Transcripts For CSPAN3 Eisenhower Grandchildren 20151015

Fair international. And the National Book awards from new york city. Just some of the fairs and festivals this fall on cspan 2s book tv. American history tv airs all weekend every weekend on cspan 3 and in primetime on weeknights when congress is in recess. We cover all periods of American History and a wide diversity of topics. At our website, you can watch all of our programs, find our tv schedule, see youtube clips of upcoming shows, and connect with us on twitter and facebook. This is American History tv only on cspan 3. Join American History tv on saturday, november 7th for tours and live interviews from the National World War Ii Museum in new orleans. Well explore the u. S. S. Tang experiment in new orleans. Well take your questions for historians joining us from new orleans throughout the day. World war ii 70 years later live from the National World War Ii Museum saturday, november 7th beginning at 11 00 a. M. Eastern here on American History tv on cspan 3. On saturday evening, American History tv was at Gettysburg College for a conversation with president dwight d. Eisenhowers grandchildren. They talked about his political career, his legacy, and about the grandfather they remember. This discussion was part of the ike 125 celebration commemorating the 125th anniversary of his birth. Its about two hours. O say, can you see by the dawns early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming . Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight oer the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming . And the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh, say, does that starspangled banner yet wave oer the land of the free and the home of the brave . [ applause ] tonight continues a wonderful weekend and for that matter yearlong of programming and activities at the Eisenhower Institute that is celebrating the 125th birthday of dwight d. Eisenhower. Its been a team effort and we are grateful to all of them. In short, at Gettysburg College we still like ike. And id like at this point to turn the program over to steve scully, who will be moderating our town hall forum. Jeffrey, thank you very much. Before i begin, i want to recognize some of the brave men who served under general Dwight Eisenhower. We are pleased and honored and thrilled to have you here tonight. I think you all deserve a round of applause. Thank you very much. [ applause ] you all do as tom brokaw put it represent a great generation. We have three of the four living grandchildren of dwight d. Eisenhower. I want to thank the Eisenhower Institute for allowing me to be part of this program. Anne eisenhower was born at west point, new york. She is a world class interior designer. Her work has been featured in leading books and magazine on display in new york city at tiffanys. Shes been written about in leading newspapers around the world. Shes on the board of New York School interior design and her involvement with Breast Cancer research foundation. For more than a quarter century, she has contributed to the great work at the center for arts and education in new york city. Anne eisenhower, thank you for being with us. [ applause ] Mary Eisenhower spent much of her life devoted to humanitarian and education work. Think about this. It was founded on september 11th, 1956. Dwight eisenhower created the Exchange Program because he had seen enough war and his feeling was its time to end the bloodshed and begin some diplomacy. She has made her mark around the world. She has received countless awards and honors, including the harry s. Truman award for Public Service. Thank you for being with us. [ applause ] and Susan Eisenhower is the chairman and ceo of the Eisenhower Group here in the United States, around the world, in asia especially. She has served our government in a number of capacities. A member of three blue ribbon commissions for the department of energy. Her work with the National Academy of sciences and the nasa advisory council. Nasa began during the eisenhower administration. She has authored and coauthored a number of books on National Security issues. She has lectured at west point and the army war college. Her opposieds are often seen ie washington post. Eight years, a remarkable eight years. What should we know now that we didnt really know when he left office . Theres a wonderful expression. The future is bright but the past is unpredictable. This is an old soviet joke. I sometimes feel like this is the way it is in this country too. Were beginning to discover more and more about our history, and Dwight Eisenhower is an interesting figure because he had a very different leadership style. He sometimes dialled back the rhetoric in favor of doing things behind the scenes. My sister will certainly confirm that his chief death bed wish was that his archives be open as quickly as possible. Ever since that process started, people are learning more and more about how utterly engaged he was on all of these issues. I think this is one of the reasons for the last 20 years of an intense interest developed over this period of time, this very dynamic period of time in the 1940s, and and 50s. But anne, you remember him as the oldest grandchild. What are your thoughts . Olde esest granddaughter. Granddaughter. David is not here. David is much older. What do you remember about him . Where do you start . He was very much part of our lives. We often lived near him. And things that come to mind are things like him reading my report card as sitting president with davids report card right next to it. Anne, why did you get an aminus while david got an a . He was very much a grandfather to us, so it was a very unusual upbringing as a normal person and yet youd see him in the crowds and wonder what was going on. Mary, one of the quotes from your grandfather, you dont lead by hitting people over the head. That is assault, not leadership. In terms of what were seeing today in the Republican Party primary, what do you think about this quote . I didnt think i was going to get any i just read the quote. I didnt think i was going to get any loaded questions. I think we need to stop hitting each other on the head. Its a completely different dynamic than it was of course when he was around. Both houses were democratic, and he got long famously with everybody and got lots through. There wasnt this party line. I think once the elections were over people became americans as opposed to democrat or republican. He actually maybe ill divert and tell a little story, but when i was in school here in gettysburg, yea, i heard two rumors about him in school that i was sure were absolutely wrong. And of course i was young, so the intensity was just terrible. I went straight from school to his house. We lived right on the edge of the farm. And he was in his nap room at the time of the day. I said, grand dad, i heard two things about you today that i just cant believe. And he said, what . I said, is it true that your name is really david dwight and not dwight david . He said there were so many davids in the family that i got tired of being called bud, so i changed it to dwight. And i heard you were raised a democrat. I didnt claim a party while i was in the army. Back then, the officers didnt customarily vote for their commander and chief. I said, oh, what made you decide to become a republican . He got this look on his face. I was beginning already to regret the conversation because i knew i was in for a lesson. He said he was concerned about the frontrunner taft being an isolationist. He said this is a twoparty country and the democrats have been in power long enough. I said, but grand dad, what if you lost . He said, well, hows your weight coming along. Both parties in 1952 wanted him to be their nominee. This is true. This is sort of hard to imagine now, isnt it . It is impossible to imagine. Because they came out of military circles, they had a very i wouldnt say bipartisan way of thinking about themselves but a nonpartisan way. Our grandmother would say i dont want to know anything about what party people are from when they come to the white house. Theyre in americas home. It was often perceived she didnt know that much about politics. She knew plenty about politics. She didnt just want any part of it at the white house. I think it goes to show how much time has gone by, wouldnt you say . I had read from the book by gene Edwards Smith he would have easily gone to the u. S. Naval academy, but he was accepted at west point. He graduated 61st in a class of 164, so this is really openended to any one of you. He was a pretty average student. This is what made getting an aminus very difficult. Now we know the rest of the story. I do know he attended the general Staff Command College at leavenworth and he graduated first in his class on that one. He said that that was what really it was his paradigm shift to make the army and leadership his career. Prior to that, of course, we all know that he applied to annapolis first and it was for the Free Education because they came from very humble beginnings. Then he was too old because he worked to put his brother through school. Annapolis turned him down and he applied to west point and got that, so he wasnt really sure about what direction he wanted his career to take until he went to leavenworth. I would add a rather intriguing factoid here. If you look at americas great generals, very, very few of them graduated at the top of their class. Ive done a little study of this. Most of them come right out of the middle of the class. That includes civil war generals as well as generals during world war ii. There are some extraordinary exceptions, of course, douglas ma mcarthur being one of them. Some of them had rather lackluster disciplinary records too. Ike was one of them. Way, way at the bottom on discipline. Strangely, the army tries to train people to follow orders, but they also like people who ask questions. Its kind of ironic. I just throw that out there, but certainly by the time he got to commander general staff school he was expecting more of himself than what he produced at various times at west point. He was known for his pranks from time to time. Oh, yes. Theres a famous moment where he turns up in dress jacket. Apparently, he was only wearing the jacket. I think that got him a few walks around the guard duty there maybe for a long time. Anne eisenhower, when you went to see your grandfather, you cant talk about Dwight Eisenhower without talking about mamie. What was she like . She was quite wonderful. By the way, what did you call her . We called her mimi. She was quite wonderful, very opinionated. Didnt like you having a big difference of opinion, but she was the most loving person and always on your side. She was absolutely amazing and she was a character. She just was wonderful. Do each of you have a favorite Mamie Eisenhower story . I know mary has lots of Mamie Eisenhower stories, but she had these extraordinary china blue eyes and they positively sparkled. She had the most magnificent eyes and glorious skin. I said, mimi, you make me so mad. Without missing a beat, she very calmly said angry, darling. Mad means youve lost your mind. If i may tell a story, which is a mary story, but she may be too little to remember. She was going to school in pennsylvania and had a teacher that was giving her a very hard time. Mimi came over. She was going to go to some concert. Somehow this teacher wanted to meet mimi. He was toast by the time she finished with him. She always flirted with her eyes. She had this man eating out of her hand. I dont think mary ever had a problem again after that. Yeah, i was in a play fiddler on the roof. It was my night. She was coming to, of course, support me. He was were going to stop in the middle of intermission and were going to give her a dozen roses. She saw the look on my face when i was telling her about it. She said im not going, but she had him over to my parents house for ice tea. Annes right. She very diplomatically and sweetly pulverized the man. Steve, could i add one thing about this . She had an extraordinary ability to also serve this role diplomatically and in other ways. She could charm the socks off anybody. Many of you know about eisenhowers occasionally strained relations with field Marshal Bernard montgomery during world war ii. We heard about that. Yeah, i think theyre still talking about that. She thought he was adorable. She made it her business to think he was adorable. She told me once of all her house guests, he was her favorite. She managed to tease out of this man some humor. He came to visit the white house. He looked around and said its not buckingham palace, to which mamie batted those spectacular blue eyes and said, thank goodness for that. I do want to talk about dday and his leadership in the military, but were here in gettysburg, pennsylvania. Why did he decide to come here after he left the white house . I think he was stationed here early on in his career and they liked the town. And i believe that they wanted the farm because of his roots in kansas. This is a great story that i read from your brother david eisenhower. The book is called going home to glory. Imagine this. On january 20th, 1961, a bitter cold day in which john f. Kennedy was sworn in, dwight d. Eisenhower and his wife hopped into a 1955 chrysler. One secret Service Agent in front of them. They pulled into the house and their retiring began. It seems to different from 1961 to where we are today. It was my father who actually did the driving because ike didnt have his drivers license yet. He was expected to go get his drivers license. I would add that ike was really a country boy and he loved the outdoors. And my grandmother, our grandmother, came from denver, colorado and was a bit of debutante. She didnt like the outdoors very much, so she thought there was some romance to this two up, two down farmhouse they bought. She used to say she had one massage a week and thats all the exercise she needed. In any case, they had some great friends named george and mary allen. This was a huge plus because not only could i come back to gettysburg, but mamie had her pal mary allen down the road. I think also the proximity to washington. They were in the country and still accessible to washington. I think that was a big, big thing. If i may add one story, Barbara Walters interviewed my grandparents i believe it was for the 50th anniversary. Barbara walters turned to my grandfather and said, does mamie enjoy the outdoors in the summer. And he sort of chuckled and he said, she certainly does. She sits on the airconditioned glass porch and looks out and enjoys every bit of it. Did he ever talk to you about dday . Well, i can tell you i used to we were at an elementary school. Occasionally i would walk from the school to the gettysburg campus where he had an office as he was writing his memoirs. On one occasion, i went into the office. In an ante room at the back he had a huge map of one of the most famous of the dday pictures with all the ships and barrage balloons. Its a famous iconic picture. I asked him about it. If you opened it up, there were these maps you could pull down. I got a little bit of a primer on this. I was way too young, of course, but i think my sisters will absolutely agree that we saw the documentary crusade in europe based on his memoir. How many times did we see that . Three, four . Maybe five times . Certainly by the time we became adults, we were well familiarized with his story. What does his leadership tell you about that period in American History for either one of you . In 1990, when he would have been 100, we had a series of events. Theres a famous picture of him with the troops the night before, and hes looking at number 23 was how i knew him because he had that picture on his desk and daddy had that picture on his desk too. I always wondered who number 23 was. I met number 23 aboard the u. S. S. Eisenhower. His name was wally strobel. I said, what in the world was he saying to you because that was the night he was trying to make everybody comfortable about deploying the next day and that kind of thing. He said, well, he might have been asking me about the fishing in saginaw. Thats what this intense look is. Its fly fishing. Its fly fishing. To answer your earlier question, once upon a time now as a grownup i saw my brother on tv giving an interview and the question was did your father and your grandfather talk a lot about world war ii in front of you. He said, oh, no, never. I picked up the phone and immediately called my father. I said we need a reality check here. My memory is he talked about it all the time. He laughed and he said, anne, you have to understand. David didnt get enough. We talked about it once in a while because david really loved the subject he wanted to hear more. You didnt want to hear more. The one time you heard us it was probably too much. Its fascinating. My own father was part of the second wave of the dday invasion. Is that right . He didnt talk about it though. Dwight eisenhower had a readymade Political Base in 1952 because 12 million men whom he had led, most of them were going to support dwight d. Eisenhower. I had the enormous privilege of taking my salt group to normandy this last year. We studied the grand strategy of world war ii and the operational strategy, and we studied leadership and followership and all those things. When youre at the cemetery, the thing that is really, really striking is that it is the famous cemetery, its a cemetery of kids. Theyre kids in that cemetery. You know what, i have to tell you this trip was so moving to me and how thrilled i was our provost came with our group. But there i was and really for the first time in my whole life i think i realized what my grandfathers burden had been. We heard all about it. We heard all about the operations about it. Maybe i never got enough. I think thats when i first understood the burden. He lost a child. He and my grandparents lost a child at the age of 3. I mean, this is a cemetery of kids, and thats how tough war is. Arent we honored to have people who worked yes, thats right. Supreme headquarters allied expeditionary force. Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. Brilliant. Did you want to respond to that too . Well, i think he was right and i think that was part of the whole people to people movement. I think the personal diplomacy and that kind of thing dont you find it ironic that it was created on september 11th, 1956 . I did. I guess that had been forgotten within the organization. It was about seven years after i was working there. I know what it was. It was the 50th anniversary of people to people. We looked at the record, and of course theres a great footage of his speech when he was launching. It was september 11th, 1956. The ironic part about it is people to people was created as a peaceable way to combat the cold war. We found it almost eerie. Steve, can i add something to that . Dont you think thats something we should have today . We were talking about the political situation earlier. Wouldnt it be extraordinary if somebody thought their job in leadership was to make the other side feel like they wanted to do this for the country . This is where you see a very, very different leadership style between then and now and especially Dwight Eisenhowers brand of leadership. Lets be honest [ applause ] a very different Republican Party back in the 1950s. Yes. Did he enjoy the presidency . Did he what . Did he enjoy the presidency . Did he enjoy his eight years in washington . I dont think enjoyment would be the word. I think you enjoy being president much more nowadays than you did back then. Why . Because nowadays theres perks like the rock stars stop by and things like that, but i think he saw it not as a job whether or not he enjoyed it or not as it was his duty. He was elected president , and his job was to achieve certain goals and he worked at it, concentrated on it. He was not the type of man to sit back and say, do i like what im doing stay. Just wasnt the type. The creation of the interstate highway system, the development of nasa. He placed the Arkansas National guard under federal control. He won the praise of Martin Luther king of being resolute. We went from 48 to 50 states. Alaska and hawaii were entered into the union and he ended the korean war. He modernized our infrastructure and balanced the budget three times in eight years, which is really an Extraordinary Part of that record. And left office with a Budget Surplus for his successor. If i can jump in, theres kind of a fun story. That same trip when he would have been 100 years old, a lot of us about five or six people who were in the government at the time he was president were along. One of them was the assistant secretary of the treasury. My dad went to bed early one night and the rest of us just kind of hung out. They were really telling stories on grand dad. It was like i had no idea. Do tell. One of the stories was great. It was the assistant secretary. He said that he got this phone call at 2 00 in the morning. Apparently gr lly grand dad hadp since like 11 30 was pacing. Inflation was a half a percent last month. What are you going to do about it . He said well talk about in the morning. Can we go to bed, mr. President . I would just like to add one thing. The question of civil rights comes up a lot. My grandfather was very active in that area not the way it maybe was later on, but he desegregated washington, he desegregated the military. He is the only president who has had an africanamerican pall bearer who was with him during the war till his death. That says a lot. Your grandfather spent 16 years as a major in the army and he changed the policy in the military. Youre up for two promotions. Youre up or youre out. Up until 1953, the president would shake hands at the military academies for the top 10 of the class and then would sit down. He said if im going to direct these, im going to shake hands with each and every one of them, so talk about that. That would be typical of the style of his leadership that he brought to the war. He spent an enormous amount of time meeting with as many troops as he could before they were deployed. Its an extraordinary number. This is british troops, american troops, and other allies that fought with us. And i think he saw it as a way to motivate people, to remind people that were all part of the same cause, the same team. He said in preparing for battle, ive always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Susan . Seems logical to me. The reason you go through these plans is so you know exactly what the elements of the strategy are. For instance, if you go to National Defense university, youll see the plans for operation neptune, this is the Amphibious Landing on dday, are about this thick. The reason you go through all that detail is you have some idea of what has to be thought through. Then, of course, once you hit the beach or once you actually engage in battle, then much changes and it changes very quickly, but at least you know what the general plan is. This agility, this capacity of every fighting man to understand what we were trying to establish, is the reason we won that war because the other side was ruled by a dictator. What went on the dictators head is what was going to happen and nobody knew what they were trying to accomplish on any given occasion. First, real global president. He traveled because of the jet age. He is the first president to have lived on three continents. How did that shape his world view . I dont know how it shaped his, but it certainly shaped mine. When i went to when i was studying languages in high school, we moved at one point and the only language that was offered was french. And he said, no, no, no. That cant happen. We have an entire continent below us. You have to learn spanish. He cut a deal with the school that i could go to the local university to learn spanish and that happened. I later got married and moved to south america, so i really could have used the french, but he was really very global thinking. As you say, he did live on three continents. A good portion of his life was outside of the country. He could see that the world was rapidly change iing. And certainly as grandchildren, he tried to prepare us for it. He talked a lot about the integrity. He said the supreme quality of leadership is integrity. Without it, there would be no success whether it is on the football field or in the office. He drove that home to us. He had a major hand in raising us. He could almost not really, but almost tolerate you sassing, but do not lie to him. If he found out that was the wrath. He was emphatic about integrity even within the family. A great eisenhower quote from the presidency, a society that values its privileges over its principles soon loses both. Yeah. Yeah, thats a good one. His Vice President was richard nixon. What was the relationship between these two men . Business. That was it . Yeah. That famous quote in 1960, if you give me a week, ill think about it. A little unfair. Can you explain the back story . The reason its unfair is he had a weekly press conference. Thats already such theres an exclamation point behind that since we dont have weekly press conferences anymore. The question as i understand it was the last question that was asked as he was walking out of the room. He was suggesting he would take up the question the next week. To be reading a relationship by various things said at various times really probably isnt fair. I would just say two things. Probably youve got some other impressions. Richard nixon was quite a young man. He was a young Vice President. And also our grandparents didnt really mix business and pleasure. You didnt see a lot of his associates around at dinner or going to white house movies or anything like that, so i think thats another indication. But i think it is fair to say that nixon was used a lot as a Vice President , especially overseas in latin america and in the soviet union. But the fact that they didnt have a relationship outside of business is i dont think the way wed have to examine that subject. Youre both shaking your heads, so go ahead. I want to emphasize that did change later, especially when my brother got involved with nixons daughter. They were instant family. When grand dad had passed away, the nixons were very, very good to my grandmother. She said almost embarrassingly took good care of her. They really did become family eventually, but during the presidency it was just strictly business. I want to broach one very touchy subject, so please bear with me. Its camp david. Sore subject. Yeah. Actually, i have an explanation for that. Grand dad was very fair. If one of us got something, the others got something, right . Im the youngest, right . Camp david was named for my brother, and then a large president ial yacht was named anne. A little more modest was the susan elaine. The susie e. And the motor boat was the mary jean. You all got something. The largest, the medium, and the motor boat all lined up with all of us on the back. Obviously, we couldnt put camp david there. Then wed still have the barbara anne. The i might have had the motor boat, but i caught more fish. It was known has shangri la when roosevelt was in the white house. I dont know why grand dad changed it, but he did. The big mystery is why kennedy didnt change it. He did change barbara anne. I doubt anybody will ever change it. The answer to annes question is the spirit of camp david a. There is an iconic photograph of your grandfather with president john kennedy at camp dav david. What was the relationship like between these two president s . I think kennedy had a lot of respect for grand dad. He consulted with him a lot, particularly about cuba. Im sure it was mutual because grand dad always engaged him. I think you have to look at it again as the role of expresident s then. It was to leave office and go off and do the live the next chapter of your life unless youre called upon. To underscore marys point, he did get called upon, but it wasnt like they were talking all the time or they even had a relationship before. They didnt know each other particularly before that inauguration. Just a funny aside, someone gave me a picture later on in life maybe 20 years later, 20 years ago, which is the famous picture of john john on the knee hole in the oval offenice. Were playing around the knee hole of the desk. Sort of fun. Is it true that president kennedy complained that the golf cleats had damaged the floor in the oval office . I think he did, but i think he was, i dont know, mistaken. Grand dad was maybe not. I dont know. Im trying to find out if this is an urban myth or not. Some of the students are going to walk around. If you have questions, well get to them in about five or ten minutes. Sherman adams, how important was he to the eisenhower presidency and the creation of this new position, a militarylike position, the white house chief of staff . I think it is well underestimated how much eisenhower brought his own management touch to the white house. Certainly the National Security council apparatus was defined by eisenhower was a very unique coordinating body that later ended with the kennedy administration. This is the idea that the nsc would serve as a coordinating role to make sure what was decided at the cabinet level in policy was actually implemented by those who are set to carry out the decisions. Today, nobodys really sure. Whenever i hear somebody say, well,you know how washington works, i always want to say, do you know how washington works . You can probably trace how that period worked with gray areas than you can today. You also talked about news conferences. John kennedy the first to have live televised news conferences, but in the 1950s, we saw the explosion of Network Television from the early 50s until the end of his presidency, so how did he use television during his presidency . Well, he was the First Television president really. In the sense it didnt explode in the same way after kennedy came onto the scene, but much of his much of the great moments were televised in the 1950s. I dont know. Its hard to know what Impact Television had, but he had such a magnetic way about him. His west point yearbook described him as big as life and twice as natural, and he really was. As a kid you knew that. It came through on television and it came through in crowds. He spoke at my high school graduation. Mine too. It was rather upsetting for me because a lot of the girls did not want him to speak because they felt he would take away from their day. They really made my life quite miserable. Going into graduation, i was very upset. He gave a speech and i zeroed out. He made a statement. He said, if youve heard nothing of what ive said today, always remember one thing. Ankles will always be needed, but knees will always be knobby. The room collapsed. The girls who had the mini skirts up to here, the ones who criticized him for coming to the school were wrapped around his finger. It was the first time i had ever been in sort of a public situation and realized how important he was. To see it firsthand was absolutely amazing. Mary and i were at a School Called west town. He came to speak at our school as well. It was in the middle of the vietnam war, and West Town School was a quaker school. Most of the students there were conscientious objectors. You can imagine this great military figure comes to a gathering like this. He got vicious questions from our fellow students, and then the big man on campus, the big soccer star, because they dont play football at west point, raised his hand and said i gather you were sidelined from his football career. What was that like . He lit up. He took up smoking. He had the whole school eating out of his hand. Back to your question, im sure that that kind of Emotional Intelligence with crowds, it worked on television as well. And to add to that that specific day, i was in the sixth grade and susie was a junior or a senior. Sophomore. I cant do the math. Cant do the math right. My class was allowed to peake questions. This guy danny and if he is watching, i apologize. He raised his hand and said what was it like to be president . I thought shoot me now. He took that to be as important as the last question he just asked and he gave him a complete description and set its everything from meeting with other heads of state to the boy scouts. Description, said its everything from meeting with other heads of states to the boy scouts. The boy scouts. Thats right. Thats exactly what he said. He made danny feel very important and like hed real asked an important question. And it went through my mind thao i thought that was just as important as the rest of the stuff to him. Did he have a sense of humoro no. Wait, wait. He had a sense of humor in a kind of ironic way. My fa one of my favorite stories. Really takes place at penn state, and i was just recently at penn state to help mark the 50th anniversary sorry, the 60 of their Nuclear Research reactor. And it was at penn state he went up to give the commencement address and also was there when the Nuclear Reactor went critical. And this was an exciting time as the First University research s reactor in the United States. Br anyway, it was rain iing off ant on all day. His brother was president of out penn state. And the president was going to give the commencement address, and he was extremely worried. Milton was very worried about the weather, whether it would have to be moved inside or whether it would be outside where they could accommodate many other people. W so he calls up ike on the sai telephone, what are we going tov do about this . Rried should we move the crowd in . Stay outside . I said, listen, milton, i havent worried about the weather since june 6, 1944. You laughed when i asked the question so is there a story behind that, his sense of humor . Well, i think, like susie said, i think it was more of a subtle sense of humor. Im reminded of when he taught me how to ride. I think i was about 5 and we were at the farm in gettysburg. He had six horses, right . Hetic and he put me on the biggest nao stable. It was kind of pathetic because i was so small that they had to double the stirrups to get my feet into them. And it was english so there was nothing to hang on to. So he gives me all these e saidn instructions. He says, you hold the reins this way to turn left and to turn right. Never let the horse make, you know, think youre afraid. Did yo grip withu your knees and turn your toes in, and he just gave me thesa whole gamut. Did you understand that . I said,d yeah. He said, repeat it back. So i did. B said, good, right on the horses back end. And i ended up on the horses neck but not the ground, so i was very proud of myself. A couple of good questions and well get questions from all of you. What where does the name eisenhower come from . Whats the genealogy of the name . German. How did he get ike . It was a family nickname. There were lots of ikes in the eisenhowers. And hes the only one that carried it through to adulthood and kept it. Was he a religious man . He was a spiritual man. Youd appreciate this, steve. He, as far as i know, is the only president elected without declaring what his religion was. He became a presbyterian after he was elected president of thes United States. When he made a decision, whatever the decision happened to be, did he secondguess himself . I dont think so. It boils down to the hows your weight question . Never he never entertained that he would lose if he was running. He never secondguessed himself, i dont think. Ill tell you ho this. Our father, john eisenhower, the person aside from mamie who was closest to granddad than anybody else said one of his real genius in a lot of ways he learned from his mistakes but he didnt replay the tape. You have to keep moving on. Finding yourself in a continuous cycle of selfdoubt. Dow neither a wise man nor a n brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. Wow. I havent heard that one before. Thats a good one. L i havent heardet it either. H im glad i didnt hear it. One of the most famous speeches he ever delivered, january 17, 1961. And this is a question from a participant talking about the Industrial Complex. What would he think about it today . And how significant was that speech . And why are we still talking abouytin it today . There are two things about that speech. One is the military Industrial Complex and, also, the other is the last paragraph. Its very interesting. I think in terms of to date, the world is so different today. Its hard to say what he would think. A i know that he called the military and the technology awesome and he didnt mean it like awesome. He meant it like awesome. Biblical accepts of the worda thats right. And that last paragraph is a te prayer. The very last line was that theo world be brought together by the finding force of love. I think he was showing his, you know, kind of what he had learned throughout his military confrontations and the things oe that kind of haunted him. Im the he f really wanted everybody tor come together. It i always called him the first at this pointy. You know, i think its an er. Extraordinarily important i think it will continue tono be talked about a reread, not just military Industrial Complex but where he warns the nation about mortgaging the assets of future generations. And he calls on the country to avoid taking the easy way out, o basically, to paraphrase it, to squander the resources of future generations. The militaryt industrial compl, ill just be direct with you, wh its alive and well. And it was an important speech because here was a military man who had the compaapacity to exa the situation and without disrespect to his colleagues to acknowledge that the unwarranted influence of a Permanent Military establishment, which he acknowledged was going to be required during the cold war. Tef was something that could threaten our democracy if not for an alert and knowledgeable citizenry. And this is what were trying to do here through the eisenhower n institute is toow bring about a capacity to understand how important being alert and more t knowledgeable is in a democracy. One of our great challenges today. Of course he, more than anyone, as you just indicated, f in a very unique position to tiw talk about theit military, he h a lot of frustrations with the army, despite his leadership role. Mbrose if any w of you want to talk abt that, Stephen Ambrose writes about it. Mary jean smith writes about his own angst when he was moving up the ranks. You can tell im a hings washingtonian here. I just was, you know, probably one of the greatest things in my life was to have an office next to general goodpastor for every bit of five years. Maybe longer than that. He was granddads daytoday security person during the white house years. He also worked for george marshall, by the way, too. But he told me once that he was standing in the oval office and the defense appropriations bill was put on the president s desk. And hes look iing through this y what trough it line by line. As only a fivestar general whuld. He knew exactly what they were talking about, what the requests were. He looked up, said god help thio country when someone is the president who doesnt know the military as well as i do. And thats not to say that we shouldnt have a strong military. Pa we should indeed but he had this capacity to do what was necessary to do the job and what was pork or unnecessary expenditures. And this is directed to you as a world class interior designer. I went to a dinner in new york once upon a time. You d typical new york dinner where youre introduced to somebody and they dontin hear your namew and you dont hear theirs either n. This particular case i happened to know who the woman was. Emba i was younger and i just knew who she was. We got on the subject of embassies in the United States c and she said, well, i really dont think that the a. Ambassadors wife should be the ed to decorate personal the public rooms. And i said, i totally agree. Id h i just saw x, y, z embassy and you wouldnt have believed whate they did to it. Ink th and she said, i would take it one step farther. I dont think the first lady should be allowed to decorate the public rooms of the white od house. She said look at what Mamie Eisenhower did. She called in bee altman. Okay. Rator another deep breath. They were actually honoring klemm that night, the curator of the white house. And i didnt say anything to her. En she did turn a little pale when i was asked to come up and cut the birthday cake. Ken back afterwards i wrote and said, yos know, i was. Taken aback by thi comment. I do not know the facts. Have c can you fill me in . I said my understanding, she never would have called in bea altman. And of course this was very sticky because the kennedys, of course, used top decorators and everything was french. So this was an ego thing. Youre right. Your grandmother did not call in bea altman because bess truman called them in when they he startd the white house. It i took this letter and sent it off to myho dear friend. G but it was interesting. He told me at the same time she started the Antiques Program in the white house. She had a big influence. She did what she could. Sh because there was no budget. Worth noting that mamie desperately wanted to get the bea altman furniture out of the white house but ike said were e going to. Balance this budget ad were not going to do it by redecorating the white house. And this is with all due respect to bea altman. How did your grandmother get the name mamie . They all had nicknames. It was her given name. Bout fm it was her given name. This is fun family stories. Some Great Questions so thank you very much. Could you talk about vacations growing up . Christmas, thanksgiving, easter, all of the china and tr silver would be put on the tables. We were probably the only 3, 5, and 8yearolds that knew how to use finger bowls. It really came in handy. My grandmother really loved w to celebrate the holidays. Er they were very important to us. I think they continue to be for that reason. Another one. This is can you share your most favorita Birthday Gift from your granddad . Bill, thank you for the question. Do you have a favorite and do you still have the present . S mine is a wooden and silver s dressing semirror, and i still have it. Its on my dresser to this day. I think i was 5, 6. It was in california. This wasnt a Birthday Gift well, two things real quick on well, ill keep it to one, how is that . I won a little like mary, i had riding lessons, too. It actually stuck with me. I started participating in some horse shows. I was in a walk trot class at ag horse show, and i actually won a trophy. I don it was this big, about that high, and then it disappeared. And about, i dont know, i guess about a month later it reappeared, and granddad presenp it had to me. He had take then dinky little cup and put it on a pedestal. Had it put on a top pedestal. So the pedestal was about this high and the dinky little cup it sitting right on top. So that i have dinky little cup and its pedestal at my house as a prized possession. Do you have a favorite present . H me gave me a it looks liket ha a gold coin, but it has a little thing that you press and then up pops a watch and it was given tt him by the crew of the mayfloweo when they did the reenactment. Its dedicated to president dwight d. Eisenhower and such and such a date. And then underneath it he dedicates it to me, and the date. He liked to given out a lot of medals, did he not . Prepresident ial award. I think this is a thing a lot of books, for instance, talk about his passionate nature and sometimes discuss his nature. The one missing piece in a lot e of this was this kind of sweetness weve just described. Id like to tell you one other y thing that might surprise you but i only found out years latee because i was really the one who ended up being responsible for. These horses in his stables. He took up horse breeding actual ly at the end of his career as gentleman farmer. And two foals were produced. One named sassy sue. I hope that wasnt directed at me. And the other was named kainai s and was a lovely animal. One day later disappeared. Years ago i found out what happened. Ttys granddad had a secretary who unexpectedly died and he discovered the deceased secretarys daughter wanted very much to have a horse. And he gave her the horse. Its called the ike files, this book. After all those years i found out he gave that foal to another little girl my age. Ev great story. Between his army years and did e presidency served as president of columbia university. Did he enjoy that time at columbia . I think he enjoyed columbia. I actually heard Michael Severn discuss this at one point, who was later president of columbia apparently columbia hired him knowing he was not going to be the typical president of columbia university. He took a leave of absence to go to nato so he was not there for the full time, and then when he came back, he ran for president. But, again, im not sure granddad looked at any job he did as enjoyment. N he i think he would take a job. Based on whether or not it would be fulfilling to him and then he had a job to do. Ng. He did it. Th it was duty . Yes, absolutely. Susan, you talked about the smoking and theres a question. Here. Did your grandfather try to quit smoking . Because that did contribute to his health. Oh, it did actually. We know so much more about thise now. Actually our honored guests here can confirm the fact that ike smoked a lot of cigarettes during world war ii. There are estimates between e three and four packs. You see pictures of him always t with a h cigarette in his hand pretty much. The and i think we can give him a pass for that if it helped him win the war. E went he got a bad case of bronchitis and you ought to quit. He was having a hard time doing it and he did it. Take he went cold turkey. He also said he might take it back up again but hed never quit again because it was hell. N but when asked how he ended up giving up cold turkey, he said he gave himself an order i tried giving myself an order and it didnt work at all. On his birthday, 70th turned birthday, we were in the white house in the private dining room, and it was just us. He turned to my grandmother and he said dont you think after mu all these years ich could have e cigaret cigarette . She had such a conniption fit that he didnt have it. He was still wanting it that many years later. What wasanan it like to be a young girl at the white house with your grandparents . It was totally normal. T he became president when i was 4 years old. I didnt know anything different. It was safe, it was wonderful, granddad is handle the world. It was just great. So your favorite white house memory, do you all have one . I do. Go ahead 67. He p christmas one year. Its kind of what do you give y the president of the United States for christmas . He has everything, right . My m and did you spend it at camp david or at the white house . No, at the white house. My mother decided to throw a Christmas Pageant for him. She was very clever. She cut sheets out and did cardboard angel wings and put garland on the neck and then foh halos she took coat hangers and put garland on the coat hangersw and putit them on our heads and strung them with lights and ey r attached them to a d battery with a button on the bottom that we could push and the halos would light up. One of my favorite things of course i was always in the reard because i was the youngest. She did it by height. I remember going through the third floor rather, the out second floor it goes ground, first, second. And with all the lights out, there was a huge corridor and we were singing silent night and we ta had our littled halos lit up ar all of that when the pageant was over he gave us a standing ovation, came running over and gave each of us a dollar. Said it was much less expensive than the theater. Bein i would like to follow this up. Anne and i have a funny story between us about the white house being normal. W i must say we were so extraordinarily lucky to grow up here in gettysburg, pennsylvania, because our being classmates didnt think it wasf particularly strange or at least didnt raise it that we were being followed around by secret servicemen. And we had them, of course, until the end of his t the administration. Anne and i laugh about the time in alexandria before we moved to gettysburg that we had decided to go running through the woods to one of our friends houses and two large men took a shortcut. And these two large men were running along behind us. And one of the neighbors was not quite cottoned on to this called the cops. These two little girls are being pursued through the woods by two grown men and when the cops ann arrive, all the badges are out. Anne, its your turn. Favorite memory of the white house there were many. Because i was a bit older ale but not the oldest grandchild. Not the oldest. Watching the we were alloweds to. Sit on the stairs and watch the progression of people into the state dining room on the state dinners when dignitaries would come. There were some ctriincredible e moments like that. Fun memories, driving our sudd electric car in the basement and then all of a sudden all the tourists, all the people are going to do the tour of the white house are standing there and theyre staring at us and were sort of, you know, what do you do . And i never got a turn on that car, i might add. There were just lots of incredible experiences. One of the most enjoyable was and its a great story, actually. My mother went out my parents went out one night and left us, you know,ers s at the white hou. And the butlers were supposed to take care of us, and they served us unbelievable things, great steak and ice cream and french d fries and just everything. Given and so when my mother got home e she asked what they had given us for dinner. And he gave her the list of all . This horrible stuff. And she said, how could you do that . Ade and he said mrs. Eisenhower gavp us the order when she went out that the grandchildren were to be made happy. We had wonderful meals there. The staff was absolutely incredible. It was absolutely of that incredible staff, one was jean allen, the subject of t the movie the butler. The movie the butler was inspired by him. You be he had one of the greatest smiles ive ever seen a human being have. Do how often did you go back to the white house or have you been back since your grandfather left, and how has that felt to each of you . Well, interior designers are not invited back very often. However, lady bird johnsoned wa the first person who decided that once youve lived in the house it becomes very personal to you. And she invited everybody who had ever livedth in the white house back for tea. And, oh, there are some ograph photographs that are absolutely amazing. That was the first time. I went back again because she s had ien dont know how it tw happened, but she invited my senior class for tea at the bact white house. Im not sure who used my name, how they did it. Susan it just happened. Wh susan and i went when mrs. Obae did a b mothers day lunch. Ive been back actually very little. We all went back in 90 on granddads centennial. I feel very fortunate because im a of washingtonian, you kno. Ive had the opportunity to be there on a number of additional occasions, but its funny. You asked what does it feel like . First of all, they still use the same floor wax because the immediate smell when you are cd goingn downstairs is exactly t same. And the other thing there are small things that you couldnt o reallyf say to anybody else without sounding silly but we spent a lot of time on the third floor of the white house. And in the solarium we had a pa parakeet and a couple of canaries. And our grandmother was so incredibly sweet. E she let us have a ceremonial burial for pete the parakeet in what is today the jacqueline kennedyfo rose garden. But were sorry that somehow the marker for pete is no longer there. And so you go in there and youre always looking for theser Little Things to a see whether r little headstone is still there for pete. K i do remember where all of the secret doors are to all the back staircases. A couple of other questions you may not be able to answer ln this you about you talked about montgomery. What about eisenhowers relationships with charles de al gaulle . There was a lotot of respect between the two men. Th and ive often heard it referred to that they were the only two on both sides that got alongcam famously. De gaulle came to the farm what was it, may of 58 . 59. Maybe thats why i remember it. I kind of im deviating. I think i should tell that story. Because watching it from afar, do you mind . Oh, no, no. He wo when he would take people here to gettysburg, he would bring them because he would want them to ousee, you know, life i america, in rural america, and he would also like to show us off as a normal family. Minutes and so he would sometimes call unannounced and give us ten minutes notice. Im here sitting with Charles De Gaulle and ill be down in five, ten minutes. So we learned to become experts to throw all the clothes under the beds. We could clean up a house in ten minutes flat. So one day he showed up with Charles De Gaulle and mary was very small. You must have been about 3 years old. I think i was more like ii remember it. He w 5 . Anyway, Charles De Gaulle is ge sitting in our little house on a sofa. He was so large, he could hardly get in the front door. He was like 65, correct . He was enormous, yes, he was. And he arrived. He sat down on one of the sofas and he always it was always through a translator because hei quote unquote didnt speak english. Mary is this little girl. She puts her arm on the sofa and stares at him. The reason i wanted to tell theh story the reason i wanted to tell the story is because you h can imagine youre there as a sister. You know youve gotar tori beha. You have to do this. But we see a wild card here. And mary is staring at him, staring at him, staring at him. And finally it comes out. K she says why do you have such thick glasses . S and he turns to her in perfect english and says, im very blind. Poor me. Do you remember that . Very much, yes. Dry because i also engaged him in a conversation talking about the smocking of my dress and the pps lace and telling him why it was important and how it was done and all that and he completely ignored me and kept talking to granddad. The eisenhower name lives on at the Eisenhower Executive Office building. They didnt have to change the acronym because it was the Old Executive Office building. What was that like to have your grandfathers name attached to that building, that iconic susa building next to the white house . Location, location, locatio yeah, no, its thrilling. Its thrilling. Its now known as the eeob and theres something really moving and wonderful to see that when they announce press conferences its at the eisenhower building. I think its the best. Your grandfather did face d criticism from the conservative wing of the Republican Party that he did not do enough to try to dismantle some of the programs that they didnt like as part of the new deal. Youre shaking your head y. . I think he was absolutely correct. He had a brother named edgar and edgar, as we all remember, was quite a character and was much more conservative politically. Rd if you want some great, steamy u reading, read the correspondence. Share one if you could. Theyre its a marvelous letter. Hes writing his brother the president , obviously lobbying to get one of his colleagues named as a federal judge. Im sure this goes on a lot, but ike didnt appreciate it and wrote back and he said how manyt times do i have to tell you i dont see federal judges as patronage. The fact you my brother would write me a letter like this want makes me so angry i want to do something. So he had to tell ed to lay off. I dont know how many times. On edgar was frequently lobbying te him about some very, very conservative things and i think on another occasion he writes him and says no party that tries to wind back things that the American Public has worked for. Will ever survive politically, Something Like that. Im paraphrasing. But its a very rich collection of letters. Their and edgar was a great spirit, but they certainly had their political differences. Dad in edgars defense, hes the reason he wound up at west you point. He was too old for annapolis. And the rest is history. Edgar was responsible for alw of this. Another family question. Andh your own father, what was he like, and what was the relationship like between your father and his father, the as president . Well, im not very objective, about this. My father was the best. He was precious. He was very complex because, you know, he was an introvert that e trained himself to be social, and he hadstoo he was probabs sympathetic as he was brave, ift that makes sense. Sition he understood what it was like to be in awkward positions so is you ended upay in an awkward position of some kind, it didnt matter if it was family related or not, he always knew the right thingsnd to say. Ip. And he absolutely adored his father. They had a tremendous relationship. And susie can probably, you know, you all can probably spear more to that because you were around longer. You have a favorite story between your father and grandfather, if there is one that you want to share. Involving both of them . Now thats very hard. Able they were together so much and it was all i cant think of any specific one. Its remarkable, though. Our father provided more moral support and help to his father. I know thats quite typical in a lot of these cases but when you think about it part of the reason we admired our dad so much is that, you know, he managed his situation being the son of a great man probably better than anybody else ive ed ever run across. He he carved out his own career. He wrote 16 books by the time he died, and the last one he finished at the age of 92 about a month before he passed away and it got published by a major publisher. So that was remarkable. Even hav but i guess what i was going tog say is that he didnt even have his graduation to himself. Day. He graduated on june 6, 1944, oe dday. D he got up to prepare for a commencement that morning and the news had already come in that dday was under way. He managed that with a kind of grace. We were d privy to his frustrations about it but it was never it was never singularly described that way. To tell he handled it with great grace and we miss him every day. I have to tell a story on him, too, thats kind of cute. Tom selleck played him and in my day he was the idol. Playing granddad and i thought,t well, you know, i thought he was a little bit young to play dad granddad and then i thought, im old enough to play granddad. So i told my dad, you know, who startlingly looked like his father. I told my dad the story. E ask me yeah, im old enough to play granddad. He said i can go one better. E] when people ask me what its like to look like ike, he said looking like tom selleck. These are all great ones. Did president eisenhower believe in some form of mandatory Public Service . Not that i know of . Good question. Another question related to the current political climate, seeing this campaign unfold in this election, what would the n . Candidates learn from your grandfathers attitudes, perspectives, methods and respec actions while in t. Office . What can they learn . Respect. Well, i would add something to that. Eisenhower said on any number of occasions that everything he die was designed to elicit cooperation from the people he u needed to cooperate with. And so he felt very, very strongly about not insulting e . People in public. In and not boy, can we start ino right r there . We see this in the debates. Its astonishing for me and, noy only that, but people say really insulting things to foreign leaders who are critically important for our own countrys. National security. So i think id put that right at the top of the list. If you want to elicit somebodya cooperation, yout might save yr strong feelings for behindthescenes moments and to at least speak respectfully in public so they have room to maneuver just as you wish that for yourself. I think the world changed a lot in my opinion when the show on tv crossfire came on. All of a sudden, before that, there had been discussions abou, politics. First time people started screaming at each other, interrupting. It actually was quite amusing. And certainly very stimulating but it really did change things. Nowadays when you see the news at night theyre often they have people on opposite sides of an issue and theyre often yellings at each other, interrupting. There is no politeness anymore. And i think its rather would counterproductive, quite s frankly. Would he be comfortable in todays Republican Party . I think the divisiveness thats going on would sorely disappoint him. Susan . Rategi actually, he was a great n ts strategist andpe he was, i thin also a great leader because he knew when to speak out publicly and when to do things behind the scenes. Blican he had a small minority in the n Republican Party that created a lot of problems for his had a administration, too. Think of mccarthy, for instance. The republicans only had a majority of one. Mplica in thete president s own party. E so grappling with that was extremely complicated. I would say that i think he wouldnt understand using government shutdowns as a way for a minority to get its way. This really jeopardizes our eopz economy, which jeopardizes our standing in the world. It even jeopardizes our National Security. And i think he would be extremely distressed about thata who are the golfers in this crowd . Raise your hands. Im trying to figure out who asked the question. . Was your grandfather a good golfer, and did he give himself any mulligans . Wasnt the whole game about mulligans . I,on unfortunately, was chos as the person to learn golf, tot be able to play with my brother, david, so when he grew up he could play golf with granddad. And it was not something that is wason talented at. I could actually i could probably give you a lesson on how to play golf, only i cant do it myself. So i think i was a big disappointment in that, but i ae know one of his favorite moments in life was when he got a hole in one. And he loved augusta national, did he not . He was 75 years old when he got that hole in one and said it was worth living his whole 75 years for. But i will tell you something, he almost got a sler second hole in one about a monto later. And he was heard as saying in a very loud voice, oh, please, noh no, no more holes in one. My office cant handle the mail. Lets turn to a couple of aye final points a about your grandfather. He passed away at the age of 78 in 1969. President nixon said he was a citizen of the world. Would he have considered himself that . I think so. Thats kind of what the whole people to people thing was. Yeah. What do you remember about his death . Devastating. Yeah, devastating. It truly was. I have to say because i, again, want to honor those of you who served in world war ii who are with us here this evening, and i have to tell youa that i have some sense of what it was like to have a ut his relationship with your supreme o commander. After we put his body on the train that went from washington out to abilene, kansas, and mary and anne can tell each tell their own story on this, the thing i remember most is that we stopped in every little town along the way and at about 2 00 in the morning, because, you ju know, we couldnt sleep at all. I looked out the window and just as we were passing there was a sole, solitary figure standing next to the train as the train went past. Saluting. And i never forgot that. G the i never forgot during the day, even in the most barren of country sides, they were thee were just crowds on both sides of the tracks, and people were holding up signs saying we like ike, and ill never forget thatl that and there was a political cartoon, too, and this one ill take with me. But it was soldiers on the beach of normandy and the caption underneath is psst, pass the word along, its ike. It was a very hard time because not only losing him, he was so very important in our lives really, we had two sets of parents. He used to call us the kids. I always used to wonder what that made my parents. But to lose him was truly majora but ind think almost as bad was for my grandmother to lose him and us to watch her. Their relationship was so close. And the whole idea of her continuing without him was just youawful. And to see the grief in her face when you go back and look at the photographs during the funeral and everything, so many people try to be stoic, et cetera, and she tried. The grief is just so etched on her face. And we were feeling that firsthand. So it made it even more difficult. Final question for all of you and this is rather open ended st you can add your own thoughts. What would you think of this gathering here today . What would he think about the institute and what you all have been talking about . Why dont you go first. H he probably would say we talked too much. He no, i thinkwo hed be absolutele delighted. Certainly thrilled that people who worked under him came back to the eisenhower gettysburgr college and intodays events. He would be absolutely delighted with the gathering and, as i say, he probably would tell us we talked too much. Be i think hed be very honored that we were celebrating his 125th he might be a little shocked by the number but, yeah, im with anne. I think he might say that we said too much. Int he would say it in a knee slapping g way. And hed be proud of all of you who are here, the best of wo the best from his generation. Absolutely. Susan, you get the last word. [ applause ] i dont deserve the last word here except to say that i feel honored to be associated with the Eisenhower Institute of Gettysburg College and the college itself. Ould b i think hed be really thrilled. He was very interested in education, and i think he would be thrilled that so many of the students here at Gettysburg College are engaged in the Eisenhower Institute and show, you know, enormous amount of promise. We are actually, i think, creating some excitement about Public Policy and Political Science and Public Policy and thats terrific. So heres the word, kids. He used to say, and, boy, did we ever hear this because he had al ow ymaxims that we heard all te time, dripdrip. W take your work seriously but never yourself. Yeah, thats right. On what has been an important andek, ta historic week in wash, thank you for taking us back to another time, another era. Anne eisenhower, mary jeanries eisenhower and Susan Eisenhower. For your insights, your stories and your good humor, thank you very much. [ applause ] to and our thanks to the Eisenhower Institute and gett Gettysburg College. Thank you very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] the civil war every saturday at 6 00 p. M. And 10 00 p. M. Eastern. Weve covered the war extensively these past five years as many state and National Historic sites and local civil war groups hosted events to mark the wars 150th anniversary. To watch any of these past programs or to find Upcoming Schedule information visit our website cspan. Org history. This is American History tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan 3 and in prime time on week nights when congress is in recess. Former naacp chairman julian bond died in august. On