A chronicler of presidents now finds herself in the spotlight

Americans came to recognize the Long Island accent of Doris Kearns Goodwin this year when television networks turned to her expertise during President Clinton's impeachment trial and following John Kennedy, Jr.'s death.

Goodwin, who will speak today in McCosh 50, is one of the best-known historians specializing in the 20th century and the presidency. She wrote "No Ordinary Time," a biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, in addition to books about Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy family. She is in the process of writing a book about Abraham Lincoln.

In an interview yesterday, Goodwin said she makes a point to choose "larger figures" to study because she dedicates years to each person she studies. "It is a great luxury to spend so many years speaking about these guys," she said.

Goodwin was raised in Rockville Centre, N.Y., on the south shore of Long Island. She attended Colby College in Maine and went on to receive her Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

"I think when I was younger, I was caught between wanting to study political life and actually doing something in it," she said. "I had worked in Washington almost every summer when I was in graduate school and even when I was in college. It was a very exciting time. It was a time when young people were really caught up in public life."

After a White House internship during Lyndon Johnson's presidency, Goodwin decided she would seek a position as a university professor instead of working for the federal government. "The country changed after that," she said of Johnson's presidency. "The great activism of young people changed in the 70s and 80s."

In addition to her writing, Goodwin appears frequently on NBC and PBS's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer" as an expert on American history. "It keeps you up to the current date even as your mind is back 100 years," she said.

Kennedy tragedy

When John Kennedy, Jr., Caroline Bessette Kennedy and Lauren Bessette were killed in a plane crash this summer, Goodwin served as a television commentator. She said she struggled to find new things to say because the media "went on and on for days" covering the incident.

She added that she resorted to telling stories about the entire Kennedy family that she had learned when she researched and wrote her book on the family.

Goodwin spoke frequently during President Clinton's impeachment trial, and while many historians worried that the presidency would never again be reputable, Goodwin disagreed. "I never worried that the [presidency] itself was forever scarred," she said.

Instead, Goodwin said she is optimistic about the institution's future. "I think that respect can easily be restored," she said. "In times of peace and prosperity, there is less of a connection to any leader."

Goodwin said her lifelong interest in history is rooted in her childhood love of baseball. "I often claim — and I think it's partly true — that it really began when I was six years old, and my father taught me how to keep score of baseball games," she said, adding that often she would take notes on Dodgers games and recount them to her father when he returned home from work.

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Describing the games helped her understand the importance of storytelling for a historian. "It made me realize there was something special about history if you could recount it in a special way," she said.