never been a history of American political cartoons." And that started me in a whole different career, which was great, great fun. Because my affection for the Center for the Book, I thought I would talk a little differently than I usually talk in a bookstore about any book in which I tell people, particularly a summary of everything that's in it so they don't have to buy it, you know? I really want to talk a bit more about the history of the book, because in some ways it's also my history. [ Silence ] The book really goes back to 1957 right outside Frankfurt, Germany. And I am a private, drafted into the United States Army. And it's peace time. And I go to the Library to look for a book. Actually, I started to look for a civil war book at the moment. And I find instead this massive thing -- I weighed it later it was seven-and-a-half pounds, which is called "The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress from 1774". I knew a little -- I'd been a political science major at Johns Hopkins, I knew a little about American history. I knew about the Adams, of course, the Roosevelts, Tafts, Harrisons. But as I just started to skim through this book, there it was Muhlenberg, Muhlenberg, Muhlenberg, Muhlenberg, Muhlenberg, Bayard [phonetic], Bayard, Bayard, Bayard, Tucker, Tucker, Tucker, Tucker, Stockton, Stockton, Stockton, Frelinghuysen, all of these names that really meant very -- nothing to me. And yet, there I was looking at a book that showed that generation after generation, they had been sent to the United States Congress. And I thought that was rather interesting, particularly since our Constitution has a clause about nobility, clause of nobility. So the Army and peacetime Army in the evenings when I wasn't on guard duty or something, I would go and start genealogies. And by the time, two years, 1958, when I was released and my successor -- oh God, who was it, what was it, he was a singer. What was his name? >> Elvis. >> >> Stephen Hess: Elvis Presley, that was the fellow, he replaced me as a matter of fact; it's almost true. [Laughter] He didn't replace my unit and his unit, he replaced -- but it was his unit replaced by my unit. And there I came home with 300 genealogies, and the thought that these were really quite interesting. It was just something that had not been in American textbooks typically, that someday I would write a book about it. But I was an unemployed private in August. And then a very strange thing happened. Several weeks later, I was the president's number two speechwriter. Now, that's pretty hard to do at 25, and it all happens because my mentor, Johns Hopkins, and Malcolm Moos had just been appointed, literally just been appointed the speechwriter. And so the president and -- brought me into this. Later when I had students of my own, they'd say, "How do you get to be the president's speechwriter at 25?" I said, "Be very nice to your professor." [Laughter] And I stayed there until the end of the administration, January 20th, 1961, when I -- gosh I was unemployed again. And at that time the president, about to be the ex-president got into his old car, and was driven back to his home in Gettysburg, where Gettysburg College gave him some room to make his memoirs. Totally different; they didn't have a law then that provided all of the housing, all of the offices, all of the staff, all of the security that we now give a former president. He didn't have that at all. And the Republican National Committee said to themselves, and then to me, "If we're going to keep this fellow visible politically, somebody has to answer his mail. Would you be interested?" Otherwise, unemployed, "Sure." The problem with that, of course, is we had no idea what we were talking about. So we wrote a contract that was based on each letter. And I think initially I was to get three dollars for each letter. What we didn't realize there wasn't just a letter, there was a deluge of letters. This was the most popular man in the world, two-time president of the United States, five-star general. Every high school kid wanted his opinion on the national debate topic. Churches wanted something for their bazaars. People wanted his autograph, or his picture; people just wanted to say hello. The answer to that is that after two years, I had a lot of money. But I should [laughter] say also I did learn something at the moment. They were not just people who wanted his pictures, there were a lot of people who were very sick people who were making threats on his life. And that's the first time I realized that there were people out there that we didn't all know very well. And I called the Secret Service and they said, "Oh, yes." And they sent me a three-ring binder, and they said, you know, "If anybody's name isn't in it, call us up, and we'll put the name in there." Okay; I now have a wife, I have children, and about three years in which I can do what I really want to do, and that is write a book called, "America's Political Dynasties". I'm not an academic of any sort. So the thing to do is to go the Library of Congress and take advantage of the generosity of all of the librarians and staff here, which I really, really did, often in some collections bringing in an ancient -- but first of reproducing a machine that weighed -- it was supposed to be portable, well it weighed about 15 pounds. And they allowed me to put it on some papers and reproduce on some little sheet of paper that it was chemically, turned sort of pink and folded at the edges, but it was better than writing it all in my hand. And the book came out. The book really was simply meant to be the stories of these remarkable people, and of this fact, which was not terribly significant in the sense that of those that one could call a dynasty, three generations, four generations and so forth, they only amounted to six percent of those who had served -- of the 11,000 who had served in the United States Congress. But they were interesting stories, at any rate. Of course, what happened, then, as I wrote the book, is that other family came along that were very interesting called the Kennedys, who were not there initially when I started to write the book. But we made room for them, and the book was very well-received and a best-seller, and it was something else. I mean, remember, I had somehow become successful in a line -- an occupation which is not really what I wanted to be or where I wanted to be. I wanted to -- well I wanted I guess if I had my choice to start over to be a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. So in a funny way, this book, bestseller, turned out to be my -- I had no PhD, my PhD, and which I presented to Brookings myself. Brookings, at that time, was a place -- most of hiring in the United States had to do with people just circling each other until they were sure they liked each, other rather than filling out applications and giving speeches, and so forth. So indeed that's -- the book played a rather unique personal part of my history. Okay; we're now 50 years later. And I'm thinking, "Wouldn't it be interesting to put out a new edition, because 2016 is going to be a big dynasties year." It's going to be the Bushs versus the Clintons. We all -- [inaudible] told us that. Brookings, my publishers thought that was a very good idea. And I set out with the idea that the book, which was basically 16 family stories -- it's interesting in the fact as Matthews [inaudible] said you could kill somebody with this book. But in fact, it's really 16 books. Each of these families could be read quite individually. And so I would have to add two families and a new introduction. The two families would be Bush family, who were a dynasty, but denied that they were dynasty, and the Clinton family, who aren't a dynasty but were desperate to be a dynasty, and so we had to add those. And then each chapter would just -- at the end of the chapter of the other 16 families -- now other 18, would be what had happened in the last 50 years. So I thought it would be very easy to write. Adams family, nothing happened. They hadn't been around for 150 years; until I started to research, and again, the Adams family maybe hadn't been around for 50 years, but historians had been around for 50 years, and the Adams have a family that filed every piece of paper that they ever saw. And there was a whole new even Adams history or histiography by the time 50 years later, I wanted to write this book that had to be considered. Particularly, in my judgment, Abigail, who is my favorite of the group, who had a far better strategic and tactical sense politically than her husband -- the Constitution had been rewritten, she should have been the president of the United States; she would have done a better job. At any rate, here's what's in the a part -- a little sentence or two about Abigail that wasn't in the first edition, because we didn't know about it in the first edition, but some historians since told us. Abigail was a very good business woman. John had gone off to France during the revolution to represent us in Europe. And she was left there with the family in a farm. Running the farm was not going to be easy, because most of the men had gone off to war, and taxes were very high to pay for the war. But she figured out a way to divide it up in such a way and have tending farmers, and she did that. But that wasn't her whole history as a business woman. John would send her a silk scarf, silk handkerchief. You know, whenever he knew somebody was coming across the Atlantic, he'd say, "Hey Lafayette, would you bring my wife a silk scarf," [laughter] that sort of thing. And she, of course, made a deal with the merchant and would sell it. These were very valuable here. We didn't have a lot of silk scarves running around in Massachusetts. And then she said to -- wrote to her husband -- literally wrote to her husband, "John, we're in retail. We should be in wholesale." And he said, "Wholesale; how -- you know, all of our ships are being captured. We can't do just -- " and she said -- and she wrote him and said, "John, if two of the three ships are captured, we will still make a profit." And so he says, "Sounds like she knows her business." So it became retail, at which point, of course, she now could judge the stock, "We have too many scarves. We need some more handkerchiefs," or whatever it is. And she was the one -- John never had an employer other than the United States government for the rest of his life. She was the one who turned the solvency of the Adams family. Now, that's a story here that wasn't in the book 50 years ago. And it was like that. Fifty years ago, as I said, the book was a good story to tell, a little bit of American history that people didn't know. When I started to rewrite the book, and the book became 40% new material, I realized that I was telling America's history through the family. And families, all families, your family, my family, are fascinating, mysterious. It was a great vehicle to tell the history of the United States, which otherwise is usually told by who's elected, and the people that are elected are all males. A family can't be all males. So suddenly as I reread what I had written 50 years ago, I could see I was telling stories about the men, and the women, the wives, the sons, the daughters, the in-laws and so forth. There was very different way to look at the United States. Also, it became different -- as I went through it -- these families, how they became dynasties is pretty obvious. You know, they had ambition, they had energy, they wanted a good job, whatever it might be. How they left politics was all individual and different, and I thought became, in some way, a more interesting story. For example, the Adams's. [ Background Sounds ] I'll get that later. The Adam's had several explanations for their political demise. John Adams might even have contended that it was a planned exodus to hire forms of cultural expression. While serving as militia diplomat in France, he wrote Abigail, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons are to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, and architecture." [Laughter] This theory of politics to poetry and three generations turns out to be almost exactly the history of the Adams family, as a matter of fact. But there are about more complicated reasons for that, in the opinion of Brooks Adams who would be Henry Adams' brother. "A single family can stay adjusted through three generations," and then added, "It is now four full generations since John Adams wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts. It is a time that we perish. The world is tired of us." Some people may say that about the Bush's today, right, that the world is tired of us. The family -- and other problems, too, Henry and Brooks didn't have children, although there were children around. So it helps -- and many of these dynasties have huge numbers of children as well. But really, you put it altogether. First of all, in the third generation, Charles Francis Adams, he married the daughter of the richest man in Boston. And now the family was rich. And you always think in politics that's good, but it also gave the Adams's, like Henry Adams. a chance to do other things other than be in politics. And it really did turn the arch of the Adams's. But really, when you read the whole chapter and you see these characters -- and they were rather rude, rather unpleasant people. And it's clear that Americans no longer as we became a larger electric, not just an electric for men with means, we wanted somebody other than these rude, odd people, the Adams's. And so we turned from the Adams's in a funny way. So that was good. But then if you take another family, a very famous family, the Livingstons of the Revolutionary War period, we were full of them. And the exact opposite happened with them, in which I write at the end, "The death of the dynasty was self-inflicted. They were not tired by the people, they tired from the people." And it goes on and as historian George [inaudible] put it, "They did not wish to condescend to the demands of popular politics." So they went back to their estates, at high-end New York. They married each other. They stopped -- they went out of entrepreneurial work, and they became sort of a Shinto type of family. So when the Adams's, their people rejected them, the Livingstons, they rejected the people -- the chapter that goes between the Livingstons and the Adams's is actually the Lees. And when you think about it, the founders of our country, the two great families that created the revolution, were the Adams's and the Lees. And the Adams's were such poor farmers; they had nothing. You read the estate that the first Henry Adams left, you know, a farm, a bed, you know, a shed and so forth. Then, you read the estate of the first Lees, 13,000 acres of rich tobacco land, and so forth and so on. And the Lees -- after a while Robert E. Lee, who had -- the greatest general, now by the time you get to a fifth generation, actually to his grandson, whose name was "Fitzhugh Lee", and he was the commandant of the naval war college, and you start to see that all of the Lees are now in the military; and their daughters are all marrying admirals and generals. And this goes on generation after generation. The heirs of Fitzhugh Lee formed an unusual record of occupational consistency. His two sons became cavalry officers. [ Background Sounds ] His three daughters married army officers, all generals. And on and on it goes to that right up to World War II. So the Lees stayed as a dynasty, but they became a political dynasty -- I mean, excuse me, they became a military dynasty, another type of public service, which was very interesting. So as you go through it, there really are very interesting changes. The Breckenridges were a passionate family. God, they could fight over anything among themselves from Kentucky. They're the most famous -- John C. Brackenridge was vice president of the United States. And what happens to them, in effect, was after the civil war there wasn't any room for them in Kentucky. It was poor by now, if these ambitious and very talented people went -- left the state. And as they left the state, they left their base. Many of these families, you realize, are the Tafts of Ohio, that sort of thing; the Frelinghuysen's of New Jersey. So usually, they had base, unless there were too many of them and they would sort of overwhelm the base so that you have the Kennedys of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, New York, and that sort of thing. But typically, the Breckenridges lost their bases as they left Kentucky. But again, such fascinating things. The part I love -- this is a little longer than I usually read, but it's such a great story. It's John C. Breckenridge, after leaving the vice presidency of the United States and joining the Confederacy, becoming a distinguished military service, and then he becomes the final secretary of war of the Confederacy. And then in the final days, he tries to convince Jefferson Davis, you know, "Let's just end this. It's been a magnificent epic, but it's got to stop. No more." And a Confederate cabinet begins the flight from Richmond in April 2, 1965. And for the secretary of war it begins a two-month adventure that reads like a Viking romance point of reality. He takes the Southern underground, the party goes as far through Virginia and the Carolinas. When they get to Charlotte, they get the news of the assassination of Lincoln. He immediately sends his entourage home. He doesn't want any more killed for this. He continues on with his aide and a black servant as they -- and then they pick up a couple others so that they're a party of about eight. And this begins the Viking romance. "As they pass through the high saw grass of the Everglades, it struck Breckenridge that if a man had his arms tied and his feet exposed, he would be killed by insects in two nights. By the time they were living on the eggs of huge green turtles, which they had dug out of the sand. Once they had spotted a union steamer, but they'd bluffed their way out by pretending they were hunters and wreckers. Early on in the morning of June 6th, the hungry Confederates met a party of Seminole Indians, and were given some [inaudible], which he describes as a thick pancake. They also scrounged a few bits of fish that were left over from the Indians' breakfast. At the sight of Del Ray, the Confederate secretary of war and his aides turned pirate and took over a sloop at gunpoint. On June 8th, they left the keys for Cuba. The waves on the high sea were 20 feet high, and their legs and arms became blistered and swollen from the heat and saltwater. Finally, on June 11th, 1865, the former vice president of the United States arrived 75 miles east of Atlanta." So America is just a great history of great stories. I love them all. So you go on -- how am I doing, John? >> [Inaudible] some Q&A. >> Stephen Hess: We're at Q&As. Enough of this odds and ends; serious to Q&As. [ Applause ] [ Silence ] Well, I'll continue reading. [Laughter] Oh, my. [ Inaudible Comments ] Oh, yes, that, okay what do you do with the Clintons who aren't a dynasty? Well, you start by saying they'll become a dynasty when their granddaughter, Charlotte, becomes 25, the youngest she can run from Congress for the House of Representatives, and if she's elected, that qualifies them not only as dynasty, but especially since Chelsea is married to a man whose both father and mother had been in Congress. So she's going to be a part of what I call a mixed-marriage dynasty. But basically, what I do is this -- and again, it was hard to write a chapter on the Clintons quickly, or the Bushs when so much has been written. I reinterpret them as a partnership; not as a dynasty, as a partnership. And when you use that, you start going right back to Yale Law School, and it is such a clear pattern that runs through their lives together. Partnerships are -- could be complicated, successful, have their problems, and so forth. But that is generally how I take them. Of course, ending with Chelsea, who I found quite fascinating. I mean, Chelsea has a bachelors degree from Stanford, she has a masters degree from Columbia, she has a PhD from Oxford, she's pretty powerful and thoughty woman. So, you know, the question is, "What does she do with the rest of her life?" And she has various options, including, of course, the Clinton Foundation, which is quite an amazing operation as you start to look into what it is. And partly, it's what happens -- just partly the Clinton history, to people who aren't rich, but are in a world of the rich. How do you do it? And their foundation was not Bill Gates' foundation. It was something in which they found projects, and then encouraged vast rich people to fund them. So they're really all over the world. But it's an interesting -- and it has her name on it. Maybe she goes that way, maybe she goes into politics. That's it. The Bush family was hard to write about in the same way, I should add. I wrote a little about the Founding Father, the congressman because he's not -- a senator, he's not as well known. But mostly, it looked at the Bush group going back through two presidents and another governor. What was unusual about them was that they all lost elections before they won elections. The persistence of them was really quite amazing. And if you're rich, as they were, it's easy enough to turn around and go into something else, dig another oil well, or what have you, but no, they kept at it right up to, of course, the point where I was writing. And then I wrote a little -- this sort of riddle, of the fact that all of these families, who were the presidential families, who had one or two, but clearly wanted more, lost. And that was -- we were going to see how that worked out. So that's how I dealt with those two families. There was another -- yes. >> So would you say that a de facto nobility has emerged in the US? >> John Cole: [Inaudible] repeat -- >> Stephen Hess: Yes; has a nobility risen? If it is, it's a self-rising nobility because, of course, all these people who we are talking about it could be defeated at the next election. 2014 half a dozen big names from the Senate and the House were defeated. So they live on that edge. But nevertheless, the name is worth something, branded, clearly, and for other reasons. What I generally said when we got to the Roosevelts, or at least the Franklins -- the Delano Roosevelt family, he had two sons who chose to continue in politics, James and Franklin. Both of them were elected from relatively safe seats, one in California, and one in New York. Each then chose to go for a higher office, and each was defeated. So in general, my rule of thumb was that a good name was worth one step up the ladder, and then you were on your own. And certainly, that was true of the Roosevelt family. So that would be my more or less answer to your question. [ Silence ] By the way, I'll add in one more, a normative answer, because I've now spend a lot of time going through a lot of names that are connected to each other. I think by and large, they've given us above-average service. I mean, I'm not going to make claims for the Longs [phonetic] of Louisiana or something like that. But overall, I think we've been well-enough served by them. [ Silence ] Yes. >> So it sounds like you didn't do a statistical survey, but do you have a sense of whether the United States is trending a direction? You said -- I think you talked about a [inaudible]. >> Stephen Hess: No; I haven't done that. Of course, when I wrote -- started to write the second book, the big question was were we having government legacy? And clearly, we've already figured out that we're not. And I think that's correct. No; there was no special purpose for me to do it. It wasn't political [inaudible]. I didn't break it into judgments, but I counted them all. And to me -- and you compare them all, they tended all to be Protestants. With the exception of the Kennedys and one branch of the Bushes, they tended to be rich or at least rich when they ended, if not rich when they started. They did move -- although as I say, they started on the -- obviously on the East Coast. They did continue to move west. They were ambitious in that sense. The Harrisons, for instance, were a major Virginia family when they started, and went to Indiana, went to Illinois, and the last one was in Wyoming. So there was a great -- they cover the whole country now. They're not particularly an East Coast pattern anymore. So I did look at things in that way. They did, as I mentioned, with the third generation of the Adams's, is one of the big ways that they got their money was they married it. They had some very advantageous marriages. The Frelinghuysen there's one still in Congress right now, who is the great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of the person who first stepped foot on the land in New Jersey that he now represents. And it's been -- well and they've not been a particularly distinguished family in that regard, but they serve their constituents at least. And then you look at who they married. Well, generation marries a Ballantine. Who's Ballantine; well, Ballantine ale, Ballantine brew, not bad. The next generation, his daughter -- or son marries a Havemeyer. That's the sugar trust. That's much bigger than Ballantine. And the next generation marries somebody named "Procter", who just happens to be the Procter of Procter & Gamble. So the money keeps coming in. By the way, the one -- the son now, his name is "Rodney", his father, Peter, was in Congress when I wrote the book initially, I knew him modestly because we were both part of a tiny group of people who were called, you know, "Liberal Republicans" at the time. And he never spoke to me again after that. This was [inaudible], people did not talk about where the money came from. He was very upset by that. But that was another factor that you'll look at in judging them, as they say, and having a lot of children was one as well. So that's the sort of things I tracked, rather than how many existed at each period of American history. >> Did you describe the Kennedys; and then also the Dingles [phonetic]? >> Stephen Hess: I don't include the Dingles. The Dingles would now be father, son, and daughter and wife, and so forth. The Kennedys I certainly do describe. The Kennedys would have been the one family if I had stuck to my original scheme of just saying, "Okay; what have you done in the last 50 years," there would be a lot. Since then there have been -- "them" being, of course John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy. There had been additionally Ted's son from Rhode Island. But also then, John F. Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy, and then John F. Kennedy, the son of John F. Kennedy. So second and third so that, indeed, the last -- so there are now six would have been in Congress. And this is quite remarkable since the first one, Jack Kennedy, only got into Congress in 1947. And again, there wouldn't be a fifth and a sixth if Robert and Ethel hadn't had 11 children. So it all matches that way. But again, part of that which is fun if you actually get the book, is the first volume ended not with the Clintons, but with the Kennedys. So what I did -- wherever it is -- [ Silence ] Is I took the last page -- [ Silence ] Of the first edition. And the last page of the first edition is right there. And it says things like -- it goes on so it features Robert F. Kennedy. And then there's a line across, and it says, "Robert Kennedy was killed by sinking the democratic presidential nomination June 6th, 1988." The next is Ted. As I write about them, the line comes across, "Ted Kennedy sought the democratic presidential nomination in 1980, and his loss is generally attributed to the Chappaquiddick incident. He died August 25, 1959." Now, then we move across. And as I talk about each person as they would have appeared 50 years ago, the line brings them up to date. "Joseph P. Kennedy born in 1952 was a member of the US House of Representatives 1967 to nine. He chose not to seek the democratic gubernatorialship in 1998 after a messy divorce." The line goes across, "Joseph 'John' F. Kennedy Jr., an inexperienced pilot died July 16, 1999 when his plane crashed into the Atlantic near Martha's Vineyard." Move across, Kathleen; Kathleen. Says, "Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was lieutenant governor of Maryland," dates and then, "was defeated when she ran for governor." And it goes back to Ethel Kennedy Shriver. "Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the founder of the Special Olympics. She died August 11th, 2000 at 99." And finally, the last has -- you know, the end of the book has, "Eunice Kennedy Shriver told the Chicago Newspaper [inaudible] 1960, 'All we talk about is winning.' Then she picked up her infant son Tim, held him aloft, and gently began to indoctrinate, 'Win, win, win'." That's the way the first book ends. So we bring across to Timothy, "Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, had never sought public office. He has a PhD in education, he is the author of 'Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most', about his work with disabled veterans, in which he devotes a chapter to his Aunt Rosemary, President Kennedy's sister, and how their father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. had her lobotomized." This thing is called "Ending in Mid-Sentence," and the last sentence of the new book is, "In the Presidential election of 2016, the American people elected -- ." [Laughter] That's what we do as historians. We can't go beyond that. So that's the way the book ends. Yes? >> [Inaudible] JFK's grandfather, Fitzgerald [inaudible]. >> Stephen Hess: Oh, sure. Yes, yes; they're all in there, all of the Kennedys from the day they got off the boat. I had both cases, Kennedys and -- they're a fascinating family, yes. >> John Cole: We have time for a couple more questions, and then we'll have the book signing. [ Silence ] >> Yes, sir. >> Stephen Hess: Yes. >> What would you say [inaudible]. >> Stephen Hess: Say that -- what -- >> What would you say to inspiring young authors today to [inaudible]? >> Stephen Hess: I'm sorry, I guess -- say -- >> What would you say to inspiring young authors today to follow their dreams? >> Stephen Hess: To write a book, or any book. If it's in you, it doesn't need much inspiration, but you sure need time, and you need some space, and it's awfully nice if you have some mentoring, and if you're at a place where the business of the place is writing books, as mine is at Brookings, well they don't -- you know, and give me the latitude to write what I want to write about. But I must admit, I've never had any problem thinking of what my next book would be. So that's where you usually start. And some books almost write themselves. You're lucky if that's it. In some ways, the most important book I did in an academic sense was called "Organizing the Presidency". And it was a book -- after I had been at the Nixon White House, there was book in which I couldn't figure out a way to make a Nixon or a president a better man, but I thought I could figure out a better way for them to organize themselves. And so that book came out, but it was all in my head. So that was easy. Other books you start as I described this one, and you don't even know what you've written, in a funny way. At least 50 years later, I realized I'd written something else, something I thought much more important than I had set out to write when I realized that it was really the family history of the United States. Again, other books you're told to write, if that's -- if you're in a place where that's what they're paying you for. I mean, I've written a number of books on presidential transitions. Well, that's -- I'm at Brookings, that's what we do. There's a transition, I've been involved in them, I write a book. But I really wouldn't worry about wanting to write a book. It's fun. I find it fun. I don't -- wrote a book with a person who had terrible writer's block; it wasn't fun at all. But I've had fun at it, and I highly recommend it to those who had inclination to write. >> John Cole: And the final question is what is next? >> Stephen Hess: You know, the next is sort of weird. The one before this was very important to me. I was -- Pat Moynihan my best friend, and when he became, strangely, the assistant to Richard Nixon, the liberal been chosen by a conservative for a very important job as special as the domestic affairs advisor, and asked me to join him, I could not resist. And in that little period, he and I -- while I'm sitting and then I created the Family Assistance Program, which was the most liberal piece of legislation certainly ever proposed by a Republican president. And it's that story, the story of the relationship between Eisenhower -- between Nixon and Moynihan, and it's called "The President and the Professor: Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the Nixon White House". So I got that off my chest. I got it while Mrs. Moynihan is still alive. I wanted her to see it, and that was it. Now I'm trying something very weird. I don't know whether I can pull it off or not. Brookings has a very interesting podcast. It's called "The Brookings Cafeteria Podcast". And it's sort of Ted-ish. It's very elegant and long, and the guy who designed it decided he would interview me and he would throw in, you know, like two-minute Steve Hess stories. He wanted to lighten his load. And it worked pretty well. I guess he thought I was a good storyteller. So together, what I'm doing is really a conversational political memoir. And we sit down after I've laid out all my documents and so forth, and start telling the story. And if we're lucky, when it's edited, it will sound like a conversation, rather than a book. At the least, we will have a Steve Hess podcast, which we'll tell through Eisenhower, and Nixon, and Ford, and all of that sort of stuff. If we're very lucky, it will be a Brookings book in which we can include the documents. If I go to a White House dinner, there's the Bill affair, if you will, and the pictures, and the duck and so forth and so on. It starts -- and the first question he asks me is about my youth, and goes into, you know, if I have any political genes in me. And I tell a little story about my great aunt, whose name was Belle Maskovitz [assumed spelling], who was -- when she died in 1933, her obituary in the New York Times said, "The most powerful woman politician in the United States." And 3,000 people came to her funeral. She was basically a brain behind Alfred E. Smith. When he ran for president, she was his advisor. So, you know, I start with that sort of thing, and move on and on to I'm 11 years old and I live on 96th Street in Broadway in New -- 98th Street. And I look down, and there's Franklin Roosevelt driving down Broadway in the rain in an open car, the first president I ever saw. and I'm 11 years old. And I don't know that 96th Street turns the corner, goes into garage, has a rubdown, takes some Cognac [phonetic]. And this is almost a historic moment in American history. It's the moment he was trying to convince the American people that he was healthy enough to be reelected. Of course, he's dead four months later. So it takes that. Now I'm 19, and for some reason, I'm in the midst of the 1952 Eisenhower-Taft Convention in Chicago. Again, all stories, I was a driver, but I got the group lost. So and say they fired me and gave me tickets to go to the convention and I had a wonderful time. So now -- so [inaudible] I move onto that. Now I'm 25, the story I started to tell you I'm in the White House, again, by accident. So it's a little like a zelig [phonetic]. It's a little who is this person who was never really a serious major politician, always somehow seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Why was I with Richard Nixon when John Kennedy is assassinated, you know, that sort of story happens. You know, or why am I dancing with Jacqueline Kennedy? You know, again, so [laughter] that's -- read the next book. I'll leave it there. So that's what really what I'm working on right now. >> John Cole: Steve, thank you so much. [ Applause ] >> Stephen Hess: Thank you. >> John Cole: Thank you; and I think you do have a political gene, [laughter] something that keeps you going. That was wonderful, and you'll now have a chance to talk with him more and get a book signed, and think a little bit about where we are in our country in terms of both the elections and dynasties. And it's just really a terribly interesting time. And I know that you're going to find a very interesting role somehow as our country goes ahead with both these dynasties, and with, you know, what's ahead of us in a very exciting election year. I've left a list of other Center for the Book talks the rest of this year. You've had two this week now on politics, and so we're moving off to some other topics, but you're welcome to take that, and to come back to other events this year. But in the meantime, let's get your books signed and conclude with another round of applause for Steve Hess. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.