Learning from past presidents Doris Kearns Goodwin

[Music]

[Music]

so indeed I have spent my life looking

into the lives of presidents who are no

longer alive

waking up with Abraham Lincoln in the

morning thinking of Franklin Roosevelt

when I went to bed at night but when I

try and think about what I’ve learned

about the meaning in life my mind keeps

wandering back to a seminar that I took

when I was a graduate student at Harvard

with the great psychologist Erik Erikson

he taught us that the richest and

fullest lives attempt to achieve an

inner balance between three realms work

love and play and that to pursue one

realm to the disregard of the others is

to open oneself to ultimate sadness in

older age where is to pursue all three

with equal dedication is to make

possible a life filled not only with

achievement but with serenity so since I

tell stories let me look back on the

lives of two of the presidents I’ve

studied to illustrate this point Abraham

Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson as for that

first sphere of work I think what

Abraham Lincoln’s life suggests is that

fierce ambition is a good thing he had a

huge ambition but it wasn’t simply for

office or power or celebrity or fame

what it was for is to accomplish

something worthy enough in life so that

he could make the world a little better

place for his having lived in it even as

a child it seemed Lincoln dreamed heroic

dreams he somehow had to escape that

hardscrabble farm from which he was born

no schooling was possible for him except

a few weeks here a few weeks there but

he read books in every spare moment he

could find it was said when he got a

copy of the King James Bible or Aesop’s

fables he was so excited he couldn’t

sleep he couldn’t eat the great poet

Emily Dickinson once said there is no

frigate like a book to take us lands

away how true for Lincoln though he

never would travel to Europe he went

with Shakespeare’s Kings to marry

England he went with Lord Byron’s poetry

to Spain and Portugal literature allowed

him to transcend his surroundings but

there were so many losses in his early

life that he was haunted by death his

mother died when he was only nine years

old his only sister Sara in childbirth a

few years later and his first love and

Rutledge at the age of 22

moreover when his mother Lay Dying she

did not hold out for him the hope that

they would meet in an after world she

simply said to him Abraham I’m going

away from you now and I shall never

return as a result he became obsessed

with the thought that when we die our

life is swept away dust to dust but only

as he grew older did he develop a

certain consolation from an ancient

Greek notion but followed by other

cultures as well that if you could

accomplish something worthy in your life

you could live on in the memory of

others your honor and your reputation

would outlive your earthly existence and

that worthy ambition became his lodestar

it carried him through the one

significant depression that he suffered

when he was in his early 30s three

things had combined to lay him low he

had broken his engagement with Mary Todd

not certain he was ready to marry her

but knowing how devastating it was to

her that he did that his one intimate

friend Joshua speed was leaving Illinois

to go back to Kentucky because speed’s

father had died and his political career

in the state legislature was on a

downward slide he was so depressed that

friends worried he was suicidal they

took all knives and razors and scissors

from his room and his great friend speed

went to his side and said Lincoln you

must rally or you will die he said that

I would just as soon die right now but

I’ve not yet done anything to make any

human being remember that I have lived

so fueled by that ambition he returned

to the state legislature he eventually

won a seat in Congress he then ran twice

for the Senate lost twice every one is

broken by life Ernest Hemingway once

said but some people are stronger in the

broken places so then he surprised the

nation with an upset victory for the

presidency over three far more

experienced far more educated far more

celebrated rivals and then when he won

the general election he stunned the

nation even more by appointing each of

these three rivals into his cabinet it

was an unprecedented act at the time

because everybody thought he look like a

figurehead compared to these people they

said why are you doing this Lincoln he

said look these are the strongest and

most able men in the country the country

is in peril I need them by my side but

perhaps my old friend Lyndon Johnson

might have put it in less noble fashion

better to have your enemies inside the

tent pissing

out than outside the tent pissing in but

it soon became clear that Abraham

Lincoln would emerge as the undisputed

captain of this unruly team for each of

them soon came to understand that he

possessed an unparalleled array of

emotional strains and political skills

that proved far more important than the

thinness of his external resume for one

thing he possessed an uncanny ability to

empathize with and to think about other

people’s point of view he repaired

injured feelings that might have

escalated into permanent hostility he

shared credit with Eze assumed

responsibility for the failure of his

subordinates constantly acknowledged his

errors and learned from his mistakes

these are the qualities we should be

looking for in our candidates in 2008 he

refused to be provoked he refused to be

provoked by petty grievances

he’d never submitted to jealousy or

brooded over perceived slights and he

expressed his unshakeable convictions in

everyday language in metaphors in

stories and with the beauty of language

almost as if the Shakespeare and the

poetry he had so loved as a child had

worked their way into his very soul in

1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation

was signed he brought his old friend

Joshua speed back to the White House and

remembered that conversation of decades

before when he was so sad and he

pointing to the proclamation said I

believe in this measure my fondest hopes

will be realized but as he was about to

put his signature on the proclamation

his own hand was numb and shaking

because he had shaken a thousand hands

that morning at a New Year’s reception

so he put the pen down he said if ever

my soul were in an act it is in this act

but if I sign with a shaking hand

posterity will say he hesitated so he

waited until he could take up the pen

and sign with a bold and clear hand but

even in his wildest dreams Lincoln could

never have imagined how far his

reputation would reach I was so thrilled

to find a interview with the great

Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in a New York

newspaper in the early 1900s and in it

Tolstoy told of a trip that he’d

recently made to a very remote area of

the Caucasus where there were only wild

barbarians who had never left this part

of Russia

knowing that Tolstoy was in their myths

they asked him to tell stories of the

great men of

so I said I told them about Napoleon and

Alexander the Great in Frederick great

and Julius Caesar and they loved it but

before I finished the chief of the

barbarians stood up and said but wait

you haven’t told us about the greatest

ruler of them all we want to hear about

that man who spoke with the voice of

thunder who laughed like the sunrise who

came from that place called America

which is so far from here that if a

young man should travel there he would

be an old man when he arrived tell us of

that man tell us of Abraham Lincoln he

was stunned II told him everything he

could about Lincoln and then in the

interview he said what made Lincoln so

great not as great a generalist Napoleon

not as great a statesman as Frederick

the Great but his greatness consisted

and historians would roundly agree in

the integrity of his character and the

moral fiber of his being so in the end

that powerful ambition that had carried

Lincoln through his bleak childhood had

been realized that ambition that had

allowed him to laborious Lee educate

himself by himself to go through those

string of political failures and the

darkest days of the war his story would

be told so as for that second sphere not

of work but of love encompassing family

friends and colleagues it too takes work

and commitment the Lyndon Johnson that I

saw in the last years of his life when I

helped him on his memoirs was a man who

had spent so many years in the pursuit

of work power and individual success

they need absolutely no psychic or

emotional resources left to get him

through the days once the presidency was

gone my relationship with him began on a

rather curious level I was selected as a

White House Fellow when I was 24 years

old we had a big dance at the White

House President Johnson did dance with

me that night not that peculiar they’re

only three women out of the 16 White

House fellows but he did whisper in my

ear that he wanted me to work directly

for him in the White House but it was

not to be that simple for in the months

leading up to my selection like many

young people I’d been active in the

anti-vietnam war movement and had

written an article against Lyndon

Johnson which unfortunately came out in

the New Republic two days after the

dance in the White House

the theme of the article was how to

remove Lyndon Johnson from power so I

was certain he would kick me out of the

program but instead surprising he said

I’ll bring her down here for a year if I

can’t win her over

no one can so I did end up working for

him in the White House eventually

accompanied him to his ranch to help him

on those memoirs never fully

understanding why he’d chosen me to

spend so many hours with I like to

believe it was because I was a good

listener he was a great storyteller

fabulous colorful anecdotal stories

there was a problem with these stories

however which I later discovered which

is that half of them weren’t true but

they were great on the last so I think

that part of his attraction for me was

that I loved listening to his tall tales

but I also worried that part of it was

that I was then a young woman and he had

somewhat of a minor league womanizing

reputation so I constantly chatted to

him about boyfriends even when I didn’t

have any at all everything was working

perfectly until one day he said when

he’s discussed our relationship sounded

very ominous when he took me nearby to

the lake conveniently called lake lyndon

baines johnson and there was wine and

cheese in a red check tablecloth all the

romantic trappings and he started out

Doris more than any other woman I have

ever known and my heart sank and then he

said you remind me of my mother

it was it was pretty embarrassing given

what was going on in my mind but I must

say the older I’ve gotten the more I

realized what an incredible privilege it

was to have spent so many hours with

this aging line of a man a victor in a

thousand contests three great civil

rights laws Medicare aid to education

and yet roundly defeated in the end by

the war in Vietnam and because he was so

sad and so vulnerable he opened up to me

in ways he never would have had I known

him at the height of his power sharing

his fears his sorrows and his worries

and I’d like to believe that that

privilege fired within me the drive to

understand the inner person behind the

public figure that I’ve tried to bring

to each of my books since then but it

also brought home to me the lessons

which Erik Erikson had tried to instill

in all of us about the importance of

finding balance in life for on the

surface Lyndon Johnson should have had

everything in the world to feel good

about in those last years in the sense

that he had been elected to the

presidency he had all the money he

needed to pursue any leisure activity he

wanted

he owned a spacious ranch in the

countryside a penthouse in the city

sailboats speedboats he had servants to

answer any whim and he had a family who

loved him deeply and yet years of

concentration solely on work and

individual success meant that in his

retirement he could find no solace in

family in recreation in sports or in

hobbies it was almost as if the hole in

his heart was so large that even the

love of a family without work could not

fill it as his spirit sagged his body

deteriorated until I believe he slowly

brought about his own death in those

last years he said he was so sad

watching the American people look toward

a new president and forgetting him he

spoke with immense sadness in his voice

saying maybe he should have spent more

time with his children and their

children in turn but it was too late

despite all that power all that wealth

he was alone when he finally died his

ultimate terror realized so as for that

third sphere of play which he never had

learned to enjoy I’ve learned over the

years that even this sphere requires a

commitment of time and energy enough so

that a hobby a sport a love of music or

art or literature or any form of

recreation can provide true pleasure

relaxation and replenishment so deep for

instance was Abraham Lincoln’s love of

Shakespeare that he made time to spend

more than a hundred nights in the

theatre even during those dark days of

the war he said when the lights went

down in a Shakespeare play came on for a

few precious hours he could imagine

himself back in Prince Hal’s time but an

even more important form of relaxation

for him that Lyndon Johnson never could

enjoy was a love of somehow humor and

feeling out what hilarious parts of life

can produce a sidelight to the sadness

he once said that he laughed so he did

not cry that a good story for him was

better than a drop of whiskey his

storytelling powers had first been

recognized when he was on the circuit in

Illinois the lawyers and the judges

would travel from one County Courthouse

to the other and when anyone was knowing

Lincoln was in town they would come from

miles around to listen to him tell

stories he would stand with his back

against a fire and entertain the crowd

for hours with his winding tales

and all these stories became part of his

memory bank so he could call on them

whenever he needed to and they’re not

quite what you might expect from our

marble monument one of his favorite

stories for example had to do with the

Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen and

his Lincoln told the story mr. Allen

went to Britain after the war and the

British people were still upset about

losing the revolution so they decided to

embarrass him a little bit by putting a

huge picture of General Washington in

the only outhouse where he’d have to

encounter it they figured he be upset

about the indignity of George Washington

being in an outhouse but he came out of

the outhouse not upset at all and so

they said we’ll teach you see George

Washington there oh yes he said

perfectly appropriate place for him what

do you mean they said well he said

there’s nothing to make an Englishman

faster than the sight of General

George so you can imagine if you are in

the middle of a tense cabinet meeting he

had hundreds of these stories you will

have to relax

so between his nightly treks to the

theatre his storytelling and his

extraordinary sense of humor and his

love of quoting Shakespeare and poetry

he found that form of play which carried

him through his days in my own life I

shall always be grateful for having

found a form of play in my irrational

love of baseball which allows me from

the beginning of spring training to the

end of the fall to have something to

occupy my mind and heart other than my

work it all began when I was only six

years old and my father taught me that

mysterious art of keeping score while

listening to baseball games so that when

he went to work in New York during the

day I could record for him the history

of that afternoon’s Brooklyn Dodger game

now when you’re only six years old and

your father comes home every single

night and listens to you as I now

realize that I in excruciating detail

recounted every single play of every

inning of the game that had just taken

place that afternoon but he made me feel

I was telling him a fabulous story they

think makes you think there’s something

magic about history to keep your

father’s attention in fact I’m convinced

I learned the narrative art from those

nightly sessions with my father because

at first I’d be so excited I would blurt

out the Dodgers won or the Dodgers lost

which took much of the drama of this

two-hour telling

so I finally learned you had to stell a

story from beginning to middle to end I

must say so fervent was my love of the

old Brooklyn Dodgers in those days that

I had to confess in my first confession

to sins that related to baseball the

first occurred because the Dodger

catcher Roy Campanella came to my

hometown of Rockville Center Long Island

just as it was in preparation for my

First Holy Communion and I was so

excited first person I’d ever see

outside of Ebbets Field but it so

happened he was speaking in a Protestant

Church when you were brought up as a

Catholic you think if you ever set foot

in a Protestant Church you’ll be struck

dead at the threshold so I went to my

father in tears what are we going to do

he said don’t worry he’s speaking at a

parish hall we’re sitting and folding

chairs he’s talking about sportsmanship

it’s not a sin but as I left that night

I was certain that somehow I traded the

life of my everlasting soul for this one

night with Roy Campanella and there were

no indulgences around that I could buy

so I had this sin on my soul when I went

to my first confession I told the priest

right away he said no problem it wasn’t

a religious service but then

unfortunately said and what else my

child and then came my seconds and I

tried to sandwich it in between talking

too much in church witching harm to

others being mean to my sisters and he

said to whom did you wish harm and I had

to say that I wish that various New York

Yankee players would break arms and legs

and ankles so that the RET so that the

Brooklyn Dodgers could win their first

World Series he said how often do you

make these horrible wishes and I had to

say every night when I said my prayers

so he said look I tell you something I

love the Brooklyn Dodgers as you do but

I promise you someday they will win

fairly and squarely do not need to wish

harm and others to make it happen oh yes

I said but luckily my first confession

to a baseball loving priest

well though my father died of a sudden

heart attack when I was still in my 20s

before I had gotten married and had my

three sons I have passed his memory as

well as his love of baseball onto my

boys though when the Dodgers abandoned

us to come to LA I lost faith in

baseball until I moved to Boston became

an irrational Red Sox fan and I must say

even now when I sit with my sons with

our season tickets I can sometimes close

my eyes against the Sun and imagine

myself a young girl once more in the

presence of my father watching the

players of my youth on the grassy fields

below Jackie Robinson Roy Campanella Pee

Wee Reese and

Schneider I must say there is magic in

these moments when I opened my eyes and

I see my son’s in the place where my

father once sat I feel an invisible

loyalty and love linking my sons to the

grandfather whose face they never had a

chance to see but whose heart and soul

they have come to know through all the

stories I have told which is why in the

end I shall always be grateful for this

curious love of history allowing me to

spend a lifetime looking back into the

past allowing me to learn from these

large figures about the struggle for

meaning for life allowing me to believe

that the private people we have loved

and lost in our families and the public

figures we have respected in our history

just as Abraham Lincoln wanted to

believe really can live on so long as we

pledge to tell and to retell the stories

of their lives thank you for letting me

be that storyteller today

[Applause]

[Applause]

really wonderful thank you what does a

machine know about itself can it know

when it needs to be repaired and when it

doesn’t in industries like manufacturing

and energy they’re using predictive

analytics to detect signs of trouble

helping some companies save millions on

maintenance because machines seek help

before they’re broken and don’t when

they’re not that’s what I’m working on

I’m an IBM er let’s build a smarter

planet