A GoodFellows Special: A Guide To Summer

Chief Brody (00:17):

You are going to need a bigger boat.

Bill Whalen (00:23):

Welcome back to GoodFellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast, examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow. I'll be your moderator today, joined by a full compliment at GoodFellows, the historian, Niall Ferguson, the economist, John Cochrane, former presidential national security advisor, geo-strategist, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. Niall, John, and H.R. are all Hoover senior fellows. So gentlemen, this is a very abbreviated version of Goodfellows. This is a snack, if you will, to tide over our viewers until you're back in your full glory in mid-July. And we're going to focus on one thing in our limited time today, and that is the good old summertime. So let's start the show with an easy question for the three of you.

(00:59):

What are your summertime priorities in terms of work, research, and writing? Niall, is it the Kissinger book?

Niall Ferguson (01:06):

Yes, I plow on with the hardest book I've written in my career. My magnum opus volume two of the life of Kissinger, and I look forward to those relatively quiet summer days when there are not too many calls, emails, and episodes of Goodfellows to record.

Bill Whalen (01:21):

Hey, hey, hey. H.R. McMaster, you got a book coming out. Are you getting ready for your book tour or what are you prepping for this summer?

H.R. McMaster (01:28):

Well, we have an international seminar, which is fantastic here. We bring together mid-level officials from like-minded countries around the world and have a one week-plus fantastic program at Hoover. And then, I'll be recording the audio book, so I'll get a jumpstart on getting tired of hearing my own voice. And then, of course, I'm trying to write a little bit on the side. I'd like to write an essay about the fallacy of deescalation or escalation control or war management. So that's a project I have in mind for June, July.

Niall Ferguson (02:06):

Great idea. Deescalation I think is a word that should be deleted from the American political lexicon. And good luck with the audiobook, people don't realize how awful it is to be in a tiny little sound studio listening to your own prose and spotting the mistakes that you missed when you [inaudible 00:02:25]

H.R. McMaster (02:25):

Who wrote that run-on sentence.

Niall Ferguson (02:29):

I feel you're pain, H.R. I feel your pain.

Bill Whalen (02:32):

I remember doing the show when Niall was doing that for the book Doom and he was not of good cheer on those days. But John, in addition to Grumpy Economist blogging, what are you up to this summer?

John Cochrane (02:40):

Oh boy. A full plate, which is going to be made harder by summer activities. I just signed a contract to deliver with co-authors, a book on the Euro in July 1st. Got to get done. I have a long-running book project to kind of put all the Grumpy Economists in one place, that's going to be hard. Plus, ongoing smaller projects on finally getting fiscal theory, the price level to work better. And if I have any time, I wanted to put some time into learning how to use AI this summer. My buddies who are doing it are reporting very interesting results. Got to learn that new technology. So there's some of the many plans.

Bill Whalen (03:20):

John, is this the best of the four seasons?

John Cochrane (03:23):

Yes.

Bill Whalen (03:24):

Why?

John Cochrane (03:25):

Early summer is my favorite season. And of course, now that I live in California, all the seasons are wonderful, but early summer, the outdoors and the light, especially.

Bill Whalen (03:35):

H.R.

H.R. McMaster (03:36):

Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I love the fall too though. But hey, it's always nice in California. A lot of paddle boarding opportunities.

Bill Whalen (03:45):

Niall.

Niall Ferguson (03:46):

Oh, spring is the best season. The awful thing about summer is this sense that it's finite. And we used to have a competition, it's a very Scottish kind of competition to see who would be the first person in the summer to say the following words, "The nights are fair drawing in." And if you can get that in before anybody else in our family, you win. But that's the sense I always get in summer. At any moment, somebody is going to say the nights are fair drawing in, whereas with spring, well, you have summer still to come. I'm worried that spring might soon be over, it's so warm in London right now.

Bill Whalen (04:22):

All right, Niall, tell me one thing that the Ferguson clan is doing the summer. One thing very fun, one thing very cool, one thing very different.

Niall Ferguson (04:31):

Well, we've been spending a lot of time in the UK this academic year, and so our summer will be an American one and Thomas and Campbell are excited about this because they have missed certain aspects of their American life. So there'll be a Montana segment and then an east coast segment. So we'll have steaks in Montana, followed by the best striped bass that the eastern seaboard has to offer. An All-American summer, that's what I've promised them.

Bill Whalen (05:05):

And H.R., your family gathers, what, to what are you paddleboard? What is your family up to this summer?

H.R. McMaster (05:10):

Hey, well we are blessed with six grandkids and so it's just so darn fun and they're all bursting out with their personalities and they're at an age now where you can throw the ball and they're doing T-ball and soccer. And so my wife and I like to have our grandkid camp in the summer and have them over as much as possible.

Bill Whalen (05:35):

John, is this your first summer, John, with a grandkid?

John Cochrane (05:38):

Yes. So we have a one-year-old grandchild now with us. So a lot of the summer will consist of admiring the granddaughter, visits from our grown children and my many crazy outdoor activities.

Bill Whalen (05:55):

Okay, John, last 4th of July, you and I got see Niall Ferguson work a grill on what a site that was. You could see the mam is truly Americanized. The man knows his meat. John, what is your favorite summertime food?

John Cochrane (06:07):

I love a good grill. I love a good fresh homemade pasta by Beth. I'll take that anytime of the year. Fresh fruit, there's nothing like a really good peach. The last thing that's really seasonal in the US is really good peaches.

Bill Whalen (06:23):

H.R., what's your favorite summertime libation?

H.R. McMaster (06:26):

Oh, summertime libation. Gosh. I like a nice pinot noir anytime of year, so I think that that might be it. That might be it. But I will say my favorite summertime food now is my son-in-law's barbecue. One of the great things about sons-in-law is I've now outsourced all of my duties to them and I can just watch him grill and then enjoy the result.

Bill Whalen (06:50):

Niall, do you still barbecue in the UK and I'm kind of curious to what you're going to be doing on the 4th of July because you do have an election that day in the UK. Do people celebrate the 4th of July in the UK or would I have to go to the American Embassy to celebrate the red, white and blue, or is it just something they don't talk about?

Niall Ferguson (07:04):

We certainly won't have any celebrations on this 4th of July. We'll all be bracing ourselves for a labor government for the first time since 2010 when Gordon Brown was the last labor prime minister. July the fourth happens amongst Americans. There's always American celebrations in London, but you won't be surprised to hear that it's not regarded as a day of celebration by the Brits. After all, it was a fairly major failure of imperial governance that led to the success of the rebellion by the so-called Patriots. Now, I can't say any of that, I'm an American. And in fact, it's going to be slightly odd to be in the UK on July 4th after last year's All-American celebration. This is the sort of curious ambivalence of the transatlantic life. I love both these countries. I'm a citizen of both these countries. I glory in all of their qualities. I won't hear either of them run down as is too often the case these days. So I'll quietly celebrate July 4th as an American and probably commiserate with my fellow conservatives as a Brit.

Bill Whalen (08:25):

Niall, summertime reading you'd like to recommend?

Niall Ferguson (08:28):

Well, short stories. I've been encouraging my son, Thomas, to delve into some of the great short story writers because I remember as a boy always finding that somehow summer lent itself to the sprint rather than the marathon read. And there are some absolutely wonderful short story writers that people at the age of 12 can discover. Conan Doyle, you can read the Sherlock stories for the first time, to give just one example. So yes, this is the time to dust down Chekhov short stories, much underrated, fantastically high quality. And I could go on, but I'll stop there.

Bill Whalen (09:14):

John.

John Cochrane (09:15):

Well, if you want fiction, I have to recommend a duo, Monstrous Beauty and Plus One by this author I've just discovered Elizabeth Fama, just fantastic author. Young adult fiction, very literary young adult fiction and very readable by adults with some subtle libertarian themes in there. Nonfiction, topping my list right now is Glenn Loury's autobiography, the most interesting life of any economist I know.

Bill Whalen (09:43):

H.R.

H.R. McMaster (09:45):

Hey, so I mentioned on the last show I mentioned Rick Atkinson's great work trilogy on World War II and I've rewarded myself for getting this darn book done by reading the first volume of his history of the Revolution. And so along the themes of July 4th, The British are Coming, is the first volume. Everything that Atkinson does is exceptionally well written. He moves from the tactical to the strategic level and he moves between London and Philadelphia and Massachusetts and all the great battles. It's fantastic.

Niall Ferguson (10:25):

I thought they said the red coats are coming because at that point, they were all British.

H.R. McMaster (10:30):

Well, I know, I know. It may not be the most accurate title, but it is part of The Liberation Trilogy from World War II. This is called The Revolution Trilogy and the first volume's The British are Coming, it's fantastic.

Bill Whalen (10:51):

I have my eye on Hampton Side's book, The Wide Wide Sea, which chronicles Captain Cook's last voyage in the Pacific Ocean. But Niall, I live in great fear that it's going to end up into an angry rant against colonial imperialism.

Niall Ferguson (11:03):

That would be par for the course these days. It's almost required at any British museum, no matter what the contents of the museum, that there be an abject apology for the wickedness of the Imperial Age. And we've sort of written out of the national script that rather a lot of good things were done. And my good friend at Oxford, Nigel Biggar, has just fired a ferocious tirade at one of the Scottish museums where, as he points out, no mention is made of the efforts that were made by Britain to end the slave trade and end slavery in the 19th century. And this is a kind of extraordinary myopic reading of history that I think it vexes me more and more to see these slanted and skewed accounts of history, particularly as I see them being presented to the public and to school children in museums. It's wrong.

John Cochrane (12:00):

And just emphasize, they not only ended the slave trade, they forced ending of slavery on countries that wanted to keep it very desperately.

Bill Whalen (12:11):

Now, it is possible to watch television and learn a few things. Is there anything the three of you would like to recommend in terms of streaming content? Let me throw three at you. Two are on Apple TV right now. There is the miniseries, Franklin, with Michael Douglas. Once you get past the idea of him going into Gordon Gecko mode, it's a look at Benjamin Franklin's life in Paris. Also, there's a series on Apple TV called The Big Cigar, which is about Hollywood producers trying to get the Black Panther, Huey Newton, to Cuba. It's a good look at California in the sixties and seventies. I'm a sucker for those. And then the other I'd recommend, it's on Amazon Prime right now. It's a TV adaptation of the book, A Gentleman in Moscow.

Niall Ferguson (12:47):

Those sound-

John Cochrane (12:48):

I haven't turned on a TV in six months, so can't help you.

Niall Ferguson (12:51):

You've just exposed that the Goodfellows have more or less walked away from television. And now of an evening, you see, what I would rather do is read one of Trollope's novels. And just to get you into the spirit of my extreme old age.

(13:16):

Television, who the hell needs it?

John Cochrane (13:22):

Yeah, I spend my evenings trying to catch up on the day's 120 emails and stay awake while I'm doing it.

Bill Whalen (13:30):

H.R., I'm out here on a limb as the lone vidiot on the show. Can you help me or am I just a lost cause?

H.R. McMaster (13:36):

It's so funny, whenever I watch TV, my mind is turned off so I kind of almost immediately forget whatever the heck I watched. But I do like-

John Cochrane (13:45):

I'll tell you why I [inaudible 00:13:47] enjoyed a lot of these concepts of streaming shows. They mostly have about 90 minutes of content and then they spread it out over show after show. Will you get to the point already?

Bill Whalen (13:59):

Okay. Point taken. Any summertime movies you'd like to recommend, and I could define summertime movies in two ways. One, a blockbuster movie that came out in the summer that you found particularly compelling or a movie that has a summertime background to it. So for example, I would point you to the movie Jaws, which is about life on a Massachusetts beach. Which today's generation, by the way, would not stand for because I think you have to wait about an hour and 20 minutes into the movie to see the damn shark. Today's day and age, your kid would want the shark to come out leaping at you in 3D in a minute and 20 seconds. Niall?

Niall Ferguson (14:31):

Well, it's a very bad idea to watch the film Jaws if you plan to go swimming in the sea as I do. Because no matter how often you tell yourself that the probability of being eaten by a great white shark off the coast of the northeast of the United States is quite small, it's in your mind and you can't... You swim a bit faster, but you don't stay in the water nearly as long, nor do you go as deep as you would. So I advise anybody against watching Jaws, particularly at this time of year. Maybe in winter when you're not going swimming, it might be a good idea.

Bill Whalen (15:06):

But John, wouldn't The Jaws theme be great to play when you're swimming laps in the pool?

John Cochrane (15:10):

I've thought about that. I actually have seen a shark while windsurfing in the Pacific Ocean, one there. I saw a shark go by and let me tell you, there has never been greater incentive to not fall while on a windsurf.

Niall Ferguson (15:22):

Yes. Focuses the mind.

John Cochrane (15:24):

Watching that fin go by. I thought about this. Again, the problem with our movie recommendations is we show our deep knowledge of 1970s culture [inaudible 00:15:35]. I thought of Jaws, I thought of Endless Summer, the classic beach movie, but I decided, my identity for 30 years now has been dad. So I'm going to nominate National Lampoon's Vacation as a light summer movie before the era where all summer movies were superhero action movies. I identify with Chevy Chase trying to get everyone to Wally World.

Lasky (15:58):

Sorry, folks, parks closed. The moose out front should have told you.

Clark Griswold (16:00):

What?

Bill Whalen (16:03):

H.R., have you ever done the station wagon trip with the kids?

H.R. McMaster (16:06):

Oh yeah. We did the minivan trip, I guess, with the kids, but we oftentimes went to battlefields [inaudible 00:16:17]

John Cochrane (16:16):

When I'm in charge, I'm denied battlefields, ship museums, airplane museums, all the things I want to go to. No, dad.

H.R. McMaster (16:27):

I was once moving some furniture between our daughter's houses and I stopped with the moving van at Manassas Battlefield and our daughter sent out an Instagram picture with hashtag predictable next to the U-Haul us with the Manassas Battlefield behind us. But yeah, for summer movies, why not go with Chevy Chase? How about European Vacation? You've got to enjoy some good slap dancing in Germany with Chevy Chase.

Bill Whalen (16:58):

Okay, so I want to go on a record here, if Niall moves out to California, we're going to chip in and get him one of those big 1970's station wagons with the wood paneling on the side.

Niall Ferguson (17:06):

Oh yeah. I always craved one of those. The first time I came to North America, which must have been in the early 1970s, I was astonished by the size of the vehicles, and particularly, by the fact that they were made of wood. That, I'd not expect. It was a while before I realized it wasn't actually wood and I'll never understand why the fake wood appeared on the side of those enormous American vehicles. But we certainly did not have them in Glasgow, I can tell you that.

Bill Whalen (17:31):

H.R., then we have to get him a real woody wagon from the 1960s and get him on a paddleboard too, right?

Niall Ferguson (17:38):

The paddle boarding, I've made progress in that particular art and it is a wonderful form of exercise and a lot less likely to cause you a broken rib than surfing, which I'm now unquestionably way too old for.

Bill Whalen (17:54):

Yes. Well, maybe that'll be the Goodfellows Olympics one day. The three of you'll go up to Tahoe and you'll have some windsurfing competition.

John Cochrane (18:00):

I'm up for that. That sounds like a great idea.

Niall Ferguson (18:02):

Paddleboarding is a difficult thing and one should never be filmed on one's first excursion, as the liberal Democrat leader discovered this very day when he attempted to paddleboard on a lake somewhere in England and came spectacularly to grief. That's the great thing about British politics, there's a sitcom element to it that is largely lacking from American politics and you really realize, after a while, that the brief public regards politics as a branch of comedy.

Bill Whalen (18:29):

Niall, there's also the very clever ad the Bush campaign put out in 2004. They showed John Kerry windsurfing and it has very cleverly showed him windsurfing in one direction and the other direction and said, where does John Kerry stand? Well, final question, gentlemen.

Niall Ferguson (18:42):

[inaudible 00:18:43] branded him an elitist because it is not exactly a proletarian activity, windsurfing. Is it, H.R.?

John Cochrane (18:49):

Yours is a sitcom, ours is a reality show.

Bill Whalen (18:53):

All right, gentlemen, final question. Fill in the blank. It will be a great summer if I what? H.R.?

H.R. McMaster (18:59):

Get to spend a lot of time with our grandchildren.

Bill Whalen (19:02):

Okay. John?

John Cochrane (19:05):

Yes. Spend time with the family. Finish the book on time. And I'm heading off to fly the National Glider Competition up and down the Sierra. So I want to win the National Glider Competition.

Bill Whalen (19:16):

All right. Niall?

Niall Ferguson (19:17):

Get a majority of my children on a sailboat and take them sailing. That's my main objective. It's got to be a majority. I know it won't be all five. As long as we get a majority, I'll be happy.

Bill Whalen (19:31):

Okay, and for me the answer would be that I am running a mock summer camp for my four grand nephews ages five to seven. I'm not sure if I'm going to last a week with them, so maybe you'll see me on the next GoodFellows. Maybe I'll be in a hospital in South Carolina. Stay tuned.

Niall Ferguson (19:44):

Why don't we change it to Old Fellows as a name. It's only a matter of time.

Bill Whalen (19:49):

Okay, guys, great conversation. Enjoy the summer and we will see you back here soon. On behalf of my colleagues, Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster, John Cochrane, and all of us here at the Hoover Institution, we hope you enjoyed this abbreviated show and we'll be back again with a fuller episode of GoodFellows mid-July. Till then, take care. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 8 (20:05):

If you enjoyed this show and are interested in watching more content featuring H.R. McMaster, watch Battlegrounds also available at hoover.org.