Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20120825

>> there's an obscure footnote about japan's attempt to build a naval base on the mexican coast and baja, california. i knew frapping -- franklin roosevelt and was interested in what papers he had relating to the bay. i drove over from my home in connecticut to the frapping lin d. roosevelt library in hyde park. at the time, i had no interest whatsoever in writing about fdr, himself, but sometimes things happen. the fdr library is an amazing place. you have to wonder how any one man could have livedded a life crowded with so much. hundreds of thousands of shelf feet given over to zillions of telegrams, legal briefs, school book scribbles, secret cables, position papers, children's drawings, warnings, threats, scraps, and details of vitally important political land marks and long forgotten grand schemes that ran out of steam before they were acted upon. i discoveredded there was not a lot about the bay in the library. i was not that surprised. the crisis was more or less settled by the time franklin arrived in washington in 1913 to take up the duties in the navy department, but what did surprise me was that even a cursory glance through the library's indexes revealed a franklin ruse veal that i -- roosevelt that i knew nothing about. i grew up with fdr. he was the only president i knew until i was 15 years old. like everyone else, i was aware he had strong emotional ties to the sea, and the u.s. navy in particular. his home, which i visited in the past and which is next door to the library, is filled with naval prints, ship paintings, and other nautical paraphernalia. clearly, he identified with the navy. i had no idea of how deep that identification ran or how early it manifested itself. you look at drawings of boats that he made when he was just five years old, and they are remarkably so sophisticated. he understands the sails. he knows where they belong and how they work. it occurred to me that the fdr library might hold something more interesting to me than the bay crisis. this is identification with the navy respected not just one of his interests, but was, in fact, a basic part of the character. to a very real extent, he built his entire intellectual world view around the understanding of the navy. that is, he did not see the navy as part of the world view. he understood the world based on his view of the navy. that was an interesting idea. if such were the case, one could view his entire political career, especially as in the white house, as a reflection of the naval centered world view. the new deal, foreign policy, his fights with congress and the supreme court, his leadership in world war ii, his entire political career remitted in an inherently naval intelligence. that might make a book. i began researching franklin d. roosevelt in earnest, and it eventually resulted in this book. "roosevelt's navy: the education of the most powerful warrior president in american history." as is always the case with research, i came upon surprises. undoubtedly, the biggest surprise to me was the more i looked into franklin roosevelt's early years, the more i bumped into another roosevelt, theodore roosevelt. it was evident that the his influence to the young franklin, mostly overlooked, was profound and far reaching and would have to play an important part in the story of fdr and the navy that i wanted to tell, but i got ahead of myself. the story begins like most stories. it has a beginning, and i'd like to read some from chapter 1. a boy sits alone quietly reading a book. elsewhere in the house, the familiar sounds of servants going about chores are punk waited by the calm authoritative voice of the mother or father supervising the activities. the boy is oblivious to everything other than a book in his hands. the time is somewhere in the early 1890s, and the boy is franklin d. roosevelt. he's about 10 or 11 years old, and the book represents something of a challenge. technical terms, complicated charts, and curious diagrams, but because it is filled with a clash of combat and gun powder and crowded with thrilling accounts of daring do in the age of fighting, the boy is enraptured and reads with a focus of youth lost in the pages. sitting in the library of springwood, the family's country home in the village of hyde park overlooking the river 70 miles north of new york city. we can want be precisely sure when he first read the book he is holding. >> from early childhood, franklin is fascinated from sea and maritime, an avid sailer, and learned his seamanship in ice boats and other small craft, sailing yacht. in the summers in the bay where the family keeps a cottage, but it's not the subject matter that's drawn him to the war of 1812 # so much as the fact that the book is written by his disapt cousin of the oyster bay branch of the family. young franklin knows and admires his brilliant, fun-loving, 35-year-old cousin, ted, who enjoys inventing games for chirp and after a day of running and shouting loves to gather everyone around the fire and tell ripping tales of his adventure as a cowboy in the dakota territory. at this point in the life, he made a considerable name for himself as a writer, but not yet progressed as far as he'd like in the other chosen interest of politics. at the moment, he is still a relatively obscure washington civil service commission. world fame still lies in the future, but to those who already know him, his dinism and energy already define his character. throughout his life, franklin will have been referred to his 5th cousin with awe as the most wonderful man i ever knew. the book is filled with infectious patriotism and exploits of the gallant and glamorous commodores who led america's early navy. perry, porter, and the rest, but roosevelt has not limited the narrative to heros alone. woven into adventures are broader points on the value of navies in regime and the unique role played in shaping and carrying out national policy. he explains how warships can reach across the globe to enforce the national resolve thousands of miles from home as even the tiny american navy did in the war of 1812 when they gave the enemy off the coast of africa out to brazil. cousin ted points out that when navies are large enough to be organized into fleets, they can wield devastating power in combat. choke off an enemy supply line by blockading the coast, and he makes it clear that navies are just as important in peacetime as they are in war unlike armies which is apt to be expense nuances in times of peace. navies serve the nation long after the battles are over. properly deploy, they foster and protect foreign trade and very existence discourages attacks by any potential enemy. again and again, cousin ted hammers home the message that navies are vital to the welfare, and young franklin absorbed it all. ted's enthusiasm and tightly organized arguments form the foundation for the personal philosophy and provide the boy with a matrix with which to define the world around him. over the years to come, franklin d. roosevelt leads voraciously, but the one book, the war of 1812, remains of importance to him. fifty years onward when fate put him in control of the strongest navy in history, he turns to ted for inspir ration and guidance and cousin ted's book is never far away, lessons never ignored. throughout the presidential years, fdr kept two copies in the library, one for the white house, and the other from the boyhood home in hyde park. his education was out of a sheltered, privileged child. private teachers and governances imported to instruct him. because they toured through europe, by the age of 12, he was a veteran of half a dozen crossings and more or less fluent in both french and german for all of his travel and learning, there were important deficiency in the education that would take years to fully overcome. the most significant of these was the fact he was taught exclusively at home. he did not actually go to school until he was 14. while academic lessons can be taught anywhere, some of the most important lessons of childhood is only be learned in the rough and tumble of school. such lessons include the complex and sometimes painful ones involved with learning how to get along with one's peers. sometimes humiliating rivalry in the classroom for good grades, cut and thrust of the schoolyard where students are sorted out up fair and undemocratic, but always unrealistic. the problem of bullies, agonizing and delicate compromises learned in order to make friends and further compromises needed to keep them. gar beginning and lies, black and white lies required to hold the position in the crowd. these were the life lessons that franklin roosevelt missed as a young boy and would later take decades to master. he was neither spoiled nor pampered, his life left him at a certain social disadvantage for many years. several years after we met him reading history of the war of 1812, frank lip, at last, went to school for the first time. significantly, the school he went off to in massachusetts had been founded by a close friend of roosevelt's. it was a deliberately -- the school was modeled on the great public schools of england. it educated britain's leaders for centuries, seemed a good fit for young franklin, and, indeed, proved to be so. even here, there was a problem. the students in keeping with the standard english classes were expected to attend the school for six years meaning enrolling in its first form at age 12 and continuing through age 18. franklin's mother could not bring herself to part with the only child so soon and held him back two years so he did not enter the school until the third form when he was 14. up fortunately, for him, by that time, all his classmates had long sense established friendships, cliques, rivalries, and other social strategies of males and young franklin was left an odd man out. he found solace in studying the writings of the united states navy. probably one of the most up flew enissue largely forgotten military theorist of the day. he was one of the first strategists to understand what we call geopolitics, the idea that nations and cultures are largely shaped by geography and their ability to defend themselves or to attack others as governed primarily by the shorelines and waterways. importantly, like the school, mahan was a close friend of roosevelt. he came upon a series stationed off the coast of purr rue, and one say, relaxes in the library reading a book when he was hit by an important epiphany. all that business of hanibal crossing the alps with elephants to attack are rome was a large waste of time and money. if they had a sufficient navy to devote the roman navy, no need to cross the streets, and go to the alps down into italy, but sailed mediterranean and attacked rome directly. inspired by the navy and their importance, mahon wrote a book on the influence of sea power on history which became a textbook and deeply influenced young franklin roosevelt. just how deeply they influenced him can be seen in the notes for a debate held? in january when he was 15 years old. the subject of the debate was resolve, hawaii be promptly annex. the issue was very much in the news at the time, and a bill providing such a step was introduced in congress. the case for the atirmtive was to be provided by the headmaster himself after roosevelt was to respond with a rebuttal. to put the subject into context, it is well to remember that the issue of hawaiian annexation was being discussed in a world in which there were plenty of empires, but as yet, no aircraft, no radio, no panama canal, a world in which coal was not yet replaced by oil, so fueling ships, and in a world in which $100 million was worth billions in today's corp -- currency. reading his notes today, abundantly evident that young franklin understood the subject in truly remarkable depth and managed to present it with uncommon clarity and conviction dmop straiting a -- demonstrating a grasp of naval strategy and national strengths. the notes reveal how sophisticatedly he was developing and how the precepts defined his own understanding of the country and the world. after they presented the case, the youthful o poem began that led the listeners understand that today's subject was a global significance and established its naval importance. this is direct quote from franklin roosevelt, his notes made as a 15-year-old. of all the great powers of the world, the united states and russia are the only ones which have no colonies to di send. all of our territory is on this continue innocent, and all of it, other than alaska, is con yows. therefore, the united states and russia are the only two countries no part of which territory is cut off by a naval enemy. we have no vulnerable point at present. the annexation of hawaii by us affect the feelings of european powers in two ways. first anger them because europe is a common stopping point or em bod l them because we should, for the first time in our history have a vulnerable point. he has told us that our country can want be safe without hawaii. i shall try to disprove this. now, if we own the islands, we have to protect them. to do that, we should to fortify islands, but maintain a much larger navy. now, to do this, we should have to spend at least $100 million every year on the navy and erect forts to maintain soldiers on the island. he goes on from there, but i've read it enough to make clear this is a very sophisticated kid. a 15-year-old boy putting up a paper worthy of o presidential cabinet meeting. he announced to his parents he wanted to apply to annapolis and pursue a career in the navy. his parents were distressed, not happy with the thought of their boy sent to the far corners of the earth for years at a time. it took him awhile to convince him to go to harvard up stead. those were the days if you wanted to go to harvard, you went to harvard. it is different now. he went there and columbia law school that he didn't finish because he quit the minute he learned he pass the bar exams. rarely students can pass the bar before earning the law degrees. the fact he managed to do so it further evident that he is a young bright man and worked hard with the style he acquired to make up for the lack of a more relaxed self-confident essential behavior. he lost much of the awkward moes, but not all of it. that voice that so put off his classmates remained until the end. then he got married to another roosevelt. thoedore's favorite niece. that transformed the relationship from fdr from cousin ted to uncle ted. also significantly, uncle ted, by this time, was president of the united states. here we must pause for a minute to examine briefly just how he got to be president because is bears directly on franklin's subsequent career. around the time franklin prepared notes, thee dore was running the police department in new york city having a grand time rooting out corruption, but the power of the republican party decided he was a nuance in the post so they looked arched for a job to offer him to get him out of new york. someone remembered he wrote with a book about the navy and war of 1812. would he be interested in a job as assistant secretary of the navy in washington? tr jumped at the chance. weeks after being sworn in, the spanish american war broke out. he yit -- quit, sailed to cuba, and was a hero, months later, governor of new york, and after that, haven't, and with the death of mckinley, president. his young cousin took note of every step. back to franklin who at this time had a prestiming gas wall street firm. he found the work boring and constricting leading directly to a remarkable scene near the end of franklin's first year on wall street. when a slow day at the office. the five fellow law clerks sat at the desk discussing hopes and maps for the future. when it came his turn, franklin surprised the listeners stating clearly the life and of law was not for him. he would, infed, when the opportunity presented itself go into politics running for the new york state legislature. after an up determined stay in albany, he said, no hint of irony, apparently, he would arrange to get nils appointed assistant secretary of the navy in washington. from this, runs for governor of new york and then he exmained nip who is governor of new york has a good chance to be president with any luck. of course, it was not lost on any of his listeners that fdr was precisely retracing the rise of ted roosevelt. the most significant reaction to his pronapsment is it provoked neither laughter or hooting. they accepted it at face value the entire reasonable nature of the plan. even today, when he fulfilled the dream to the letter, one stands out in bold relief. the plan to be name assistant secretary of the navy. not just any sub cabinet office would do, just the job tr held. how would he manage that, you ask? it was not an officer he could campaign for in the normal sense. only one person in the world could appoint him, and that was the president of the united states. what president, you ask? who knew? nobody, but somehow he would get the job, and it would, with any luck as he put it, lead directly -- excuse me -- to the white house. he was 28 years old. he was never lacking in ambition or certain amount of self-confidence. in due course, franklin quit the job and ran for the new york state senate and won. he ran again and won again. only weeks after that he negotiated with the governor of new jersey, woodrow wilson for what would be the appointment of assistant secretary of the navy. how he managed to land such an important job so quickly is something you're going to have to find out for yourself. i'll enthe book. the ins and out of the politics and while they make interesting reading, they are a little too complicated for a brief talk like this. what i'd like to touch on in remaining time is a brief, but important trip franklin took to the panama canal still under construction when he visited it in 1912. the canal was roosevelt's single most achievement making a singular impression on frank lip. the canal was built specifically to conform to the theories of mahan. the u.s. they've vie would agent as a single unite. the canal made a swift gathering of the fleet practice call. without that, the theory went, america would be forced to build and maintain two entire fleets, one for each ocean to protect its thousands of miles of coastline. frapping lin and two traveling companions, his brother-in-law and a female low member of the new york center arrived in april 1912, and thanks to the roosevelt name, given vine treatment. after turning the atlantaic, they traveled 50 miles by train to panama city, marveling at the vast nature of the enterprise. my last quote here. the vast ambitions of the cam were not evident until the next morning where the three were taken on a guided tour of the great cut nearly nine miles in length. it was here where most of the 65 -- 65,000 men were literally moving mountains and the battle for the canal would be won or lost. steam shovels pit for the work towered over the land scape loaded 6 ton boulders where they would be sent to the coast for break waters and the terminals. years later, a still odd frank lip described the scene looking down on a human rift in the earth's crust at the base of which the engippings and aunt-like forms ruched to and fro without map or reason. the noise was deafening, and the clink of the drills eating their way into the rock, the shrill whistles of the locomotives, the unprurpted rumble of the dirt planes crowded the tracks, and the clanking of chaping were from the workman. they inspected the great locks, designed to raise the vessels 85 feet to the level of the cut. i can't describe it, franklin wrote wrecklessly. the two things that improved the most was the hole in the ground and the locks because of the engineering problems in size. imagine the concrete structure nearly a mile long and three or 400 feet wide and double gates of steal weighing 700 tons a piece. he drew inspiration from the visit to the canal. he recognized it was political boldness of the high order, a vision that dared to change the world. ever afterwards in the memories of the trip would lie his new understanding of presidential power, an understanding in later years would time and again generate visionary concepts that always astoppish, baffle, and up -- infear the world. there's the tennessee valley authority, the lend leash act, the man manhattan project, the united nations. with the canal, roosevelt provided the last great gift to the young cousin. he showed frank lip how to think like a roosevelt. if anyone's got a question, hope they do, i'm told you have to go up to the microphone over there and embarrass me. [laughter] [applause] >> it's funny, i come from a family that never had a good word to say about franklin roosevelt, and i can remember one time it was probably after the 1936 campaign, and somebody heard something on the radio, and i asked my mother, i said, why do some people hope and hate the president so much? my mother says some way to answer a question about politics from a little boy who never never asked about politics before, she wanted the answer to be simple. she timely said, well, there are people who think his eyes are too close together. [laughter] i was 6 years old. even at that age, i kind of knew that that didn't make any sense, but then i figured, well, what she was really saying is don't bother me, little boy. this is too tough a question here. you have a question? >> well, first of all, you have an astounding gift of the use of language and someone who knows a little about fdr, early life, and i think you really hit the nail on the head with respect to the motivation for his later life, and, again, i complement you. back to the day when she was married, and the scene of which there are no pictures, of him being married in the townhouse in manhattan with peabody presiding, and none other than the president of the united states walking eleanor down the aisle. >> something else, suspect it? >> just a moment -- there's a wonderful article in the "new york times" as a social occasion reporting all the guests, one of which was wells, by the way, and it goes back to that royals marry within themselves, and, of course, eel nor was an orphan and uncle ted was her favorite. i tend to think there was a mag anytism he had towards eel -- eleanor. you are, i mean, i am astoppedded by your use of language and adjectives and the narratives used in the book, and i, again, i can say nothing other than you hit the nail on the head, and i thank you. >> wow, i don't know how to take that, other than adopt talk to me for the next 24 hours. that's wonderful. thank you very much. [laughter] that's -- as people know who write, it's a sort of loney trade, and you are constantly making funny little decisions on what words to use or what element to bring in or whatever, and to get feedback or negative feedback, but positive feedback like that is thrilling. it's wonderful. it's greatly appreciated. >> astounded at the 15 #-year-old debate notes, and i just can't -- now that you recalled them again for me, first time i read the description of the debate, and i still can't believe it. i read it over on the website, read it over and over, and it's an amazing piece of logic, and his knowledge of current events is remarkable. is that a product of the school itself, or is there an ain't that way we know of what comes later? >> i think he's always been shortchanged by, or very often short changed by commentators for being the brightest person in the world which is kind of wrong. was his demeanor that may have been a little off putting to some people, but, yes, i think that, i mean, i -- i put the entire text of the notes in the book, and i was worried it would slow it down, but i don't think it does at all because it's sharp, and it covers current events and covers everything that needs to be done, and what's impressive is today, yeah, the kid went to wick peed ya, but -- wikipedia, but that was not the case in 1898. he put it together. it had to be good enough to compete with the headmaster of the school. it's -- i'm sure the reason he kept it, kept those notes, is he was damn well proud of them, and i guess he must have won the debate, although, i don't know if there's any record as to how that went. that's right. >> a good tutor at home because there's also letters from his father preparing for the debates in which his father went on and on about points he felt, and so various debates franklin had at home which is interesting. especially because his father tried that canal business one time before. >> right. didn't work. the famous canal, yeah. >> didn't work. that's interesting. >> no, again, that's what -- he grew up in a very sophisticated surrounding where people knew what was going on. >> the irony did not escape you in december 7, 1941 the that very vulnerability described, au gratin came to pass. >> it's amazing how much pearl harbor comes into his life like a leaf moo tiff. there's a discussion of it in the 1898 debate and another discussion or a problem he ran into in the first year as a assistant secretary of the navy >> you mentioned the united states were the only ones who were continuous land countries, empire, was that backed by significance tactically in world war ii. >> what effect that had in world world world war ii? >> in planning or fighting the war where we, any way -- >> well, certainly, yes. certainly it was in 1940 that franklin roosevelt moved the pacific fleet to pearl harbor as a warning to the japanese. they were -- in fact, you know, immediately after -- almost within weeks of the -- the debate in january of 1898, came the spanish american war, and we picked up all of these pacific islands as well as annexing hawaii, and picked up, you know, the philippines which was a key factor in world war ii, and in which i think he probably would have -- if he had his way as a 15-year-old, we never would have picked up all of those places and might not have had the war with japan, but would have been caught up in europe somehow, but it's interesting that -- how that -- it's a good question. i don't think i've probably give -- rhyme -- i'm still trying to defend a 15-year-old rather than the 50-year-old or whatever he was. >> i think we are about out of time, but i want to thank you, again, for coming here today, and if you want to speak more with him, he's at the bookstore signing copying of his book after this session. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. good morning. >> morning. >> really very pleased to be here with you, and i hope you'll be okay with me starting off with just a little bit of a reverie if you will about libraries. it was such a pleasure to be here. roi ottley's world war ii is an exercise in historical editing, ben that work requires the council and the good offices of the many librarians and ark vieses around the country, and for those of us who revel in arian -- archive research, this is a mekkah, and there are those of us who trade our archive experiences like some people trade baseball cards. that is a measure of nerdiness that i'm not ashamed to share with you. [laughter] i mention this because i think that obviously research libraries, teaching libraries, archives, without these things, we can't -- we can't do our jobs. i think that you can measure in many ways the health of higher education and the education project by the health of our libraries. we are in this extended period of scarce resources. the library budget at our institutions of higher learning, our unfortunately, the first to be gutted in times of troubles, and at least, that's been my experience. it has an immediate impact on teaching and learning and research. it's important for us, i think, to come to places like this, to come to events like this, and to celebrate the efforts of the roosevelt library and museum, and their attempts to cultivate book culture and it really does mean a lot to me to be here to participate. i thought i would begin this book talk this morning with a short description of the genesis of roi ottley's world war ii, and based on what i just said, it will not surprise you it was the intervention of a very fine librarian, mr. paul at the university, that put this project in motion in the first place. it was a random phone call to the office and an invitation to look at the small cachet of papers long hid p in the university archives there that created the circumstances and helped to make this book a reality. now, when paul first told me that there was a small collection of ottley papers in the archives, the name did not ring a bell. later, i remembered an article i was working on years before. i had used a biography that roi ottley had wrote, but i didn't have a clue who he was, and i went over and sat down in the archives reading room and began to leaf through a very small box of papers that was essentially comprised of a couple of scrapbooks and this unpublished manuscript, and five minutes with the manuscript, and frankly, my jaw was on the table. what i was reading, to my mind, was remarkable. i worked my way through it, and then, again, no connection, a completely random event, i got an e-mail from the university press of kansas, an editor there named nancy jackson who was wondering what i was working on. i pitched her the ottley idea, and look, we're all here. [laughter] it's been a few years, but, you know, here we are. now, these are the sorts of stories that you hear when yao a garage -- you're a graduate student; right? that somebody is working through cleaning out their attic, and they find a box of photographs, and oh, my god, there's lincoln. i actually had a professor in virginia who was out working with his wife on a spring day, spring cleaning time, and he was checking through some trash somebody put on the side of the road, and he found this beautiful leather bound book. he picked it up, and it was the diary of a civil war doctor, and i'll never forget the look on my professor face as he told the story, and he looked to the heavens and said it was like manna from heaven. [laughter] eventually, he published the book. you know, for me, it was because of a librarian, paul, and also the help of university archives, dennis frank. they knew their collections. i don't know if they knew exactly how important or interesting ottley's work was in the context of what historians are doing in the field right now, but regardless, you know, because of their interests, this book exists today. now, i thought -- let me ask a question. has anybody ever heard of roi ottley before? you have, sir, and you, too. in what cop text? >> [inaudible] >> okay, okay. you, sir? >> [inaudible] >> okay. >> [inaudible] >> which made him a national celebrity. >> [inaudible] >> how much you want for that book? [laughter] no, that's really -- it's interesting. ottley he's my favorite footnote. it's generally because of that book, you know, because we still use it, published in 1943. i'll give you a run down of ottley's life, and his experiences as a journalist and during world war ii offer a very, very different vision and version of a conflict that we refer to in many ways as the good war. his experiences, i think, highlight some of the divisions, some of the conflicts that were at the core of american society in this period as we mobilize to confront this evil in the world. vincent lushington ottley was born in 190 # 6. his parents were caribbean imgrants. his father, jerome, and his mother, beatrice. it's a classic tale. the father worked multiple jobs and took business classes at night at a local high school. beatrice worked as a seem trees to make ends meet, and eventually, he earned enough hours to earn the real estate license, and in a few years, he parlayed that into a very successful property management firm in harlem. in other words, roi was a child of privilege comparatively speaking. he was raised in the elite neighborhood of harlem. his best frebd was the future congressman, adam clayton powell, jr.. he ran the streets with handy jr., and he wrote of watching garvy parades from the roof of clayton's senior's church, the baptist church in the early 1920s. he eventually would back an all-city track star, and one of the first black students at a university where he also began learning the journalistic craft. of course, 20s, harlem, it was the heart of the jazz age, the harlem renaissance. he was obsessed with musical theater, with the plays of broadway, with jazz music. in the 1930s, the years of the great depression, i think these were formative years for him. he cam back from school to help -- he came back from school to help his family. he got a job in new york city's welfare department and witnessed firsthand the immense suffering of his neighbors. he started doing writing, theater reviews for the news in harlem and parlayed that eventually into a regular column that covered all as pecks in harlem life, especially politics. harlem, during those years, was a political hot house, and ottley was sucked into the rough and tumble of the political life there. he was an active participant in the amsterdam news strike in 1935, became very much engaged in labor issues in the 1930s. he covered the controversies surrounding the italian invasion of ethiopia, participated in the organizing sessions of the national negro congress. in a way, like so many americans at the trough of the depression, ottley was radicalized, but he was not eradical, but asked to characterize politics recently, and, you know, he reminds me, politically speaking of jackie reportson, an eisenhower republican in the 50s. he didn't vibe the kind of heavy utopianism of left wing politics. at the same time, circumstances dictated that he would be in contact with the political figures, and, of course, in the broader circumstances of the widespread suffering going on in his community, this was a period where he was probably at his most politically engaged. his politics, i think, was shaped largely by the so-called popular front, this broad coalitional politics that united civil rights activists, organized labor, social uplift groups, and the political left. now, eventually, ottley's labor about vism cost him his position at the news. he freelanced for awhile. as so many writers and artists did during that period, he landed at the works progress administration's federal writers' project, the fwp. because of his local celebrity, his name popping up in the newspapers once a week, he was placed in administrative -- given administrative duties placed in charge of the fwp's harlem branch where he oversaw a remarkable group of writers that included ralph ellison, dorothy west, richard wright for a short amount of time. his tenure at the project was controversial to say the least. he had a management style that really rubbed people the wrong way. elison and wright especially. i'm not overstating it to say they really hated the guy. [laughter] this is a kind of one-sided argument unfortunately. part of the problem with doing this project was that ottley seems to have burned every extent piece of correspondence that he ever, ever wrote. there are no ottley papers outside this small box so you kind of rely on what other people are saying about him, and elison and wright took great glee in writing terrible things about him back and forth like passing notes in class. it was really conservatives in congress that disliked ottley the most because of the connections with the fwp. in 1979, the harlem branch was under the scrutiny of the house un-american activities committee. ottley soon found himself without a job. just as a side note to this, there are -- i mean, certainly, his management sometime was rusk. he tended to play his cards close to the best. there was no transparency in his decision making -- very dictatorial in the way he dealt with some very, very talented writer and artists, but what officeeople is when he lost his and absconded with 35 boxes of the papers accumulated during his time there. he was responsible for the projects in the boxes, but he had written very little of that material himself. he then, over the next 15 years, used the material whenever he felt like it under his own name. that really upset elison who saw his own words popping up in some of ottley's works. there's a limit, you know, there's some good foundation for some of the problems people had with the man. however, ottley was very-well connected in the period. he had a lot of connections in the labor movement. when the war began, he was the publicity chief for the national office of the cio. .. suddenly white america wanted to know what has happening with black americans, and ottley's text was waiting for them. and it came a literary sensation. he won a life in america award. he won an aimsler award. the book inspired the radio shows that you've mention, which won a peabody aired in 1948. and he won a scholarship for $2,500 which gave him the financial freedom to do what he wanted to do, which is cover the war in europe. so, ottley went out in search of a correspondent's position, but ottley was fiercely individualistic, he did not want to write for one of the black newspapers who were hiring at this time, and he parlayed his labor connections into a position with a new york labor newspaper called "pm." "pm," which only existed for i think about four years -- was founded by a man named ralph ingersoll. ingersoll has worked with henly luce for some years on "time magazine" when luce was on the verge of seeing "fortunate magazine" and "life magazine" go belly up. ingersoll stepped in and made the magazines work, but ingersoll was a fierce roosevelt partisan, a hard core liberal, and a democratic party partisan, and he detested luce's politics, especially luce's support for franco and the fascists in spain, and he was look for a way to get out of henry luce's thumb, and "pm" became the vehicle for expressing his vision for what a jurist stick enterprise should look like and antirace was in the editorial board so they hired roi ottley as one of their war correspondentents and sent him off to europe. this was really kind of singular position. there were very few white publications that hired a black writer, even in the copy editing departments, let alone sending them off to europe, which was considered a plum position at that time. and because ottley was writing for a predominantly white newspaper, it gave him entree into certain halls of power in europe that the black press simply did not have, and frankly weren't really interested in. black writers covered the jim crow military. they wanted to provide their readers with, of course, what the readers wanted, which was stories about black soldiers and about what was happening in the black regiments in europe. and so it's a little bit dicey to say that there was an audience, at least in the black community, for ottley's forays into colonial politics and the like. but this man who was determined to write about things that interested him. so that's a long digression but i wanted to give you a contest for the manuscript that is the heart of roi ottley's world war ii. the so-called lost diary. the diary is actually ottley's work book from the period july through november 1944. it contains some straight diary entries, but also copies of correspondence, notes for article, reproductions for material that helped in "pm" in the pittsburgh courier and other periodicals of the day. now, i want to also stress what i see as being the kind of two really important elements to the story that ottley tells, and also the broader context of ottley's life. historians right now, those of us that do civil rights history, that are writing about american race relations, are really struggling to find ways to conceptualize and kind of reperiodize that history. the textbook history of the civil right movement beginsin' 1954 with the brown vs. the board of education decision. and there is this broader history now, this broader history, a body of work that pushes back into the world war ii years, that's pushing this back into the enter war years. some of it going all the way back to, as far as i know, all the way back to 1915, and the u.s. invasion of haiti in that year. so, it's a very fertile field but a fluid field as well, and i think it's the context for ottley's works, the themes he chooses to focus on, that are shaped by the political world, the cultural world that he was experiencing in the 1920s are 30s that make this a particularly important work. now, the second thing, though -- i think this is kind of the corrective to the broader popular views of world war ii. you think about world war ii, so much of it is how we understand it, how we think about it, is shaped by popular culture. and as i said, it's the good war. and this is the greatest generation. and there is a ton of truth in this characterization. this is a massive social mobilization that required immense sacrifice. something that is almost incomprehensible today in many ways we're quarintined from war and its effects on us. in this case we're hiding nazis for god's sake, you could even get me up off the couch to fight hitler. japanese militarism, fascist ideology, classic good versus evil tale. there's another important element as it applies to ottley's work, and that the war -- at least it used to be -- was a catalyst for social change. war opens up the is in centuries in american society, illuminates the contradictions in american heritage. americans carry a profound burden in that this is a republic that was established on the highest of ideals, ideals that we have struggled ever since to live up to there's always been a distance between the ideal of american life and the lived realities of americanism. and in the case of world war ii, these contradictions were brought into stark relief. millions of african-americans were denied the basic trappings of american freedom. in the jim crow south, blacks were forced to endure a white supremist apparatus of power that had the sanction of federal law and when the war began it is ease easy to say the americans were ready to lockstep in defense of the republic but people who were denied so much, there was ambivalence, and unrest, in communities around the country. you've got to remember that for many african-americans, world war i was the ultimate test case. the war to end all wars. the war to make the world safe for democracy. african-american leaders before the war urged their readers, urged their followers, to support the war effort because they believed that if they fell in with the unity theme of the administration, that they would evenly win -- eventually win they're freedom as well, but the post war period demonstrated exactly the opposite of that. we enter this long period of racial problems. slaughter in places like tulsa, east st. louis, chicago, washington, dc, new orleans, memphis, and so when world war ii began, there were those who questioned the viability or coming out and publicly taking a stand and backing the federal government at the very start of the war. at the same time, black americans began to view their opposed status in a new political context, antifascism, anticolonialism, antirace simple, meshed into a political program that picked up momentum throughout the war. the piecemeal assault on jim coe gave way to unified demands for the desegregation of american society and an end to discrimination in employment, education, and the range of public accommodations. black leaders tied southern race simple to nazi ideology, specially to antisemitism, and for a time, jim crow was thrown back on its heels. at the same time, black americans began to see their local struggles in a global internationalist context. they tied their fight to the national liberation movements around the world. 500,000 african-american troops in africa, the pacific, and europe, had ringside seats to witness the crumbling of european colonialism. many thousands returned home believing that jim crow would be the next to go. so, this, too, was the context for roi atley's scribblings, during the period covered by the manuscript, he comments frequently about conflicts between white and black troops, on the efforts made by white southern officers to transplant jim crow to european soil, and on the similarities between fascism and southern race simple. ottley expressed resentment whenever he felt he was being pigeon holed as just an african-american journalist. he broke away from the journalistic pack to observe european race relations and to interview colonial officials about their views concerning this coming new world order. he tapped into a growing network of pan-african activists that included people like george padmore and the future president of kenya. most black journalist covering the war were primarily concerned with the contributions and struggles of black g.i.s. it's unclear if readers of the black press would have been interested in the nuances of european colonial policy. at the same time, as the war ended, european societies in a shambles and their colonial empires collapsing, ottley's work' proves incredibly prescient. he continues abroad through 1947 and 1948, and this volume, roi ottley's world war ii, collects the best of ottley's journalism for this period for the first time. so i think that there are these two themes that run through ottley's life and work that make him worth taking note of. his own experience is shaped by the politics of the popular front. as -- and his eye witness views of that politics as well, at a journalist. he was a great observer. i don't think that anybody's going to read his work and be dazzled by his prose style. he is chatty and coe lockal in his writing, at the same time this is a guy who knew everybody and managed to poke his nose in the door at just the right moment over and over and over again. and the second part of this is this black internationalism. historians on race real estates with struggle with the way the think about this period, the way we cop send to allize civil rights struggles, the activism of the war years, the emergence of a movement culture during world war ii, are coming into sharper relief. now, no one's life can provide the perfect context for understanding an era. but i think that ottley, who is only appeared as a footnote in our histories -- by piecing together his experiences in this critical period, by trying to understand his life and work against the backdrop of historical events, we began an opportunity to think about this political awakening that took place in the 1930s and '40s, and the vital international impulse that drove it. thank you. [applause] >> yes, sir. cue use that microphone? they've asked that anybody that has a question -- here we have a black man working for a white newspaper, and with white employers, and the newspaper presumably that is write can for allows him to write articles which i would assume are supportive of the black position in the army, which was bad during world war ii with the discrimination. how does that play out with his audience? did the people who read "pm" agree with him and was "pm" circulated in the south? >> "pm" was national circulation. it was a small paper comparatively speaking. and i think that in the context of "pm" readership, ottley was preaching to the choir. there's no doubt about that people would have read -- i think the closest political connections that "pm" had was with the cio, and the liberal wing of the democratic party. so, they were very much open to what ottley was writing about. it was really the military censors that had the biggest problems with what ottley was writing. there are sections in the diary where he writes "censored" across the top of an article he transcribed in the work book and a number of entries where eangrily denounces the military censors who refuse to allow him to talk about certain things. there will mutinies of black troops because of their treatment. there were conflicts with a lot of southern white soldiers that were actually covered in the british newspapers but were not covered, of course, by the american press at all. and so it's the military that more often than not silenced ottley, and he usually complained about and it usually they would relent. it wasn't quite as cut and dry as it was -- as he often painted it in his prose. >> is there material in the diary about japan? because ottley was one of the rare black leaders during world war ii who was strongly antijapan. >> you in the, i think that's one of the most interesting parts of his work. as you will remember, in new world coming, there is a chapter on japanese propaganda in black communities. the japanese worked to position themselves in the mid-to late 1930s as people of color who were in solidarity with the oprocessed colonials all over the world, and this included black americans and ottley was dericesive and dismisssive of these japanese efforts but he was also sent -- sent a warning to the american government which is, you've got to understand these sort0s of thing -- the treatment of people has real consequences, and while most thinking african-americans embraced their americanism and are as patriotic as anybody else. there are those who will listen to extreme voices, so you need to moderate the behavior and roll back this raceism for the long-term national security health of the country, and you're right. this is -- i think this is one of the more interesting elements here. even though it is secondary to the broader narrative. is that he talks a lot about the ways in which a japanese fifth column was attempting to insinuate itself into some of these more marginal communities where there was a lot of anger and mistrust. >> i'm sorry? yes, ma'am. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> i think that's true. i'm sorry. could you -- can you use the microphone? your point is well taken. she was commenting that the we have a lot of this animosity now, that -- and i believe your point was that religion plays a role in the ways in which people are pitted against one another. >> host: two questions. one, as a market, he comes off as a real snob. especially month african-americans. >> yes. >> there's a superiority type of an attitude that he has based upon his own education and his attitudes toward his fellows in harlem especially, but elsewhere. is that -- you found that, too? >> i believe -- yes. i think he has -- he is an elitist in many, many ways and there are some -- it's not just a kind of character flaw. i think that it has a lot to do with his upbringing. i think that his parents were -- his mother in particular, pounded into him, over and over and over again, you are as good or better than anybody else. you can do anything. you can achieve anything. that's what we proved by being here in this country and now father having achieved what he has achieved, and you can do the same thing. i think that there is a little bit of a cultural twist there, because he was raised in a caribbean household. i think that this was an immigrant group that was better educated; that had experienced living in a society where they had greater independence, and i think that -- so that kind of played into his character. and there was this sort of radical individualistic streak in him that, if he was told to walk in a straight line, he would veer immediately to the right or left. and it just happens over and over again. and like i said, it really did rub people the wrong way. >> there's his contact with colonial secretaries, belgium, dutch, whoever had -- how did he get into those spots of -- there's some privilege of his interviewing these people, and he waited in line, had appointments. who made those appointments for him? >> well, partly it was because he was working for "pm," which was known in the ministries and information that were mostly based in europe and paris at the time that ottley goes there -- which was known as a predominantly white paper, and i believe -- this is circumstantial to a certain degree -- that they thought he was white. they didn't understand that he was a black newspaper man. i also think that it's -- it says a lot about his bull-headedness in that he would go and sit in these offices and wait, sometimes for hours, on a couple of instances for days, until they would speak with him, and i think, too, in the diary he was an inveterate networker. he was excellent at meeting people who could help him further down the line. the knew certain individuals who were very well-connected in the british government, for instance, and who paved the way for him to speak to the belgian colonial minister and people like that. so there's a number of factors that work in his advantage in that respect. >> generally we're out of time, but if you would like to speak more with professor huddle, he's going to be over by the new deal book store, signing copies of his book. i'd like to thank him for joining us today. [applause] >> thank you all very much for coming. i really appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] >> book tv's coverage from the 2012 roosevelt reading festival continues. mary stuckey talks about her book "defining americans" the presidency and national identity." [applause] >> thanks. the sadness is now i have to try to be engaging knowles important thing to understand about the presidency in this context is that we always have choices. when you pick a president, you are absolutely picking a particular kind of policy, but you're also picking a definition of our national identity. if you hear a president and you like what they're saying, if you feel yourself called to that presidency, then they are speaking to you about a sense of the national self that is deeply imbedded in all of us, and everytime there's a presidential election, what one of our previous presidents learned to his sorrow as the vision thing, is really an important part of what the presidency does, because we see ourselves as a nation through the ways that presidents talk that nation into being. so what i'm going to do today is talk a little bit about franklin roosevelt's version of what it meant to be an american at this particular moment in our national history. then i did this a little bit earlier but i want to go back a little bit today at this talk and say that prior to roosevelt, presidents tended to be very hierarchical in the way they understood the nation. they were sluice matter. that would be people like immigrants or african-americans and sometimes women who didn't get to be citizens and who were specifically located in presidential rhetoric near the bottom of the hierarchy of the nation, and the nation was understood as hierarchical or as local. for men presidents the south became the demon region, and there are reasons for that, because they're building coalitions that depend on including people but also always on excluding people. and one of roosevelt's great geniuses as president is that he almost never actively excluded people but tended to base his notion of the nation on a very inclusive sense of what that meant. and so that's what i'm going to talk about right now. this book is actually -- goes back a little was and it's a book on the presidency as a whole in which franklin roosevelt is the actual center of the book and in the larger book i examine the complex ways how we struggle to live up to our highest principles and maintaining allegiance to hike, aty of class and rate that allows stability in that history all these things are sharply contested during the roosevelt administration. the economy lay in ruins. african-americans were making increasing demands for civil rights. women were increasingly flexing their political muscles. immigrants were increasingly being incorporated into the party. all of these groups were integral to the famous new deal coalition which continues to have an important influence on our politics. was through roosevelt's rhetoric as much as through policies he crafted the coalition and which has proven to be one of the most enduring and most complicated in our national history. roosevelt's vision of the nation and as the role of citizens within it was routed in pleurallist political tradition which required flexible leadership such as the president could jugglele the various claims on government, and the metaphor of the juggler was wound of roosevelt's favorite ways ways to describe his understanding of this jobs as president, this others being cat and magician. he used inclusion, denial, deflection, and deferral. this war enabled best hi understanding of america as a nation perpetually in progress in 1936 the president said, i do not look upon these united states as a finished product. we're still in the making. it is notable that prior to roosevelt, it was always these united states, after roosevelt, the nation understood itself as the united states. it moved from a notion of collective states to one of an actual nation. for us the nation's hierarchies and citizenship were premised as much on the future as the present. the his first natural he declared the basic -- it is the insis citizen as a first consideration upon the enter dependence of various elements and parts in the united states. for roosevelt the entire nation was interconnected and was not static and fixed, always in motion always developing. it therefore required constant attention and constant adjustment. the kind of attention that only a strong president, seated in a strong central government, could give. importantly, he understood the nation as already fundamentally united. the various interests that made up the nation were perpetually contesting against one another but not irrevocably opposed to one another, he said, quote, some people who visit is from other lands across the seas try to credit the fact that a nation 130 million strong, a nation stretching 3,000 miles from east to west, and all the great essentials of its civilization is a holm monthous whole. for not only do we speak one language, not only are the customs and habits of the people essentially sim floor every part of the country, but we have given repeated proof on many occasion and especially in recent area years, we're will fog forego sectional advantage where such advantage can only be obtained by one part of the country at the expense of the country as a horrible because the nation shared common beliefs, common culture and common interests, some groups would be granted by the president temporary political prime place other. s would be denied claims on government and other claims could be defender and others were deflected. most importantly, the roosevelt administration was marked by its enormous efforts of political inclusion. these efforts were most clear in his willingness to offer assistance to the poor, disserring sharply from previou practice he treated all of the poor as if they were a deserving poor. approve to him there was ademption made between the deserving and undeserving other. relief under fdr was an automatic right. he earned their loyalty. in addition, he legitimated organized labor in ways that had not been previously seen. upon signing the national industrial recovery act he said, quote, its goal is the assurance of a reasonable profit to industry and living time, labor with the elimination of tie ran cal methods and practices which harassed honest businesses and have contributed to the ill of labor note here the importance of capital and labor as the subject of his discipline. he made a distinction between honest business and piratical business, and we know roosevelt did not hesitate to criticize business and businessmen, challenging him to and welcome can their ahead hatred in the 1936 election. the funside was that organized labor was able to see him as their champion, and did so even when his policies were substantially more pro business than what his rhetoric. this is important because roosevelt became an advocate for labor. he argued as an organized labor was good and worthy and important to the life of the nation. he subjected business to differentiation, distinguishing between good business, which the government would support, and piratical business which the government would not. through this kind of rhetoric fdr was able to include labor, which included many anybodies of new immigrant groups, as already fully integrated into the american system and also protecting business as a whole. only bad business practices would be subject to his -- capitollism was the absolute foundation of the nation. as the new deal continued in the mid-1930s he became more suspicious of labor. strikes unleashed were inconstant event to say the least, and his fractious relationship with labor leader john l. lewis was famous. increasingly began to differentiate between good and bad lab you're just as he did with business. he helped labor become more leslie visibility and more powerful and he expected them to be decently grateful. which, for him, meant unwaiverring political support for fdr. one of the important side effects of his inclusion with labor as i mentioned earlier, was this inclusion of immigrants. americans in then 1930s remained suspicious of immigration, touting immigration, patriot tim, character, stop me is this is sounding familiar. immigrants were doubtful courtrooms, such as catholics and jews. some people revved to the jew deal. shuddering. and throughout the decade there were various efforts to restrict americans to control the behavior of new arrivals. roosevelt avoided all of these tendencies in favor of a narrative of collusion in -- narrative of inclusion. one of my favorite speeches on this, he said the night is following and the spirit of other days, too broodses over the seen. andrew jackson looks down on his from his steed and the four corners of the square are gathered by the figures of the intrepid leaders of the revolutionary war. the german, the pol, and lafayette from the shores of france. this is in keeping of the universal first ♪ festival we're celebrating and he dates the inclusion of this immigrants back to the revolution, this is not new. he is arguing these people have always been with us and always incorporated and it's time we recognize that. its hard, i think to imagine a more eloquent claim to national unity, at lest for those who trace our ancestry to europe. it's clear this rhetoric was meant to be inclusive and has exclusionary potential for all those for instance who don't see themselves reflected there it's well worth noting he does in fact include many of those would were previously marginalized and this inclusion might well have been one of the reasons why members of the group chose to vote democratic with some consistency, blue collar, catholics, african-americans and jews were soldier to his wreck rid and joined a new deal. this rhetoric was based on the centrality of shared values. everyone said your ancestors and mine suffered from the imperfect and unjust governments of their homelandment that it were driven by deep desire to find not alone security but also in large opportunity for themselves and their children. it is true that the new population flowing into our lands with mixed population, differing offen in language and external customs and habits of thought but in one thing we were alike, they shared a deep purpose to rid themselves forever of the jealousies, the prejudices, the intrigues and the violence, whether internal oar external, that disturbed their lives on the other side of the ocean. yes, they saw the life that was left shuddered be i eye exploitations of selfish men set up are in governments that were not free. they saw a wider opportunity for the average man. i heard this with ronald reagan's accents in the back of my head, and the reason is that every president since fdr has used this invocation of northwestern dream at one point or another but it was defined for us by roosevelt. in such passages, roosevelt narrative, the consistent story of america, for son identified not by those who founded the nation but those who are more recent immigrants. those who were central the enactment of the american dream and full participantness it. americans were defined as people with shared past, even though the past occurred in a variety of nations. americans were united by previous experience of oppression and therefore by both a desire to be free of and it the 2012 act on that desire. that's what constituted the american citizen. that of course becomes extremely important and the leadup to world war ii. in that sense, all americans no matter how recently arrived, were understood at legitimate defendants of the founders, and -- descent dents of dedependents of the founder -- -- descendents of the founder, and those founders have bastarg chirp who grew up to money changers, doubting thomases, apiecers, and anybody who opposed fdr. those people were excluded. sometimes from the party and sometimes simply from his rhetoric. he never spoke to asian-american groups, northwestern visited american indian reservations, never spend time in latino or hispanic communities, never spent much effort on african-americans, although eleanors efforts matter it here. he did not spend any rhetorical effort excluding these people but simply ignored them. when he did attack groups and individuals and he made more of his fair share of attacks -- it was an assault on behavior rather than demography. he never attacked people for their class or race but only for their behavior. he jeered he ungrateful gentleman in the silk hat. he undermined their status and questioned their motives and character toured them with a demonic gleam made them a butt of many a famous joke, and they were never quite the same. he was at capable of wielding anger as humor and said things like continued growth is the only evidence we have of life, yet growth and progress invariably and inevident played are opposed at every step, oppose bittler and falsely and blindly. would not be fun to be the target of such an attack. his enemies were not treated as people with legitimate concerns with a reasonable point of view but as obstructionists bent on destroying his administration and the viability of democracy. but it is important to note these people were not identifiable as member office any particular race, ethnicity or religion. to the tent day had a collective identity at it was a vaguely defined class or set of economic interests and occasionally in election years polite:affiliation but he domon niced those in the american political regime and never the people at the margin. he did in fact protect many of those old hierarchies. i'm going to skip some of this. the tendency to balance interests against one another to produce the common good, he tended to ignore inequalities in and month group outside but i was applied to nearly every group at one point or another. true for labor. it was true for african-americans. he granted more political visibility under fdr. never saw a piece of civil rights legislation passed during his administration but he did understand african-american needs not as all-but as economic. many programs were legally desegregated and while racial justice was important, especially if you were one of the people who was lynched, the starving was also important, and why fdr tended to translate every group interest into an economic interest and would do what he could economically for him even it he felt his hand socially. the never spoke or acted when he could have. he maintained the color line in the white house press conferences until the end of his life, and it was his wife two took the strongest stand from racial issues, resigning from the dar and moved a claire to set in the middle of the isle at a segregated event. rhetoric extended to nationalize lower pigses of the african-americans and he did little to address or alter that. through all of his rhetoric he did stress the issue of fairness, and for him fairness demands the deferral of some demands on the system that he considered acceptable and workable or poorly timed and he never consistently favored one group above others, either politically or rhetorically but instead relied on language, like, quote, the human factor which enters so largely into this picture, we're trying to apply it to all groups needing aid and assistance and not a few favored or scattered groups. demanding more than the president was likely to give you meant he would castigate you as selfish or unwilling to share or unfair. this rhetoric has nationalizing function and citizens were asked to think of themselves as a whole rather than statewide communities. he deeply believed the importance and reality of democracy's essential fairness and argued consistently his policies were designed to promote and maintain that fairness, which would always work itself out as evenness over time. for fdr, bag good citizen meant bag good neighbor. able and willing to accept temporary sacrifice for his or her fellow citizens, on the prescription that everybody should happen equalling access to the necessities of life and an overall commitment to the common good these values are important and undergird the national sense of ourselves and let me be clear i'm not argue against them bottom but i am noticing in making these arguments roosevelt was making the challenge of building a unified nation seem a bit easier than it was. he ignored structural inequalities and regional differences and enabled their persistent. he allowed local identities in favor of a false national commonnate to disregard a real and principled opposition of public rains, antiinterventionists and other opponents. his unifying rhetoric had some exclusion center elements and he did all this within an invigorated presidency and which was paced on a strong sense of the kinds of unity called for by both generals and priests in his famous fir inaugural he said, quote, if i read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our inner densens on each other. we cannot merely take but must give as well. if we for go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army, willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline because without such discipline no progress is made. no leadership becomes effective. we are, i know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. good citizens house obeyed the president as good soldiers obeyed their commanding officer. the evoke indication of a nation organized to fight a war was powerful and at the time comforting and also potentially dangerous. so while the military model is a useful one for certain kinds of endeavors, even here in hyde park in the shadow of west point no one is going to argue that the military is an ideal model for democratic government. and suzanne gotten is noted, this is especially important because in fdr's public rhetoric there is an explicit combination of wartime and religious view of the nation and there's no doubt roosevelt had such a view. we cannot, he said, read the its of our rise and development as nation without wrestling with the place it provided in shape the advance of the republic it's plowed into the very heart of the race. for roosevelt, united states was predominantly a judeo^- christian nation built on a foundation of beliefs in a judeo^- christian got. that religion underpinned and authoritied his legallership, criticizing the about became narrowly an unchristian act. combining two kinds kinds of nondemocratic leadership, combining wartime and religious claims to authority, meant that challenging the president was particularly difficult thing to do. however well this may hey served roosevelt's immediate political ends, revoking military and religious leadership as models for democratic leadership remain problematic, especially in the context of his claim to be a protecter of democracy, and given the rise of dictatorships in europe these, models set in for the fear he was promoting a democratic dictatorship. whatever the problems with fd r's particular brand of leadership, the success is unquestionable. roosevelt argued consistently for a rube need nation under the guidance of strong chief executive. that unity was premised on what he understood as the effect of increasing national interdependence and he considered american citizens as less geographically designed units and more as economically defined groups. he thought of citizenship in national terms and citizens as connected to their economic interests. a these interests were roughly equal and had roughly equal claims on the national government. the president's main task was ensuring a balance among and between these groups so the nation would be both stable and just. but when social justice is understood in largely economic terms something important is being overlooked for community live, explicitly defined in christian terms as something akin to social justice is not reducible to economics and when in the president puts himself in charge, decides when social justice has been achieved, those who are underprivileged lose the right to decide for themselves what such justice might look like and when it might be appropriate for them to push their claims. make no mistake, the roosevelt administration as an important moment of very real progress for the american disenfranchised. earlier presidents had been prone to argue paternalistically for the validity of specific and clear live demark indicated national hire, a kentucky. fdr assumed the position of spokesman for those at the bottom of the hire, a kerrs and a move that positions the common man atop his let core cal order and still leading the social and political economic orders untouched. roosevelt relied on a form of civic nationalism. of inclusion on the base of commitment to common belief aught than hire, aty and this meant the disenfranchised hat powerful warrants to support them. this became incredibly important following the second world war, as african-americans, women, american indians, among others, all began the arguments and debates that would explode throughout the 1960s and would lead to unsettling the national order in ways roosevelt could not have foreign foreseen and probably would not have endorsed. underroosevelt the national narrative centered on the immigrant experience in weighed that sharpened and defined the national identity as one in which certain positions were presumed to be shared and in that sharing constitute an american public among those wheel people who came to the u.s. with specific sets of goals and expectations in mind. one author has argued the world we live in is still franklin roosevelts, and our national identity is still very much the one he bequeathed to us. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] >> new deal and world war two years. >> i don't think it shifted all that much. there's very clear evidence from the archives that roosevelt was sort of on to hitler from the very early moment, and when he started arguing in the mid-1930s -- so even before his 36th election -- he starts arguing against dictatorships and for democracy, and he does it in explicitly christian terms. he uses light and dark, up and down, awful of those kind of met fore, and because that language was so consistent over time, with his slight hiccup for russia -- because, first off, russia is like on the side of the dictators and are bad and then luckily for him, almostly for hick, there's the siege of stall lynn grad which allows him to talk about the russianness exactly the same way he can talk about the british. right? but he keeps that same white and dark christian kind of movement throughout, and that language authorizes his domestic policies and also makes very clear the argument he is making for war. and it causes the antiinterventionists all kinds of problems, because the antiinterventionist have to argue that there is no moral principle at stake in world war ii. and hitler makes that argument increasingly tricky. right? and the more people know about this the more people have to say, there's nothing of value. no american values at stake in this war, and that argument becomes -- you have to end up saying that there are no moral values that matter. which is essentially what happened to lindbergh in america first and then roosevelt does some nasty things to lindbergh. >> following up on your theme of exclusion and inclusion and disenfranchisement, my understanding is that the right to vote had been confined not only just to white males but to white male property owners, real property owners. >> certainly in the constitution, yes, sir. >> did roosevelt take any active role in expanding the right to vote? >> no. because by the time -- by 19 -- roosevelt reside -- roosevelt's administration, the last group to get the legal right to vote is of course african-americans who get no policies under him. american indians get the right to vote following world war i. and the argue. is very similar for american indians as it becomes for african-americans later. they shed blood in the war for the nation. they have a right to citizenship. and that becomes a very important parallel in the civil rights movement and the right to vote. but fdr didn't ever, as far as i know -- become an archivist, there's no evidence that he was at all interested in expanding the vote. >> i was just curious, because fdr grew up in a relatively wealthy upbringing. >> i don't think it was relatively wealthy. >> the guy was rich. i've always wanted to know, what really triggered -- a lot of people of his class actually started hating him for the fact he did kind of -- working towards the downtrodden and the poor. what exactly triggered the idea -- he could have simply not cared in a sense. >> sure. >> a lot of the other rich americans dunedin dynasties at the time didn't have the human tear interest he did. so what brought him to be the man who essentially -- before he became he greatest war leader of all-time, really, how did he become like also the man who worked towards, like i said before, -- >> there's two answers to that. and i'm not a psychologist, i'm a political scientist. the one answer that a lot of his biographers give there was a combination of a certain obligement con bind with his experience of polo and allowed him to understand suffering from the inside out and to really experience poverty among people who welcomed him at a time when polio was such a tricky disease that they were -- polio victims were often ostracized and yet it was the poor people of warm springs who really welcomed him in ways that -- so that's one answer. the political science answer is, probably a little more cynical. barry goldwater was once giving advice to richard nixon -- a horrific combination -- and when asked, how would you build a coalition? goldwater said go hunting where the ducks are. i you want to get elected, find the votes, and abraham lincoln is the guy who said god must love the poor people, he made so many of them you want get to elected, the democratic party always have -- they have bodies no money and no resources and god knows they're not organized as will rogers said, but if you want to build a political coalition you're going to have big chances if you can bring in the new immigrant groups, african-americans, who at that time were voting only in the urban north and always for republicans. so, he went hunting where the ducks were. >> thank you. >> i don't know if that actually helped. other questions? [inaudible] >> all those ducks. [inaudible] >> evidents to help the naacp and african-americans against -- >> i did not know that. [inaudible] >> yes. i'm going to get this wrong, though, so this is completely unfair. you said that there were concerted efforts made by the roosevelt administration to allow veterans -- soldiers overseas to vote which would of course have included african-americans, all though not specifically targeted as african-americans. and you pointed out that the democratic national committee -- in the justice department was helping to overcome the white primaries in the south with what had to be seep as a spectacular lack of success. [inaudible] >> come up here. or go to a microphone. so people can hear you. >> the justice department in the roosevelt administration offered limited help the naacp when they were fighting the white primary in what became the smith decision of the supreme court in 18944. >> thank you. i could never have done that. yes, sir. >> maybe this follows up on the previous gentleman's question. it seems a very prominent middle class sprang forward after roosevelt's administration, and a lot of people could argue that his policies and attitudes contributed to that. i'm -- and it has become a definite part of our national identity since then. and i'm wondering if that was intentional on his part? was his vision to create the great middle class that ended up coming forward? >> you know, don't know he would have understood it in those terms because the middle class is afraid that so much more current in our time than -- i never saw a phrase like that in the documents of the time. but i do think that he felt very strongly that every person in this country had the right to a living wage, and the right to have a certain kind of security. a small home. the ability to feed your family. those things seemed to him to be a fundamental -- he would have called at it fundmental human right. and it's interesting because he understood so many things in economic terms terms and the u.d so much difficulty over the question of economic rights. so, there's a lot of interesting speculation as to what the u.p. would have looked like had roosevelt lived. >> thank you all so very much. [applause] ... is >> this is a very pro forma session in the white house. later, on the way to tehran at the end of 43, the president stopped off in north africa spending two full days with eisenhower. fdr was taking ike's measure, and he like what he saw. the two were very much alike. they bonded really on a motor trip to see the battlefield at carthage, and roosevelt was also submitten with kay and insisted she sit next to him on the picnic lnch they had on the way. [laughter] immediately after the teheran conference, roosevelt picked eisenhower to command the d-day invasion. the job was general marshall's if he wanted it, but with characteristic self-discipline, marshall declinedded to express an opinion who roosevelt asked him. at that point, fdr said simply, "it will be eisenhower." eisenhower was roosevelt's first choice really to command the invasion. by that point, he had three major amphibious operations under his belt. he was experienced leading coalition forces. the old story that roosevelt could not sleep with marshall out of washington was a spin put on it in order to save marshall's face by not getting the command position. ike and roosevelt met again in january 1944. they thought alike. they got along marvelously other than on the question of charles. roosevelt hated him. eisenhower that he was essential, and, in fact, out maneuvered the president which very feel people have ever done. now, my text for today's lecture onize p hour is a letter that ike wrote to his brother, edgar, when ike was president in 1955. edgar was one of his older brothers. should any political party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws, you would never hear of that party again. there is a tiny splinter group that believes you can do these things, but their number is negotiateble, and they are stupid. [laughter] he was military conservative, insisted on a balanced budget, sisted deficit spending, and refused to cut taxes until the government's expenditures were in line with its revenues. he also recognized the government had a role to play. when the economy turned down after the korean war, he launched the interstate highway program, really, the mother of all stimulus programs. the total cost of the program extended the deal from 193# 193#3-1941, and it was funded by not affecting the federal budget by increasing the tax on gasoline. eisenhower also constructed the st. lawrence seaway, a public works project opening the midwest to traffic. he expanded the social security system adding 12 million self-employed persons, lawyers, accountants, and so forth to the social security roles. he increased benefits across the board, raised the minimum raise by 25%. perhaps, above all, eisenhower took on senator mccarthy and soundly defeated the wisconsin senator restoring the nation's sanity after almost a decade of anti-communist disappear ya. he organized the response in the mccarthy hearings, and in a crucial point in the hearings issued one of the most far reaching executive orders ever issued prohibiting government employees from testifies before congress. he handled the entire matter behind the scenes, never showed hands, never exposed himself. i'm not going to get into a cop test with that skunk, i told his brother, did it all behind the scenes. the appointments to the federal judiciary led the way to social equality, racial equality in the united states. it was not just the appointments of earl warren to the supreme court, but the host of liberal republican judges that he appointed in the south. men like elbert of georgia and john minor wisdom of louisiana. these were the judges in the vanguard of the civil rights struggle. the most significant appointment made at the time was that of john marshall harlem, the great conservative justice just after the court's land mark decision in brown versus board of education. shortly after that decision came down, justice robert jackson died leaving a vacancy on the court. at that point, roosevelt turned to harlem who was the grandchildren of the great john march shell harlem, the only di center in plessi very sus ferguson, and eisenhower made a statement that the south could not ignore. desegregation was the law of the land and he was going to force it. approached little rock, eisenhower sent the regular army, not just the regular army, but the 10 # 1st airborne, to limit rock to enforce the court's order. ize p hour's view op segregation was clear. he recognized it was a bitter pill for the south to swallow, and so he placed the fact, the emphasis on the fact that this was the law, that the supreme court decisions was the law of the land, and eisenhower was going to enforce it. ike believed it would be easier for the south to accept desegregation if he stressed it was the law of the land, the successors, lbj and jfk, and ike stressed the rule of law. if you look back to 1950 and the early 50s, this might have been the most effective strategy. in foreign policy, eisenhower's record is exemplary. after the election before taking office, he went to korea, flew in an army spotter plane, a piper cub along the entire battle line, and concluded the war was unwinnable. the south korean president, john dulles, and a significant portion of the republican party, eisenhower made peace, and after he did so, early in the term, not one american serviceman was killed in action for the remaining eight years of eisenhower's presidency. forrizeenhouseer, the frizz "limited war" was a cop -- contradiction. eisenhower hated war. he firmly up cysted that the united states would not become involved in conflict unless national survival is at stake, not national security, but national sur viferl. eisenhower, by the way, had no national security adviser. ike was his own national security adviser. he had a secretary to the national security council, but no national security adviser that came in with president kennedy in 1961. the country trusted eisenhower's judgment completely. as president, ike slashed defense spending, reduced u.s. ground forces, and introduced the new look to military strategy. united states would not fight wars beneath the nuclear three issue hold, and if it did go to war, it was with massive retaliation. under eisenhower, that kept the peace. twice the joint chiefs of staff and the national security council recommended the use of nuclear weapons to relieve the beleaguered french garrison, later to defend harmosa, and both times, ike said no. there's few presidents who would have had the confidence or the courage to do that. eisenhower understood the term "american exceptionalism" that we hear so much today. for ike, it was not a free pass, but obligation for the united states to set an example as the world's most powerful country, eisenhower believed the united states and its actions must always be an aupper approach. when israel, france, invaded egypt, one week before the presidential election in 1956, eisenhower was livid. he was determined to force their withdrawal. they are not going to withdraw just because we asked them to he told secretary of state dulles. great britain's finances were shaky, and eisenhower instructed secretary of the treasury to mound a run on the british pound on international markets. two days later, prime minister calleddize p hour and asked for financial assistance. ize agreed to provide it soops they removed from suez. if you are not out this evening, we'll drive the pound down to zero. they were out by evening. it caused anthony eden post of prime minister. he was a phren of eisenhower. britain and france oldest allies, israel the newest, but eisenhower insisted on come pliensz with the law and the reward for the united states, particularly with the undeveloped world was enormous. american prestige rarely higher, and he sealed his hand throughout. the documents -- the documentation pertaining to this has become available really only in the last several years. that was eisenhower's style. he liked to make everything he did lookize sigh and enjoyed being underestimated by opponents. if of you here can remember back to the election in 195 # 6 when we had the bumper stickers that read "ben hogen for president: if we're going to have a golfer, let's have a good one." eisenhower made mistakes while president. he listened uncritically to the cia. the crews in guatemala and iran were successful, but the consequences, especially in iran, were disastrous. he approved the u-2 flight of gary powers on the eve of the summit, a dreadful mistake, and which i to his credit, pull full responsibility for. ize p hour, like brent was a product of the peacetime army. i'm joking t myself about grant. two weeks ago, i spoked a the grant presidential library, but if you can believe it, the u.s. presidential library is of mississippi state university. [laughter] it's in starkville, mississippi, and the president said, well, vicksberg put grand on the map. why shouldn't it be there? [laughter] that's showing how times have changed. ike was born in texas, october 14 #th, 1890. grew up with five brothers in kansas. very modest circumstances. his mother, ida, was strong,çó outgoing, on the mistake outlook on life. his father, david, was withdrawn and a difficult person. both were deeply religious, evangelical. the family read the bible every morning at breakfast and night before bed. none of the six brothers carried that religious faith into their adult life. eisenhower is the only person elected president of the united states who did not belong to a church at the time. that was not an oversight on ike's part. it was dlit. he resented going to search every sunday as a cadet and said he was not going back. he understood the political resonance of religion over later joined the methodist church. it was under ike that we added the words "undergod" to the pledge of allegiance and put "in god we trust" on the currency. also, he had the recommendation of secretary of agriculture, benson, began each cabinet meeting with a silent preyer. one day, the cabinet sex tear pass -- secretary passed a node which said, mr. president, you forgot the silent prayer. he read the note and said, god dammit, we forgot the silent prayer. [laughter] eisenhower entered west point in 1911 at the age of 21. he was roughly three years older than the classmates a unlike grant, he went to the academy to get an education unlike mccarthy and patton who went perhaps for future glory. he was a color sergeant. it was with the 19th infa try in texas. it was there he met mimi. her family, a wealthy family from denver, wintered in texas, in san antonio, and he and her were married july 1st, 1916. she was 19 at the time. ike did not get to fraps in world world war i. he spent that in gettysberg, and ended the war as a lieutenant colonel. three members in the class took that rank. he was reduced to major in the contraction of the army afterwards, and he remained a major for 16 years in the army. promotions in the army in those days were strictly by seniority. there were no promotions up through the rank. every -- it took ike 16 years to come to the top of the promotion list. in the decade of the 20s, ike served under the tutorship really of a legendary figure in the military, general fox connor who had done pershings operation officer in europe and the military profession, and connor took a liking to eisenhower and took him with him to panama to be the executive officer. in 1921, and by so doing, saved him from being courtmarshalled. the inspector general wanted to court mar shall him because he submitted a false voucher claiming $250.45 housing alliance for his son who happened not to be present at the time. $250.45 which he repaid, but the ig wanted to court marshall him. when he decided to take eisenhower to panama, the inspector general realized the powers of b were onize p -- eisenhower's side and settled for a reprimend which is still in the file. there's one of the stations you have to punch one of those buttons you punch in the military career. he was not -- thought the chief of infantry passed him over for assignment there. it was fox connor who interviewed, transferred him to the corp., and he graduated first in the class, went back to the up fa try, and the chief of infa try was annoyed that he assigned him to the 24th infantry. he was first in the class, then he's assigned to a housekeeping unit. it is a black unit, similar, in that respect to the famous black calvary, but considered as the worst assignment and considered a penal assignment. after three months there, normal tour of duty was three years, but he was assigned to a commission in paris. fox connor culled those strings as well. they enjoyed it enormously, but then connor intervened, ordered back to wars to the office of the undersecretary of war, and in 19 # 30-31, and it was there, in washington at the war department, where general mcarthur, chief the staff saw eisenhower, made him his military secretary, and eisenhower spent the next eight years working for mcarthur while he was chief of staff in washington. this began as absolute hero worship on eisenhower's part, and ended in mew sewel hose -- mutual hostility between the two. in 1939, eisenhower returned to the united states. i'm just -- a little word about that assignment. mcarthur resired as chief of staff from the united states army in 1935, and his job -- he was the commander of the philippine army. eisenhower was still his assistant. eisenhower remained on active duty in the united states army. he, in effect, was a senior u.s. army person with the philippine army, mcarthur the commander, but president roosevelt did not recall him until june of 1941. he commanded the first battalion in the 15th infantry in fort louis, he was chief of staff of ninth corp. and third army down in san done know again. under general walker cruiser, that's where the ma niewfns took place in 1941. they beat the socks off of the ben lear's second army. he got credit for that. he watched the louisiana maneuvers. these were over 500,000 troops marching for two weeks. they asked who should head the war plans division in washington, and he said eisenhower. the day -- the week after pearl harbor,ize p hour was ordered from san antonio to come back to washington. in june of 1942 who sawize p hour and saw his effectiveness sentize p hour to london to be chief of staff because the war department believed it would fake place in 1942. that, of course, was incredibly wishful thinking. president roosevelt insisted they come to grips with the germans somewhere in 1942 preferably before november because of the congressional elections. selected by default, the invasion of north africa. marshall did not want to command the invasion, and eisenhower there on the spot, got along with the british, and eisenhower was selected to command the invasion of north africa. the invasion of north africa for the american army and eisenhower was a learning experience. there's a book "app army at dawn" that explains that and it's superb. ize p hour -- eisenhower learned. the state department and roosevelt were wrong on who was doing what in france and formed an alliance with the gull at the time that remained o r -- remained throughout the lives of the two. then came systole, and which eisenhower commanded as well, second amphibious landing. we all saw the movie "patton," and how they want out and got there before month come ri and so forth, but by going out there, he took the punish off the german front. couldn't understand what he was doing. enabled them to withdrawal the german army back to italy where it remained the next two years. eisenhower it was not a good day for the home deal in that respect. the landing in italy,izen house's third -- eisenhower's third amphibious landing. it was a disaster. they didn't have enough air cover, not enough troops, and he learned from that. he was becoming an expert. he learned from his mistakes. i want say anything about really about the war. eisenhower was lucky. if you can imagine having 5,000 ships off the shore and not detected, the weather socked in, and the german air force could not get off. incredible. i want to say a word about paris. eisenhower and the battle plan assumed they would bypass paris. the commander of pairings -- paris was under order to destroy it, but he was not going to, because if it was not destroyed in 24 hours, he would be relieved by the furyk, which he wove been, so if they were not going to destroy it, he was going to take it, and so the reason paris was taken because eisenhower marched into paris or allowed the general to march into paris. battle of the bulge, the only time in the war in france that eisenhower took personal command, he really decided they would let them run out of gas, he literally did, and he was hit from the south and north and closed it off. eisenhower decided to not press on to berlin. saw no reason to capture berlin when they would have to pull back from it anyway. after the war, they got along marvelously. stlin invited him to moscow. eisenhower flew in a russian plane, flew very low from berlin back to moscow. eisenhower saw the destruction, not a house standing really. and that trip convinced him that the russians did not want war. the losses were so severe that it convinced him that the russians were not eagle, and he took into the presidency, and after that, he served as chief of staff for two years. he really did not want the job. he was really winding the services down. he retired in the beginning of 1948, and then a crusade in europe. it does not approach grant's memoirs in terms of literary style, but it's probably the best memoir from world war ii, the most implete -- the least -- eisenhower did not grind axes, and he wrote it himself over four months working 16 hours a day, dictated the entire thing. it's all his. after that, he became president of colombia, and i'll say a word about that. most academics poo poo ice's presidency of colombia, but he did an effective job of the this is the time of rampant mccarthyism, and he stood on academic freedom on several occasions. other presidents could hide behind eisenhower. he balanced the budget which had -- which had been in deficit for the last five years, and organized colombia's first fun drive raising $2 billion. murray butler, later years slacked off in raising money, and eisenhower was really -- was really learning p job. one of the frequently told stories is the first meeting of the columbia faculty, like you, eisenhower said he wanted the faculty to know that the university was very proud of the faculty. [laughter] at that point, a no bell laureate and physics stood up and said, general eisenhower, the faculty are the university. [laughter] the fault are the university. at that point, eisenhower flashed that smile, threw his hands over his head and said, i surrender. he was learning the job, excepts on the first tuesday after the first monday in november of 1948, thomas duey lost the election. he assumed he was young enough if elected in 48, he would serve two terms and ike would be too old. when he lost the election in november 1948, eisenhower lost interest in columbia. there was a bigger prize out there, and that's was the presidency. he became while still president of columbia, the up official chairperson of the joints chief of staff, and in january 151. he was sent to nato to organize the military forces in nay doe. it was clearly the candidate of the liberal wing of the republican party. there was sita thing in those days. [laughter] president taft was the opponent, and duey and general clay running eisenhower's campaign couldn't get ike, he was in paris, couldn't get him to say he was a candidate. he kepting -- they knew, but they couldn't get him to announce he was going to be a candidate. well, in may, the republican national community announced that douglas was going to be the keynote speaker at the republican convention. clay, who served with eisenhower and knew all of the details of the relationship told duey writize p hour a personal letter in long hand and tell him mcarthur was selected to be the keynote speaker and that we are concerned that mcarthur and his keynote speech is going to sweep delegates away with elegance. he's going to have the convention, and they are going to nominate him by acclamation. the letter was carried over to paris, and the next day, the next day eisenhower says he was going to contest the nomination. that shows the relationship that, of course, clay was privy too. eisenhower did not win the nomination on the first ballot. after the role on the first ballot, eisenhower didn't have the majority, and before the chairman of the convention could announce the result, warren bergering waived the minnesota standard switching minnesota from the favored to eisenhower putting eisenhower at the top. that evening, at the hotel, they had dinner with a campaign manager and general clay, and they asked him who do you wish to be your vice presidential candidate? this is 1952. eisenhower said, welt, suspect that up to the convention? he said we roll our eyes a bit saying, yes, it is, but i'm sure they're going to look to you exclues evely for -- exclusively for guidance. [laughter] eisenhower named off several people, charles wilson, head of general electric wilson, head of american airlines, good vice presidential candidates, and they were looking at each other, and said, general, they are fine men, would be great vice president, but need someone whose name is recognizable to the delegates on the floor, and if you have not thought about it really, general clay and i think you should go with senator nixon from california. eisenhower said, well, i met him. clear it with staff forces, and if they want it, it's okay. that's how nixon received a nomination. ike was appalled when the scandal broke. he was appalled at nixon's speech. he assumed he'd take himself out of the race, which he didn't, and relations between eisenhower and nixon never improved much after that. after eisenhower's term expired in 1961, he stayed out of public life, wrote a two volume work on his presidency which does not compare to "crusade in europe," avoided politics, had to teach himself to be in civil life relearning how to dial a phone and drive a car. he had heart trouble. dieded after a prolonged illness at walter reid hospital on march 28th, 1969. he was buried in a simple ceremony. in a gi casket, a $90 # gi casket wearing his ike jacket with five stars on the shoulder, but no decorations or metals. i think eisenhower was really someone who has been closely underrated commanding the largest coalition army assembled in the history of the world. in many respects was the second most successful president in the 20th century after fdr. i think i've been privileged to write the biography's both of eisenhower and franklin roosevelt, and happy to answer questions. there's several issues i did not cover which i'm sure you'll ask about. thank you very much. [applause] >> [inaudible] >> thank you for the wonderful talk. before i ask a question, i want to tell you my brother was at columbia when testifies the president. he had gone there under the gi bill. he was a member the american veterans committee. they went to the office with reason, and eisenhower said why are you guys in the american legion, which was just the opposite of what the afc was all about. >> i'd like you to tell us a little more about eisenhower and mcarthur at the time of the veterans march on washington. >> eisenhower was mcarthur's military secretary in the next office, and eisenhower was a major, and mcarthur, and you see eisenhower looking at mcarthur, and eisenhower later in his -- he later said, well, i told him that he shouldn't do this so forth and so op, but there's no evidence whatsoever to support that. he reported the bonus march, defended it, in sympathy with it, and it's only later that eisenhower decided that that was probably not a very good position to take, and he change his position, and so eisenhower has done that on several occasions. he is reinterpreted. [laughter] he was very much in favor of it. led the troops across the brimming, and -- yes, sir? >> yes, i have not read the eisenhower book, but the fdr book is marvelous. i have two questions for you. if you could askize p hour one question, what would you ask and what do you think his answer would be. same for fdr. if you could ask him one question, what would you ask him, and what would his answer be? >> fdr's weak point was a relationship with degal. i have to ask him about that relationship and whatever. with eisenhower? gosh. you know, i really think i have to take a pass on that -- i'll tell you the story, and many you don't remember, a rollly poly first basemen for the washington senators in 1939-1940, good hitter, immobile in the field. always led american league in fielding. a reporter asked him one day, how can you be leading in fielding, you are immobile out there. he said it's simple. if you don't touch the ball, you can't make app error. [laughter] i think i'll pass on that. [laughter] >> i voted for stevenson. [laughter] to my surprise i found myself at a cabinet meeting with eisenhower, and he was a wonderful person. he was a wonderful person. he was interested in the time and the moment, and he got con concentrated on the moment and the issue at hand. i was for something slide production from -- that was built for rockefeller's presentation because rockefeller had it. i went there 7:30 # in the morning to the cabinet meeting, and started preparing the slides. all of the sundaying there's two hands on the back of me. the president has the glasses on, and his son, will you take me to the show? i took him to the show. we were spend a half hour together, took him to the show, and then when the cabinet got together, you know, he listened to me. he listened to every word and every time the rockefeller had a pie chart, for instance, about the construction and why was it -- he asked me questions, and what's the total percent of the pie chart, school construction, mind you. he build the schools too. why is half the budget presented paid by the government, a quarter by the state, and a quarter by the locals, and the reason was i told him the reason was that they wanted the local people to be able to decide what their schools were going to be so the moment rockefeller presented that chart, he says, that's right. [laughter] every time there was a chart, he says, he paid attention and had respect for the cabinet. he had cabinet meetings every month. i don't know if you know, but the question is, do you know presidents, do they have respect for their cabinets and in the meetings usually? >> you have a marvelous appointment. eisenhower met with them almost every week, and he met with the national security council also every week. there were roughly 372 meetings when eisenhower was president. he presided over 360 of the meetings. the 12 missed he was out of the country or in the hospital. he knew the details, did not have a national security adviser, and with the cabinet as realm. he met the national security council thursday and cabinet on friday, and he was there. he presided over them. they had a respect, andize p hour expected cabinet officers to run their own show and not raise anything in the meeting having to do with their department because they said handle that themselves. eisenhower gave them a great deal of -- unlike fdr, perhaps, gave them a great deal of free play. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. [applause] [applause] >> good afternoon, it's a pleasure to be here, and especially because it is the roosevelt library, and i couldn't have finished the book without the archives, and the help of great ark kiefs who know where material is and are willing to help you find it. it took four years to fight and win world war ii, but they've never stoppedded talking about it since 1945 so i predict and suspect that the conversation is going to go on for many more years, and that interests me as a historian that you spend time talking interpreting the events than the events themselves, and so that particular question, that issue caused me to think more about what americans understood about world war ii, how they understood it, and how they understood it over time. now, i'm going to make a few general points today, and then i'll take you hopping and skipping through some memorials, movies, novels, and anything else you want to do, and later you can ask questions and tell me what i didn't talk about, and then we can talk about that. first point i want to make and the first generalization is this. we talk about world war ii today, and we talk about it a lot, and in recent years, you watched the pbs series, went out and bought tom brokaw's book, and you all saw and read the works by historians like ambrose and the movies like "saving private ryan," and, in fact, it's been incredible how much world war ii has been with us over the last 15-20 years. the point is this. the way we premarely talk about world war ii today is not the way that the generation that fought the war talked about it in the 1940s and in the 1950s. there's some similarity in the current and contemporary conversation, but there are distinct differences, and i want to look more at those differences today and maybe suggest why those changes and that change have taken place. the other thing that struck me in looking at the way americans remembered the war, not so much the war itself was that there was wide disagreements. there were a lot of issues. that's to be expected. when we talk today, and refer to world war ii as the good war fought by the greatest generation, we sort of minimize and reduce the complexity in all of the various perspectives and attitudes and feelings people had. i mean, what would you expect? you've got 140 million people thrown into the most violent struggle in human history. you think they sat back in 1946 saying we're the greatest generation that fought the good war, or do you think there were issues? in that sort of statement is a historical trajectory or pattern where the complexity becomes narrowed and narrowed and narrowed to a greater extent over time. because we're at the roosevelt library today, i want to say something about franklin roosevelt's place in the public perception and understanding about world war ii because it changed. it changed over time, and because fdr had a very specific argument of why we had to fight worlgd war ii. i'll suggest at the end of the remarks today that we talk and continue to talk much less about roosevelt's specific argument about why the war was necessary than was talked about in the 40s and in the 50s, especially after he died by his widow, eleanor roosevelt. the problem with remembers war, and there are many, but a key problem is this. you need to mobilize power, and you need to engage in massive amounts of state sponsored killing to win a war. that's what report would say in the fog of war. that's what sort of was eluded to earlier in the talk this morning aboutize p hour's a-- eisenhower's approach to the war. you're going to win or lose. if you want to win, fight the fight. that's what we did. that's what we did. if you engage in it and engage in mass killing, you're going to have your own citizens, soldiers, loved ones thinking about whether the cost was worth it, the cost of losing a son, the cost of losing a spouse, an arm, cost of losing a leg. there will be those who stand proudly and say i sack -- sacrificed a body part and did my bit. absolutely. people took pried. they were honored by their sacrifice and others felt the sacrifice was extremely honorable. that was true in the 40s and true today in the global war on terror, but no one sitting here listening to me right now would say that there are those people who don't walk away from the experience with regret. there are not those people who will suffer the rest of their lives whether it's a combat vet, grieving spouse, grieving mother, or a gold star mother. there's always attention in any nation and in this nation throughout the 20th century especially, between a virtuous view of the war, fought the war, did what we had to do, defeated hitler and evil in the world, and god knows if there was evil in the war, but represented in the form of hitler and national socialism, but there were people who didn't so readily by into that memory, that particular story. that struggle and many other issues continues and continues long after the war was over. i would suggest in doing the book there were three main ways in which americans remembered world war ii even as it was fought as they understood it. one was the highly traditional way that it was a war, that the losses were justified, it was necessary, and something that really came out late in the 20th century strongly was that war builds character. that's the essence of the greatest generation in brokaw's book that people came out of the war stronger than they went in building virtue, ethics, they became good hard working people out of that experience. the other version that was prom innocent, especially the 60s was a critical version, or what i call a critical version, and that version didn't accept readily that ail the sacrifice was worth it op our part and that all the killing we had to engage in was necessary. now, we don't hear that a lot today about world war ii. it was widespread especially among those that fought that war. i'll work through the various approaches. you have roosevelt's approach to the war, and franklin roosevelt gave it to the people early on even before pearl harbor and addressed the congress because relative, those of you who know roosevelt in the history know he was thinking quite a bit about hitler's expansion in europe especially and how to stop it. in a time when you also know millions of americans had no interest in all in getting involved. it was the furthest from their mind. roosevelt was on top of it from an early period. in january before pearl harbor, he says if we have to fight, essentially, there's only one way it's justified and that's that we fight and achieve and realize for the entire world the four freedoms. it was a display on the four freedoms down the hallway today in this room. the four freedoms were basically human rights, not just for americans, but every man and woman everywhere. everyone has freedom of speech, freedom of fear, freedom of religion, and freedom from wine. here's a signal of what's coming later. you're not going to read much about freedom from want in ambrose and brokaw. look at classic ways in which world world war ii was remembered or how the humanitarian perspectives play out in american culture over the last 60-70 years actually. the first thing i did when i decided to writes the book was read a memoir or novel about the war that was written by a vet. if you were not a vet, i was not interested. i knew that would've been in the eyes of many people the most authoritarian -- authoritarian, but the most significant authority in many ways upon the war experience. some of you read this, but i threaten college students today that i will make them read "naked of the dead," all 800 pages, and they say, 800 pages? they won't read 200 pages. if you put it on a dvd and 55 minutes, oh, maybe. [laughter] think of the great novels of world war ii. the naked and the dead, the trilogy by james jones. you see them in the movies, broadway plays, ect.. from here to eternity, thin red line, whistler, or we can go on and on. memoirs by william manchester, and you may want to ask me about more late. that's perfectly find. the point in "the naked of the dead," all 800 pages were something like this -- amazed by the fact that americans showed no restraint in their conquest to feed off and killing of the japanese. now, i'm the first to admit japanese shown no restraint in their capacity to kill americans. everyone knows the pacific war was a horror show and a bloody light, but neiler didn't see the war -- he thought absolutely the war was justified against hitler, but not sure against japan and that was an exercise among americans to spread power in the pa sick. you don't have to agree with it. he was a vet. he was there five or six weeks after the atomic bomb. we're not saying the guy's a hero, but that was his take on the war, but he must have thought as he wrote it that it would sell. i don't think the naked of the dead would sell today even if it was 250 pages. it's not a critical approach to the war that would be all that marketable. james jones wrote a trilogy, three novels, from here to eternity. i'm sure you remember the movie, and you remember that, ettle, but if you took the time to read the book and not watch burt chasing deborah -- [laughter] you would find out that that was a book that was sort of critical on an -- what joe says in the book, there was inherent interest in and attraction within the soul of many ordinary people and men in the country towards violence, that boxes match, you know, where frank sinatra gets an eardrum hurt or something like that. while americans were skilled fighters, they also had the potential for violence. that's an important question because if, in fact, violence is innate in us, our national identity, if you will, referring to an earlier talk today, then that makes us less virtuous and less model citizens, vis-a-vis the greatest generation. jones and his third novel "within the red line," also a movie, is the meditation between are we peaceful people or what happens to us when we cross the line into battle and it's violence and war? in joneses' book, we find people attracted to the violence, excited but not everyone, but people want to run away, they want to know part of it, but it's a messier story than a highly traditional patriotic one where everybody wants to defeat the enemy. .. that was jones giving you the tip of an iceberg of how widespread the feeling was that while the war at times was justified, some of the actual decisions by military leaders, u.s. military leaders, was not. and men were often sent into beach landings, and battles, that were not necessary. now, whatever you think out douglas macarthur. you want to go visit -- he is down in virginia, and he has -- his body is down there. whatever you think of macarthur -- a lot of people loved macarthur. but if you do the truman library and read the letters when truman removed macarthur from korea, people say, how could you do that? but you will see thousands of letters saying, thank god you got rid of a guy who didn't have the best interests of his men at heart. what only interested in the glory of the war and made decisions that resulted in more casualties than were. in i'm not saying that's -- that macarthur's decisions were wrong. i'm giving you a perspective of the decisions from the men who fought under him, and it was mixed. if eisenhower had run against macarthur for president in the '50s, who do you think would have won? eisenhower. eisenhower had a reputation for being somewhat considerate and empathic tornado the faith of the guys he was sending into battle and macarthur did not. so we get this messy issue about, were they mistreated by the government, or by the military, and it's all true. jones' novel. now, freedom, is it forgotten? the nicked and the dead you read 800 pages, convinced that 'freedoms are not going to happen and america is more interested in power and influence in the world than bringing democracy or human rights to everybody. in james mitcher in, we can always go somewhere and see the south pacific. always being reproduced in some film. but those who have seen the movie south pacific, what is mitcher in talking about there? he is giving you a story of a woman who is reluctant -- army nurse who is -- navy nurse who is reluctant to mary a man in the south pacific because he has had mixed race children. the story of another american lieutenant who wants to marry a native girl and there's opposition to that. that's his way. and it's entertaining, mitch north america's tales of the south america in 1946 was his way of saying the world was about human rights, and this specific case ending racial bias and white supremacy in the united states. but the artists won't say that. they tell you a story to convey that. so michner is conveying roosevelt's interpretation of world war ii. i'm not going to talk much about the movies today. because that would take all of the program to do that. let's talk about the memorial. now, you have gone to see the world war ii memorial in washington. you see the arches, the victory arch in the atlantic, the victory arch in the pacific. 400,000 american dead but they're represent by gold stars. so you don't get the griping, the trauma, you get gold stars. that's the view of the war but it's not in the only view and was it the only view among those who fought the war in the are 40s and are 50s. when i was kid in school we had covers on the school textbooks and they always had a rendition of the iwo jima memorial in washington. there you have these marines fused together in bronze, matsive statue, raising the american flag in a victorious battle on iwo jima as the marched towards the destruction of the japanese empire. but there's no trauma in the iwo jima memorial, just at there's no trauma in the world war ii memorial there's no grief. think about this. one third of all marines that died in world war ii, died on iwo jima. one-third, and the memorial to iwo jima convey no sign of death. okay. you know who didn't want to go to the dedication ceremonies in 1954? eisenhower. he didn't want to go because he knew that it didn't adequately convey the suffering of the men on iwo jima. it's not that he was against honoring those that sacrificed and died. he was saying don't do it without honoring the price they paid, and that wasn't done. so he went, stayed ten minutes and left. now, what i'm about to tell you, you may take in a humorous or cynical way but the person he sent there to say through the whole ceremony was his vice president, nixon. so, he -- i don't know if he sent nixon because he didn't care what nixon doesn't or didn't like nixor, although we heard earlier today he sort of accepted nixon and didn't think much about him as a vice presidential candidate. but think about what i just said about the world war ii memorial and the iwo jima memorial and their presentation and remembrance of the honor of the victory, and their determined effort to'm face, eradicate the tragic losses of the war, the grief, the suffering, and the sorrow. you get the patriotism but not the ruins that was left behind. that glows all of these things. that's what we saw in the novels we just talked about. here's two other memorials i'll tell you about. these you never hear about, and there's many more. when i was writing the book, and it dawned on me fairly early that there was sort of a story brewing in new mexico, and i wanted to find out more about it. and i got that idea in the first instance when i went -- when i heard the story, read the story, of a man named manuel armigio. he was a veteran of battan. fought the japan in the fill peer. then he gets up on the morning of the day that americans surrendered at battan, several years later. he walks from his modest house in santa fe and lowers the american flag and raises a white flag of surrender. and, look, he was a humble guy. not going to make it on any talk shows and not going to -- and nobody is going to be paying that much attention to him. he can't forget the loss. he can't forget all his buddies left behind who died either at battan, or as he was, died in japanese prison camps. he was a prisoner of war. he had nightmares for the rest of this life. he would wake up screaming for the rest of his life in the middle of the night. he would not accept a version of world war ii that was a good war without talking about the fact that he lost some of his best friends. if you were to spend your next summer vacation motoring through new mexico, you would find memorials to bat tan everywhere because when battan fell, macarthur was gone, ordered to out australian. half of the nearly 2,000 national guards men who had been sent from new mexico were captured behind enemy lines or kid. they were on the death march of japan or end up in prisonerred of war in japanese camps, and the memory of the war in new mexico is dominated by the tragedy of that loss. so you go to these local towns like denning, or santa fe or albuquerque. they don't build memorials like you see in washington or the ejohjima to the good war withouts loss. they focus on the tragedy and loss. and armigio was extremely angered by. he met truman once and said, i'm glad you dropped that atomic bomb. he was interested in the killing because they were interested in re venge. doesn't many they were wrong but that's what he felt. about two years later i went down to alexandria, louisiana, got off the interstate. i knew what was going on there historically. and drove down lee street. in 1942, lee street was the center of the african-american community in alexandria. and as you heard in the talk earlier today, last was a huge place for military base during the war. thousands of trooped trained there, so on saturday night in 1942, what the hell do you took these people are doing some they're celebrating and relaxing and having a good time. but the white soldiers party in one section of town, the black soldiers party in another section of town, and a riot breaks out in the black section, some people say because of police brutality and police were doing something. hard to know exactly what happened. but we know how it was resolved. military mps and the louisiana state police around a ten-block area around lee street and just started shooting. just opened up. the black community said you killed 30 black soldiers. the government said, we didn't kill anybody but 28 or 30 black soldiers were wounded bet butt we took care of them and they're fine. the black community said you embalmed the bodies, got them out of town and nobody knew the difference. that debate still goes on today. they remember the controversy over whether black soldiers were killed by the government and louisiana state police as much as or more than they remember the good war by the greatest generation, although there are blacks in alexandria are quite proud of having a mural on one of the buildings on lee seat of one of their own that became a tuskegee airman. but on lee street there's a big wreath of flowers so, so when i met the members and talked to the members of the african-american community in alexandria who lived in that area at the time, i said, what's that wreath about? they said that's anna compton's wreath. she was a black woman every year would take a wreath there because she was alive and comet ratehe war. how? by comet rating the black soldiers she knew were killed regardless of what the government said. i saw letters for years after that back and forth with the defense department and everything. civil rights activists in alex san dria, arguing for more disclosure of what happened and the government saying, nothing happened in terms of death in my opinion it was never resolved one way or the other. the point is when you look at localities where people suffered and died, either suffered from race simple, from trauma, grief, post traumatic stress syndrome, the war is not so good. and the generation is great but not so great. it's a mixed up mess. public memorials in washington are designed in part to affirm certain truths. the noble victory, i absolutely maintain, over especially national socialic. but to erase, deface, eradicate or marginalize all the suffering and trauma and grieving. and so, when i began my talk i send at the end let's say something about roosevelt. other. 's take on the good war was that we can -- the suffering is only justified if we extend human rights to all the world. because we're all human beings. but as americans look at everyone the same as all human beings, then we sort of can't see ourselves as better. the greatest. we have to see ourselves as all human beings, who all deserve human rights. the united nations declaration of human rights in 1948 was a declaration that all human rights have -- all humans have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want. even talk about 49, god forbid out human beings had the right to health care but we won't touch that. so, what you don't get in the debate between whether it was patriotic or whether we should remember the grief and tragedy you get a slighting of human rights. you can't fiend more than a half a dozen memorials to the four freedoms in america. you can't find men. you'll get either the patriotic victory or the suffering i described in louisiana or numb but you don't get a lot of human rights, and in all the talk and celebration of the greatest generation, as model citizens of the good war, about ambrose' books about men going in and being excited for fighting for a cause larger than themselves, et cetera in all of that rhetoric that we have seen in our own times, we get very little of roosevelt. where is fdr? everyone -- any of you fdr know that when he died in '43, -- '45, this country was dumbstruck. it was saddened. they had a connection with their leader. men cried in foxholes and on ships. people cried in the streets. maybe some of you heard arthur godfrey of the funeral march in washington. godfrey is crying forgot's sake, he said fdr stood for the little guy so he could get a fair shake and people cried because they knew that he stood for the g.i. bill. and social security. and for government playing an active role in helping people get by. and have human rights. but the greatest generation's celebration wasn't about government playing a role in your life. it was about individuals who had what it took, who joined the service, fight the good fight do feet evil in the world and build a great country. there's truth in some of that but what is efaced here, and marginalized, is that mid-century progressive thought, which where roosevelt was at the center of a political experiment, was a government that played and had major responsibilities for your welfare and could help you. that idea became increasingly under attack after 1945. and as it did, so did roosevelt himself in his ideas began to be pushed aside from the public celebration and understanding of world war ii. so, if you go to washington the next time go to the world war ii memorial, fine. you go to the iwo jima memorial, fine. you won't see the tragedy. you'll see the triumph. if you want to go to a memorial dedicated in 1997 where people are standing in breadlines and crying in the street because their president died, and where the president's wife is seatedder in the inscriptions of the four freedoms, you have to go to the side of the tidal baseston see the roosevelt roosevelt -- the roosevelt memorial. we haven't forgotten. it's still there the next time you talk bout and think about the good war and the greatest generation, those are ideases that came after 60 to 70 years of struggle, struggle over what? what the war but what the war meant. and the more we moved away from the '40s and that time when americans had a sense they were together fighting not only for the defeat of estill in the world but for the four freedoms and government to play a role in their economic welfare, the more we moved away from that, the more we got world war ii as the good war won by the greatest generation. happy to take questions. thank you. [applause] >> my question is how the -- when did the good war become part of our culture and how were all the other wars that we fought after world war ii -- how did that influence calling it "the good war." >> that's an excellent question. i would give you an a-plus if you were in a classes but you probably got a-pluses all the time. your question goes into another important area. when did it become the good war? first of all, the obvious answer there is that it became more of a good war, et cetera, in the aftermath of vietnam when they looked to find sort of this virtues side of the identity after a war that you all know was very controversial without getting into all the stuff. the good war does impart sort of an anecdote to the legacy of vietnam. i also think it was also -- it really exploded in the 1990s because it came in the aftermath of the colored war, and i think the cold war reminded us we could win long-term struggles because i think we felt that we won the colored war, ronald reagan actually won the cold war, et cetera, some people would say. i think that's part of it. here's the point i want to stress and i stress in the book. the debate between whether good war/bad war in a sense was there right from the beginning. until armigio lowers the flag in accept the in 1946, he is also raising questions about any war being a good war. so, in the way we understand is, the victory in the world bar and the aftermath of vietnam drive this. the fact that veterans start dying off. people want to show to gratitude for another generation but as a historian it has a history and there was always a struggle, which i think is resolved more favorably in terms of the good war in the aftermath of vietnam and the cold war. thank you. >> i was always a little curious why world war ii in many respected eclipsed in terms of literature and everything else, the previous earlier global struggle, world war i, where at the time president woodrow wilson, who is always fdrs former boss when he was assistant secretary of the navy, he sai he actually used the expression -- the world must be made safe for democracy in that case against the kaiser, whereas franklin roosevelt roosevelt would say we must be the great arsenal of democracy, in that indication against mussolini and hitler and tojo. i was curious about that. >> another good question. are you a literary major or read the novels of world war i and world war ii? >> i've read 0 few of them. >> let me recommend it to anybody. it's fascinating experience. because in fact the world war i generation, hemingway, for example, that's a generation that perfects the idea of a war novel. they get and it the perfect this sort of novel that's critical of war, critical on a lot of different levels. so there is really not a lot of difference between the critical attitude of world war i novels and world war ii novels except if you read -- but by pearl harbor, on the eve over pearl harbor, world war i is not a good enemifully american lymph you may know that. roosevelt and others who want to move abuse a position to challenge hitler have to get over the opposition to us going into europe again, chase legacy of world war i and the re-affirmation of isolationism, and they have to get over the bad tastes in people's mound and mind because there's this idea we were led into world war i by dupont and we didn't get anything out of and it all these novels and films, silent movies are great on the 20s about being critical of world war i, and so world were 2 surpasses that in a sense because it gives us another event so we have to mobilize our patriotism in ways that was being demobilized by the memory of world war i. if there wasn't anybody patriotic, world war i was seen increasingly less as a a patriotic war the closer we get '40s. if you look at movies during the '40s in world war ii, everybody supports the war and nobody suffers. my favorite world war ii movie was tepider comrade, where ginger rogers gets the news her husband is dead and might fall apart. she talks to her young son. you had the greatest dad you ever had. he created for you the best world you can ever have and she says, you know, i got to get on with my life, and that was the message to all women and everybody grieve, buck up, forget it, get on with your life, et cetera. armigio doesn't accept that in accept the, even though the movies are saying they should so that sort of massive amount of cultural expression to support world war ii even pushes both the negative and positive aspects aspects of world war i to the side. >> going to ask you a question. can you talk about the kind of the gun a position of the starkness of the vietnam memorial and the korean war memorial versus kind of the hero simple of the world war ii memorial and seems leak the world war ii memorial reclaims the heroics of american soldiers and korea and vietnam memorials reflect something different? >> i think it's been harder in american life to build a war memorial that forgets the suffering, at least of our soldiers. we're not going to really commemorate the suffering of the enemy, although clint eastwood does in the letters from iwo jima. bought heroic memorial would be like the iwo jima memorial or the world war ii memorial, where the vietnam memorial lifting $58,000 is a direct contradiction to that because it refuses to be consoled by patriotic rhetoric and refuses to let go of the fact that people suffered and died. now, you can say it was honorable but it won't let it go the heroic memorials want to gloss it over or not mention it at all. after vietnam it's harder to have -- to forget the individual suffering. so korea is a little bit more like that because you got these sort of silhouettes or figures of these soldiers moving through a field and they look like they could get nittany time and it's a little in between -- not heroic, certainly not so much graphically 'directed toward death, but it sort of is resisting the heroics, but the point i tried to make in my talk today -- and i could do more or this -- did the memorials in alexandria or santa fe show that the world war ii slenation, before vietnam vietnam, that were nonheroic memorials and i can give you memorials in omaha and rifled, awe the names of the dead in the '50s. so i can't say, won't say that vietnam changes everything. it just helps shift the public's perception but that battle is going on even beautiful vietnam. et cetera. so, you have a lot of grief in war, let alone where people carry in their own private lives. >> seems the memorials might be different because, well, world war ii, the outcome was clear. we won. korean war, the outcome is a little bit different. had to draw a line. the outcome in vietnam was much different. we got out. >> that's absolutely a good point and it's right. definitely you can remember war from memorials, threw patriotic very few forget the trade you want. that solves a lot. again i go back to the point, however, that even with world war ii, before vietnam, we are arguing, we're dueling memorialsing i didn't get into v.a.s politics or other issues here. so even though we won the war, there was wide disagreement. john hershey, whose book on hiroshima in 1946, interviews some of the japanese who surveilling the consequences. the best seller in '46. in 1994 the smithsonian can't mount an exhibit showing japanese suffering. but in '46. we'll at least think about it. i'm not taking a position even on truman. right or wrong. i'm saying that the public had a broader perspective and a more sort of -- more cross-currents in the way we saw world war ii in the '4s so than then 1990s where we were reluctant to look at a critical appraisal ol' of the war. >> the one thing i'm missing is what happened to the abyss in the sense of nothingness and all the books which have memorials of their own in their own way, of the meaninglessness and the astonishment that came from all the deaths in the second world war, from all the honors of hitler, for the bomb, this seems to be completely -- this thing seems to be completely absent in the discussion we're having now. >> so you didn't read the book. [laughter] you get a b-plus. >> i talk a little bit about that, and i think by the way your point is a very good point and you could say more. i did talk about this. there was an attitude here and throughout the world, coming out of world war ii that where in the hell are we going with our future? okay, we won. the good guys won and the bad guys lost. japan germany. the americans and allies, fine. but what about the larger implication that man, whether they were american or german, had such tremendous capacity to kill masses amounts of people? that's your point. that's the abyss, et cetera. you want to read more about that? read the work right after the war of america's probably greatest theologian at the time, and read what wieber says about the irony of the american remembrance of the war and his point is this. we're very good at talking about our victories victories victorif our victory and he was absolutely in favor of destroying hitler and now we know he had to be destroyed. but he says we have no willingness to talk about -- this is his word now -- our own wickedness. we, too have the capacity for mass killing, and in that we begin to see the beginnings and part of that debate about how good this war really was. good question. [applause] [applause] >> thank you for that most generous introduction. franklin roosevelt never spent a day in uniform in his entire life. he -- prior to becoming president, however, even before he was stricken by polio, he had a strong interest in military matters. as a kid, he had hoped that he would be able to attend the u.s. naval academied a annapolis, but his doting mother couldn't bear the thought of long separation from her only child. in 1912, president woodrow wilson named fdr as the assistant secretary of the navy, which fulfilled simultaneously two roles that meant a great deal to him. expressed his love of the sea, and his continuing interest in military matters. now, in 1917, the united states goes to war. fdr goes to see woodrow wilson and tells him he wants to resign his post and he wants to be in uniform. wilson said, no, you're doing important job where you are. nevertheless, by 1918, when roosevelt -- when the united states is deeply involved in world war i, he is determined to get to the western front, and against the resistance of his boss, the navy secretary, daniels, manages to get to france, and there he adopted -- he vaguely military looking uniforms of his own devising. he wears khaki pants tucked into leather boots, long military jacket, french army helmet and a gas mask strung around his neck. by the time fdr -- by the time world war ii breaks out, in september of 1939, roosevelt is commander in chief of an army that ranks somewhere between portugal and bulgaria. he is commander in chief of an army that trains with trucks marked "tank" and whose soldiers train with hand grenades substituted with eggs. by the time the war has been underway for a number of months, britain is pretty much with its back to the wall. the low countries, belgium, france, denmark, norway, have been conquered by the germans and the invasion of britain seems imminent. roosevelt is determined to try to do something to help the british. and his own hook he comes up with a plan to give the british 50 old american destroyers. and in return the british will give us a number of atlantic military bases. the bases are of no great value to us but they justify our giving navy warships to the british. british fortunes continue rather unfortunate in december of 1940. churchill tells fdr frankly, my country is broke. and so roosevelt again tries to think of what he can do to bolster the british. he is out on a cruiser tuscaloosa, on presumably a recreational voyage, where he is sunning himself and he is playing cards and he is watching old movies. in the meantime, he is hatching an idea. when he is back in washington, at a press conference, he makes this analogy. he said, if your neighbor's house is on fire, -- mening of course britain -- you don't offer to sell him your garden hose. you offer to loan him your garden hose. thus was born the concept of lend-lease through which the united states, before going into the war itself, began providing tens of millions of dollars of arms so that british could stay in the game. much to his delight, when the brits sent their first shopping list under lend-lease 0 to the united states they asked for 900,000 feet of hose. [laughter] >> and the summer of 1941, adolph hitler invades soviet union and roosevelt now stretches lend-lease to include the russians as well. at about that time he calls in his secretary of war, henry stimson and the asks for an atlas, and he takes a pencil and runs it down the middle of the atlantic, between the bulge of brazil and the bulge of west africa, and he declares everything to the west of that line is part of the western hemisphere, and an chance of the hems fear that would have shocked james madison who came up with the monroe doctrine. deed, under fdrs interpretation, iceland and greenland, which are 2,000 miles from the american coast, are now part of the western hemisphere as much as boston or rio de janeiro. he then determines that this seas have to be defended. and again, he goes before the press and he says, if a rattle snake is poised to strike, you don't wait until i strikesup crush it before hand. what he means in effect is that american warships will go after german vessels who are in these waters that he is now declared the part of the western hemisphere. this becomes known as the shoot on sight policy. what he has done, he has declared an undeclared war against germany on the high seize the atlantic -- on the high seas of the it theric. by the -- on the atlantic. by the time of pearl harbor, roosevelt has seized the levers of american control of the american military as no president since abraham lincoln in the civil war. he revels in this role and is as comfortable as the old beatup fedora he wore as his trademark hat. at one point he is to introduced at an event by the secretary of state. he tells hall, don't introduce me as president today. introduce me as commander-in-chief. and this role he assumed three major positions. first of all, as recruiter in chief. fining -- finding the people who could lead the armed forces and win the world. the second role he assumed was strategist in chief. how to fight the war. the third was the morale officer in effect, mobilizing morale in the united states to keep americans supporting that war until its successful conclusion. and in his first role is recruiter in chief, he proved a pretty good judge of horse flesh. one of his major appointments to run the army what general george c. marshall. marshall found out early what it was like to deal with roosevelt, very dominant personality. he had been warned how to handle fdr. but in an early cabinet meeting where roosevelt presented plan for enlarging the nascent air force at that period, marshall thought he was going too quickly. and he stood up to roosevelt and said, no. that's not the way to go. now, marshall's comrades in arms warned him this is a good way to get yourself assigned to a position in guam, but -- [laughter] >> but fdr regarded yes-men as a dime a dozen, and he was very impressed by the way that general marshall stood up to him. general marshall in effect, becomes roosevelt's stout oak through to the end of the war. now, everybody -- well, let me mention one other point about marshal. roosevelt had a conviction that he could seduce anybody with his charm. so, in the early days when he is dealing with george marshall, he starts addressing him as george. the displeasure is evidence on mar val's face and throughout the association he is general marshall. everybody assumed when the time came to invade western europe and liberate nazi dominated europe, the commander in chief of the allied forces would be general george c. marshall. churchill assumed as much. stalin tsunamid as -- assumed as much. so did mrs. marshal who was packing their household goods. instead, fdr picked dwight d. eisenhower to be the supreme commander. he did so because he had observed eisenhower functioning in north africa and in other venues and he decided that eisenhower was the best political general and the best sense of that word in that eisenhower had the talent to pull together strong egos, dominating personalities, who led other nations and who led the armed forces of other nations. the recruiter in chief chose to run the nave, admiral ernest king in many ways, ernie king was a terrible human being. we he was ewassible, impatient, difficult him leadership policy was to praise his people in private and chew them out in public. his daughter once remarked her father was the most even-tempered man she had ever known. he was always mad. [laughter] >> in mid-1942, the number of losses of allied ships at see in the atlantic was horrifying, something like four a day. much faster than ships were being launched. and roosevelt in this role displays his leadership. he has confidence in king. he thinks of king as a fighter, but he launched the ships crossing -- wants the ships on the atlantic protected bay convoy system. he feels king is drag his feet and he orders him, adopt a convoy system, protect the ships as they cross the atlantic. this is adopted and ship losses start to fall sharply. the recruiter in chief chooses to run the air force, general henry happ arnold. in the early days of aviation, hap arnold learned fly from the wright brothers. an arnold also runs into the strong personality that franklin roosevelt exhibits. roosevelt wanted to send more aircraft to france and england before france was defeated. arnold thought he was going a little fast on this. roosevelt said, without naming names, he was not pleased with people who didn't go along. people who didn't play ball with him. and poor hap arnold finds himself, as soon as he cracked the inner circle, out in the cold. no explanation, frozen out of future meetings of the joint chiefs. looks like he is headed for an assign independent guam. then just as inexplicably, after nine months in the doghouse, roosevelt brings him back in, and now he and ernie king and george marshall are being very strongly urged by fdr to come up with some way to strike at japan because in the early months of the war we have the horrendous attack on pearl harbor. we are losing the philippines, guam, and wake island have been taken. so, roosevelt leans on these people, show some imagination. how can we strike at the japanese? so, king and hap arnold get together as respective chiefs of the navy and the air force, and they go to their staffs looking for ideas and come up with an idea. and this eventually becomes known as the dolittle raid, named of jimmy dolittle, in which 16b-25 bombers performed the formidable feat of taking off -- theser big, heavily leaded bombers -- in a rough sea they take off of the deck of the a carrier, the u.s. ss hornet, and they strike citiesed in japan, tokyo and other cities. the damage they inflict are pinpricks. but this was just the shot in the arm that the american people needed in the first months of the war, and it allowed roosevelt to say, we are striking back. another figure very dramatic, theatrical in roosevelt's leadership group was douglas macarthur. douglas macarthur and roosevelt had been associated at the beginning of the roosevelt presidency. macarthur auld seemed to exhibit a peevish resentment against fdr no doubt a degree of jealousy. but fdr never abandoned macarthur. he recognized him as a military genius, and in 1935, macarthur left active duty and got himself cushy job. he went to the philippines as advise for military services sed became a field marshal in the philippine army, a rank no american general received. he is paid $33,000 a year. which at that point was four times as much as general marshal was being paid to run the entire u.s. army. in 1941, before -- again, before -- after pearl harbor. war looks imminent. fdr calls macour their back to active duty and gives him command of all american forces and all philippine forces in the islands. in those early months of the war, macarthur is losing the philippines, being driven back, down the peninsula and he could have been left there, in fact dwight eisenhower believes that this theatrical dramatic, almost historianic american soldier, should be left in the philippines as he is going down to defeat to enjoy his martyrdom. but again, roosevelt comes to macarthur's defense. he has macarthur rescued from the philippines, has him flown to australia and makes him commander of all allied -- all american forces in the southwest pacific. the war starts to go reasonably well after the battle of mid-way. we're moving across the' pacific from guadal canal. and macarthur made the fledge the philippine people, shoal return. that is pressuring roosevelt to approve an invasion to lib rate the philippines. the naveis dead set against this, admiral king and the pacific commander, admiral nimitz, they believe by continue thing leap-frogging across the pacific, japan can be surrounded and can be economically strangled which obviates the need for an invasion which would result in a blood bath on niche odd the japanese islands. but macour thunder, again, brazen individual, warns fdr. at it an elect year. roosevelt is running for a fourth term, and he warns if roosevelt does not approve the liberation of the philippine people, this is going to cost him the election. well, whether it was that rope or a combination of other reasons, roosevelt again comes to macarthur's defense and approves the invasion of the philippines, which is very costly and which historians have said in general it was not a necessary campaign. we have another general in tdr's orbit who can match the historianics and theatrics of macarthur and that's general george s. patton. patton impressed roosevelt from the outset but he was capable of extraordinarily bad behavior. at one point, people in the united states are clamoring for his scalp after it becomes public knowledge that patton slapped two shell-shocked g.i.s in a sis -- sicilian campaign. roosevelt stuck with him. patton is in inning lend as preparations are made for d-day and he makes a speech in which he says the post world war war will we run by the united states and britain, which leaves out our ally, the soviet union. roosevelt sticks with him after this creates a storm of controversy. i think the most eagree egregious matter that patton engaged in was the following. he as the allied army swept across europe, he sent a unit of american g.i.s to rescue a single prisoner in a german pow camp, his son-in-law. the raid was carried out. the son-in-law was rescued. and a number of americans died in the course of rescuing patton's son-in-law. but still, roosevelt sees patton as the brilliant tactician he is, and he is a fighter, and under last personal encounter together, fdr, after they meet, writes a note for his archives that says, george patton is a joy. now, roosevelt will, as a commander in chief in selecting these people to fight the war, is nowhere near the military meddler that winston churchill is. churchill fired generals left and right. the team that roosevelt picked was in place from the beginning of the war respectively running the farmy and the navy and the airfest and they're still in place at the end of the war. i mention that his second role as commander in chief was as strategist in chief. making the major decisions as to how the war will be fought. now, one of the very first decisions he makes is that germany must be defeated first. he believes this because he is convinced that the defeat of germany will bring about the defeat of japan, but that the defeat of japan will not bring about the defeat of germany. now, in winning this victory against germany, his chief advisers, beginning with marshall, eisenhower, who is then in the war plans division, and other major figures, very clearly support an invasion across the english channel, builds up a huge force in great britain, sends them across the channel and then run the essentially flat 500-miles to berlin. marshal presents the president with a plan for this strategy. roosevelt appears to approve it. then much to everyone's surprise he instead approves an invasion of north africa. as he makes this rather shocking decision, eisenhower declares it as the blackest day in history. and if we compare the north african campaign with geography of europe, the fighting which went on from the coast of casa blanca through tunisia was a hundred miles and why did fdr buck his commanders on major decisions. here we have to turn with winston churchill. churchill saw the mediterranean as the lifeline of the british empire. he wanted control gained and retained over it. churchill gave lip service the idea of an invasion across the english channel but he and his military oddry pooh-poohed it. the shipping languages were too language from the united states to great britain, american troops were untested, unseasoned, too early to go up against the germans. the summer of '42, "time magazine" taunted the president, saying, we've been in this war for over six months and have yet to take an inch of territory from the germans or launch a single offensive. so roosevelt becomes convinced he has to put american troops at war against germany somewhere, and he goes along with churchill's pressure to do it in north africa. well, general marshall makes clear that the plan that had been devised and that the president presumably approved, which was for an invasion of western europein' 1943, is finished for now. you invade north africa. you're not going to be able to mount an invasion from britainin' 1943. you have to put it off. before that, north african campaign is even over, churchill is again pressing for fdr to approve the invasion of sicily. and then italy. again, george marshall calls at it such pump, pulling resources from the other parts of the war. after the war, a military analyst wrote a book called the great mistakes of world war ii and he cites this italian campaign as a great mistake, as salisbury put it, all roads led to rome, and rome led nowhere. perhaps the most stunning strategic decision that fdr made occurred at the casa blanca conferencin' 1943 when he said that the end of the war against germany and the end of the war against japan must end in unconditional surrender. he took this position because he had been on the escape in world war ii as assistant secretary of the navy, and the armistice that ended that war was essentially a negotiated armistice, and within a generation the german military had come roaring back, starting another world war. this time roosevelt wanted to see the enemy brought to its knees with no doubt about the totality of the victory. winston churchill had mixed feelings about unconditional surrender. so did joseph stalin, the nazi propaganda minister joseph good-les was delighted with it. he said to the german people, what choice now do we have to fight the bitter end to this day the wisdom only of of up conditional surrender is still debated and very heavily criticized in certain quarteres. that raises the question. if you're going to have a negotiated surrender rather than unconditional surrender, who do you negotiate with in the fact that is too often you're looked is that to the very end of the war, adolph hitler remained in power. himler remained in power, girls remained in power and the idea we would negotiate an to end the war with these people was unthinkable. another strategic decision that roosevelt took upon himself. we all know he was urge ode by einstein, albert einstein, to do something about the destructive power of the atom, and roosevelt launched the manhattan project. the use of atomic weapons was admittedly horrifying. when the first bomb was dropped, probably 70,000 people died on the spot. similar loss of life when three days later another bomb was dropped on nagasaki. at the same time, the united states had been thinking of attacking japan with atomic weapons, an invasion of japan was being mounted. land invasion. and estimated were that if you had to go to the land invasion route, maybe a half a million american lives would be lost. and even looking at it from the standpoint of the japanese, the japanese had showed a willingness to take horrific casualtiness the campaigns. ... >> these fire side chats over the radio were listened to by tens of millions of americans, and, for example, one instance, he urged americans to come up with a map to follow him as he explained how the war was fought, what the strategy was, pull them into a sense of involvement into the conflict. as a home front leader, he liberalized american society. as follows, he created the wax, the women's army corp., allowing women to participate meaningfully in the war. same in the knave veigh with -- nay navy, and what little was done was done at the instigation of his wife, eleanor roosevelt. busses on military bases were desegregated. american blacks could join the white marines. why was he so slow in this arena? at this period, the congress was controlled by segregationists, southern senators and congressmen who maintained control over the major congressional committees. roosevelt needed these people not only to advance his policies for fighting the war, but in continuing his domestic policies. he had a propaganda chief by the name of elmer davis who ran the office of war information. he brought another home front issue before the president. he said i think the american people should know what war is like. prior to this, the policy was to forbid journalist, photographers, cameramen from showing dead americans, but roosevelt was persuaded that the american people had a right to know and went along with him, and so the policy was reversed, and the first instance of it was in "life" magazine in september of 1943, there was a graphic, full page picture of american bodies bobs in the surf in a far off beach. thereafter, under the new policy, american dead were shown in newsreels and photographs and other instances, but now after this policy was adopted, war bond sales went up. enlistments went down. [laughter] roosevelt's greatist initiative as morale officer in chief was the gi bill. what he wanted is when american troops went home after the war, took off their uniforms,mented them to know that they had not been forgotten. now, before the war, something like 5% of americans had gone on to college, and after the war, of the 16 million americans inup form, almost half advantage of the gi bill to either get a harvard degree or to learn how to repair. many who would have gone back to clerking, cutting hair, and pumping gas, through the gi bill were able to become physicians, physicists, teachers, lawyers, and they were propelled by the millions into the american middle class. no human sacrifices, and the united states fought from the beaches of nomandy to the middle of the pacific ocean described as the good war cost over $60 million lives worldwide from 300,000 lives lost in a tiny country like the netherlands to 21 million in the soviet union. fdr stood at the vortex of the configuration in the roles that i have described, the ultimate test of the leadership is did it hasten the end of the war, or did it delay it? clearly, his willingness to go along in the invasion of north africa delayed d-day by a year and very likely extended the year by about a year. it's still controversial, but one thing that i think is too often overlooked is this, is when the japanese and germans surrendered, unconditional surrendered, defeated totally, what did they do in the post world war? they both came back as democracies, strong allies of the united states. another phase of leadership that roosevelt conducted, and i think this is not sufficiently recognized. he picked an energetic, ambitious, brilliant people who could mobilize american industrial might producing more planes, ships, tanks than any other economy which i think is decisive in winning the victory. he led the war effort, in pain at the time, and after his dead, winston churchill said no man in a million could have achieved the greatness that fdr achieved given his physical limitations. by the time of his death, essentially, all of his victories had been won. germany was soon defeated. a few months later, japan was defeated. his role in the war can only be described as heroic. all americans and all liberty loving people were blessed that when a giant was needed, fdr emerged, and he ranks with the immortals. he ranks with washington, lincoln as a great commander in chief in a time of war. thank you, all. [applause] >> folks, if you want to line up here, he'll answer questions for 10 mitches -- minutes, and then we'll go to the lobby to sign books. >> thank you very much. that was a great presentation. i look forward to the book coming out. i'm on a fourth role that he had, and that's the role of a parent. he had three sons in the military, all son combat at one time or another. james was with carl ton's raiders in the pacific, but it amazes me with all that he had to deal with the military commanders, the economy, everything to run the war, when did he have time to be concerned about the kids? >> good point. that made the war more real to fdr and to their mother, eleanor. as a matter of fact, you mentioned three. there are four sons, all in the military, all had brilliant military records. she learns of the death of her husband, and sends a telegram to all four sons and says pa brought to the end just as i know all of you will. any other questions? yes, sir? >> i was just curious, clearly, it was important to the ally victory under roosevelt, but i was curious at the end of 1941, prior to pearl harbor and hitler declaring war on us, reasons a lot of people speculate as to why he did that, while the allied position at the time, especially with the british and the russians, it was clear that hitler didn't see these two major warring powers, and so i was always curious if america ever entered the war at all, or just as, like, kind of a belligerent, land lease, protect the convoys or convoys protect merchant ships. could britain, russia, and canada have defeated the powers? >> talking about the western ally. had the united states not entered the war, you probably today would have been saying deutscheland, but russia was in the war, and the one thing we overlook from our vantage point was they carried the brunt of the war. roosevelt bent over backwards to please stalin because he recognized that for every american killed in the war, eight russian soldiers died, and for every german we killed, the russians kill eight. i think the russians likely would have continued to fight germany and they might have been successful. any others? >> this is a "what if" type of question, but what if fdr lived beyond the war. would we still have the same type of backlash in the congress, try to accuse everybody as being russian sympathizers and communists? remember in the warrings we had mission to moscow and other pro-soviet film. >> roosevelt is still criticized for performance. when george bush was president, he attacked fdr on the score that he had given away eastern europe which is ridiculous because at the time of the this, roosevelt's key interest was getting the russians to come into the war against japan. that was his priority. as far as giving away eastern europe, the russian army at that point was huge. they occupied these territories. they occupied poland, the baltics, and the only way to have kept russia out of those territories was to launch which would have been world war iii, and nobody was calling for that at that time. >> able to counter the mccarthyism? >> well, that's another question. >> yeah. >> it's hard to say. he was a defender of freedoms and obviously mccarthy was the antithesis of free expression, but that's a what if that's impossible to answer. anybody else? >> i was wondering op d-day, they landed on the shore in front of the german guns and the bunkers and so many people died. a lot of people have asked why didn't they just bomb them in the bunkers and come behind the bunkers rather than landing them sitting ducks like that? >> well, war is a perverse business. there was massive, massive bombing of germans. some was inaccurately aimed, didn't hit anybody. as far as the major jeer mapp cities, which would have provided support and strength, we leveled them one at a time. i don't know that we could have been more complete in the extermination of the german defenders. we did as well as we could, but war is a difficult, unpredictable business. i'll throw this in. of all of the bombs we dropped on either germany or german occupied europe, over a third of them were duds and never did anything. any other questions? >> where the final decision made to drop the bomb previously, japanese commanders of the prisoner of war camps with over 60,000 prisoners kept on the philippines are threatening that the moment we land in japan, those prisoners would be killed. do you think that played an active part in not considering whether or not to drop the bomb, but to drop the bomb to save our soldiers? >> well, i think that roosevelt would very clearly have dropped the bomb. you raise another reason why he would have done so, and i want to point this out what i found fascinating. there's been speculation that the bomb was used against japan as a racial argument that we wouldn't have done it anywhere else. well, in the battle of the bulge, where the united states lost 19,000 men killed, roosevelt called in general leslie groves who ran the manhattan project, and he said i want to use the bomb against germany. they said we're not ready yet, but to answer the question, i hope roosevelt would have been persuaded by the kind of fact that you just described. anyone else? >> i think that's it, joe, and we can continue the conversation out in the lobby. >> host: how many brain cells do we have? >> guest: good question. we used to think 100 billion. that number hung around for ages. it's in all the textbooks, but then a couple years ago, a young neurono , ma'am mist in brazil asked how many brain cells people who thought we had, and where we got that number from, and everybody, of course, wrote back 100 billion and also wrote bag i have no idea where the number comes from, but it's in the books. she developed a new method of counting brain cells. you can count anything that's several temperatures of billions, but she developed a new method which is interesting, and she recounted them and found there were only 80 billion. now, i mean, that's an order of magnitude okay so it's not a big difference, but the larger difference might have been we thought we had ten times as many packing cells of the brain, the non-brain cell parts of the brain that keep it together. glee means glue from the greek. we thought we had a thousand billion cells, and we only have 80 billion of those as well. in one fell swoop, we lost 120 billion cells in the brain. >> host: what don't we know? >> guest: oh, well, that's an allfully big question. as i pointed out, ignorance is a much bigger question. i think the question is not only what don't we know, what don't we know that we don't know? >> host: donald rumsfeld. >> guest: yes. so sorry he got to that before i did, but there it is. he was absolutely correct in saying that although he sounded befuddled when he did because he was worried about a war not going well, but that's a good question. are there limits in the ignorance? that's more important than a limit to the knowledge. >> host: you say in your book "ill nor rains -- "ignorance" that you talk about things you do no rather than what you don't know. >> guest: sure. wrote a letter to her brother that says one never notices what's been done, but what remains to be done. that's the attitude that drives scientists along, keeps in the labs and moves us along. we don't what everybody knows. that's done now. what don't we know? what do we need to know? why do we need to know it? what's the next best thing to know and so forth. >> host: page 28, george bernard shaw, albert einstein proclaimed science is never wrong. it never solves a problem without creating ten more. >> guest: that's the right description of science, absolutely. by the way, i should say that i believe george qid that from emanuel to name drop who -- years before that had come up with this idea of question propagation, the principle of question propagation that every answer begets more questions. >> host: do scientists rest on their laurels after awhile? >> guest: well, i guess everybody rests on their laurels after some point. resting op laurels is a dangerous thing for science to do because the laurels tend to be not all that foundational, all that strong a foundation. i think one of the things that probably the public recognizes least about science is that we have less regard for facts, and regimely, scientists, we were for facts, work to get data, we also realize they are the most malluable parts of the operation. whatever you find today will be revised, overturned completely in the worst case, but revised by the next generation of scientists with the next generation of tools, thus it's always been in the past 400 years or 14 generations, it's what we've done, and i think we welcome it. science is revision. we welcome revision. revision in science is a victory. >> host: you write in here that science and nature magazines are very important for scientists to get published in, if you were going to recommend to your students to read those, you recommend not but ten years ago. >> guest: read this issue to be current, but graduates rush into the lab with this week's nature with a great set of expermits suggesting i can see what the next experiment is, and, of course, i know the people who wrote that paper have already done the next ten experiments or thought of them, and that the real place to go often for ignorance, high quality ignorance is papers published 15 years ago in nature. high quality papers, the leading papers of the day, but couldn't have asked certain questions because we didn't know them to ask yet. they didn't have the technology or tools developed in the last 10-15 years so they are ripe to be revisited. >> host: has technology helped in discovering science? >> guest: sure. technology is a critical part of the whole arrangement. this is an science drives -- science questions drives technology and technology then goes ahead and drives science so instrumentation is a critical part of science since galileo started it with a telescope and so on. >> host: what's another fact we knew that's changed over the last couple years? >> guest: my favorite because my lab researches taste and smell, and we work on the chemical senses. we work on that. one of the best known facts is the so-called taste map which you find in every high school and college and medical school textbook and most people believe that there's a map of sensitivity on your tongue, and that you taste sweet things with the tip of your tongue and sweet and sour on the sides, bitter in the back. this is completely untrue. it's a mistranslation of an antidepressant -- antedotal scientist, pickedded up in the 1940s named, of all things, boring, and his book is psychology with the name boring. you can imagine the jokes, but he put it in the book as if it was a complete, well-studied fact. it was a mistranslation. it's just stood the test of time somehow or another although it's wrong. >> host: what has stood the test of time? from 300-500 years? >> guest: so many things do, but not the original form. newton stood the test of time. newton continues to work. we launch space shuttles and build bridges and the rest of the thing using newton's laws of gravity and force and so on. they have. revised significantly, most notably by einstein and more since him. they have been changed #. the way we say is it that the regime in which newton's proposals were made and were true, they are still true within the regime. what's changed the is regime expanding the regime and so now newton's formulations work as long as you don't travel something new at the speed of light. we don't to that often, mind you, so it is workable, but when you travel to the speed of the light, you have to invoke einstein's relativity. gps devices, they need to be adjusted by i'm stein's reeltivety to work right. >> host: einstein has stood up? >> guest: so far, although einstein wasn't sure it would stand up. he had a couple fudges here and there that he claimed were one the biggest mistakes he made, but now it's come back. unfortunately, he doesn't know that, but it's come back, and it's very important. so far, einstein seems to have stood the test of time. it's only been a century. >> host: what's your class called? >> guest: well, the class is called ignorance as well, and it's a great treasure to teach in a place like columbia university and i have students enroll in a class for ignorance. the class started five or six years ago, i think in 2006, and it was based on my feeling that i was doing students a disservice. i was being a dill gent teacher giving them 25 lectures a year in neuroscience, for bidding title of the course, using a textbook, one of the leading textbooks in the field by eric candel and the colleagues, and the textbook weighed 7.5 pounds, twice the weight of a human brain so that can't be right. i think that the students have gotten the idea by the end of the course that everything was known about neuroscience, and that's certainly not true, and that the way we kept track of what we know about neuroscience is we build up facts and stick them in books, and that's not true. we don't really know much about the brain yet at all. we adopt even know what we don't know about the brain in some ways. we are still finding marvelous things out about it that we never would have thought of. i thought i have to teach them ignorance in neuroscience so i devoted a couple lectures to that at the end of the course and thought, oh, let's go a whole course, see if it works with other sciences as well. that's what we do. the course meets once a week at the seminar course for two hours app evening, and i invite the faculty or scientists visiting through new york to come in and talk to the students for two hours about what they don't know in a specific way, not the big questions, not what is this universe begin and nature and discovery channel. they do a great job on that. these are case histories, and how individual science grapples with what they don't know. what happens if you know this rather than that? don't know this rather than that? things of that nature. >> host: who is the scientist that you use in the course? >> guest: well, in the book, four case histories of sciences and fact. a couple are con fablations of two or three, and one is dianne that reece who studies processes in animals, and i say is there anything harder knowing whether red is different to you than to me? what's in an animal's mind? what do you think? she did work with mirrors and dolphins. i'll be hoppest and tell you she's my wife as well. she was just a visitor at the class. her work is so marvelous, it's worth highlighting. there's three physicists, neuroscientists who work in various areas of neuroscience with new questions abounding we have not thought of a few years ago, and i use myself as a case history. that happened because at one class, there was a speaker who was ill at the last minute and couldn't make it, and i didn't know what to do, and my wife said you fill in, i'll interview you, i'll run the class, you be the speaker. i did. it worked well. i had the transcript from it. i was honest, i was a case history too. >> host: how important is money to this research. >> guest: how important is money to almost anything? extremely important and something we have to think about carefully as a culture, how much money we have to put into research, basic research versus applied research and how to make it work out. i think the cornucopia of goods we have in research over the 14 generations we've been doing it is a testament to the reason why we should continue to support it even when we don't know what we get out of it. my favorite power boat comes from a founding fathers, benjamin franklin who witnessed the first human flight in a hot air balloon, not fixed wing aircraft in paris, and it was a series of balloon flights, and human beings lifted off the face of the earth for the first time. another spectator said to franklin, wow, this is fun, but what use could this be? his retort was, oh, really, what use is a newborn baby? that's a little tough. that's franklin. he's right, of course, what use is a newborn baby. we don't know, but many turn out useful so we invest with them as we should do in science. >> host: professor of neuroscience and chair of the biloming call sciences department here at

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