At the outset Ms. Lyall informed us that Ms. Kearns told her to call her "Doris," and thereafter she did. It simplified things. Ms. Kearns has not granted me any such latitude, but since she seems like a nice lady I'm going to take it anyway.
Doris, who is a pre-eminent presidential historian and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, at this point seems to me to be as familiar to the public as Dr. Joyce Brothers was in her day—for different reasons and background, but just as well known. My friend tells me she was always on Imus, and I'm sure on lots of PBS programs and documentaries.
The NYT thumbnail bio blurb describes Sarah Lyall as a writer at large, working for a variety of desks, including Sports, Culture Media and International. She previously was a correspondent in the London Bureau, and reporter for the Culture and Metro Desks. She is the author 'The Anglo Files,' having spent so much time living in England that she couldn't resist comparing British and American Culture beyond telling us there is a common language separated by an ocean. She has since moved her laptop back to New York.
Even with her widespread popularity and notoriety, I have to say I never really listened to her, or read any of Ms. Kearn's books, despite being a Teddy Roosevelt fan, one of the presidents she's become an authority on. I tend to fog out at those historical tomes. I once tried to read David McCulloch's opus on George Washington and barely got deep into enough into it to need a book mark.
Ms. Kearns is 78; Ms. Lyall is 58, and I'm 72. I mention this because it plays a part in the interview as to what each of us has experienced historically. Doris and I know the same presidents, she squeezing FDR in there just before he passed away.
Ms. Lyall naturally is trying to make some sense of what we are experiencing now, and does any of it compare to what Ms. Kearns can speak to. Turns out it does. Doris talks of the divisive atmosphere in the country leading up to slavery, to the point that there was a fistfight in 1858 on the House floor when Laurence Kent throttled the Congressman from Pennsylvania, Galusha Grow with his cane over pro- and anti-slavery sentiments.
It was a right old donnybrook, and Doris relates that afterward, with the massive publicity it got in the newspapers, that people in the South started sporting canes as a fashion accessory, sort of like an early form of open carry.
Ms. Lyall prompts Doris with great questions, and leading statements. She's looking for a way to put current events in perspective with past everts. She lets Doris talk, and that's a good thing.
Ms. Kerns has a vast memory of presidential stories. She related to Lincoln's unsent letters of disappointment that he composed to generals and cabinet members that he set aside when his anger cooled. The letters were eventually found amongst his papers.
She talked of TR's hardship of having his first wife and mother pass away on the same day; of course FDR's steely determination to appear to walk and not let the world know he was an invalid in a wheelchair with polio; and LBJ's political acumen and last night calls to members of Congress to get them on his side for passage of the Voting Rights Act.
I did think the interview was spawned by the publication of Ms. Kearns's book "Leadership In Turbulent Times" about when Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR and LBJ ran the country during highly disruptive periods.
I didn't know anything about Doris's husband Richard Kearns, but apparently he was a speech writer for Johnson and wrote an effective speech Johnson gave on behalf of the Voting Rights legislation. She has a framed pen from Johnson singing the bill. Ms. Kearns herself told the audience that she worked in the Johnson Administration when she was in her mid-20s.
Amazingly, neither Ms. Lyall or Doris mention Donald Trump, but he is the unseen elephant in the room and is on your mind when other presidents are discussed. Ms. Kearns does outline the qualities of Lincoln, TR, FDR, and LBJ that she attributes their greatness to overcoming adversities in life.
Asked to describe an especially fraught period that she lived though, Ms Kearns mentions the "duck and cover" drills of the 1950s when as elementary school children we rehearsed going under our desks, facing away from the windows, so that we might survive an atomic blast.
As a school kid who remembers the same thing as Ms. Kearns. I know didn't think it silly that turning away from a window would help you survive an atomic blast. But it was the thought of flying glass that we were protecting ourselves against.
When I backed away from by desk by the window on the 29th floor of 1 World Trade center at 8:48 a.m. on 9/11/2001 I thought of "duck and cover." I figured it was best to head for the fire drill exit rather than pick up some personal items like my pen, briefcase and jacket. My thinking at the time was that we'll be back later in the week and get our things. Well, no.
My own period of hard core unease was when soon after 9/11 there was the anthrax scare. Envelopes containing anthrax were mailed to some people and they died. Others got seriously sick. The postal system was turned upside down in trying to determine the source. A suspect working with developing air borne anthrax for the Army did emerge as a highly likely suspect, but eventually committed suicide before anything could be conclusively proven. For me, the wheels were coming off the country.
May own takeaway was how Ms. Kearns thinking about history was equal to my own: we are living inside of it. And right now we don't know when the pandemic will end. There is no second date following 2020; 2020 to...? Spanish influenza owns 1918, but no hyphen.
It's something I've thought of often. I'd imagine my father and mother in the service in WW II not knowing when it was going to end. That was true for anyone living through that era, serving in uniform, or otherwise. When is it over? Will it be over. It's now 1943, it started in 1941 for the U.S, but when does it end? You're an infantryman taking Sicily, then moving on. When do I do home? You live inside the dates, with the second date not being known.
It's very much like the poem I wrote and publish annually on September 16th. It combines the events of 9/11 with the workplace murders I experienced.
"...the dates on the stones let you measure the time/ Of the lives that lived in between...We learned of the others and their bracketed date,/ And our own that remained unfinished."
I watched the first hour of the podcast. There was a question and answer portion I didn't stay tuned for. But it was visible on her face, and she expressed it, when Ms. Lyall expressed relief after listening to Ms. Kearns. She felt a little relieved that yes, we are experiencing hardship and inconveniences, but we are inside the dates of history. And right now, the second date is still to be determined.
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