Doris Kearns Goodwin Talks With AARP Bulletin
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[AARP]
[Real Possibilities]
[Historian and presidential biographer
Doris Kearns Goodwin
chats with the AARP Bulletin]
[Doris Kearns Goodwin]
Well, you know, the interesting thing
is that when I look back
on history now,
the reason I think I've chosen
the people that I've written about—
whether it was Lincoln
during the Civil War
or FDR during World War II,
or Lyndon Johnson in the '60s,
or Teddy in the Progressive Era is,
those were eras when
the people cared
about public issues—
when they were mobilized to have
the big public issues of the time
cut across their private life.
When people in universities,
people in settlement houses—
young people felt they were a part
of something larger than themselves.
And it's interesting, because
in the Teddy Roosevelt era,
McClure, the editor
of the great McClure's magazine,
"In the end," he said, "In the end
there's no one left but all of us."
And that's still true today—
somebody—if I were younger,
I would be out there trying
to get a constitutional amendment
on campaign finance
to undo the restrictions
that have now been taken away—
it just makes no sense,
the amount of time that all
of our Congresspeople and Senators
are spending raising money
and not doing the public business.
So that's why, for me,
it has been such an honor, in a way,
to spend my life
looking at those eras,
which I deliberately choose,
where I can be happy again.
I mean, it's bizarre to say
you were happy during the Civil War.
But nonetheless, it was a generation
that knew that they were changing history,
as was Lincoln, as was
that generation in the Congress.
And I think one of the great things
at the Civil Rights time
with LBJ is—I think Hubert Humphrey
may have said
something about, "Your children's children
will remember this day,"
when the Civil Rights Act passed.
And then the great thing about LBJ is that
even after the Civil Rights Act passed,
he then says, "We're going
for voting rights the next year"
And everybody says, "You can't—
the country has to absorb
the Civil Rights struggle,"
and he said, "No.
"Voting rights is the meat
in the coconut."
He had this great way of talking.
And, "I'm going for it."
And then he put it
in the State of the Union message—
but then, again, that great partnership
with the outside movement,
when Martin Luther King
and the Selma demonstrations took place,
he decided
at the very last moment,
"I'm going to a joint session
of Congress," on a Sunday,
when the demonstrators
were being beat up,
he decided on Monday night
to go to a joint session of Congress
on March 15, 1965
to call for voting rights.
And my husband, Richard Goodwin,
worked for LBJ at the time
and was involved in the writing
of that great We Shall Overcome speech.
I still think it's one of the greatest speeches
of the 20th century.
And Johnson delivered it perfectly.
You know, "History and fate meet
at a certain point, at a certain time—
"so it was in Lexington and Concord—
so it was Appomatox—
"so it was in Selma, Alabama.
"This is not a Negro problem,
it's not a white problem,
"it's an American problem.
It's going to be difficult,
but we shall overcome."
And when he used the anthem
of the Civil Rights Movement—
which, again, is a movement
pressuring him, too,
from the outside in—it meant that,
for a moment, they were one.
And that's—that's
the night I remember.
I was a graduate student at Harvard—
we were watching that speech.
And if I had ever imagined that night
when I watched that speech
that I would eventually meet
my husband, Richard Goodwin,
and he would be the one
who had helped LBJ on that speech,
it would have been impossible
to imagine.
And just—I must say, in adding,
that one of the reasons why I'm so glad
to be able to talk to you
is to watch this turn for LBJ
in history
means everything to me.
I mean, I knew him so well
when I was in my 20s,
and it all started in this crazy way
when I was selected
as a White House fellow.
And I was 24 years old—
we had a dance at the White House—
and he did dance with me—
not that peculiar,
there were only 3 women
out of the 16 White House fellows.
But as he twirled me
around the floor, he whispered—
he wanted me to be assigned
directly to him in the White House.
But it was not to be that simple,
because in the months leading up to my selection,
like many young people,
I had been active in the anti-Vietnam War movement,
and had written an article against him,
which unfortunately came out
in the New Republic 2 days
after the dance in the White House.
And the title of the article was
How to Remove Lyndon Johnson from Power.
I was certain he would
kick me out of the program,
but instead, surprisingly, he said,
"Oh, bring her down here for a year,
and if I can't win her over,
no one can."
So I did end up working for him
in the White House,
and then accompanied him to his ranch
to help him on his memoirs
the last years of his life.
And he was the most formidable, fascinating,
frustrating, incredible character I've ever met.
And because he was lonely
in those last years of his life,
he opened up to me
in ways he never would have.
If I'd known him at the height of the power,
he would never have had time to talk to me.
But he talked to me,
and he was particularly worried
about how history would remember him.
And for me to still be alive now
to see this 50th anniversary
of his Civil Rights legislation—
not just the Civil Rights Act of '64,
but voting rights, open housing,
eventually Medicare,
Education Head Start, Public Broadcasting—
I mean, it's astonishing what he did.
And we took it for granted for a while.
And now we see this dysfunctional Congress,
you realize how extraordinary it was
that he got done what he did.
And when I was down in Austin—just there—
and there's President Obama,
and President Clinton,
and President Carter,
and young President Bush
singing his praises, I just wish
he'd been alive to see that happen.
But his family is,
and Luci and Lynda Johnson—
you could feel the pride
and the enormous sense
of happiness they felt—
that we're watching right now—
it takes a while for history
to catch up with people,
and the war will always
be a problem for him,
but his domestic accomplishments
were gigantic.
And I think the country now
is beginning to realize that.
And I will bet you that, years from now,
historians are going to bring him up
on that historians' ranking
of—way beyond where he is now.
I hope so.