New york times book review. We recorded the program in september of 2018. Good afternoon. Welcome, everybody. Im david moskowitz, head of Government Relations and Public Policy at wells fargo and pleased to be here with you today. We are pleased to serve for the eighth year as a charter sponsor of the book festival and prouder to watch the book festival grow into the incredibly popular and impactful event it has become. I wouldnt be surprised [ applause ] thank you. Wouldnt be surprised to see us move the needle on some bestseller list today. Its even more important to keep the book festival a free event that serves the community. The library of congress and the book festivals purpose here is literacy which leads to learning and opportunity which matches our goal of helping our community succeed, learning to love books and learning are what the book festival is all about. In this session, ron chernow will discuss his biography of Ulysses Grant f were lucky, certain is other popular founding fathers, one thing i learned from the story of president grant was how people can evolve and through persistence and hard work acknowledge and overcome their imperfections. Its an incredible story that reminded me that a person of good wil can learn from their mistakes and reach their potential. I hope you enjoy this session. Its my privilege to introduce the Deputy Director of International Outreach at the library of congress and session moderator colleen shogan. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the 18th annual National Book festival. Im pleased to be joined on stage today by ron chernow. Ron is an awardwinning journalist, historian and biographer and won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and the National Book award for nonfiction. In 2015 he won the National Humanities medal. His book on Alexander Hamilton was the inspiration for the Award Winning musical for which ron worked as a historical consultant. The library of congress is honored to have you join us today at the National Book festival. Its worth noting our cochair of the festival mr. David rubenstein was supposed to conduct this interview today, but due to scheduling changes because of senator mccains funeral he was unable to do so. I have davids questions here today and i just happen to be a big admirer of ulysses s. Grant and rons books, so i think were going to have a fantastic time here today at the book festival. Before we talk about grant, we need to ask a question about Alexander Hamilton. Who is he . Who is he . So when Linmanuel Miranda first approached you and said that he wanted to create a hiphop musical based upon your book, what was your reaction and did you ever think it would become a cull furl phenomenon . Very often people say to me, when youre writing the Alexander Hamilton biography did you have any idea it would be turned into a hiphop musical and i think to myself, i think the question answers itself. When i first met Linmanuel Miranda in the fall of 2008, lin was staring in his first musical and he asked me on the spot to be the historical adviser to this as yet nonexistent show, so i laughed and said to him, i mean, you want me to tell you when something is wrong and he said with great fervor, yes, i want the historians to take this seriously, which was music to my ears. I was a little skeptical but i was quite intrigued and i thought that nothing could be more delightful than to watch the evolution of a broadway musical. I was a lifelong theater goer and offered to be on the other side of the lights was absolutely irresistible. It turned out to be a rocket ride far beyond anything that i could have anticipated. We move on to grant which youve written the definitive biography of grant and i have to start with kind of a question, it has a good story to it, who is buried in grants tomb . When i first started working on the book in 2011, i found that approximately half the people whom i told i was working on grant shot back, who is buried in grants tomb so naturally i got very interested in the origin of this joke. Well, i traced it back to marks. And some of you are old enough to remember he had a quiz show and he was dismayed that so many of the contestants could not answer a single one of the questions. He decided that he would ask every contestant the question that every contestant could answer and that question was, who is buried in grants tomb. To his astonishment half the guests got it wrong. But such is the staying power of a great comedian that the line has become part of the popular culture. Lets start at the beginning with grant. Where was he born and what were the conditions of his upbringing and his family like . He was born in Point Pleasant, ohio, grew up in a series of small towns in southwestern ohio near cincinnati, and Point Pleasant was right on the ohio river. The significance of that was that it separated the free state of ohio from the slave owning state of kentucky. On winter evenings the ohio would freeze over and fugitive slaves would sprint to freedom. Very important in terms of thinking about grant later that he grew up really straddling the world both north and south and understood both of their cultures. Fairly well to do families, father was a rich tanner and mayor of one of the three towns and his father was really the bane of his life. The father was a very pushy and domineering character. And then grant went to west point because grant wanted to go to west point. He did not. But his father want himd to go and his father saw west point as a free form of vocational education. How did he do at west point . Actually, fairly well. I would say his performance was lackluster. He was 21st in a class of 39, but there was already considerable attrition before that. He became famous for two things at the academy. One, he was probably the best horseman of his generation, if not century at the academy. He established a high jumping record on the horse net york, they set the bar at more than five feet and grant managed to clear it, it was a record not equallied. He was very good at drawing and may seem strange and insignificant, but it was thought important for generals to be able to draw maps during battles and grant was very good at drawing and during the civil war, he had the uncanny ability to visualize the battlefield and it always comes from this visual sense that he had and first reflected in his capacity to draw. After west point he has a number of assignments and ends up as a Quarter Master in the mexican war. Why is his service as a Quarter Master, why does that turn out to be important . Extremely important. Being Quarter Master in mexico gave grant a nuts and bolts knowledge of the logistics of an army and looking ahead to the civil war, grant would be in charge of four or five different armies stretched across 1300 mile front. Grants mastery of logistics and the railroad and the telegraph enabled him to supervise the vast armies and goes back to being Quarter Master in mexico and very importantly, as Quarter Master grant was not obligated to actually fight. He could have stayed behind the lines but he made a point of volunteering to fight in every single combat that his troops were involved in. Thats kind of real courage and patriotism. After the mexican war he marries julia dent and what was she look and her family like . Okay. So grant comes from this abolitionist family in ohio and marry into a slave owning family in missouri. His father colonel frederick dent, becomes the bane of his life, very hard on grant. Julia was very outgoing and vivacious and julia always had a vision of grants future he sometimes did not have himself. During the 1850s hes trying and failing to establish himself as a farmer in st. Louis and he fails at a real estate venture. During this very bleak period in grants life julia has a dream one night. She dreams ta her husband is going to be president of the United States and when she tells her friends and family about this dream, everyone laughs. Nothing can seem more preposterous. This man is struggling just to support a wife and four children. Julia knew. You spent a fair amount of time in the book talking about grants struggle with alcohol. What did you conclude . Did he have a problem with drinking and what sort of evidence did you use to draw those conclusions . Historically the debate about grant has been was he a drunk or not. I found the term drunkard a loaded moralistic term because it implies a person who was dissipated and irresponsible and kind of glefully indulging this vice, i felt that i tried to approach it through what i hope is our more enlightnd attitude, he was an alcoholic, i say that because he could never have just one drink, i say that because even one glass of alcohol changed his personality. This was something he struggled against his entire life. He was already a member of a temperance in his 20s. The reason theres been difficulty that previous writers had with grants drinking he was a binge drinker, he was an episodic drinker. He could go two or three months without touching a glass of alcohol. He would then have two or three day binges that even people closely with him would not see him during those. Its a problem that he struggles with and by the time he becomes president , hes largely conquered it. Its a problem that bedevils him throughout the civil war. And that causes him to leave the military, precipitates an exit from the military. In 1854 he was assigned to a couple lonely, bleak garrisons in North Carolina where he could not afford to bring his wife and children. He was lonely and depressed and starts drinking and then in 1854 he shows up one day drunk and is really drummed out of the service. It was very significant because the Peace Time Army was really very small and so there was a very active rumor mill so all of the stories of grants history of drinking will follow him into the civil war and will very much kind of color how people see him. I think probably were it not for that history and all of these stories about grants drinking Abraham Lincoln might have brought grant east much sooner in the war to act as general in chief. Grant is a civilian and you have a very poignant description of him. He ends up on the streets of st. Louis selling firewood to support his family. How does that happen . Yeah. Okay. Try making it as a farmer, julia as a wedding gift from her father received 60 acres which grant worked. He was very industrious but he could not make a go of it. He ends up taking firewood, ten miles into st. Louis and he actually walks beside the wagon. People who saw him in those days selling firewood on street corners in st. Louis said that he was bearded, disheveled, unkept looking. One of his Old Army Buddies ran into him on the street and was shocked by grants unkept appearance and he said, grant, what are you doing . Grants response was poignant, he said im solving the problem of poverty. He was so poor at that he was so poor at that point that one christmas he had to pawn his watch to buy christmas presents for his family. This was circa 1857, civil war breaks out 1861. Then something happens. Fort sumter and you write in your book grant eventually joins the volunteer infantry in illinois and gets a position in the union army and you write in your book that a change overcomes grant. What was that change . You know, when the civil war broke out, there was a desperate shortage of officers. You have to remember about a third of the Army Officers were from the south, so many of them, most of them defektsds to the confederacy. Grant still had all of that west point stored in his mind and fought with great distinction in the mexican war, had been assigned to four different frontier garrisons before the civil war and so his efficiency and military knowledge come to the floor and grants rise gives new meaning to the term mediocre. Two months after the outbreak of the civil war hes a colonel, four months after a Brigadier General 12 months hes a Major General and by the end of the civil war, this man who had been working as a clerk in his fathers Leather Goods store in illinois back in 1860, that man who had seemed like a certifiable failure in life, general in chief of the union army with 1 million soldiers under his command far and away the Largest Military establishment in the country up until that time. Now he has some early victories that catches the eye of lincoln, that is right . Absolutely. Very often the history of the civil war theres a disproportionate focus on virginia and if you look at virginia it seems like the confederacy is winning battle after battle. In the western theater of war grant was winning one victory after another. In early 1862 he has twin battles against twin forts in the northwest corner of tennessee. Forts henry and donaldson. There was significance for the following reason, fort henry was on the tennessee river, Fort Cumberland on the sorry fort donaldson on the Cumberland River and those two river penetrated deep into the confederacy, particularly grants victory at fort donaldson was the first of three times he captured an entire Confederate Army, more than 13,000 people, and also led to a new nickname for grant because the confederate general inside the fort was Simon Buckner who wanted to send a message to grant, he wanted commissioners appointed to negotiate a truce and grant wrote back, no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender will be accepted, i propose to move upon your works immediately. That Unconditional Surrender line, it became instead of u. S. Grant, it became Unconditional Surrender. It was the first largescale victory of the war for the north. In late 1862 he issues general order number 11 which expels t expels from the south because he believes theyre engaged in a black market cotton ring. Was grant antisemitic or did he regret that decision . He regretted it almost as soon as he issued it, as soon as lincoln and secretary of war stanton saw it, they immediately overrode it. Grant said he did regret it almost instantly. It was au stro metro shus and inexcusable thing to do. People know that piece of the story. What they dont know is grant spent the rest of his life atoning for that action. As president he appointed more jews to Public Office than all the other 19th century president s combined. He became the first president to speak out on human rights abuses abroad and in both cases because of persecution of the jews, one time in russia, one time in poland, and then most remarkable of all since were sitting here in washington, d. C. , during the last year of his second term, he was invited to the dedication of the synagogue, a very tiny synagogue. Grant went with his son and with a u. S. Senator. It was a threehour ceremony. Hes president of the United States, this was a confwregation that probably had 40 or 50 people. One hour into the dedication of this synagogue, the elders of the synagogue went over to grant and said, mr. President , were very touched you would come to this humble function, you can leave now in good conscience. Grant insisted on staying the full three hours, reached into his pocket, gave a donation to the synagogue. He was not it was kind of one of the pleasurable Things Writing about him, he was not a prejudiced man. He was not a man full of hatred. You could read, i dont know, statements on black or native americans kind of hair raising ferocious things, you dont see that in grants papers at all. This was something that was really very out of character for him and he apologized and atoned the rest of his life. He has a number of other successes, he has more manpower and resources and then he has the victory at vicksburg. Why is vicksburg so impressive and why it was a daring capture. What happened, new orleans, baton rouge and memphis had fallen to union forces. It meant the one great citadel and bastion on the Mississippi River left to the confederacy was vicksburg. Vicksburg was located, there was a bend in the mississippi there that forced boats to slow down, there was seven miles of elaborate, so it seemed like this for tress. Grant had really very daring strategy to take vicksburg under cover of night. He had ironclads and transports come down the river despite heavy shelling from the confederates and marched some troops down the western bank of the mississippi. They then crossed over south of vicksburg to the only high dry land in that area and grant has this campaign, he wins five major victories in a threeweek period, surrounds vicksburg, lays siege to it and vicksburg surrenders. It was the same time as the victory at gettysburg and for a second time grant has captured an entire Confederate Army of more than 30,000 soldiers. At that point, the union not only controlled the mississippi, but it bisected the confederacy. Because a lot of supplies came from west of the mississippi so the Confederate Army was cut off from this major source of supplies west of the mississippi. That was grant. When did president lincoln bring grant east to lead the union army . What happens in february of 1864, Congress Passes a bill reinstatesing the title of lieutenant general. The only one that ever held that was george washington. Winfield scott. Grant becomes the lieutenant general. In march of 1864 he comes to washington, although lincoln loved grant never set eyes on him before, grant happened to arrive at the same day that lincoln was having a reception at the white house in the blue room and grant goes in, lincoln warmly embraces him and there was such pandemonium in the room because ingredient was such a hero that they urged grant to stand up on a sofa so that people could see him because he was relatively short. He stands up on the sofa, hes perspiring profusely so that people could see him and grant was always a little socially awkward and grant later said that the hottest campaign he ever fought was standing on that sofa in the white house. So grant was impressive on a tactical level, on an operational level and on a strategic level. Yeah. How rare was that to find all three qualities in a general and how did he compare to robert e. Lee in that regard . Well, sherman had a very interesting comment where he was comparing grant and lee. He said that grants strategy embraced a confident lee strategy embraced a state, virginia. That is grant in a way had the harder task. Lee just had to inflict so much pain on union forces at the northern public would weary and decide to give up the war. Grant had to capture and destroy robert e. Lees army and he really had a Strategic Vision because the various up an yoon armies in different theaters of war had been operating independently of each other. Grant coordinated their movements so that they he turned them into a single fighting force and he saw that the way to wear down the confederacy was by having union forces simultaneously attack different confederate armies so they could not switch reinforcements from one to another. He finally pins robert e. Lee down in richmond and petersburg and another wonderful comment from sherman, sherman said about grant, he said, robert e. Lee would attack the front porch. He said, ulysses s. Grant would attack the bedroom and the kitchen. Im not sure what he meant about the bedroom. I dont want to go there. But in terms of attacking the kitchen, that again goes back to grant the Quarter Master, but he did with lee in richmond and petersburg he began systemically to cut off every railway line and canal feeding supplies to lees army. Final starving it out and forcing him to lee west to the courthouse appomattox courthouse where grant and sheridan overtake lees army and force his surepdrender. How does grant conduct himself at appomattox. Its the most touching part of the story because he refuses to allow his soldiers to gloat or celebrate. Hes very generous. He issues rations to feed them. He has the confederate officers to keep their horses and firearms. Grant said that he was sad and depressed when he met and he writes i felt like anything rather than rejoicing over the downfall of a foe who had fought with such valor and suffered such hardship for a cause although that cause was the worst that any, you know, army could have fought for. And i think its a beautiful statement. Particularly weve had a long discussion about the confederate monuments and i think grant ipa way shows the way because on the one hand in that passage he pays homage to the bravery of the confederate soldiers. They were quite extraordinary in many, many battle, at the same time the cause of which they were fighting, the perpetuation of slavery was as grant said one of the worst causes people fight for. Grant does not accept president lincolns invitation to attend fords theater. Would history perhaps have unfolded differently had grant been there. Quite a story. Abraham and mary lincoln go down to the city. Marylengthen who shows increasing signs of mental instability she throws a fit and she starts to berate young mrs. Ward, cant figure out whats going on and bursts into tears. And julia grant was there. Julia grant tries to intervene and we all know what happens when trutry to intervene in a fight. Mary lincoln turned on mrs. Grant and turned on her so angrily the night they went to fords theater lipgen thought it important they see the victorious general and victorious president at the same time. They made their excuses and they wept off to burlington, new jersey. Would with his military instincts sensed the assassin . Of course its entirely possible he could have killed grant as well as lincoln. Well never know. Had he showed an aptitude for politics previously . Not really. It was kind of a great guessing game that went on in terms of what grants Party Affiliation was. Came from wig families, only vote had been for James Buchanan for president. Really no one knew exactly where he stood. He was in the right place at the right time. You know, since appomattox he had a certain symbolic standing in American Life and also reconciliation between north and south. And what happened in 1868 there was a failed attempt. They did impeach president andrew johnson. Hes not convicted, lost by a single vote. Still had this kind of immense prestige from the war. And he did not campaign openly for it. Grant had a way of not campaigning for things but putting him in a position where things happened to him. In his first term of office the 15th amendment is enacted and ratified, and theres a backlash in the south. Violence escalates, and theres strengthening of the ku klux klan. You spend a lot of time in the book, and you handle it very deftly. What did grant do to combat the klan and was he successful . Yeah, in 1866 it starts out as a social club of confederate veterans, and they start, you know, wearing their old uniforms and drilling and it becomes a militaristic secret organization and they start putting on hoods and riding horseback and terrifying people. Nothing terrified the white south more than the black men, and it was only black men voting so the terror was very much directed against blacks voting or registering to vote. There was no southern sheriff who would arrest a member of the klan. There was no southern jury that would convict of a member of the klan. There was no southern white who would testify against the klan. There were maybe hundreds, thousands of murders of blacks that went unprosecuted. Grant had a crusading attorney general from georgia. Acerman brought 3,000 indictments, got more than 1,000 convictions against the klan and crushed the ku klux klan. I mean, it was his greatest achievement as president. The klan that we know is really from the resurgence of the klan from the 19 teens and 1920s, a klan that is still with us. And they brought a lot of techniques and ideology of the original klan. Why were there so many corruption related scandals in grants two terms of office . Grant was incredibly naive. Ill tell a story from his childhood. When he was a boy his father wanted to buy a horse so he told ulysses to go to this farm and he gave him these instructions. He said offer 20 to the farmer. If he doesnt take it offer him 22. 50 and if he still doesnt bite offer 25. And grant goes to the farm and says my father said i should offer you 20 for the horse and you dont take it offer 22. 50 and if you dont take it offer you 25. I wish i could say there were learning terms for grant and money but there wasnt. During his second term in office the socalled wisky ring scandal the brewers were evading this task by paying off revenue agents. And one of the people who was very involved in it was grants really chief of staff. And when babcock is being investigated grant writes a letter to babcocks wife saying i have full faith in your husbands integrity. And he says i cant believe that hes not the trustworthy person that i imagined. Guess what . He was. And he was kind of like chief of staff. He became inspector of lighthouses on the florida coast. So after he leaves office grant goes on a trip around the world with his wife for 2 1 2 years. How was he received in this trip . Its kind of a postpresidency unlike any other. During that almost 2 1 2 year period he meet with virtually every head of state in the world. Queen victoria, windsor castle. Prips of bismarck receives him in burlen. The pope at the vatican by alexander 22nd in st. Petersburg. Even the emperor of japan would never actually touch people. When he saw grant he stepped forward and shook hands with grant, which was unheard of. And grant actually pioneers a certain postpresident ial row that would be followed by other pres that he arbitrates a dispute over offshore ilpds between japan and china. So he comes back with this sort of great reputation very much enhanced. Hes become a statesman on the world stage. Its amazing. After trying to get the nomination again in 1880, not wiping it, he decides to move to new york city and try his hand in the investment world. How does that turn out . Well, again disastrously. The question answers itself. He formed a partnership with a young man named Ferdinand Ward. They created a partnership called grant and ward. It was the omtime grant ever allowed his name to be used in a business. And of course grants name attracted a lot of money. For those of you who dont know this story Ferdinand Ward was the Bernie Madoff of the day. And so poor grant with this incredible naivety, grant imagines hes a multimillionaire and he wakes up one day to find out instead of being a multimillionaire hes worth 80 and julia is worth 130. Not only grants fortune been wiped out but all of his children had invested with madoff. He had a lot of cousins and so the entire grant family was engulfed in this catastrophe. In 1884 grant falls ill. What was wrong with him and what was the prescribed treatment . The illness really coincides with the problem with ward. Grant one day, they had a house in long branch, new jersey. Julia serves a plate of delicious peaches and he bites into the peach and he said ouch that peach stung me for some reason. And it was the first time he realized there was a problem with his throat. He finally with some delay consulted his doctor in new york and they found a cancerous mass on his throat and tongue. It was incurable, and so grant realized that this was a terminal illness and he was m h petrified that if not when he died julia would be left destitute because they lost all their money. During the last year of his life in excruciating pain and with his mind often fogged by the opiates he machgsnaged to write memoir that is considered the greatest military memoir of the english language. He wrote 10,000 words in a day while he had throat cancer . And his publisher was mark twain. He was like it kills me these days to even write 5,000 words in a day. He kpt believe grants productivity in this memoir poured out of him. Why is grant buried in new york city, and what was his funeral like . The last few years of their lives they were living on e66 street in manhattan. I was just thinking ubhis funeral today because of the john mccain memorial gathering at national cathedral. When grant was buried in new york, and me and julia felt very grateful to new york. And the city provided this beautiful spot the in new riverside park. Grants funeral spoke to the public very much in the way that john mccains Memorial Services have been speaking to the public. That is at grants funeral a million and a half people flooded to new york city. Grant and his family made a statement. And it was a north south reconciliation. There were great Union Generals but there were also major confederate generals. Joseph johnston and Simon Buckner. Again as part of his reconciliation theme, black regiments marched in the parade. And so this was really grants final statement from beyond the grave. And i think that, you know, grant in many ways reminds me what people have been saying about john mccain in terms of his patriotism, his bravery, his dedication to public service, the fact he distinguished himself from civilian service and military service and reminds us what old patriotism should look like. As we reconsider grant as you have in this magnificent book what should we learn from grant and his leadership . Well, i think one reason people have responded to the book all the other people ive written about seem to be instant successes in life. They were built for success, that kind of great drive and energy and focus. Grant didnt, and i think people are responding to the book because the highs are as high as any story in American History, but the lows are a lot lower. This is a story with a lot of light and shadow. Its a story about a man who suffered repeated failures and setbacks. Someone said to me i love your book because its a story about comebacks. Success was a greasy pole where hed keep slipping down the pole and hed have to work his way back up again. Terrific. Any questions for ron wed be happy to take a few. Hello. Very good book. Loved it. Just want to ask a quick comment on grants relationship with George Armstrong custer and how you described that relationship in the book. It was a very troubled relationship, and grant was very, very critical of custer really blamed custer for the massacre at little big horn, felt he was really not following orders and, you know, put himself and his men in harms way. Custer had also been an outspoken critic of grant as president. And that certainly helped to fuel the animosity. Im going to read two questions by becky. Sure. If grant had gone by his first name would anything be different . Secondly, what is happening with the adaptation . I know someone bought the rights. Good question. First, grants name. He was born Ulysses Grant which gave him the initials hug, so hug. And he bungled the name and sent it in as ulysses s. Grant. His own wife didnt know what it stood for and he wrote back this funny letter and said the s stands for absolutely nothing. Its not going to be hip hop musical. Shucks, but it will be feature film, and its going to be directed by steven spielberg, which is very exciting. And produced by Leonardo Dicaprio which is also exciting, and it looks like ill again be the historical consultant. Are there any lessons or big lesson youve learned through studying these you think is worth share something. Its a very good question. One thing when people have asked me about a common denominator to these lives is every person ive written about theyve had to cope from an early age with a difficult even impossible parent. I know this sound like a strange response to your question, but there was washington with the very selfcentered mother, hamilton with the absentee father. Grant had this domineering and overbearing father. And i think theres something about coping with a very, very difficult parent that i guess shapes character and forces people to be selfreliant at an early age. Kind of a big frustration i found with all of these books because they had such difficult parents, they never talked about it, and sometimes i imagine if i could conjure them to life and ask some questions i think id want to zero in on the family dynamics. Did he help catch him . No, that he had what had been grant was inexcusably complacent Ferdinand Ward put all the securities in this safe which only Ferdinand Ward had access. Grant shouldnt have accessed that. And he would put letters in front of grant and he would sign them without reading them. Grant felt there were a lot of sophisticated wall street people that were investing with ward he was absolutely certain ward must be sound. He should have been suspicious because some of the people who were getting like 15 , 20 per month, boy if that doesnt raise warning flags what did . But i wish i could tell you grant had been part of exposing ward but was not. What happened was that the bank lending ward money went bust, and then the whole scheme blew up. We have time for one more question. As someone whose legacy has been unjustly tarnished what has it been like to write this exhortation of grant . There were six Union Generals who fought before grant with the same amount of material thakd not defeat grant could. I felt grants presidency had been portrayed as a failed presidency and i think in many ways it was a successful presidency in terms of protecting the africanamerican community. Please join me in thanking mr. Ron. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight a look at Ronald Reagan who served as the nations 40th president from 1981 to 1989. Nine days after taking the oath of office for his first term president reagan met with the press in his Old Executive Office building which is next door to the white house. Questions about the recently resolved iranian hostage crisis and its aftermath dominated the discussion which ranged from domestic affair tuesday the new administrations policies. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan 3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern go inside a Different College classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging into class. With most College Campuses closed due to the impact of coronavirus watch profetesers transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their students. Gorbachev did most of the work to change the soviet union, but reagan met him halfway. Reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. Freedom of the press i should just mention madison originally called it freedom of the use of the press, where and it is freedom to precipitate things and publish things. Oats not a freedom where we now refer to institutionally as the press. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Also available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Up next on history bookshelf, historians david and jeanne hideler talk about their book in which they examine how Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828. We recorded their remarks at the u. S. Capitol historical society