Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Jonathan Alter, NBC contributing correspondent and author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life, joined LBJ Foundation President Mark Updegrove to honor the life and legacy of our 39th President, Jimmy Carter. NPR said of His Very Best, “It’s … bound to fascinate anyone with an interest in American history, and an excellent look at the man whom Alter considers, justifiably, ‘perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.'”
The Carter Center, the non-profit organization launched by President and Mrs. Carter over forty years ago, co-hosted this program, which was held in the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium at the LBJ Presidential Library.
About the Speaker:
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host.
His most recent book is American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own, published in October 2024. His earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.
About the Book:
In His Very Best, published in 2020, Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.
Jonathan Alter, NBC contributing correspondent and author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life, joined LBJ Foundation President Mark Updegrove to honor the life and legacy of our 39th President, Jimmy Carter. NPR said of His Very Best, “It’s … bound to fascinate anyone with an interest in American history, and an excellent look at the man whom Alter considers, justifiably, ‘perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.'”
The Carter Center, the non-profit organization launched by President and Mrs. Carter over forty years ago, co-hosted this program, which was held in the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium at the LBJ Presidential Library.
About the Speaker:
Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host.
His most recent book is American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial―and My Own, published in October 2024. His earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.
About the Book:
In His Very Best, published in 2020, Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.
![[LBJ Future Forum] Missions to Moon & Mars: A Conversation with Director Wyche, Johnson Space Center](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sczsgLJsECY/mqdefault.jpg "[LBJ Future Forum] Missions to Moon & Mars: A Conversation with Director Wyche, Johnson Space Center
Join us for a special opportunity to hear from Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche. Johnson Space Center, which opened 60 years ago as the Manned Spacecraft Center and later renamed for Lyndon Johnson, is NASA’s center for human space flight and home to the U.S. astronaut corps and Mission Control. Gwen Griffin, CEO of the Griffin Communications Group and Chair of the Texas Space Commission Board of Directors, moderated the conversation.
About the Speakers:
Vanessa E. Wyche is the director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, home to America’s astronaut corps, Mission Control Center, International Space Station, Orion, and Gateway programs and its more than 11,000 employees. She is responsible for overseeing a broad range of human spaceflight activities, including development and operation of human spacecraft, commercialization of low-Earth orbit and Johnson’s role in exploring the Moon and Mars.
Wyche previously served as deputy director at Johnson and has held numerous program and institutional leadership positions, including flight manager of several missions of the retired Space Shuttle Program. A strong supporter of diversity and inclusion, Wyche advocates mentoring at all levels and is a passionate promoter of science, technology, engineering, and math. She’s received numerous awards and honors, including the Presidential Rank Award and an honorary doctoral degree from Coastal Carolina University. She is an AIAA Associate Fellow and International Women’s Forum Fellow. Wyche was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. A native of South Carolina, Wyche earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Master of Science in Bioengineering from Clemson University.
Gwen Griffin is the chief executive officer of the Griffin Communications Group. She is the executive director of Club for the Future, 2024 chair of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, and chair of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the College of Sciences at the University of Central Florida. Additionally, she is a member of the Space Center Houston Board of Directors, Conrad Foundation Advisory Board, and trustee of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Griffin received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Central Florida.")
![[LBJ Future Forum] Who is Austin For? A Conversation on Growth, Class and Affordability](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tPuAter74bQ/mqdefault.jpg "[LBJ Future Forum] Who is Austin For? A Conversation on Growth, Class and Affordability
Austin is the fastest growing major metro era in the country, but the rapid rate of growth has created a crisis of housing and affordability that threatens to push out the people who drive the Austin economy. So it brings to question - who is Austin for?
Panelists:
Nora Linares-Moeller, Executive Director, HousingWorks Austin
Adam Orman, Board President and co-founder, Good Work Austin
Peter Schwarz, Co-founder and consultant, Sound Music Cities
Selena Xie, President, Austin EMS Association
Moderator: Dan Solomon, Senior Editor, Texas Monthly")
![[Podcast] With the Bark Off: A Conversation with Paul Gregory About Lee Harvey Oswald](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vJ595whXpdE/mqdefault.jpg "[Podcast] With the Bark Off: A Conversation with Paul Gregory About Lee Harvey Oswald
E75
Paul Gregory is an expert on Russia and is currently a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. A pioneer in the study of Soviet and Russian economics, his textbook on the Russian economy was used to teach more than two generations of students. But Gregory’s latest book is on a subject that he has been reluctant to address for nearly six decades: his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald and his young wife Marina. Gregory was one of the few people who actually knew them. His inside account of the Oswalds’s marriage offers a disturbing portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald, whom Gregory believes acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy.
We talked to Gregory about the Lee Harvey Oswald he came to know, someone who possessed the motive, cunning, and killer instinct of a murderer who was desperately vying for a place in history.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/11811421")
