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Above: Douglas and Tammy Brinkley in Aspen this year.
Right: Brinkley and Jimmy Carter at the Peanut Festival in Plains, Georgia, in 1993. In 1998, Brinkley published his book on Carter?s postpresidency years.
Morning America and The Today Show. He is currently a historical consultant for an ABC documentary produced by Steven Spielberg on combat in war, which will air in 2000. Brinkley welcomes the opportunity to promote the importance of understanding history and seems to enjoy the experience, but is aware of the pitfalls of television.
?It?s a tricky but fun situation to be in. You have to be careful. I mean how many historians are known in the United States? There are only about four or five of us who ever get to do anything?and Ambrose is one of them. And I?m about the only one who?s still engaged in academics and teaching.?
Brinkley says that the key is to remain a historian and not be an advocate. He also compares his arduous efforts to produce a work in print with the instantaneous nature of TV. ?One of the funny parts of television is that people focus on it so much, but it takes so little time. I do Hardball with Chris Matthews, get there two minutes before I?m on, stick an earplug in my ear, say, ?Hey Chris howyah doin,? then he says, ?Howz the weather in New Orleans,? and then boom, I?m on and he says, ?So is Bill Clinton the worst president since Warren Harding?? I say, ?Well Chris,
that?s probably too harsh a comparison . . . and then I?m off.? Still, Brinkley says, ?I think it?s important to put a television face on history.? He adds, ?Only small people don?t have an eye to posterity. Any good parent is taking care of their child . . . and any loving historian who loves this nation as deeply as I do?and believe me I love it to death?wants to see things better here in the next century. So, if there?s anything that I can offer that can be projected into the future, I try to do that on radio or television.?
As a young man, Brinkley says, he made his own encyclopedias ?with inserts of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett.? Then on family vacations, during summers away from school, his parents?both of whom were school teachers?would hitch a 24-foot Coachman trailer they called ?the buckeye buggy? to the back of their car and take young Douglas on tours across the country.
?We got a chance to see Thomas Jefferson?s Monticello, Washington?s Mount Vernon, Willa Cather?s Nebraska, and Steinbeck?s Salinas when I was a teen-ager. I hiked the Grand Canyon, Sequoia National Park, Mount Rainier, and places like that by the time I graduated from high school. These trips with
mom'and dad were the first Majic Bus,? Brinkley admits.
As the time approached for Brinkley to go to college, he had no doubts as to what course of study he would pursue. ?I never had that ?what am I going to do with my life? decision. In my freshman year I was a history major. I didn?t know I was going to be a history professor, but I always knew that my career was going to be in history in one way or another.? Brinkley received a bachelor?s degree from Ohio State University in American and European history and a master?s degree from Georgetown University in American history.
Brinkley?s first love, ?almost to a fault,? he claims, is American history. ?I am obsessed, really, with understanding every aspect of American history. As in Ralph Waldo Emerson?s great question, I want to understand, ?What is the American?? ?
His curiosity and obsession with American history made him a natural choice for Stephen Ambrose when he decided to slip into semi-retirement and release the reins to his Eisenhower Center. Reached at his second home in Montana, Ambrose?Bay St. Louis? other famous author?says, ?Doug wants to know just about everything. He?s hard at work on Henry Ford. Before that he was hard at work on Dean Acheson, and it?s hard to imagine two guys more different than Ford and Acheson, but he wants to know how they did it. He?s working on Rosa Parks, and he wants to know, how the hell did she do that? And that?s what drives him.?
Ambrose adds that since meeting Brinkley at Hofstra University circa 1993-1994 during a symposium on Dwight Eisenhower, he has developed more than a professional relationship with the man he considers ?the best young historian.?
?He?s a friend, just about my closest friend, if not my closest friend. We spend a lot of time together. I live only half the year now in Bay St. Louis, but when we are there ... we see each other three or four times a week. I keep up with what he?s doing and he keeps up with what I?m doing.? Ambrose stops at claiming Brinkley, 26 years his junior, as a protege. ?I wouldn?t want to say that I?m a mentor, that wouldn?t be right, and I?m sure not his professor...?
Brinkley and his wife, Tammy, moved to Bay St. Louis three years ago from their home in the Warehouse District of New Orleans. Tammy is a Rhode Island native with a master?s degree in social welfare. She is currently a Ph.D student at Tulane University. Tammy and Doug spent summers house-sitting for the Ambroses in Waveland before making their
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