We cannot be spun, or at least we'd like to think that we cannot be. And the presidents who are trying to - too overtly to try to say, here is what you historians and what you later Americans should think of my presidency, 30 or 40 years later, they look silly.

Under the system that we now have to nominate presidential candidates, for instance, I would prefer that we have a system that is closer to, say, the one we had in the 1960s.

The original thing that fascinated me most was why we expect leaders, and especially presidents, at times to destroy themselves - and that's a sign of being a good leader or a good president. We usually don't expect that of almost anyone else in any profession, in particular, in public life.

I'm defining [presidential courage] pretty narrowly. It's not only taking a big political risk but it's also the risk that in the hindsight of history, people think it's wise.

Legacy is what a president does that affects later generations.

So if 1960 had occurred under the old convention system, Kennedy would have had a very hard time getting the Democratic nomination because he would have been rejected by all those people who had worked with him in Washington.

As parties began to develop around the turn of the 19th century, you had party nominees for President nominated in caucuses made up of party members in Congress.