US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
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KEARNS-GOODWIN: You can also make a case going back to my favorite, Franklin Roosevelt. That had it not been for the fact that Roosevelt when he heard Einstein's letter and understood the potential of a race with the German people and the German leader for the atomic weaponry put the resources of this country behind the building of an atomic bomb, which then changed the balance of power later on. And I just, just catching up from earlier on, it's not just domestically that Roosevelt has to be remembered for, World War II it seems to me is the defining event of the 20th Century. Look at what happened as a result of that war? A whole transfiguration of power after that war. The bipolar world that emerges that then for 50 more years covers what's happening to us. A sense of what internationalism, whatever Woodrow Wilson started, Roosevelt concluded with the United Nations. We just had this whimpy League of Nations that never got effective because Wilson didn't have the power, he didn't know how to deal with the Senate. Roosevelt was able to put his ideals and his practice together and to, in a certain sense, lead the allied nations in what seems to me the largest fight in human history against the tyranny that Hitler posed to Western civilization and to keep that Allied force together to win the most important victory it seems to me of centuries still means that he's back on the center stage. I'm getting rid of the rest.
RICE: I would not disagree with that, but let me just say that Roosevelt, of course, didn't end World War II. And the peace that comes on the ruins of war is as important as the war itself. And in that sense, Harry Truman, you know, these, these pairs, it's very difficult in history when you have people who really ought to be paired. It was Harry Truman that decided to deliver the A-bomb, it was Harry Truman that went to Potsdam and refused to make a deal with Joseph Stalin. It, some could say that Roosevelt's United Nations and the, the world that Roosevelt thought would spring up on the ruins of World War II did not, in fact, emerge. It was a bipolar world where Harry Truman asserted American leadership that emerged. It was not really until 1990 and 1991 when I had the pleasure to be in the Bush Administration that we were finally able, I think, to deliver on what Roosevelt had hoped to see.
KEARNS-GOODWIN: But surely you wouldn't doubt that a healthy Roosevelt would have had the same strengths that Harry Roosevelt —
RICE: I don't know.
KEARNS-GOODWIN: — that Harry Truman had.
RICE: — I really don't know that. I, I think Roosevelt had certain, a certain faith in human history, a certain faith in human beings, but I think that Harry Truman had a certain skepticism about how good human beings could be.
RATHER: Charlie, who are we going to touch in the arts? I didn't — it's a point well taken.
RICE: No, no, it's fine.
RATHER: In the debate about Franklin Roosevelt, well, that will go on, but whom have we left out in the arts? Pablo Picasso, on a list of 100 most influential people of the century, do we or do we not put him on that list? What do you think Mr. Kristol?
KRISTOL: Well, take songwriter. Irving Berlin. We celebrate, Christmas we celebrate Easter with his songs, we celebrate patriotic holidays —
RATHER: — the mall forerunner, Hank Williams whose name is going to get hoots and hollers in some place. There isn't an Elvis Presley without Hank Williams and there isn't — I don't think the Beatles were [inaudible].
ROSE: Well, why did you say you consider Elvis a bad guy?
KRISTOL: I regard Elvis as a bad guy, but he deserves to be on the list.
KEARNS-GOODWIN: [Laughter] Oh, didn't you ever sing [singing] don't be cruel?
ROSE: Certainly, very influential and he did not ...
[Simultaneous conversation]
CUOMO: You must all remember that the Pope plays the piano.
[Laughter and applause]
ROSE: Are you thinking mortality?
CUOMO I'm thinking mortality. I may be the oldest guy up here.
ROSE: Anybody in the audience got a list for an artist of the century or a musician? Have we forgotten somebody that anybody would like to mention? Throw up the name.
RICE: Well, since I'm a classical pianist, I have to say something here.
ROSE: All right.
RICE: I'm really struck by the degree to which popular culture seems to be considered influential, leaving Pablo Picasso aside. You know, I could say that perhaps Dr. Schoenberg and [inaudible] and the break with tonality in music is the most important develop and I think it really does expose the — both the difficulty and really almost the fallacy of trying to do this with culture. Culture, like science in many ways, is so cumulative that it's very difficult to talk about a revolutionary breakthrough. Maybe Bach makes the list of the last 300 years.
I still want to argue for keeping this fairly confined to political leadership, to religious leadership, perhaps to thinkers, great thinkers, because when you think of what really makes a difference in the unfolding of history, I have to say, I don't think Elvis Presley has made a difference in the unfolding of history.
RATHER: Would you argue against Charlie Chaplin? How about Jean Couteau , any of those?
RICE: Well, I could argue there for the — for film, for the creation of moving pictures, for the creation of television. I would go back then more to the inventions themselves, the pill, than people who popularized them, because I really think when we talk about the great waves of history and we cannot put Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt in the same box as [Simultaneous conversation].