Past Kennedy Library Forums

Evan Thomas, author of Robert Kennedy: His Life, and Jack Newfield, author of RFK: A Memoir, discussed the life and legacy of Robert F. Kennedy with CNN's Jeff Greenfield, a former speechwriter for RFK.

Frank McCourt, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, discussed his 45 year career as a high school English teacher in New York City.  Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, moderated.

Washington Post columnist David Broder, White House Press Secretary under President Clinton Dee Dee Myers, and national political analyst and commentator Mark Shields discussed the role of political advertising in presidential campaigns and reviewed some of the most effective and notorious ads in recent times. David Gergen, former White House advisor and professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, moderated. 

Sheldon M. Stern, former Kennedy Library historian, discussed his book, Averting The Final Failure, a first-ever narrative account of the secret ExComm meetings among President Kennedy and his most trusted advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory moderated. 

On the 50th anniversary of this landmark ruling rejecting "separate but equal" education for the races, Ernest Green, a member of the Little Rock Nine, Yale University Law Professor Drew Days, and Harvard University Graduate School of Education Professor and one of the founding co-directors of Harvard's Civil Rights Project Gary Orfield, discussed Brown's legacy.  Professor Sheryll Cashin of Georgetown Law School moderated. 

One of the defining issues of President Kennedy's administration was his "internationalist" foreign policy.  As the 2004 presidential election unfolded, one of the debates that likely defined the race (and possibly determined the next president) concerned the role of the U.S. in the world.  Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Senator Joe Biden discussed U.S. policy under the Bush administration and the possible direction of U.S foreign policy under a Democratic  President.  Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe moderated.

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Acclaimed television producer Norman Lear discussed the “Declare Yourself Project,” a non-partisan effort to promote youth voting.  Mr. Lear's copy of the Declaration of Independence was on display in the museum.  Congressman Barney Frank moderated. 

Senator Edward Kennedy introduced Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, who discussed efforts to compensate the victims' families of the 2001 terrorist attacks with Jack Rosenthal, President of The New York Times Company Foundation and creator of the 9/11 Neediest Fund. 

Jason DeParle, New York Times senior writer and author of American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare; David Ellwood, Dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; and Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, examined our nation’s policies regarding the poor. William Julius Wilson of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government moderated. 

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Kennedy Library, architect I.M. Pei discussed the evolution and implementation of his design for the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum with Boston Globe Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Robert Campbell.

Former JFK advisor Arthur Schlesinger,  veteran political analyst Kevin Phillips,  and journalist Tom Wicker explored the legacies of our wartime presidents. Political advisor, author, and professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, David Gergen, moderated. 

Senator Robert C. Byrd discussed his new book Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency with Dick Gordon, host of WBUR’s The Connection.

MacArthur Fellow and Senior Economic Advisor at the Brookings Institute, Alice Rivlin; former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton and Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University, Robert Reich; and Professor of Economics at Boston University, Glenn Loury, examined the state of the economy with Boston Globe Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent Tom Oliphant. 

Cartoonists Mike Peters of the Dayton Daily News, Mike Luckovitch of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Dan Wasserman of the Boston Globe presented a show-and-tell about their craft.  Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weeked Edition Saturday, moderated. 

New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Maureen Dowd discussed her new book, Bushworld, and offered her observations on the presidential race with Dick Gordon, host of WBUR’s The Connection.

Valerie Hemingway, confidante and daughter-in-law of Ernest, shared stories of her years traveling with Ernest and Mary Hemingway.  Her book is Running with the Bulls.

Ben Bradlee, long-time Washington Post executive editor, and Don Hewitt, creator of "60 Minutes" and Executive Producer, CBS News, talked about how print and broadcast news have changed over the last 40 years.  Meredith White, former Executive Producer of ABC News and Senior Editor of Newsweek, moderated. 

Alex de Waal, Dr. Jennifer Leaning of Harvard Medical School, Eric Reeves of Smith College, Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, and William Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International, discussed the crisis in Darfur with PBS host Gail Harris.

Callie Crossley, Judy Richardson and Judith Vecchione, producers of Henry Hampton’s award winning documentary “Eyes on the Prize” screen segments and discuss its making and historical impact. “Eyes on the Prize” is the story of the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. from 1954 – 1985. Over 20 million viewers watched “Eyes on the Prize,” Hampton’s miniseries that won six Emmys, a Peabody, the duPont Columbia Award for Excellence in Radio and Television and an Academy Award nomination.

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Dr. Paul Farmer, who for the last 20 years has worked in Haiti with poor communities to combat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and Harvard economist Amartya Sen, who won a Noble Prize for his work on world poverty, discussed strategies to help eliminate the spread of disease and hunger in the developing world with Dr. Lincoln Chen, Director of Harvard's Center for Global Poverty.

Tim Russert, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, shared his insights on the state of our national politics today with NPR senior national correspondent Linda Wertheimer.

U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the 2004 Democratic nominee for President of the United States,  shared his thoughts on U.S. policies both home and abroad with Pulitzer Prize winning Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant.

Ambassador Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy and chief peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, discussed the issues which are at the heart of the struggle for peace. Kevin Cullen, former London Bureau Chief of The Boston Globe who covered the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland that led to the historic Good Friday peace agreement, moderated.

PEN/New England and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum honor Chris Abani as the 2005 recipient of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction for Graceland. Patrick Hemingway, the son of Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway, presents the prestigious literary award.  Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo, author of Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool, Straight Man and Empire Falls, delivers the keynote address.

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Richard Parker, author of John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics, Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, and author James Carroll discussed the legendary life and career of Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith. 

Larry Lucchino, the Red Sox chief executive officer, Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe Sports columnist, Tom Werner, Chairman of the Boston Red Sox, and Marty Nolan, former editorial writer for the Boston Globe, looked back at the season leading up to the Red Sox’s World Series Championship. Mike Barnicle, Boston Herald columnist, moderated.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, spoke about her life’s work promoting human rights, equality for women and freedom of speech in her native Iran and throughout the world.  Jacqueline Bhabba, executive director of the University Committee on Human Rights Studies at Harvard University, moderated. 

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New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert discussed his new book, Promises Betrayed, which probes the widening gap between American ideals and American realities for working people, minorities, children and those not counted among the powerful.  Dick Gordon, host of WBUR’s The Connection, moderated. 

Tom Brokaw talked about his career as former anchor for the NBC Nightly News and spoke about his book, The Greatest Generation, which profiles the extraordinary courage shown by the American men and woman who served in the Armed Forces during World War II.  Deborah Leff, Director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and Juan Williams, senior correspondent for National Public Radio, moderated. 

Dr. Robert Ballard introduces and discusses his documentary about his quest to find the wreckage of John F. Kennedy's PT boat with Dick Keresey, who was aboard PT 105 the same evening of the attack, and Max Kennedy, who accompanied the National Geographic crew to the Solomon Islands. 

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George Stevens, Jr. introduced and discussed the documentary he made using color footage his father, the acclaimed director George Stevens, filmed across Europe at the end of World War II.  Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe moderated.

PT Boat veterans Dick Keresey, Paul “Red” Fay and Bill “Bitter” Battle and PT 109 veteran Maurice Kowal shared their stories of serving on PT Boats in the Solomon Islands during World War II at the same time as John F. Kennedy. H.D.S. Greenway, former Editorial Page Editor of the Boston Globe, moderated.

New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman and Maya MacGuineas, President, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Director, Fiscal Policy Program, New America Foundation, discussed the issues facing the country’s Social Security program. Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant moderated.

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Theodore C. Sorensen, Special Counsel to President Kennedy; Harris Wofford, President Kennedy’s chairman for the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights; Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pillar of Fire; and Robert Moses, pivotal organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and director of the Mississippi Project in the early 1960s, looked at the years 1960 to 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr. engaged the President and the Attorney General in the battle to extend civil rights to all. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and chairman of the Children’s Defense Fund and an organizer of Dr. King’s Poor People’s March, then joined Peter Edelman, aide to Robert F. Kennedy; and Elaine Jones, former President of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in a look at the years 1963 to 1968 and the continuing relationship between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy concerning civil rights and their growing opposition to the Vietnam War. NPR's Senior Correspondent Juan Williams moderated.

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Caroline Kennedy introduced Walter Cronkite, former anchorman of CBS News, who discussed his long career in broadcast journalism, his observations on American politics over the decades, and his recollections of President Kennedy with his friend and colleague, Charles Osgood, CBS News Sunday Morning anchor. Preceding the forum was the presentation of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Awards.       

John Seigenthaler, award-winning journalist and former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Ellen Hume, director of the Center on Media and Society at the University of Massachusetts Boston; and Garrett Graf, the first blogger admitted to a White House press briefing, discussed the continuing controversies in print and broadcast journalism and how the Internet is changing the face of the news media. Callie Crossley of WGBH’s "Beat the Press" moderated.

Robert Caro, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, delivered the keynote address in the Kennedy Library’s ongoing examination of 20th century presidents.  Jack Valenti, who served as Special Advisor to President Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times writer Anthony Lewis, and Boston University historian Bruce Schulman joined in the panel discussion of President Johnson’s legacy.  Harvard University historian Lizabeth Cohen moderated.

On the publication of Dear Papa, Dear Hotch: The Correspondence of Ernest Hemingway and A.E. Hotchner, the award-winning playwright, author, and good friend of Hemingway shared stories about the man.  Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Justin Kaplan moderated.

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Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, discussed the challenges for international justice today. Following the forum was a film marking the 60th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials and a conversation with survivors of genocide moderated by Kennedy Library Foundation CEO John Shattuck, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Clinton Administration.

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Mark Shields, Rev. Bryan Hehir, Lewis Butler, Harris Wofford, Sargent Shriver's biographer Scott Stossel, and Tim Shriver discussed the many contributions Sargent Shriver has made to our country. Chris Matthews, former Peace Corps volunteer and host of MSNBC's Hardball, moderated.  Eunice and Sargent Shriver attended. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin explained how the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rose from obscurity to become one of the most significant presidents in this nation’s history. Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, moderated.

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, National Public Radio’s senior news analyst Cokie Roberts, and former Texas Governor Ann Richards discussed the remarkable political careers of two African-American women, Barbara Jordan and Shirley Chisholm.  Veteran television and documentary producer and WGBH Commentator Callie Crossley moderated. Barbara Jordan, who died ten years ago, was elected to the Texas Senate in 1972 and was the first African-American woman from a Southern state to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Shirley Chisholm, who passed away in 2005, was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress and the first African-American to run as a Democratic presidential candidate in 1972.

Richard Reeves, the biographer of Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan, discussed their legacies.  Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe moderated.

What do Presidential Library records tell us about how the United States got involved in Vietnam from American involvement in Asia at the turn of the century through the fall of French Indo-China? The panelist were professors George Herring, Robert D. Schulzinger, and Marilyn Young. The Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, moderated.

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How do recently recorded presidential tapes inform our understanding of how policy was made and what policymakers were thinking at the time?Historians Timothy Naftali for Johnson, David Kaiser for Kennedy, and Jeffrey Kimball for Nixon.  The Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries, Sharon Fawcett, will moderate. 

David Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Vietnam and is the author of The Best and the Brightest, the acclaimed critical history of how and why the United States went to war in Vietnam.

How did the media cover the war? How much influence did the media have in shaping public opinion? How did the growing protest movement affect presidential decision-making? Steve Bell, who covered Vietnam for ABC News; Frances FitzGerald, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fire in the Lake; and Dan Rather, who covered Vietnam for CBS News.

Caroline Kennedy, President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, introduced Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News anchorman. Former President Jimmy Carter then spoke via video on how the specter of Vietnam affected his foreign policy. 

Policymakers who directed U.S. efforts in Vietnam discussed both the decisions they made in office and their impressions about how that history is now told. The panelists were General Alexander Haig, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Special Counsel to President Kennedy Theodore C. Sorensen, and Special Assistant to President Johnson Jack Valenti. Brian Williams moderated.