Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. American History: Leaders & Moments that Shaped Our Modern Country

I went to the LA Times Festival of Books (April 13-14). I'm posting my notes on the various panel discussions I attended.

The second panel discussion I attended was "American History: Leaders & Moments that Shaped Our Modern Country."

Here are edited panelist biographies via the LA Times website. 

Susan Page is the Washington Bureau chief of USA Today, where she writes about politics and the White House. Susan has covered six White House administrations and ten presidential elections. Her book "The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty" was recently released.

Miriam Pawel is the author of "The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation," a finalist for the 2018 L.A. Times Book Prize in History and a Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. She is a Pulitzer-prize winning editor and reporter who spent twenty-five years at Newsday and the Los Angeles Times.

Jon Ward has chronicled American politics and culture for two decades, as a city desk reporter in Washington D.C., as a White House correspondent who traveled aboard Air Force One to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and as a national affairs correspondent who has traveled the country to write about two presidential campaigns and the ideas and people animating our times. His most recent book of nonfiction, "Camelot's End: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party," was released earlier this year.

And the following are my notes from the panel discussion: 



Susan Page. She has covered the last 10 presidential elections and in 7 of those elections Barbara Bush played a role. She was sharp, caustic and mean. She was an important advisor to both Bush presidents.

She was born in 1925. She had an IQ of 120, but was undistinguished in high school. She only got one A and that was in physical education. Her role in politics changed from the background to the forefront when she took the lead on AIDS. She was also consequential in ending the Cold War. Nancy Reagan had a feud with the wife of Gorbachev, Raisa. This was causing issues with the negotiations. This wasn’t necessarily Reagan’s fault. Raisa was a difficult person; however, Bush made it an emphasis to get along with Raisa.

She also knew how not to be manipulated. She was in Moscow in 1991. Boris Yeltsin asked to walk her into a ballroom. This was an event that was being shown on Moscow TV. She knew that this would indicate that the US was siding with Yeltsin in his attempt to push out Gorbachev. Bush insisted that she would walk with both Yeltsin and Raisa, indicating that the US was not going to take sides in this political struggle.

Miriam Pawel. In 1958, Democrats came to power in California. This was a big deal, because California hasn’t always been a blue state. Since 1958, we’ve had only 5 Democratic governors. Of those, 2 were Browns. Her book mainly focuses on Pat and Jerry, but her book does go back 4 generations. They are perhaps one of the most passionate of Californians.

A tidbit is that Pat’s wife went to college at the age of 15.

Pat always took his family to Yellowstone and the Russian River and is how Jerry got his love for the environment.

Pat Brown hugged strangers. Jerry Brown shook hands with his father. Pat Brown loved to parade his family around, which is probably why Jerry Brown didn’t do that.

Jerry Brown has a comeback story, resilience. He was defeated in 1982 for his run for Senator. He then ran for President. He then moved to Oakland and ran for mayor. Then won his race for governor. He is likely to spend the rest of his life on climate change and the criminal justice system.

Jon Ward. Ted Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter. He had a family history and expectations to revive Camelot. He got into politics, because his father told him to do so. He actually wanted to move to California.

Did he want to run for president or did he not have a choice? The door was open in 1980. Democrats, 2-1, preferred him over Carter. Was his run just a necessary exorcism?

He was a great senator once he got past his wild years of drinking and women.

Carter was constantly being underestimated. He grew up with no running water. He willed himself to become president. He has also re-invented the post-presidency via his mediation of conflicts.

Some of their political differences was that Kennedy was for national healthcare while Carter wasn’t. Carter wanted to limit money supply to deal with inflation while Kennedy wanted to increase government spending to offset the effect of inflation on the lives of people.