Los Angeles Times Interview : Doris Kearns Goodwin : Of Privacy and the Press: The Dilemma of Modern Politics

Doris Kearns Goodwin tells a story about how, if she were a journalist, she would have been kicked out of the business. In August, 1976, she traveled to Plains, Ga., to interview presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. Goodwin, a political-science teacher at Harvard, had just published her first major biography, “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.” The Ladies’ Home Journal had hired her to write an article. She asked Carter about morality and fidelity. He told her that his greatest feelings of guilt came from the lust he felt in his heart for women other than his wife.

Goodwin returned home, and talked about the lust comment with her husband, the former Kennedy aide Richard N. Goodwin, and friends. But when she wrote her story, she left it out. A few days later, Carter made similar comments in what was the first-ever presidential contender’s Playboy magazine interview. “I have lusted in my heart,” became a headline and a political flash-point of the Carter campaign.

Today, politicians appear on Oprah, MTV and Howard Stern. California gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown reveals the date rape of one of her daughters during a televised political debate. Prince Charles confesses he never loved his wife, and that his father forced him to marry her.

Yet, as the historian and biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin reminds us it was not so long ago that political figures could draw a line between their private and public lives. Her latest biography, “No Ordinary Time,” focuses on the private and separate lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt -- and on his longtime affair with Lucy Mercer. These details, while now the fascinating stuff of history, were not considered news at the time.

These days, such details are reported without delay. Hillary Rodham Clinton appears with her husband to answer infidelity charges on “60 Minutes.” Mainstream news organizations station reporters in Little Rock to canvas bars for “bad stuff about Bill.” Every part of a public person’s life is open to scrutiny, and Goodwin, along with a number of other Americans, is not sure that’s such a good thing.

Goodwin, 51, has written biographies of three Democratic Presidents -- Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Johnson. She recently appeared as an oft-quoted voice in Ken Burns’ “Baseball.” In a conversation that ping-ponged across 60 years of political history, she talked about the presidency, the press and the distinction between historical insight and momentary prurient interest.

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Question: In the 1930s, when a candidate like Franklin Roosevelt ran for President, didn’t he naturally assume that a certain part of his life was private?

Answer: Absolutely. It was an assumption as natural to them as the air they breathed. They understood they had protection for that part of their life they wanted to reserve for themselves, and there was not a worry that someone would intrude upon it. Part of it for FDR was his confidence, and the lines that he drew. He understood that public life had certain demands, but I think he believed that there was a certain core about his life which would never have to be revealed publicly.

Tonight, on the evening news on TV, there was a rundown of the political races in the country, and of all the places where people with absolutely no experience in politics are overtaking incumbents. That has something to do with the fact that people who are in politics are now diminished simply by being there. And many are saying it’s better to have someone who’s never held office, who has no record. There’s no other craft, no other skill where we prefer someone with no experience. Something has happened in politics where people have lost their private side, and lost themselves, somehow. In FDR’s day, there was the sense that one could hold onto the most private parts of one’s life, the parts that one valued the most.

Q: Wouldn’t John Kennedy have had a similar expectation of privacy in 1960?

A: There may have been some perception--which proved to be wrong--that once he got into the White House, there would have to be more discretion. But I think once he got in there, he realized the White House was a very easy place to live his life privately. It allowed him to have the kind of private life which we later discovered but, at the time, people were not aware of.

Q: So how did we get from a place where FDR could have essentially a surrogate wife in the White House, and JFK could exercise an incredibly active libido, to a place where every alleged peccadillo is now common knowledge?

A: Somehow, the whole relationship between the press and the politicians changed. During Roosevelt’s time, the newspapers were mostly owned by Republicans, so it wasn’t like he was given an easy ride. The White House press corps was there to get information about the presidency. But they weren’t exposing or investigating him. He opened up twice a week in press conferences and gave them the information they needed to write their stories. They didn’t feel compelled to follow him around to get more information. When he went on vacation, what he did every moment wasn’t news.

Somewhere, probably beginning around the mid-1960s, the disenchantment with Vietnam, Johnson’s credibility gap and Nixon’s Watergate created a much different kind of adversarial press. Investigative reporters were the role models for young people, and exposure became a part of the culture.

I think now the politicians, because they are so afraid of fighting the press, give in to it. They allow themselves to be followed around on their vacations, they talk about their private lives as if they are on Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey.

My husband, Richard, traveled with John Kennedy during the 1960 campaign, and he says Kennedy knew not to put on a cowboy hat or an Indian headdress. Because even if, at that moment, the person might be pleased that he did it, later it could come back to make him look foolish. I think politicians need to have a sense of guarding their dignity, especially the President. I mean, no one would have ever thought of asking FDR about his underwear--whether he wore boxers or briefs--and he certainly would have never answered. Once you answer those questions, you open the door to the press, and allow them to dance on the other side.

Q: What does it say about us as a society--specifically as a democratic society--when we are so obsessed with these little personal details of our leaders?

A: If people were rational with themselves, I don’t think they would feel good about the way it’s all going. I think back to FDR. He made the assumption that the country wouldn’t accept his paralysis--the fact that he was a paraplegic. So he conducted what someone else has called “a splendid deception” by never allowing the public to see him with his braces, or in his wheelchair, or being carried from a car. The press went along with that because they must have felt it was important for the country to feel a sense of strength about their leader. But what if Roosevelt had challenged the assumption that he wouldn’t be accepted as a paraplegic, and had been able to admit to his vulnerability?

Q: And yet today, don’t Presidents have to maintain an almost impossible balance between the dignified and imperial, and the approachable and personable?

A: Yes, and what they define now as personable is allowing people to know things like what makes you sad, what difficulties you’ve had in your life. Roosevelt, despite being from a very privileged background, was a man the common person adored. But that didn’t mean he had to talk about how he felt when his father died, or how overbearing his mother was, or that he’d fallen in love with another women. Somehow he was able to appeal to the democratic instinct without that layer being stripped away.

Today, though, it seems Freud has gone amok. When Freud first started, it was probably a helpful thing to undo repression and talk about things that were hidden. But while it may seem that we want to know all these intimate details about our leaders, and we may relish them, if they were taken away from us, and we ended up feeling more respect for them, they might be able to govern better, and we might all feel better about everything in the long run.

Q: How are we going to extricate ourselves from this cult of personal knowledge, and can a person today run for high political office and say, “Wait a minute, this is none of your business, I draw the line here, I have a private life”?

A: I have a feeling that if the leader had enough confidence in himself to be able to say--and mean--”I draw the line,” my suspicion is that both the press and the public would respect it. Think for a moment of Jackie Kennedy--who went to extremes to keep her life private. In the end, everyone is saying, even people in the press, “Oh, I admire her so much because she wouldn’t let us talk to her.” Perhaps she could get away with it because she wasn’t running for office--but it shows the other side is out there.

If I were advising Clinton, I would say go back to regular press conferences--do it once a week. Then when he goes on vacation, or when they ask about his daughter, Clinton can say, “I will talk to you about my public life, but my private life is my own.”

Q: We have a candidate for governor here in California--Kathleen Brown--who announced in a debate that her daughter had been raped on a date. The feeling here is that the remark may have helped her campaign. How does it strike you?

A: I can see it as a dramatic answer to a question. She must have prepared for it--I can’t imagine it just came out. But I think if people think about it over time, they’re going to feel queasy. I remember feeling queasy when Vice President Gore talked about the near-death of his child, and the child was right there, and all the spotlights go on him. The problem here is that you can’t have it both ways. You cannot use that dramatic private moment to your own advantage and then turn around and say to the press, “You gotta leave me alone!”

Q: Is there a relationship between the thirst for all these intimate details and the level of animosity that characterizes so many political campaigns today?

A: Let me go back to Roosevelt. During the 1940 campaign, he learned that Wendell Wilkie was having an affair. Roosevelt decided not to use that stuff, and Wilkie must have had some knowledge about the unconventional relationships that were going on in the White House. As a result, even though the campaign was quite sharp, it didn’t descend into that lower level.

Even the dirty tricks of the 1960s--they seem so innocent by today’s standards. Once, during a Nixon campaign speech, the Democrats sent in a bunch of women dressed as nuns, and they all appeared to be pregnant, and all held signs saying “Nixon’s the One”--his campaign slogan. That’s nostalgia.

But I’ve always thought that if investigative reporters looked into other, more important things--patterns, like how he treated his staff, was he mean to the people he worked with--those are really important things to know. But instead, we go into these deep, personal things, which don’t really mean much of anything. A lousy husband can be a great leader, or vice versa. I’d much rather know how someone handled a crisis than how they handled their romantic affairs.

Q: Do you feel any optimism that our country’s leaders can come through this orgy of revelation, and come out the other side with some dignity?

A: Well, one problem is that people who feel strongly about this are probably selecting out of politics--we have no idea how many potential leaders are just not willing to get involved now, because they know their pasts are not perfect.

Abraham Lincoln used to say, “Show me a man without vices and I’ll show you a man without virtues.” People are flawed. I remember I used to laugh about the fact that all we knew about Richard Nixon’s sex life was that he liked to stand around at night in his striped pajamas and talk to Bebe Rebozo on the phone.

My point is, I don’t think we really want such narrow characters as our leaders. It would be interesting if Roosevelt were coming on the scene today, because what he had was utter self-confidence. It was the largest part of his leadership and it was a contagious confidence that somehow got the country through the Depression and the war. It will take someone with that kind of confidence to say, “These are legitimate issues of public concern, and these are private matters.”

And I really feel there are enough people within the press who don’t like what’s going on, who feel the tabloids are leading the legitimate press. So perhaps things will get better. I don’t think everything always has to get worse and worse. But the truth is, I don’t know.*