Kearns Goodwin brings pocket full of presidential anecdotes to Boca Festival

March 25, 2010   ·   1 Comments

By Diane Feen

 

It was an evening of anecdotal wonderment. Did you know that Lyndon B. Johnson liked to talk to reporters while in the bathroom and that Winston Churchill came out of the bath with nothing on, yet carried on a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt in the White House (he was a regular guest)?

These were just some of the historical tidbits we heard from Goodwin, who is a masterful story teller. As a matter of fact she could talk about mud drying on the pavement and it would sound riveting.

The reason this former intern for the Johnson administration (and LBJ memoir writer) has the inside scoop on matters of the heart and the home is because she has written about (and extensively researched) LBJ, Abraham Lincoln, The Fitzgeralds, the Kennedys and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

She won a Pulitzer in history for her novel No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, and also wrote The Fitzgerald’s and the Kennedy’s, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream and Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

 

And the best part of her genius is that Goodwin seems like the girl next door. “I was impressed by her generosity in taking the time to tell stories and give us wonderful images of the people she has written about. She seemed so approachable and down to earth,” said Donna Rinald.

One thing we didn’t expect was an in-depth account of Abraham Lincoln being a man of real integrity. This looming figure, who most of us know as the man with the stern face and bushy beard, came to life within the confines of Mizner Park. We learned from Goodwin that Lincoln had a great sense of humor, loved to debate friends and rivals, picked members of his cabinet who were the best for the job regardless of how he felt about them (some were enemies).

“It’s better to have them (your enemies) inside pissing out than being out and pissing in,” Lincoln once said. We were also told that Lincoln was kind and easily gave credit to others for their hard work (he was no egomaniac, for sure). Goodwin also told us that Barak Obama turned to her to discuss the life of Lincoln as both role model and honorable politician prototype.

We also learned that Eleanor Roosevelt traveled 200 days a year and was the first female to hold a press conference in the White House. “Eleanor Roosevelt insisted that newspapers only send female reporters to her press conferences,” said Goodwin. “And at that time there were no female reporters so the newspapers had to hire some.”

Goodwin was so fascinated by the infamous White House cocktail conversations during the Roosevelt years (that were filled with intellectual banter and martini fueled debates) that she yearned to visit the rooms where they took place. And her dream eventually came true.

“I was on the radio during the Clinton administration and I told the interviewer that I wanted to go to the White House and check out the rooms where these discussions took place. I was so surprised when I got an invitation from Hillary Clinton to sleep in the White House. We walked into different rooms and imagined the late night conversations that took place between people like Winston Churchill and Harry Hopkins.”

When you meet Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband Richard (who spend winters in Mizner Park) it is easy to mistake them for typical Florida snowbirds. But if you watch political talk shows or hear any of their historical musings you will quickly realize that they are indeed colorful superstars of the political process.

By The Boca Raton Tribune