Lynne McTaggart, Lynne Mctaggart

Doris Kearns Goodwin, born in 1943, is an American biographer, historian, and former journalist recognized for her extensive work on U.S. presidents. She earned a PhD in government from Harvard University after a notable internship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, where she initially worked on domestic anti-poverty initiatives. Goodwin's career includes teaching government at Harvard and assisting with presidential memoirs. Her literary career launched with the bestseller "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream." She has also contributed to sports journalism, notably being the first woman in the Boston Red Sox locker room in 1979.

Goodwin received significant acclaim, including the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History for "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II." She has also been recognized with awards such as the Golden Plate Award and honorary doctorates. Her work "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" earned the Lincoln Prize and was adapted into a screenplay. Goodwin has been a frequent television commentator on political events and news programs. However, her career has also been marked by plagiarism controversies, particularly concerning her book "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys," which led to a settlement and her resignation from the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Doris Helen Kearns was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. Raised Catholic with two sisters, her family had Irish immigrant grandparents. She grew up in Rockville Centre, New York, attending South Side High School. Her childhood experiences there formed the basis of her 1997 memoir, "Wait Till Next Year." She pursued higher education at Colby College, graduating magna cum laude in 1964 with a degree in political science, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Following this, she received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to continue her studies, ultimately earning a PhD in government from Harvard University in 1968 with a dissertation on the relationship between Congress and the Court.

Goodwin's career began with a White House Fellowship in 1967 during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Initially considered for an Oval Office assistant role, her involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement and an article critical of Johnson's war policy led to her reassignment to the Department of Labor. Despite this, Johnson retained her as an intern. After he left office, he invited her to join his White House staff, where she focused on domestic anti-poverty programs. Later, she taught government at Harvard for a decade, including a course on the American presidency. During this period, she assisted Johnson with his memoirs, which culminated in her first book, "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream," published in 1977 and becoming a bestseller.

Her acclaimed work "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" earned her the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995. Goodwin's book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" received the 2006 Lincoln Prize and was adapted into a film screenplay. She has also been honored with the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and received honorary doctorates from Bates College and Westfield State College. Her book "The Bully Pulpit" garnered the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction in 2014. Goodwin has also produced television miniseries and docudramas related to American history.

In 2002, it was revealed that Goodwin's book "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys" had incorporated unattributed phrases and sentences from works by Rose Kennedy, Hank Searls, and Lynne McTaggart. McTaggart specifically noted that a significant portion of her work was lifted. Goodwin acknowledged the oversight, stating she failed to use quotation marks for verbatim phrases, though her footnotes cited McTaggart's work. She described it as a failure in citation. This controversy led to a private settlement with McTaggart and Goodwin's departure from the Pulitzer Prize Board and the PBS NewsHour program. A separate report also questioned the similarity of language between her book "No Ordinary Time" and Joseph P. Lash's "Eleanor & Franklin."

“The president discovered that I had been actively involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement and had written an article entitled, 'How to Dump Lyndon Johnson'. I thought, for sure, he would kick me out of the program, but instead, he said, 'Oh, bring her down here for a year, and if I can't win her over, no one can'.”

“The larger question for those of us who write history is to understand how citation mistakes can happen.”

“If somebody takes a third of somebody's book, which is what happened to me, they are lifting out the heart and guts of somebody else's individual expression.”