This is the Tom Hartman program.

And welcome back.

Tom Hartman here with you.

On the line with us, Ambassador William J Vanenhovel,

Hope and History is his new book, a memoir of

tumultuous times. Ambassador, welcome to the program.

Thank you, John, very much.

Glad to be here.

You have led an extraordinary life from your birth in 1930 up to today.

Your first chapter is titled Growing Up in the Age of Roosevelt,

and you have some just extraordinary stories there.

But in your seventh chapter, you talk also about running for Congress in 1960

and Eleanor Roosevelt endorsing you.

You worked with Bobby Kennedy.

I mean you have seen the arc of history in this country in a way that most of us have not.

And I'm wondering what lessons you learned from the Great Depression,

from Franklin Roosevelt's work, and all the stuff that has intervened to this day about today's politics looking back.

I grew up in Rochester, New York, of an immigrant family, my mother and father

had both emigrated to the United States and we barely spoke English at home. It was a time, although the

depression was well underway, the arrival of President Roosevelt in the White House made

the difference. They'd have a president who spoke to the concerns of the people directly,

who was not afraid.

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