Who's Playing Politics?

from the unity temple on the plaza in kansas city at our percents who's playing politics and j mcintyre npr scott simon moderates this panel on the media and presidential politics it features ted sorensen former speechwriter for john f kennedy most disappointing calculus assistant professor flow from science at fordham university and naftali director of the richard nixon presidential library this event is sponsored by the fireman presidential library and museum guard at the howard and virginia banning forum on the presidency and now here is that simon thank you it's good to be here and take your shrubbery speaking fervor one could drove us to be here and to be together with you but we simply add there are not many places i would go only hours after suffering the family tragedy that those of us who are cub fans do the

folks at the truman library and wonderful there's literally a bottle of old granddad waiting for me at the hotel when i checked in the second which i'm told is it as prevalent was president truman favorite bourbon but i have i have not had a chance to ground my sorrows was really not not not now before this i also might want to forgive me but my wife or other ways as a kicker two minutes without talking about her daughter's sheet she's wrong i think it's been about thirty second our five year old is a white sox fan and they are playing tonight they face elimination two and and a five year old said to me on the phone this afternoon seeking to comfort me i believe before at levy's coast before she had a chance to get up he was comforting about the cubs loss and she said of course if you know we could read together for the white sox to win tonight and she said hey i have begged made idea that comes in the white sox can play together and i think she's on to something

if the cubs and the white sox had a team people on the field i daresay the dodgers wooden about all those doubles and triples so i think i think this is an utterly brilliant idea i like to make a few remarks and i hope you're not going to be too painful i would say something if i if i can at the very outset that it may or may not have context i every now and then i'd appreciate as a journalist that the story that is a force in the story that we have to report may not be one of the circumstances that will stand up most vividly in history and we can sometimes ignored the history the rules pass us as journalists at the a debate between governor palin and and senator biden other night something that i noticed and i just i just pass it on for your consideration here i notice that they both had the same position on gay rights one of them said i'm not a fervor discrimination

against anybody on the basis of their sexual orientation i don't believe in gay marriage but i don't believe in discrimination the other said i don't believe in gay marriage but i'm not in favor of discriminating against anybody because of their orientation this is utterly remarkable to me and i think utterly amazing and for those people in this country who sometimes doubt that change is possible i want to draw your attention to that this has become the mainstream centrist position of the united states gay rights has been included in the agenda of civil rights for the society i think i don't mind saying it's a wonderful it's a wonderful occasion in the life of this country and maybe did not a big blinding moment or a ceremony that permits us to cut a ribbon and say we've turned a corner here but i think certainly not been blind to the kind of bigotry and prejudice that still exists in in any number of directions in this country i think we're permitted to say that progress is possible and and i might add this is this has been achieved by

this supporting effort and suffering and concern and i will say the love of millions of americans of all political parties and persuasions if there is a wealth of like when you talk about the presidency and the press i think any of us in the press critic in areas truman library actually remove religion or way and a bigger partner harry s truman library event has we have to have a sense of humility because i think it was probably no more vivid illustration of the fact that the press is often wrong and that famous headline president truman wrote the chicago tribune dewey defeats truman now of course is that as a journalist for a number of years now i will tell you that's the best they could do right i mean that's that's what happened a deadline time you know what would we say public opinion polls and for that matter headlines in the leads of stories that just a snapshot of what their

present but i think it's good to bear that in mind as we talk about the year of the presidency and the press and the relations between the two as an institution i asked one of the letter myself of of some remarks about some of the debates because i have i have grown to believe that maybe the best position for the press in presidential debates is not to be involved at all it is it and i i think of two most recent debates we've seen i think my colleagues said jim lehrer and when i've done wonderful jobs they do it as well as can be done but it is not lost on me that the lincoln douglas debate survive as literature and they didn't have a marker all i mean there were some things that happened as i think less active in the presidential debates after the major party candidates are chosen the sheer that that i really did not take too well my least favorite moment i believe no names mentioned is the moderator of one historic oratory if if we got information that osama bin laden's in the in the mountains of pakistan would you go after raise your hand

like like people running for president are a bunch of third graders are have to raise their hand and the letter o of course that's the kind of question that and i recognize that somebody is actually the president has to make a hard and distinct decision but they should be permitted a few questions before they raise their hand like how good is the intelligence where is this supposed to be what in the number of civilians who might be in danger or all those kinds of questions i didn't like that all one point i think they were also asked what your favorite vegetable is again were descending to the level of the third grade and i must say i i admired governor huckabee's her boldness insane carrots because parents are pretty popular vegetable it's been you know it's a it's been my impression i mean i could imagine somebody running an attack ad against governor huckabee using bugs bunny same they can you know they can take my carrot away out of my cold dead because you would have

very permissive to get their paws or if i'm not mistaken and by the way had to look it up to spirit would have probably been the most politic answer because curator i was able to determine with the help of my research assistant not grown in iowa new hampshire south carolina or any other early primary state by the way if you agree with that please raise your hand you know nowadays there is not even more than ever there's not any kind of marvelous called the media has been fractured and with thousand of the more than a thousand different pieces and shards and stream and some you know can be as large is npr dan and summer small of her own neighborhood my brother in law is a private detective my wife and family friendships are some people who might know and he and therefore is a private detective other way you're really confident of your marriage when your brother in law he's a private detective and

colorado is i don't tell the story to his deficit you can tell there's a button he's out he's a wonderful uncle a wonderful brother in law this is a man as a private detective who has to if you please act on the record what verifiable on actionable intelligence as a private eye he deeply believes that man never landed on the moon and when people ask him why he believes there are any number of websites that you can go to and they can direct you to which support his view of the world and then my wife and i have lived the virtue of having that if you astronaut and one point i i suggested you know can i mean we could we could probably get one of them on the phone now and then he or she could try to tell you that in fact you know there's a moment we landed on it and he said in a perfect eleven widow scott they're the first people to have to have to bring it on the conspiracy and i find that instructive because these days you

never have to meet a fact with which you disagree you can consider yourself a fully formed human being without ever having to confront information to cause acute distress or that fundamentally upset your view of the world now as some of his married and were friends family i don't mind saying in some ways is kind of generalized observation we're beginning to resemble more love but the kind of pressed its exercise to hesitate and has been enjoying for years niederman enjoyed really do enjoy in western ear a worker or political parties own their own news media the owner and radio television stations and newspapers is a now of course websites it's possible to have a democracy that way on the other hand i think that there is something precious that's at stake and that's the news industry or at least some sources of news and i'm not i'm not going to use this to happen and invoke the name of mine the employer but that you have to be some major source of news available to tens of

millions of people who believe that they are in the business of trying to be objective of trying to be fair of trying to be a balance of not pandering to your audience not simply telling your audience yes you're right you think this way well yes you're right will tell you will get will get a guest on who can tell you're right you can patch on the back and end and i don't i don't draw this distinction to any one particular network the war already or any one particular source of information seems to me as he several examples of that out there and it seems to me that was a real news organization ought to do a news organization that really believes in the principle of the press as they have been carefully developed here in united states is to have the audacity and the nerve and the caring concerned to occasionally challenge their audience do occasionally say look we know the story might upset must have set you look weak we understand we read the demographic information we know that their story and its implications may

not suit your vision of the world but this is the story that we have to toady interesting wave of victims out a specific attack on freighters got nothing to do with the presidency but a few years ago we did a story on gun control there's a proposition on the on the ballot in maryland which is pretty strong gun control laws which were even more stringent gun control laws and some of the most eloquent articulate opponents of gun control have ever interviewed her in the inner city of baltimore there are african american families and they would say to me look maybe if you call the police in georgetown ouch they come there and two minutes before we call them they never come here and would you call it cheap saturday night special is our home security system and when you tell us that the statistics show that the end of that week had begun the household lovell who were more likely to use it the most are our answer is you let me worry about that i know what i'm doing i want to protect my family i can't tell you the upset this corridor listeners yep i'm still probably not store and pick

a probably not story because i felt our listeners needed to understand that i felt our listeners hadn't seen too much there's also these people live in a big city for african americans of course they happen to agree with our political principles and instincts know there was something quite different about it and that to me is what a news organization that is a news organization that welcomes the opportunity to inform an instructor and sometimes shake up their audience and that's devon this is what i'm worried sometimes about disappearing as more and more news organizations kind and i still believe in the principle the old principle of chicago journalism the job of journalism is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted i also want to say before we turned our questions that the press and the presidency there's something in mind journalism is not history we were having a conversation before we came over here and you hate it when moderators say you're having a really interesting conversation for him over but we were what we were talking about the difference between

journalism's judgments in the judgment of history we must remind ourselves that when harry truman i guess who's getting set to leave office he had won the lowest public approval ratings in history to twenty nine percent and the state has recently been we say exceeded or eclipse think at twenty nine percent to an end and the man the presidency who is now his presidency deemed venerated by people in both parties certainly i think it's safe to say the people in this room tonight and millions across the country was derided as a rule he was derided as a warmonger he was he was sometimes endlessly lampooned for what we've taken to be and mocked for his accent for his first life we we could go on on who did some of that journalists and yet today now i don't think that necessarily at the same time is there a correlation and the president had a six percent popularity rating rating that would mean history would judge them to be even greater but it is a good and a humbling reminder that sometimes the judgments

of journalism are very different than the judgment of history so what we continue to go on some questions if we could which i have thoughtfully prepared if it's a pivot or acquit you will begin with ted and prosperous and then tim by the way this is the most that might borrow a line from president kennedy and in fact that might be borrowing it from to you know what i'm going to say if he is so that you know that i'm going to say this is the most distinguished group of the rig him seen since the last time i interviewed ted sorensen oh that was his on what condition when jefferson jefferson said oh yes he didn't cite you think affected you to do whatever first question i want to ask about privacy we certainly understand that there had been administration to immediate past which may have withheld health information from the press and

therefore the american people and certainly aspects of their personal lives and i'm not just thinking about one or two president or demonstration we could go on and listen and thoughtfully i will not now we might take a hard right position and say well the president's first life is is just not anybody's business but what if the president is on medication here she would be an individual with access to the nuclear weapons and all kinds of other avenues of power in addition to that what if that president has a personal relationship with someone who was affiliated with someone who is in some kind of crime syndicate or for that matter journalists are their bright lines which the press can and should observe that this it's below the

peak i have a few more of you where where would they be the bright yellow lines that the euro should not cross here they should make certainly that all information on which the american people have a valid reason to judge lee confidence and performance of a president and his duty to protect the national insurance the national security all that information should be made public but journalist and journalists sometimes fail on the other side of the coin in which you ought to mention they are prevented from taking pictures of the coffins of war dead from in the loan from plans on the way back from iraq at censorship and there are protests if they are

if they're denied access to guantanamo where people are being subjected to indefinite detention in violation of the constitution of the united states and denied the rights of babies quarters and even tortured that journals have an obligation to report that ninety years later but when it's happening these organizations or believe including npr have in fact joined in in suits to try and open that up will point out but the protests but some are like medical information how much is the american public have a right to know the press been the way that often discovers job of the president's residence here and again if it does and he has a health problem that goes to his ability to perform his duties

either the public of the right to monitor how we decide whether or not it's it's pertinent to them performing their duties we're not going to prescribed by law i hope when detail of the lions that you're talking about this country they curses done pretty well under something called the first amendment i been in countries where the press and the government are in cahoots i would run a live their fallen people complain about the press and the politicians being at each other's throats moreover the precious privacy the line well i think i'm inclined to agree that there are certain that there is a line but i think it's difficult to know exactly where a draw that line and it you know i look at this

i think as as ten was alluding to a moment ago from the perspective of as a private citizen clearly of like you know as much as as much as as possible as much as it was necessary or as necessary but maybe not more than i would than that i would want to be known about you know my own medical situation for example unless that work is somehow related to national the national interest what if a president has to take a painkiller that it's at three am phone call comes would call their judgment and a question i think there are circumstances how like that and i you know i think it's you know we it's just difficult to know exactly where where one draws that line into know it into just subject every situation to that i think it may be mormon answer know things are case by case by case decisions about each of these issues certainly some things will be

more serious than others and you know i think that has to be taken into account i remember a number of years ago when president reagan was having some kind of surgery or forget what it was but i believe a diagram is his sinker appeared on the front page of the new york times and i remember thinking oh i know all the news and fit to print and all that that i i wondered why that needed to be shared with the american public and yet i think of course inevitably as we did we interviewed somebody about it who made some of the case salamon i'm posing you well somebody undergoing a kind of treatment that he has the injury that the injuries that he has suffered questions will be you will be raised about the recovery in the medication and those ever written a warrant but let's get into this rich and well i i think that

we have the right to know because we invest in our present enormous power and so i think it is very important to know if there is any physical or psychological condition that couldn't affect their judgment om i can give you examples where the inner circle of the president has kept from the american people a vital information in one case the hollywood thing another case it wasn't so i don't know how you would prescribe how to deal with is now the first case is what brings us all here today because of course franklin roosevelt's inner circle kept from the american public in nineteen forty four how willie was in and perhaps he might not of one of course if he didn't when we certainly

wouldn't be here today on the other hand when woodrow wilson suffered his stroke the country was actually govern like the gift and a small group of people thought this was a very difficult time in us foreign policy which led to the collapse of our commitment to the verse i treaty which had enormous implications for the united states so in that case it probably would have been in the interests of the american public to know how secure president was but i think that where the president's judgment his influence or could be affected by this information we need to know and it's particularly important during election campaign we need to know during election campaign if the person we're voting for is deathly ill that is extremely important and i suspect that sometimes we don't find

out that information in time if we don't get seriously ill for dessert does it have to rise to that level but what about well while the and i'm sorry if that sounds like you know the health talk with tucker intimate it much it would be much more lively conversation i'm sure of reported over the level of pressure was a nation's but let's get to the middle and well i i think i think if they if the president is potentially impaired judgment he the other fifty or example the press was in cahoots with the white house not to photograph president roosevelt in wood with the braces shelling now the fact that he had braces bore no relationship whatsoever to his judgment it didn't really matter if anything the press understood that maybe the american people are not quite ready to have a polio victim as president the fact that you didn't see him with braces really shouldn't have affected your judgment

about whether he'd be at the present so in that instance that kind of handicap if you will is really relevant so i would argue this for all medical conditions i'd only argue this in the case of a of an illness that could actually take his life during the course of the presidency or in the case of an illness whether psychological or our physical that would affect his or sunday her judgment yet but the name of the week in korea over to him secrecy least markedly different than just privacy very famously the mirror prime secondly it was scotty reston personally had had information that the bay of pigs operation was about to begin i believe there were number of people in the deferred and kids recollection obviously in the kennedy administration who who've said i wish that story had run week we might have avoided that

those frozen john f kennedy's ocean president kennedy himself said what ifs in your time so had run a story saying that the d day invasion would be on the sixth june and arguably relatively i think we can safely say the the surprise of the invasion on that morning fall weather was an important contribution to its success what is in your county run the story sang macarthur's about landed in shock also an operation that succeeded in part to success i mean i think that the press places most important rowe when it shows us the gap between our public policy and are and what our government is actually doing i can see an argument for those releases because besides putting people in harm's way both in shaun hendy day were perfectly consistent with the

policies of presidents and the press in that case would be actually making it easier for our enemy so i actually i would i would be surprised if any journalist i would actually argue that a country where you could provide that information it is not a country that is that as total freedom of the press i actually think that most members of the press would see a difference between that kind of military police and releasing information about torture which is not consistent with the public policy of the united states i think those are two different kinds of so what made the babe pig story a legitimate thing to run if that happened was that the kennedy administration was was striking one posture publicly in you're preparing for the ap well except on april twelfth of nineteen sixty one john f kennedy gave his speech how where he said the united states would not invade cuba or supported invasion of cuba and four days later the bay of pigs

so i think when there's a difference between the part of public policy seaweed we all had a choice as a citizen we don't have to agree with our president but we're supposed to know what our policy is so we know whether we disagree or agree with it and when there's when there's an and i hope we get to those later we talk about how poisonous the press can be in an environment relationship between presidents the press can be because it's not all we talk about it at the plaza is always dare but it's not always as intense but when you have a credibility gap it gets very intense for good reason and we live in that era right now we live in an era of tremendous gratitude well i think this early you know there's this really raises the same issue that we're talking about a moment ago but i think there are there are some things mean that i mean it is that there are instances when it might be in the national interests interests to

you know with the india the gap to discuss tim between policy an end an action i think in the example they use this was probably yuki get out to try to help the situation right time to kind of take the emphasis away maybe even part of the strategy was to take the public's mind and maybe the international community's mind off of what was likely to happen which is all part of the effort to disguise something that was going on i don't think that you know me there's a reason why the japanese that amounts to was that they worry about the bombed pearl harbor right down but it ended in france right now but they aren't but the reality is that it might actually be beneficial to our ultimate goals in our policies to prevent some of this type of information from at least initially being disclosed in if that's part of the part of the military strategy then you know that there's a there's an argument one can make in favor of

that just reasons why we differentiate and when we when we talk to a propaganda and cost makes a great point and indeed i think that what was happening in the soviet certainly took that this is evidence that they could relax and they did but they're there should be a line between propaganda against your own people us and propaganda that you send abroad i don't think president should participate in covering deception operations against the american public do you know what president kennedy said to scotty reston where i wasn't there wasn't a publisher of the new york times i think those are the two women live video i think he's i do it i don't know i don't know the seven year and a half later when

scotty had learned information about the cuban missile crisis and the president was scheduled to go on the air monday evening october twenty second and both the washington post and the new york times information called a field around the publisher the washington post and he had his national security advisor black monday call scotty reston and in both cases they said it's very important to have this unprecedented news about weapons of mass destruction ninety miles off our shore and most importantly what we're going to do about it come out not enter new partial your regular disorder was fashion lead of panic and pressure the worst kind were asking you to football at

least until after the president has presented the facts in full to the american people and i get the full story and then we'll be glad to give you the full details of that will give you two guys background information that nobody else will out and they because this is important to the survival of the country and both cases both agreed that the present and put it off i wake i write about things that are involved there was an interesting story that i heard an outside thirty eight years ago or solar of still listens to give that guy like that who has just a few friends over to president eisenhower had a heart attack near the end of his first term and did not want to run for a second term and the inner republican circle pleaded with him

to run because they said otherwise that your vice president mr little image and eisenhower said okay okay all human services all around but i'm telling you right now the shrewsbury were sunday during the campaign with a crowd of reporters around and when you go up the steps of air force one and about halfway up those steps when i feel something when i do i'm going to sit down on the steps right then and there and they're going to give him campaign it is distorting the market let me ask you sort of feeds into it would bill sapphire wrote his leave his last column op ed pages filled with empathy and philip mould paul for compositions and endo

said something that i thought i thought about it he says don't notice don't pay attention when a politician or a president told you in private or off the record it's only the only thing you can believe is what they're willing to say on the record so true though because i think there are many occasions that i would tell reporters on and off the record that it was the surest way for him to run we can be ready for that yeah i went to some people think you don't trust what's on the record or off the record but i think you know that politicians to play these the strategic aims and when you're in the business of

understanding the media and an uncertain and how it works you know you're tempted to to take advantage of this knowledge and this information i think that politicians are more more likely to be sensitive to information that is on the record out as to say that the ages they're unwilling or they're reluctant to come across as having contradicted statements that are on the record but of course anything in private could be contradicted quite easily so anyone who is so sensitive to their public image that relies on public support to stay in office to keep their job is obviously going to be very sensitive to it to the public statements and so you know that i think there's some that even if they may not have initially believed their public statements themselves will eventually come around because you know they are they they realize there's much more risk and danger to not doing that then then than two in this book specifically to to espouse sell

private positions of time so i think that it's important to understand the incentive structure there that that faces a politician says as public figures steel gates you can forgive me to an interjection really to several questions did president bush was president nixon denouncing red china as it used to be called up until the moment he announced that we were open relations with well in nineteen sixty seven he had written a piece for foreign affairs that hinted that china should be brought into the to the mix b he didn't say i will go to china but it was an unusual sentence from someone who had been the archenemy of of love well frankly to his policy and the archenemy of any rapprochement daytime with the people's republic of china it's it's fun it's interesting to me to me the archives in your

blender we have the post presidency materials post presidential materials there's a letter that he wrote to george herbert walker bush after georgia you might remember george herbert walker bush used the older bush and he ran a campaign for campaign we promise something to read my lips with his meaning you know new taxes which is a good example of where one's public statements do not predict what one does privately later on when he broke the tax pledge richard nixon wrote him a letter and said you know i had to eat a lot of pro after i change my policy on china but sometimes you have to do what's right arm so it's hard for politicians to change their public pronouncements sometimes they do that they have to i just wanted to interject on that point that we have these remarkable tapes of presidents yes so there some commentators only few hours but the vast quantity of the tapes or

kennedy johnson and nixon and it is really interesting to see the difference between the private presidential an executive that you hear on the tape and the way they wanted to project themselves publicly and where there is a great gap the presidency is very tense and because in the case of nixon there was a huge gap between the way he wanted to be presented publicly in a way actually was that i think was one of them sources of the enormous attention and wind that administration was the most stage managed any up to that period when ronald reagan i would be more stage managed at the nixon presidency and it had the most it professional that's mandated it really shapes some of our modern approaches to campaigning because there was such a difference between the real nixon and the nixon that he wanted a project

it's different for for johnson kennedy but it depends on the personality the president's like a back to the this issue of guam what the president has publicly is what i think it depends on the presidents for some like harry truman i suspect the difference between what they told you probably what they said publicly be very very small managers that that i think i think it's ok for presidents to change their minds and even when they've made public declarations in support of the different positions that we somehow believe that presidents do not go through this evolutionary process where they can learn from their mistakes and they can judge their previous positions as failures and move on there's a real danger to them to hop of being so steadfastly committed to previous positions in public statements like that just because you've made them and this expectation that that the candidates in and politicians are not going to change their mindsets that sets us up for a situation where state they don't roll they don't evolve they get

stubborn and that sometimes leads to very serious policy failures that if we if they were operating in an environment in which changing your mind what everyone called call of flip flopping if you will if it's to a more advanced didn't evolve thought opposition whatever is that week but that might be something that as a society that we could i appreciate and respect are rather than stubborn commitment to failed policies just because they're the ones we initially adopted it the poem am well you know i'm sorry i didn't read the book and there is no unitary friends bought the mainstream media whatever that is tents have a scoring system for politicians which leads you into the trap of costas was talking about

or politicians or not consistent anymore and they're not allowed to involve where it's a sign of weakness i voted for it before i voted against of them kerry was in article in describing what he did but there was a terrible year but here and there their whole group of people in the congress now who voted one way on monday in another way in front but because they say they were reacting to a public event but how how do you sit there as the answer for the human tree thought about because i mean how do you convey that that leadership is dynamic you know some of these people are in fact flip flopping because they have no policy ideas and arab powers but some of them actually change a mind nixon changed his mind george herbert walker bush changes brought another example says the two that are on the table the moment there's another factor that my machismo and the president says something in

private and letters so something different in public and other figures at end of the stage the speechwriter so you know about that because that then they intersect to marijuana entirely sleaze away from your question actually the economy to describe the scene for a nicely for journalists is one of the reasons why i write novels follow because i i i think of what you said i think that's absolutely the case one of the reasons why you people in the news industry go after hypocrisy like were entitled to federal reserve you were above of ourselves it is because it's a kind of thing you could put on a scorecard it's sort of it's sort of non political it's like the first level of so called investigation you can do but you're right it does an alarming is always tripping is absolutely ridiculous theory put somebody

not just in the presidency but in the senate in the house where they're supposed to learn where they're supposed to treat with others where they're supposed to conciliate and when they changed their mind instead of being congratulated for making a rational judgment there to write it as a as a hypocrite but one of the other problems is that's how politics has arranged these days that's how you raise money if you raise money from certain groups because your position as a and four years later it's b you have a lot of organized people who have given you money you feel the tray look in my third novel windy city which is set in the chicago city council by the way this thoughtfully available for sale and i personally i must say nothing that says my mind happy halloween like a novel about the chicago city council does remember at one point my protagonist is the america

forty years for sunny roubini is an alderman he says he has a whole speech which he goes into about that uses i don't know is that people always you know they've in the press who recalls the chihuahuas is their small noisy uses the cello was always complain about hypocrisy but honestly i don't know how you have a democracy without and i believe in that i don't have to call it hypocrisy or even inconsistency that i absolutely believe you have to look good human beings the space to change their might otherwise will will never work away other corporate you were talking about the speaker it seems to me the process predicted the presidential level but even the presidential candidate level is much more public than it used to be you see senator mccain or senator obama get up and deliver their acceptance speech you might as well run a crawl underneath that says john mccain delivers a speech by a half a dozen names that fall when the state of the union address is being crafted they're the names of the eight

or nine people are involved and then even as he is that he is that good and in terms of should be recorded as art i think it's an exceptional you know it and it's verifiable why not report a bum and i realize the president has a lot to do but i think it's tricky ok or he has a lot of very important that he doesn't have time to work out all the financially as a science advisor doesn't pretend to be an expert on the weaponry so as the military by the as someone who cares as food forums and a comedian so why don't we object to the president also having someone a system with his words no film we don't object to the president than a dozen or a hundred other people whom the system was the mother of the intricate detail i believe i could be contradicted on this the trip from boston wrote his own

kidney so they say i mean maybe you know maybe not the message to the union of that the british have sent them association or something like that on certain even better example i have an article that says you're fully employed and the current issue of smithsonian magazine i don't like your book so to divert to get the benefit of people buying the smithsonian magazine relevant that is my article is on the single best presidential speechwriter in american history not to abraham lincoln and i decided that because people would say that that the sincerity reports reflected in lincoln's public utterances the sincerity and churchill's public utterances was absolutely part of not just a personal appeal but the appeal that they have us politicians <unk> i can assure you

i'm a visual images taken oath low in the unitarian church in america i can assure you that john f kennedy there are in all of his public speeches never uttered an insincere word he believed in every single word whether he had put the final tax lawyer i helped him my aunt my stepfather some people know for some people in the palin was late ralph newman who was a lincoln scholar and yet he was a speechwriter for every stevenson in the nineteen fifty two campaign aw as was dr bell refers was dr schlessinger as was a lot of people whose names aren't familiar and they used to complain that stevenson used to throw away what they wrote an end used as far as they were concerned wasted a lot of time instead of working on the campaign and i think raising money riding his own speeches eisenhower i think we

have we have learned for several biographers actually was a very good speech writer and actually paid a lot of attention to his speeches i don't think he was quite as involved or stephenson was but more involved and we think of presidents these days don't pay i think that every president has not only a speechwriter as kennedy did now presidents have a speech writing department six seven eight or nine speechwriters most of whom have never met the present much less discussed speech or write in or even policy with them that has to lead and are some drawbacks to that i personally would not have wanted to be in that the situation in italy today a speechwriter asked to submit the first draft and the president's advisor on domestic policy after he clears

interchanges and then he has to submit to the president's chief of staff or ideas after tj visit us and submitted to the president's principal policy advisor forge laughter i all of you for me lenny pickett but not be related but i just made a short list of george stephanopoulos michael gerson peggy noonan they're all presidential speechwriters in the press bill sapphire think actually wrote for spiro agnew unnatural richard nixon did the referee connection to ok bill moyers of course was of was lyndon johnson's press secretary they are people who were in politics who became pundits now in years past there used to be a transition period but now there's not now somebody becomes a familiar face in a circuit ministration and next thing you know they they have become a pond and there's some point of complaints about this guy i

don't mind saying winced a little bit for senator clinton during one of the debates where george stephanopoulos was was grilling her on something and i don't think the i mean i think the question was defensible uneven good that i i don't mind saying that i think senator clinton would have been forgiven if she'd look at him and just said i need you to be very careful daughters are in the symbolic last fall my daughter's murder of course they don't let their agenda valid question for very good reason and from his point of view arguably as he is he is twisting his arm and several different directions just so nobody can accuse him of being soft on on and senator clinton all of which is a way of saying when the press goes to people in it administration in search of information the off the record story exclusive little

nugget of information does the press take into account the fact that to hear she and administration might be lavishing information on them is also looking for their next job and then have their own agenda that to them might be as important as the president's prosecution or if i could just evoke be a sour pill and principal in ignore the question all together and just talk about whatever i wanted and five dog on well no i think that some of it as i said a moment where you have to really think about what the ants incentives are for the people who are in these positions are in and you know politicians are always looking for the next job or at least there's always the possibility that they'll need that that they need to be thinking about the next track i think that's a good thing right we should have our politicians and back on a position because i think that makes them more responsive to the public that the public

interest in the public well i do think that i mean that on some level as i said over time the way that the media has learned to play the game with politicians the very same way that the politicians president been on that have learnt the media game and they know what to do and how to do it in order to strategically place or withhold information and it's like it's all it's all part of the game i think that that even when journalists acknowledge that and realize that it's going on that if it serves their purpose to to to act a certain way or behave a certain way they'll do it is part of the human condition that were motivated by the incentives that that each of us has so i mean i'm not i'm not at all surprised by this and that maybe it's just surprise that it took this long first to figure out that this actually has actually happens people are leaking

all over washington at various levels of lead in an illustration of people when people don't agree with the policy don't want one would be surprised at the president's year bad mostly been leaking washing come from the top and it's always amusing here president's moan and groan about leaks when in fact most of the leaks are calculated may come from the what but i have to you have to be fair it's got that it's not just the politicians looking for her next job as the journalist who you know the it's the pulitzer prize after all that they're all looking for two and on the pulitzer prize i just i just have to read you some of the heroes of upset because you know it's not new that there's this tension between presidents and the press and this is what theodore roosevelt said about joseph pulitzer who was the publisher of the st louis world after the st louis world alleged that his brother raul had made some money

out of the panama canal pulitzer is one of these creatures of the daughter of such unspeakable degradation that to him even eminent on the dunhill scenes and you it's the girls above was himself a fine speech writer i have one we're never covered a lot of clinical candidates over the years they would sometimes say to me you know i'm out there at nine times a day talking about issues and what you bastards that amir the mistake when i i forget the county chairman's name i trip over my tongue i i forget that i'm in the morning not to do i'm out there and said he was talking about issues and talking about the economy i'm talking about foreign policy i get very issue oriented speech is what you put in there the little blip the little the little assad and i would say that i mean because you give the same speech time after

time we have seized to cover and i will never forget clarence but brown a congressman from our running for governor of ohio actually put his finger into my chest and said what you we've already covered it you have uncovered it wants and i have to admit he's right he's absolutely right the standard stump speech he was giving about issues absolutely not certainly for a national audience we were going to present the standard stump speech but issues in ohio but i thought he made another politician's of given that kind of speech to me have made a very compelling case that that that that adds it's the press that is not issue oriented to a remarkable degree many campaigns it i had a lot of this i had the experience recently interviewed in the news business we prepare obituaries and people know and i don't think the gentleman would buy me saying i recently prepared to have presented to her babies at and um my mother reminded

me that my stepfather had appraised hugh hefner's papers and that she had heard in there there was a correspondence between quite a correspondence between us there and ronald reagan and that ronald reagan had written in his own hand and in fact i contacted mr hefner who is wonderfully agreeable with his own obituary and he was he was able to locate that side of the court both sides actually does he typed everything had carbons and in fact ronald reagan wrote very thoughtful letters hugh hefner and i will say as protectors were worried were also impressive and i have wondered if maybe president reagan would have been a little less lampoon had people known that fact that at that particular time don't have to agree with his policies but he was clearly a man and was on convictions and expressed very well look we wanna thank you over a much for being here they are few works on

sale they have been listening to npr's scott simon joined by ted sorensen kostas panagopoulos and tim naftali this was a presentation of the truman presidential library and museum recorded october fifth at the unity temple in kansas city the recording engineer was tubby smith i'm kate mcintyre keep your present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas