Walter Isaacson

LEADERS, ICONOCLASTS AND INNOVATORS:

How would you characterize museums’ role in your life?
Museums have played an enormous role in my life, and every book I’ve written and every passion I’ve had has been inspired by museums, whether it’s caring about Benjamin Franklin or about science or about art. One of the joys of living in Washington is there are so many museums to wander. But I can remember growing up and going to Cabildo and the Presbytere in New Orleans on Jackson Square, which were the state museums that had the art and history of our city. And my mother’s been a docent at the New Orleans Museum of Arts and out in what we used to call Delgado Museum out in City Park in New Orleans, and I went there all the time. So I think that museums are not just a repository of our memories but temples for our inspiration.

Do you think that museums are doing things right? Is there anything that they could be doing better?
I think they could focus more on being convening places, I know that the Franklin Institute draws people together for wonderful discussions, but it would seem to me that each museum should double the efforts they already do of having public programs and discussions and sessions so that they become the gathering place in the evenings for people who want to talk about ideas. At the Aspen Institute, we’ve become a convening ground for people who like to talk about ideas, and it shows me all that hunger there is for those types of gathering places—and museums have always been a great gathering place—but I would hope that they could emphasize even more the role of the museum as a gathering place for discussion.

Given what has happened in the last decade—an unprecedented presidential election in 2000, Sept. 11, now the first black president and a lot of turmoil in the economy—how will historians digest all of this?
Yeah, I think the best way to digest a period of turmoil is through narrative based on people. And at the moment we might not know what it all means, but we can start piecing together the tales of the people large and small who affected our times.

And so that’s largely what you do, digest larger issues through the lens of a certain figure?
That’s why I write biographies; it’s like telling the story about time through people. In Time magazine when I was editor, I used to always make it an emphasis with narrative tales involving people who affect our times.

What do your biographical subjects have in common?
My subjects share a creativity and an imagination. I tend to think that there are a lot of smart people in this world and as a journalist, I’ve covered many of them. But what it takes to be a significant player in history is a creativity and an imagination, and that quality is more rare. I think both Franklin and Einstein would look back, look at this period and say, “If we’re going to have a new economy, if we’re going to deal with the problems of this world and at home, we have to look for more creative ways to set up how we deal with things.”
I wrote a book with a friend called The Wise Men, which is about the creative institutions that a group of friends put together at the beginning of the Cold War, and they invented things like the World Bank and NATO and Radio Free Europe in order to win a struggle in the world. We’re still using their institutions, but I think we have to be creative in inventing a new set of institutions—both economically and in terms of promoting a creative society in America, and in terms of understanding our values internationally.

Could you speak a little bit more about what your subjects have in common?
Franklin and Einstein were very rebellious, they thought out of the box—but they were also wise enough to understand history, what went before them. They both had a great appreciation of historic trends, and then they were both able to think imaginatively so that they came up with wholly new ideas. In Franklin’s case, it was a federal system of government based on tolerance for diverse opinions of the individual. In Einstein’s case it was making the great imaginative leap that space and time aren’t absolute, but that they’re related to each other, they’re relative to each other.

And how does Kissinger fall in there?
Kissinger was very creative in understanding balances of power in the world as America extricated itself from Vietnam. I don’t think he had as fine of a feel for the values of American democracy and how that makes our foreign policy strong. But he did have a fine feel for power balance—that’s what I was trying to explore.

You seem to really enjoy iconoclasts. Would you say you are yourself an iconoclast or do you just admire them?
No, I admire people who think creatively and imaginatively. I get inspired by them. I certainly don’t put myself into their category, though.

What would you say is the connection between your work at the Aspen Institute and your writing?
The Aspen Institute is focused on creative and values-based leadership. Whether it’s in our policy programs, young leaders programs or in young readers programs around the world, we’re trying to find the most creative thinking and translate that into leadership. That’s something I’ve always tried to look for as a journalist and write about as a biographer.

So it’s been a good match for you?
I love the mix at the Aspen Institute of being respectful of the traditions of our values and ideals but also trying to look to the future for how we can be more imaginative in a wide variety of fields—from the environment to education to foreign policy, to creating the right new group of young global leaders.

What subject are you working on next?
I want to write about Louis Armstrong next because he also embodies that amazing creative genius that you can see in people like Einstein and Franklin, and he shows how growing up in an environment with a great diversity of traditions—which is what makes New Orleans magical—was so important.