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Professor Galbraith Names Names (1999-05-18)
About this film
Professor Galbraith had just written, WFB tells us, a book of "biographical sketches of mighty men and women he has known"-starting with Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Speer-"but was taunted by an associate who...said it sounded like a lot of name-dropping to him. Professor Galbraith thereupon changed his working title, and his book is now called Name-Dropping. A neat job of disarming his critics." While this show has some of the customary Buckley-Galbraith backchat, our host mostly encourages his guest to reminisce about his more than sixty years on the public scene. JKG: "Adlai was very much averse to anything that might be called rabble-rousing, anything which had a wider public appeal." WFB: "Was there a sharp distinction between his voice to the public and FDR's?" JKG: "Very much, yes. FDR would identify himself much better with the American public as a whole than could Adlai Stevenson. He was also much more susceptible to suggestion, recommendation. The great charm of FDR was that he had no fixed ideology, unlike you, Bill." WFB: "What causes my charm?" JKG: "And therefore he was open, or seemed to be open, to recommendations from a wide circle of people."
Directors & creators
Southern Educational Communications Association
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr., Politics and government, United States, Biography, Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006, politicians, Friends and associates, anecdotes
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