Face the Nation transcripts March 31, 2013: Religion and politics on Easter Sunday
(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on March 31, 2013, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston, Bishop Harry Jackson of the International Communion of Evangelical Churches, and Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills. Then, we'll turn to history and politics with Amity Shlaes, author of the acclaimed biography of Calvin Coolidge; Jeffrey Frank, who chronicled the odd relationship between Eisenhower and Nixon in "Ike and Dick; World War II historian Lynn Olson of "Those Angry Days" on Roosevelt's battle with Charles Lindbergh, and Paul Reed who wrote "The Last Lion," about Winston Churchill during World War II.
SCHIEFFER: Today on Face the Nation, we'll tack religion and politics on this holy week for Christians and Jews. What is the state of religion in America?
CARDINAL TIM DOLAN, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK: More and more people are saying, you know what, I don't have trouble with god, I don't have trouble with Jesus, I don't have trouble with faith, I do have some troubles with the church. That's a major pastoral challenge, not only for us as Catholics, but for the other revealed religions.
SCHIEFFER: In addition to Archbishop Timothy Dolan just back from Rome where he took part in the selection of the new pope, we'll hear from Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston, Bishop Harry Jackson of the International Communion of Evangelical Churches, and Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills. Then on page two, we'll turn to political leadership with the authors of four widely acclaimed books, Amity Shlaes, author of the acclaimed biography of our 30th president Calvin Coolidge; Jeffrey Frank, who chronicled the odd relationship between Eisenhower and Nixon in "Ike and Dick; World War II historian Lynn Olson of "Those Angry Days" on Roosevelt's battle with Charles Lindbergh, and Paul Reed who wrote "The Last Lion," the compelling story of Winston Churchill during World War II. From the secular to the spiritual, because this is Face the Nation.
ANNOUNCER: From CBS news in Washington, Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer.
SCHIEFFER: And we our broadcast this morning with the Catholic Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan. Your Eminence, we welcome you. We want to talk about the significance of this week to not just Christianity, but to other religions as well. We also want to talk about the state of religion in America. But we haven't talked to you since the selection of the new Pope Francis, and I just want to catch up a little and ask can you a little about that. What was that like?
DOLAN: Bob, that is one of the most exciting events in my whole life. And I think it's going to take me a long time to work through it and to process it.
It was a combination of nervousness, intimidation, awe, a real genuine experience of the grace of the holy spirit, and at the end, a sense of resolution, peace, and excitement. It's tough to explain what went on there, and of course I can't talk about some of it, but I tell you, I left filled with a great sense of promise, hope, jubilation. And so far what we've seen in our new holy father wound vindicate those sentiments.
SCHIEFFER: From the reporting of the Wall Street Journal and some others, I take it that the speech that the soon-to-be pope made to a group of you at a dinner may have been the thing that got people most interested and excited about him when he talked about, according to the reporting, that the church simply had to stop looking inward and start look outward, and devote itself to helping the poor.
DOLAN: Yeah, he did. He reminded us, Bob, of what it means to be Catholic. Catholic is a synonym for everybody, all-embracing, worldwide, everybody's welcome. And he said maybe we spend a little too much time getting hung up on the all the internal problems we've got -- and you bet we've got them, and you can bet he's going to try to tend to some of them. But he said we always have to look behind. Because first of all we have got to look to god, and his son, Jesus Christ. And then we have got to look to our people, especially those who are most in need and who look to the church for a sense of hope, a sense of renewal, and for some help, especially those who are poor and sick and struggling.
SCHIEFFER: What do you think it means to Catholics in America that we now have a pope who is from the New World and not from Europe?
DOLAN: I think it means a lot. And I think especially for us, Bob, it means two things. Number one, that he comes from what the Europeans still refer to as the New World, from Latin America. And it reminds us of how the church is growing, how the church is universal, how in some ways, the church started in Jerusalem and went to Rome, that's part of our glorious and revered history. But now the church has expand, North and South America, Asia, Africa -- that's where the real boom is, that's where the real life is. And secondly, a booster shot for us, especially in North America, where we're blessed with a wonderfully vibrant Hispanic and Latino population. Boy, it was a real shot in the arm. These people are moved to tears. You talk about a sense of excitement. I can't go anywhere in New York City where I've got people from Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Puerto Rico, who are coming up in tears saying we have a Latin American pope. It's a real shot in the arm for us as Catholics.
SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about the state of religion in America today. I just saw a statistic that said one-fifth of the U.S. public, one-third of adults under 30 are now religiously unaffiliated. And this is the highest percentage ever, according to this Pew survey, since 2007. It has gone up from 15 percent of the people who have no affiliation to now about 20 percent. How would you judge the state of America's spirituality these days?
DOLAN: Listen, when the Pew Research Center talks, we listen, because they've got a good -- they've got a good track record. And even when the news is rather somber, as the statistics that you just accurately quoted would lead us to believe, there is some good news there. First of all, America is still a very strong religious nation. And secondly, as you quoted, about 70 percent of people would feel themselves still religiously affiliated. That's good news. And a lot of countries would give anything for a statistic like that. The somber news is what you just said, that the number of unaffiliated go up. Now, that's a challenge for those of us who believe that the essence of religion is coming together as a community, as a spiritual family, that Jesus taught us to say "our father" not just "my father," that it's not about me, it's about us. That's a challenge for us, because for those of us who believe that god has revealed that he wants to be approached as members of a community, as members of a church, that's a challenge because more and more people are saying you know what I don't have trouble with god, I don't have trouble with Jesus, I don't have trouble with faith, I do have some troubles with the church. That is a major pastoral challenge, not only for us as Catholics but for the other revealed religions. I hear my Jewish rabbi neighbors say it's the same challenge. I hear my Anglican friends say the same thing. Our evangelical friends say the same thing, that people have no trouble with faith, they want to believe, but belonging, that's another question. That's something we've got to look in the eyes and do something about it.
SCHIEFFER: Now let's talk about some of the challenges that you face, some of the problems you talk about. We've had these sex scandals. It's been in all the newspapers. I know you know that's a serious problem. But, you know, also this week here in Washington, we've been very much focused on same-sex marriage. We have these two big cases come before the Supreme Court. You know, 58 percent of the people now think it would be a good idea to allow priests to marry. About half of Catholics support same- sex marriage. Half of U.S. Catholics overall say that abortion should be legal in most cases. I guess the question I would ask you is, you have your principles. The Catholic church has always stood for certain principles. When people disagreed they left and became Protestants or something else. That has been the remedy down through history. But how, your eminence, do you remain relevant in a society that is changing so dramatically, where people have such different ideas now about these things?
DOLAN: Yeah, and, Bob, you say it well. And that may be one of the major problems, or one of the major targets that we have, how to remain faithful to what we believe are God-given, revealed, settled, unchanging principles without losing our people who more and more question them, all right?
So while we -- what do we do? I think while we can't tamper with what god has revealed -- and you mentioned some of the issues, we can try to do better in the way we present them, with more credibility and in a more compelling way. I think if you watch Pope Francis, he might be giving us a nudge in what we need to do. Part of the problem, Bob, and I'm embarrassed to say that, is that sometimes we pastors, sometimes we church leaders don't give a good example. And people automatically say well who wants to join if even the bishops, if even cardinals, if even priests and religious leaders aren't living up to the high noble principles revealed in the Bible and taught us by Jesus. We as Catholics say contemporary men and women prefer a lot more to learn by witness than from words. We're getting a hint from Pope Francis, because what he's trying to do I think in a very natural, spontaneous way is to restore the luster to the church, return to those biblical values of utter simplicity, of sincerity, of service, almost a no-frills religion, and that resonates with people. People love that. He chooses the name Francis when -- you know, what Francis, when the pope said show me your rule of life for this new religious congregation. he said here, how about the gospel. Well, that's what Pope Francis is saying. It's all there, folks. And perhaps we've crusted it a little too much, perhaps we made it a little too complicated, maybe we need to return to the shores of Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is simply saying come follow me. I think he might be given us a hint to the renewal that we need in religion and faith in the church.
SCHIEFFER: Your Eminence, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I want to wish you the happiest of Easters.
DOLAN: Bob, a blessed Easter to you and our audience. Good to be with you.
SCHIEFFER: And we will continue this discussion about religion in America in one minute with Bishop Mariann Budde, the first female bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston, Rabbi David Wolpe from Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills, California, and Bishop Harry Jackson, who is the head of the International Communion of Evangelical Churches. Back in a minute.
SCHIEFFER: And we are back now to continue our discussion on faith in America. Bishop Budde, I want to go to you first. You heard what Cardinal Dolan said, that it's not that people seem to have a problem with religion so much as they have a problem with the church. And he says that goes across all faiths. Do you agree with that?
BUDDE: I certainly hear that from particularly younger people who have a deep sense of spirituality, a deep sense of reverence for the mysteries of life but wonder what institutional affiliation means for them. So I think it's an opportunity, as he said so well, for -- for all people of faith and in particular our church to reengage our communities, reengage our young people with the best and the timeless truths of spirituality while we try to understand even more deeply the issues and concerns that people are facing now and to be with them in ways that are credible.
SCHIEFFER: Imam Webb, you are a part of the fastest-growing religion now in America, and that is Islam. I must say you do not fit...
(LAUGHTER)
... the preconceived notions that some might have of what an imam is. You're also American-born, and I'm told that you are -- the people who write about you say that you're trying to develop an American- style Islam. What's that about? And tell us a little bit about your background.
WEBB: Well, I think that speaks to what we're talking about now, faith and institutions, and in my congregation in particular, what I'm noting is that people might not have lost faith in the concept of an institution, but the institutions that they see don't meet that concept. So there is still some hope and faith in institutions. So one of the things that we realize is that, with Islam in America, you have such a large immigrant presence, which is really rooted in social constructs that are very foreign to America itself, that many of the clergy weren't able to speak the language or speak to the congregation in a way that was really effective. So one of the things is people like myself, people born and raised here -- I did my degrees in education, you know, from Oklahoma. I love the Sooners. I hate the Longhorns, you know...
(LAUGHTER)
... you know, the whole nine yards.
BUDDE: Those are fighting words.
WEBB: I'm sorry.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm a big Celtics fan.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, I -- you know, I hate South Beach. But there's a way of speaking to people and making -- theology -- one of my teachers said theology needs sociology. And in order to have that marriage and empower each other...
SCHIEFFER: Are most of the people who are Muslim in America -- are they immigrants or are they people who have converted?
WEBB: Pew, 65 percent are immigrants. The remaining are converts or children of converts to Islam.
SCHIEFFER: And how many of you are there now?
WEBB: About -- almost 2 million.
SCHIEFFER: And that's about the same as Episcopalians?
BUDDE: That's right. But 40 percent of those are under 30. So with globalization and the Internet, many of them are very Western culturally, regardless of where they're coming from. So we'll find even some students who are from Saudi Arabia, if we have a really profound orator who speaks in, kind of, an American-esque style, they'll some and say, "Wow, I've never heard a sermon like this before."
SCHIEFFER: Rabbi Wolpe, of course this is -- this is a holy week for Jews as well as for Christians.
WOLPE: Right.
SCHIEFFER: It is the week of Passover. I'm interested in this -- this whole idea that we're now saying that maybe not as many people are going to church, but people still feel some spirituality. Do you think we're a better country or a worse country? Are we less ethical now than we used to be when more people went to church?
WOLPE: Well, I mean, there are lots of different measures of what -- in some ways, we're much better. We're a more inclusive; we're a more open country, a more embracing country. Maybe one of the ways of addressing it is in Passover's own language. The famous phrase from Passover that everyone knows is, "Let my people go." But that's actually not the entire phrase. It really reads, "Let my people go that they may serve me."
The first part of it, "Let my people go," everybody signs onto. But the question is what do you do with the freedom that you've been given? And "that they may serve me" suggests that, in my tradition, as I think in all of our traditions, if you don't do something which requires institutions, communities, organizations, for God's sakes, committee meetings -- if you don't do something to help those who are hungry and homeless and bereaved and bereft and alone and in need and mourning, if you don't do that, then your freedom is for nothing, for naught. So to the extent that people manage to use that spiritual spark to organize themselves to make God's world better, we're a better place. To the extent that they use it for a sense of spiritual self- esteem alone, we've lost something crucial. And I think that institutional disenchantment goes across our society. It's not only in religion; it's in the military, in Congress, in universities. And I mean, there's a sense that, when people organize themselves, bad things as well as good things happen. So maybe an institutional self- reckoning would be important to make us better.
SCHIEFFER: Bishop Jackson, you are the bishop of a communion of churches, but you're also the pastor of a very big church out in Beltsville, Maryland, what, about 3,000 members. What is your sense of where America is today, as far as are we a more religious country than we used to be? Are we more or less ethical? Where are we? Are we a happier people than we used to be?
JACKSON: No, I think we're searching. I think we are miserable. I think we're disconnected from God. We know there is somebody out there. But I think the message to this generation is, or the question the generation is asking is why am I here; what was I created to become? Most of our faiths are not answering that question. I spent a month with the teenagers in my local church, and preaching to them, talking to them, hanging out with them, and they've been listening to me talk and I've been listening to them talk, and the idea that God created them with a unique purpose really challenges them. And the idea that our faith could be the bridge to their purpose and that part of their purpose is to be an answer to poverty, to be an answer to the hurt of the world, is exciting to them. And I believe the next generation, the 20-something, 30- something, wants to be God's answer to the problems of the world. They just don't have a clear, coherent understanding of how that comes together. What we've done, I believe, as we look at the same-sex marriage battle, is that many of us have tried to tell people about the nuts and bolts of the car without telling them why they should buy this car in the first place. We're selling features instead of benefits. We're saying, "This runs this fast and does all these things and keep these rules because I said so," instead of winsomely communicating the overarching purpose of why you're here and why it matters that you walk with me. And I'm not talking about "me," a denomination or institution. But somebody has got to believe that Harry Jackson is somebody that you need to connect with because he's walking with a guy named Jesus who can make a difference for their lives.
BUDDE: And integrity...
SCHIEFFER: Let's let -- see what...
BUDDE: I think I would just say I feel that the personal integrity, the engagement with people, as you were saying so well, where they are, starting with the questions of personal purpose and meaning are foremost in people's minds now. Unless they've been beaten down to the point where they don't even think that that matters or caught up in a bunch of -- we're just running so fast in this society now, a kind of 24/7 life that doesn't always allow for the kind of reflection and meditation and thoughtfulness that all of our traditions are here to give people in a meaningful way.
WOLPE: A lot of this has to do with how potent and powerful our techniques are. Our technology catches us up, exactly what you were saying. This is how the car works and it's so remarkable that the car and cell phone and the computer and the Internet can work so magnificently that it's easy to ignore the ultimate purpose for which all these tools are created. And you know, when I teach the kids in my school, I always tell them this story about a kid who looks up at the heavens and he says, "dear, god, there's so much suffering and pain and anguish in the world. Why don't you send help?" And god says, "I did send help. I sent you." And that idea that you're sent...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beautiful.
WOLPE: Is what we need to feel.
SCHIEFFER: You know, you said something that -- well, I'll just read it. You once said "a window is a more effective tool than a mirror."
WOLPE: Right.
SCHIEFFER: What did you mean by that?
WOLPE: Well, I just meant that we have a tendency in our society because we are surrounded by multiple reflections of ourselves, to look always for the answer within, but the truth is that the cry from the street is sometimes more compelling than the need of my own soul, and sometimes somebody else has to trump what I think I need, and my deepest satisfaction will be in placing my immediate needs aside and fulfilling the needs of the other. In other words, "I sent you." And if we could learn not to sit all the time front of the computer that sends us back various images of things we call up, and turn it off and listen to what's going on in the street, we will hear those cries, and in responding to them, find a spirit and a sense of ourselves and of god that is infinitely deeper and higher.
SCHIEFFER: We're going to continue this discussion in just a moment. But in a minute, I'll be back with some personal thoughts.
SCHIEFFER: I have been a working reporter for more than half a century. And the other day someone asked me what all those years had taught me. Well, what I learned I think is that the more I am convinced there are four powerful forces in the world and human events come down to which one prevails. Those forces are love, knowledge, ignorance, and hate. There is no more powerful force than love. A parents' love for a child may be the most powerful force in human nature. Yet hate is also powerful and has always been with us. I have never quite come to terms with how Hitler could have come to power not hundreds of years ago, but in my lifetime. How did civilized people let that happen? What I do know is that hate is the product of ignorance and intolerance. Love is strengthened by knowledge. On this weekend, which is the time of reflection for so many on the purpose of life, I recall what the historian Will Durant once wrote, that barbarism like the jungle does not die but only retreats behind the barriers that civilization has thrown up against it and waits there always to reclaim that which civilization has taken from it. Knowledge, tolerance, and understanding are civilization's barriers and they remain in place only so long as the forces of good are there to maintain them. Back in a minute.
SCHIEFFER: Some of our stations are leaving us now. For most of you we'll be back with more on our discussion of religion in America and we'll have a conversation with the authors of some of the most acclaimed new presidential and history books. Hope you'll stay with us.
SCHIEFFER: And welcome back to page two. We're going to continue our conversation of religion in America on this Easter Sunday. So I want to get your take on this and what you're hearing and how does that fit in with your...
WEBB: Three quick thoughts. I think one of the challenges we all have as institutions is that our message is always to the weak and the downtrodden. But there are people who come to my congregation who are not weak, who are not downtrodden, who are wealthy, who are not ill, who are spiritually in tune with god, but they also need a message. And they say I've notice that the church, the mosque, if you will, the synagogue -- tends to pray on the weak. And that bothers them. Where is the message to empower those who are a already -- and I said, well, you're seeing yourself in that spiritual state could be a form of weakness that you don't recognize, of course. The second thing is I think our society is connected but disconnected. As you mentioned everyone is connected to Twitter, to their phones, to their computers, there is a book "The Shallows" that talks about people who are living liquid life online and that challenges us. You know, religious institution are being decentralized by the Internet in many ways, as well as our universities in America. That's a challenge. The third challenge goes back to what he's saying is to produce, and I mentioned it earlier, scholars who -- and she -- you said it very beautifully, who are down at the grass-roots level with the masses, for the people. We need an imam, a rabbi, a preacher who can talk to Joe Lunchpail, who can talk to Jay-Z, who can talk to Kobe Bryant, who can talk to himself. The fourth, if you'll allow me is that I think also we have to be a learning mosque. We're not only teaching. One of my teachers once I found him crying in Egypt. And I said, "why are you crying?" He said, I learned god's grace from a sinner. He said, you know, I understand a theological ramifications of god's mercy, but this man came to me in such a state of remorse and repentance, that as you said, "I looked out the window." And I think as an imam, I learn so much from people around me. And I think we have to be careful about the dichotomy of I'm a teacher, I am with god, you learn from me. I think it's, we're a community. We have a common purpose to live god's will, as agents of his will, but we learn from each other.
BUDDE: I was simply reflecting on the fact that we are having this conversation together, representing very different strands, if you will, of the religious enterprise in America, but we're having it together. And it seems to me that there is both a renewed humility that is true of American religion, which is none of us alone will meet the religious and spiritual needs of our nation. And there is a collaborative spirit that says we have things to learn from one another, things that we do well in one tradition, that we could share with others, and vice versa. And so there's a sense that while we have very different theological and even social perspectives on different issues, we come together in a way that says we stand for the spiritual enterprise and the common good of our people.
SCHIEFFER: You know what I find so interesting -- and I agree with you that so many times in the history of the world, there has been this conflict between religions.
BUDDE: Right.
SCHIEFFER: And how is it that somehow or another as human beings, we seem -- and we still do it today -- to focus so much on the differences in religions than the general truth that seems to run through all religions?
WOLPE: There's a certain cohesiveness to community, that sometimes also is an exclusion.
BUDDE: Right.
WOLPE: And the key here I think is less to say, OK, we have all of this in common then to believe that different paths are necessary, exactly what bishop Budde just said, that different paths are necessary to get to the same god. It's just like -- instead of saying we shouldn't have differences, we should all be the same, it is that our differences elevate one another, glorify one another, are important to one another. You wouldn't want to have all the same kind of friend, all the same kind of food. Different religions are mutually beneficial. If we could believe that. If we could instead respecting difference, celebrate difference. That would be -- I think that is the religious way, because after all, god is greater than any religious tradition.
JACKSON: I would like to say this, in deference to the Christian foundation of this nation, it is that foundation that allows us freedom. I don't see this diversity in other places. And so to the credit of our Christian foundation of this nation, this freedom we're experiencing is because they said we believe this to be a Christian nation. We feel like we've been persecuted in the places we came from, and we are going to intentionally let this nation be founded in a way that if you come here and you're Islamic, and you come here and you're Jewish, we're not going to persecute you.
We're going to celebrate these roots. Although, we don't worship as Jewish people, we're going let this country be guided in a place where there's going to be liberty and freedom of worship. I feel we would be remiss we act like some other set of countries has operated in this way.
WEBB: I think that we need to be very careful because in the early days of America, Christians persecuted Christians? In Spain, Muslim Spain, Jews and Muslims lived together...
JACKSON: You're saying I'm wrong that that foundation doesn't bring us...
WEBB: I don't know if that was foundation or negotiated would be I think a better word.
JACKSON: Negotiated by whom.
WEBB: Over time.
JACKSON: Negotiated with Christians, by Christians...
WEBB: Or by deists as well.
I think we need to be really careful.
JACKSON: We have got a strong disagreement.
WEBB: But we still love each other.
BUDDE: We have an extraordinary history, though, of both religious deep fervor, as you were -- as Cardinal Dolan was saying, 70 percent of America still claims to be deeply spiritual. We have tremendous diversity. We do have a complicated religious history, which is both our pride and there's some humility and even some shamefulness that go with that. So I think there is one of the wonderful things about the American experiment vis-a-vis spirituality...
WOLPE: And all I can say is dig the roots deep enough, you'll find us.
BUDDE: That's right. And it's -- and who was here -- who was here before us? And who was here before us? That there is -- there is an extraordinary mosaic of spirituality. And like every other enterprise in this society now, everything is being renegotiated and reimagined. And you can either be threatened by that or excited by that and the opportunity....
WOLPE: Or a little bit of both.
BUDDE: Or a little bit of both.
But also the opportunity for integrity and of spiritual witness have never been greater, never been greater.
JACKSON: Very beautifully said.
WOLPE: Amen.
SCHIEFFER: Well, I want to thank each and every one of you for joining us on this Easter Sunday. It's one of the most interesting discussion we've had around here in a long, long time. So thanks to each and every one for being here. And we'll be back to talk about presidential politics.
SCHIEFFER: And from religion to politics. We're going to turn to authors of new and highly acclaimed books on presidential leadership and just leadership. Amity Shlaes is the author of the new biography of Calvin Coolidge, the nation's 30th president. Not too much written about old Cal Coolidge. Jeffrey Frank's book is "Ike and Dick. It explores the relationship between Dwight Eisenhower and his vice president Richard Nixon. Historian Lynn Olson wrote "Those Angry Days," which focuses on Franklin Roosevelt's dealings with Charles Lindbergh in the days leading up to World War II. And finally, Paul Reid who finished the third volume of William Manchester's majestic biography of Winston Churchill, "The Last Lion." Just as a way of explanation, Manchester was about 100 pages into the writing of this book. He'd done all the research. He knew he was dying and he asked his friend Paul Reid to finish it. And, Paul, I believe that took you what, about eight years.
PAUL REID, AUTHOR: Almost nine.
SCHIEFFER: Almost nine years.
REID: And about in year three I realized I have to do this. I can't fail. And by year seven I thought I'm going to do it.
SCHIEFFER: Well, I want to tell you in full disclosure here, because of you, Paul, I have not read the books on this side of the table and I'm about 100 pages into Lynn Olson's book. Paul Reid's book weighed in on my bathroom scale at about six pounds, but you told me the good news was my scale is weighing heavy, so I'm not -- I don't weigh as much as...
REID: You just lost three pounds.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHIEFFER: Yeah, about three and a half. Let me just talk to you about how you came to do this. You became a friend of William Manchester very late in his life. And he knew he was ill, knew he couldn't finish this book and asked you to do it.
REID: I met him in 1998, when some of his old Marine buddies went up to Middletown, Connecticut, where he lived, to buck him up after two strokes that he had had, and his wife had died that year. I did a feature and he liked it, a feature story. And my daughter was at UMass at the time, and when I visited her, I'd drop in and say hi to Mr. Manchester, and we became friends. And, you know, he was at that age where I'd meet people who asked, "Didn't he pass away?" I mean, no, he's still there. But he couldn't write. The strokes hobbled him. And I never -- I brought up the subject once or twice, and he said, "Not going to happen," as far as anyone finishing the book. And, October 9, 2003, we were watching a Red Sox-Yankees game. The Sox lost as usual. And at the end, Bill turned and said, "I'd like you to finish the book." And it took me a second. I think he repeated himself. He said, "I want you to write the book," and that was it.
SCHIEFFER: Well, it is -- it is a magnificent achievement. I read the first two volumes. And I had always thought before that Churchill was the greatest person, the greatest figure of the 20th century, and this just reinforced my view of that. And we'll talk some more about your book in just a minute. Lynne Olson was my friend, she and her husband, way back to the days of covering the Carter campaign...
OLSON: That's right.
SCHIEFFER: ... and you were a reporter at the Baltimore Sun. And you have, kind of, become the historian of World War II. And you wrote "The Murrow Boys" with your husband, Stan Cloud, and then you wrote "Citizens of London"...
OLSON: Right.
SCHIEFFER: ... and now -- and now this book about Roosevelt and Churchill. You remember -- so many of us remember Lindbergh as, I think, probably the first true celebrity in America, after he flew that solo flight across the Atlantic. But the fact is he -- he was also an isolationist. Franklin Roosevelt thought, frankly, he was a Nazi.
OLSON: Right.
SCHIEFFER: And he spoke out against America getting into World War II. This was a very isolationist period. What -- what surprised you most in your research about this book?
OLSON: I think there were a couple things. One is how brutal, how nasty the fight in this country was in the run-up, in the two years before we actually went into World War II. I mean, we think about Vietnam. We think about McCarthyism. We think about the whole furor over Iraq as being very divisive in this country. But I think that period before the war was even -- before World War II -- was even more divisive, I mean, the interventionists versus the isolationists. The country was incredibly polarized, incredibly divided politically. Washington was, kind of, like now. It was a real snake pit. You know, there were regional differences, regional splits, basically like now, red state, blue state. So it was very similar in a way. But it was, I think, much, much more, as I said, savage. Roosevelt himself said, this was going to be a dirty fight, and he helped, kind of, make it that way. But he and Lindbergh really went at it during this period.
SCHIEFFER: And, Jeffrey, your book "Ike and Dick," what -- why did you decide to do that? I mean, my understanding of that relationship was that Eisenhower always thought of Richard Nixon as something of a doofus, really...
(LAUGHTER)
and -- but it was much more complicated and it was deeper than that?
FRANK: It was much more complicated. And I was -- I've been -- I've thought about it for years, ever since -- ever since -- basically ever since I group in Washington and first saw Nixon in the ballpark and -- but I -- it was a way to cover the entire 20th century. When Eisenhower was born, Benjamin Harrison was president. Civil War veterans were running around Abilene, Kansas. When Nixon died in 1994, the Cold War was over and Bill Clinton was president. And it was a way to cover all of that and a whole century and these two really different men, both of whom became president, and also -- and so for all the Cold War, the atomic threat, the huge Civil Rights issue that, sort of -- that, sort of, never went away but, sort of, arose in the mid-'50s. So to cover all these issues at the same time, and then -- and it was also a great story. It was the story -- it was a family story. He wasn't a doofus, but he didn't -- Eisenhower was not a huge fan of professional politicians in general. Those weren't his friends.
SCHIEFFER: Um-hmm.
FRANK: And at the end of their -- at the end, Eisenhower's grandson, David, married Julie's -- Nixon's younger daughter Julie.
SCHIEFFER: And Eisenhower was not all that keen on that.
FRANK: He -- he wasn't. They all liked Julie, but he wanted David to do -- to have a professional career, be a doctor or be a lawyer. And so this was -- they were children. When they first fell in love and began dating, they were 18 years old. They got married when they were 20. People don't get married at 20 anymore. They did.
SCHIEFFER: Isn't that something? And then, Amity, we come to Cal Coolidge, who, I must say, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, most of the time what we read about Coolidge, it was, kind of, that he was a joke, that, you know, it was Cal Coolidge; he just never said anything.
And yet you give us a very different picture. I have read the reviews of your book.
SHLAES: Well, I'll try not to speak too long because Silent Cal would not, but one reason he's so attractive as a subject for biography is he achieved a lot. So if he were a stock, he'd be a buy. He's underrated for his achievement. You can look at the economy of that period and see very low unemployment, high wages, strong growth, 3 percent or 4 percent, and general happiness in the U.S. That was the decade when people got toilets, electricity and automobiles, Coolidge's decade, the 1920s. And we've been talking here about leadership. This is a different kind of leader. That's the other reason he's intriguing. Silent Cal led by refraining. He was our great refrainer. He did by not doing and holding government back, often. So Washington didn't know what to make of him. You've heard the stories. People said, oh, you know, "a well of silence," but he -- this was intentional, sort of, because he thought, if the president got out of the way and just presided, then the government might function better and commerce, the economy, might as well.
SCHIEFFER: One of the reviews of your book -- and I do intend to read it -- is that -- how humble he was. I mean, he was, sort of, the -- he was a man of such humility. And when he left the White House, he went back and lived in a rented house. He didn't even buy a home.
SHLAES: That's right. Here in this studio we have a picture of the White House. And Coolidge had such a sense of service, he didn't feel it was a bully pulpit or, you know, the presidency, or that that was his house. Once he was walking along with a senator and the senator, to cheer up Silent Cal, said "I wonder who lives in that pretty house." And Coolidge said, "Nobody does. They just come and go." That is, we're here to serve, preside, and -- and there's something behind this that's of utility today, which is a president should reestablish trust in the office when politics are angry and people don't trust the government. He was doing that after Harding's time of scandal through his sense of service.
SCHIEFFER: Paul, I want to get back to Churchill. And, you know, what I came away -- and I must say it took me two months to read this book. I'm, kind of, a slow reader when you come right down to it.
REID: Because it was supposed to be a page-turner.
SCHIEFFER: It was a page-turner and it still took me two months to get through it.
(LAUGHTER)
But, you know, I go back -- the thing that I -- page after page, I would read and I would say, "the people of Washington are trying to solve these problems, this whole sequester mess, which is their doing. This is not -- people didn't come from foreign shores and -- and dump the sequester on it. Washington created this mess and now it can't figure out how to undo it.
And it just seems so -- it seems like such a small problem, when you -- when you read what Churchill was dealing with in those early days when he was totally alone and nobody any place else -- I mean, the United States, as Lynne points out in her book, was trying every way they could to stay out of the war, and he had to hold this thing together until -- how did you come away feeling about him?
REID: Well, I came away as a believer in the great man or woman theory of history, that the agency of human involvement, that events flow along but they can be manipulated; the stream can change course. And -- and he was, I think, the prime example in the 20th century of the great man theory of history, that -- and I found, too, that he believed in free will. He was not a determinist. Hitler was a great man in that sense of bending his nation's beliefs and sending them in a new direction, and on the one side, there's Churchill, and on the other side, there's Hitler. And it really was, I came away believing, a Manichean, and not in the derogatory sense, question of good and evil. And Churchill saw it that way.
SCHIEFFER: You know, what -- and I did a little essay about this, one of the anecdotes you told in the book, about how he was dictating one day and a cigar ash set his bedclothes on fire. He was on bed, and someone said, "Sir, you're on fire. May I put it out?" And he said, "Yes, please do," or something like that.
(LAUGHTER)
He was -- he had this ability to focus on things and didn't even notice when he'd set himself on fire.
REID: "Action this day," he used to stamp on memos and -- and a lot of memos. I mean, he did one on feeding rabbits in order to improve the diet of people, and he stamped the rabbit memo "Action this day." And he believed in action every day, all day, and he demanded, commanded, that any report to him, even on change of design of blueprints for tanks be done in one page.
SCHIEFFER: And wouldn't that be a great lesson for...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Yes.
SCHIEFFER: ... our politicians, they in this age of Twitter, when they're trying to tweet instead of even talk to one another and focus on the problems. Lynne, you write so much in your book about -- from the American side of all this to what Paul has concentrated on coming from the British side. A lot of your book, what I've read of it so far, Roosevelt doesn't come off all that well sometimes. I mean, he was a person who was not above doing some kind of underhanded things, like offering Charles Lindbergh a Cabinet post in order to get him to be quiet.
OLSON: That's one of the most interesting things. And I had never heard this before, that in the run-up to -- it was actually right after war broke out in September 1939, after Germany invaded Poland. Lindbergh decided that he was going to give his first radio speech against getting involved in the war. He had never given a speech before, ever, on radio, so, obviously, everybody was very interested in this. And the Roosevelt administration knew that a lot of -- you know, that millions of people were going to tune in and that he was a real threat. And so, through back channels, he was told that, if he kept silent, that he would be named the new, kind of, secretary of the Air Force, of the Air Corps. There was not that post. That post had not been created, so he would be equivalent to the secretary of the Navy or the secretary of war. And he knew what that was; it was an attempt to buy him off. And he burst out laughing when he was told that, and he turned it down and went on the radio. And that's when the big feud between Lindbergh and Roosevelt began.
SCHIEFFER: Jeffrey, I was part of a seminar on Lyndon Johnson not so long ago, and someone asked who was the politician that Lyndon Johnson most admired, and his answer was Dwight Eisenhower...
(LAUGHTER)
... not just because of his work as a supreme allied commander but later as president. LBJ thought that Eisenhower had a great way of getting his way without people knowing that's what he wanted. What did you come away from this book -- what were your feelings about the two -- two main characters?
FRANK: Well, Eisenhower -- Eisenhower was -- there's no one like him today. He was a five-star general and exuded five-star generalness.
(LAUGHTER)
People listened to what he said. And he -- he showed up. And there was an enormous respect for him. He wasn't -- I don't know that -- he didn't know a lot about this country when he became president. He hadn't lived here very much. He'd been in Europe for the war; he'd been in the Philippines, but -- but he really exuded this quality of command and -- and Nixon was someone-- Nixon was a very different sort. But I came with Nixon seeing someone, a real striver, someone who was not yet to disgrace former presidents. I was looking at him as someone -- as someone who was, sort of, on the rise rather than someone who was -- who was in decline. And I found Nixon -- Nixon, I came away with this idea that I hadn't realized quite how involved he was, for example, in the Civil Rights questions, here, how, for example, his closeness to Martin Luther King Jr. I was surprised by some of that. I was surprised by the way he -- by his, sort of, idealism when it came to America's destiny in the world, particularly after -- after Sputnik, for example.
SCHIEFFER: And, Amity, back to you, and I'm sorry we're running out of time. What is the lesson that you would like people to know about Calvin Coolidge?
SHLAES: That a politician may serve uncynically and still win. Coolidge cut the budget over and over again because he thought it was good for the economy, and he was enormously popular, which is interesting. Nowadays politicians says, oh, that's not possible. You have to always give the voter something. The voter knew that it might be better for the economy if the government cut back, and they saw Coolidge doing it, which was painful -- painful for him, too -- but he did. He left a budget smaller than he found it, and he was -- the Republican Party had a nervous breakdown when he withdrew.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, thank you all. I wish we could go on. I could do this all afternoon, but it's time to go. We'll be right back.
SCHIEFFER: And that's it for us this week. We'll be here next week, so we hope you'll join us.