Appomattox courthouse and surrendered his army of northern virginia, effectively ending the civil war. We will be live from Appomattox CourtHouse National historic park on both april 9 and 12th as historians including ed ayres reflect on the last battles and explore the aftermath and legacy of appomattox. We will also bring you reenact its of some of the key moments from 150 years ago and we will open our phone lines to take your calls. The surrender at appomattox live april 9 and 12th, here on American History tv on cspan three. Up next, we hear from Staff Members at the three president ial libraries based in texas about their collections documenting the white house years of Lyndon Johnson, george bush, and george w. Bush. The george bush president ial library and museum hosted this event. It is about 90 minutes. As we say here in texas howdy. My apologies to the people from johnson and bush 43, but that is what we do here. Welcome to the bush library. Im the director here. We have two Staff Members each from the bush president ial library 43, our own president ial library here in College Station and the Johnson Library in austin. Since we are already running a little late, we wont do extensive introductions, but Michael Mcdonald is the curator at lbj. Brooke, one of my former staff is the supervisor archivist at the library in dallas and Christina Oliver is the registrar. Here, we have our newly minted supervisor, Deborah Wheeler and our registrar. So, what we are going to do tonight is a behindthescenes look at some of the treasures at these three president ial libraries in texas. Were the only state in the country with three president ial libraries, so they are going to talk. They have 20 minutes each. Im going to stand in the back of the auditorium and if they go over 20 minutes, i will jump up and down and stop if that doesnt work, i will come up here and tell them they have to leave the stage. Hopefully we will leave a little time at the and because the idea is to leave sometime at the end for the audience to ask some questions you thought about during the program. We will leave some question time at the end and i will moderate that. There are microphones. Tonight is being taped by cspan so if you will raise your hand, you will be passed a microphone so we can get your question on camera. If you will wait for that and ask your questions, we have a lovely reception, so if you did not want to ask a question or had a question and did not have time to ask it, the panelists will be available after the program to take your questions will stop thank you all for being here. We are going to go in order of president ial libraries. Welcome to the podium the Johnson Library. [applause] i dont know the password. Is it something secret like lbj . While we are waiting for someone to come but the password and, i would like to thank orrin finch and the staff at the library for inviting us here so we can share the National Treasures from each of the president ial libraries will stop i hope you enjoy the items we have brought from the lbj library. I knew this wasnt all going to go flawlessly. You are awesome. Here we go. Ok when i was asked to come here to do a talk on what we have at the lbj library, i thought we have 45 million pages , so its hard to narrow it down to just a few things. The next thought i had was president johnson last telephone recordings. Have any of you heard they recordings . Good show of hands. President johnson, in the administration his staff recorded several hundred hours of telephone recordings and there were two dictaphone machines that you can see there in the middle. Its a rather antiquated type of recording device that has these plastic or vinyl belts that would sit on a cylinder and as it recorded, it would leave grooves in it like an old lp record that we used to have. I do remember those will stop the president would signal for his secretary, Juanita Roberts and she would flip the onoff switch. There were two machines. As the first one started to and, the second one would automatically pick up. That way, you didnt lose anything. We always warn researchers when it comes to the lbj library that there are transcripts done by the clerk typist at the white house, but they didnt always know what was going on with domestic or Foreign Affairs and they did not always know what the president was talking about. We always recommend if you are looking at the transcripts, that you also listen to the telephone conversations while you are reading it. I brought this one conversation just to give you a little example of what im talking about. In this conversation with the speaker of the house he and the president are discussing who might be nominated to be on the war and commission to investigate the jfk assassination. You can see where i have the blue arrows the president says you bet you, ive got a pack of them bastardize waiting on me since 4 45. If any of you have listened to the telephone conversations, you might say that sounds like lbj. He has a pack waiting in the oval office. But if you listen, he says i have the pakistani ambassador waiting on me. So were going to listen to this and when they are talking about the nominees for the war and commission, you will here he talks about a future president named gerald ford. Hes considered a pretty liberal fellow. Youve got to southerners, but you got to northerners that are civilians. I wasnt undertaking to argue with you. I sure want you to if you disagree with me. You couldnt have better men but im just thinking of the geographical location on the legislative level and that is something i call to mind for you to consider. Kentucky up north is considered self. They there are three men appointed to represent the public and none of them are southerners. You go ahead. You take care of the house of representatives for me. How my going to take care of them . Keep them from investigating. Listen, i got outside and i was doing some work i have a pakistani investor waited on me since oracle and 45 pakistani ambassador waiting on me since 4 45. That is a blatant error, but sometimes they can leave out a no worry not in the senate and it changes the meaning of the sentence or paragraph. I love this conversation. It shows the dynamic between Lady Bird Johnson and her husband. During the Second Press Conference he had these are the notes she took. She is critiquing his press conference and as you listen to the conversation, you can follow along that says during this statement, you were a little breathless perhaps slightly fast. You can see any upper corner, she gives him a b plus. As you listen to the president hes really funny because she calls him and says do you have time to listen to my critique and he says yes, maam. Im ready. When she gets to the part and says you got a b plus, he sounds a little irritated. Do you want to listen for about one minute to my critique . Yes, maam. I thought you looked strong firm, and like a reliable guide. You look splendid. Your closeups were much better than the distance one. You can get them to do it with whack there were more closeups and distances. During the statement, you were a little restless a little breathless, and i think it was little too fast, not enough change of pace. Dropping the voice at the end of the sentence. There was a considerable pickup in interest when the questioning began. Your voice was noticeably better and your facial expression was noticeably better. I think the outstanding thing is that the closeups were excellent. You need to have the opportunity to study more and read it with more conviction and interest. And change of pace. President johnson the problem is, they criticize you for taking so much time. In their questions dont get news, they catch hell, so my problem was trying to get through before 10 minutes and i still ran 10 minutes today. I took a third of it for the questions and i could have taken 15 minutes. But i did not know what to cut out. I thought if i replaced one of those names, they would call up the fellow and they would ask him about it and then they would publicize it good. Lady bird johnson i would use 13 minutes or 14 minutes for the statement. In general, i feel it was a good b plus. How do you feel about it . President johnson i thought it was better than last minute that than last time. I want to make a comment about this photograph will stop i use this photograph i want to make a comment about this photograph. Its when he says hes not going to run for a second term and there were a lot of wellwishers, friends and Family Members calling the white house to speak to both of them and there were two phones in the bedroom, so they were both taking phone calls. To me, it looks like they are talking on the phone to each other from across the room. In the summer of 1964, it was a busy and volatile time for the country. It was right at the time when american ships were under attack and the gulf of tonkin and there were three missing civil rights workers near philadelphia mississippi. There was a debate going on in the president s poverty bill, and a president ial election coming up that november. On august 4, the president was meeting with congressional leaders at the white house and jay and or hoovers assistant calls the president to tell him they found three bodies. I think it shows a very human side of Lyndon Johnson because he asks when they are going to make the press announcement. He says that 10 minutes and he says i want you to wait until you can notify the families. President johnson i think we ought to follow if we can talking to walter. [indiscernible] president johnson are you following him . Mr. President. Mr. Hoover wanted me to call you and say the fbi has found three bodies in philadelphia, mississippi, six miles west of where the civil rights workers were last seen on the night of june 21st. A search party has turned up the bodies about 15 minutes ago when they were digging in the woods in the underbrush off of route 21 in that area. We are going to get a car right away and move these bodies to jackson, its acidity, where we hope they can be identified. We have not identified them as of yet, but we have every reason to believe they are the three missing men. They were on the side of a dam that had been constructed near philadelphia, mississippi. We wanted to let you know right away, sir. President johnson when are you going to make the announcement . Right away. I plan on making it in washington just that the fbi has found three bodies and has identified them. President johnson if you can hold about 15 minutes, i think we are to notify these families. Do you wish to do that prior to the time they are identified . We think they are the ones. President johnson i think we can tell them we dont know but that would kind of ease it a little bit. All right, sir. President johnson i will get right back to you. All right, sir. You often hear background noise and we are pretty sure considering what some of the conversations that were about that were recorded that sometimes, one eat a roberts forgot to turn the machine off so things were recorded that probably were not meant to be. Whenever i speak to a group on telephone calls, i always include them. This is conversation with congressman adam clayton powell, the first africanamerican congressman from new york. He was the chairman of the House Committee on education and labor. This excerpt, lbj chastises powell because of the delays in the house on the elementary and secondary education act. It is a prime example of Lyndon Johnson and his arm twisting, or what we sometimes call the johnson treatment. Yes, sir. President johnson congressman powell once to put me on all stop congressman powell how is my friend . President johnson what the hell is happening in your committee. I told i thought you told me you are going to pass that bill. Congressman powell you want a 400,000 appropriation we could not pass one billion 200 million for school kids. Ive got nothing to do with what you are doing in the house investigation, but you dam near defeated the best Education Bill ive got an a hope youre going to be proud of it. Congressman powell in your appellation bill. President johnson the appellation bill doesnt have anything to do with anything. If you are going to let them lead you off the reservation iran for nothing last year. If you are going to tie up this congress and screw up when you have done for three weeks by running off until you get 400000 and appropriation, we can never get anywhere. You defeat this, hold it up and delay it and get us in this kind of shape, we cant pass anything and thats all right. I think you will be the hell of a bunch of your little world democrats. Its not going to bother me your liberal democrats. Its not going to bother me. Im very disappointed. I dont think you are entitled to it and think that you did. I think you looked me straight in the eye and said i will report this bill and get it on the floor. You didnt do it. You didnt then you ran off for three weeks and i couldnt even locate you to tell you. This is serious, this is bad, this is the thing we ran on all over the country and there are people being dam well taken care of. I would say that is quite a dressing down. The final conversation i wanted to play for you was one the president had with ibm president tom watson. This is the day after president johnsons famous american Voting Rights speech where he talks about being a teacher in texas and how he saw how the poverty and a good tree affected all of those students in this mexicanamerican school he taught in. He says in the speech i didnt know then i was going to become president and that i would have the power to change the lives of students and their children. He looks right at the camera and says im going to let you in on a little secret i intend to use it. In this conversation, he talks about how the republicans are not responding to this speech quite the way he expected. President johnson an interesting thing ive got that ought to give you a little hard. President johnson he says you have expressed the conscience of the nation and the nations commitment to civil rights. He should have unqualified support and you have all of mine. I thought it was the most forceful speech ive seen anyone make ive never seen you come through as strongly or anyone come through that strongly. President johnson the republicans in 12 i told them i never thought i would be president when i was teaching school, but i was and i had this power and im meant to use it. I looked over and all the democrats were up and i looked at the camera and put my head back and i look at the camera and i wish you had seen them get up. Thats what i was doing. All of them had glue in their britches and they were just stuck. When they saw the camera circling around with that little red light, it was the funniest thing i ever saw. They dam well on to have gotten that because it was magnificent. That is the glue in the britches telephone call. The last thing doesnt have to do with telephone calls its a couple of photographs of president and mrs. Johnson at Andrews Air Force base in 1969. They are leaving washington to go back to their retirement home in texas. If you see the little blue arrow pointing down, you will see there is a young congressman by the name of George Herbert walker bush in the crowd there to bid them farewell. The letters you see on the side, youre not going to be able to read them, but im going to give you some excerpt from them. The one letter is from the head of the university of texas oral history program. He wrote a letter to the president that says when i spotted congressman george bush of houston in the farewell crowd, i asked him why a prominent republican such as he was seeing you off instead of being in the midst of republican activities in the city. His reply was a nice tribute to you. He said youve been a fine president , invariably courteous and fair to me and my people. I thought i belong here to show in a small way how much i have appreciated him. I wish i could do even more. Lbj wrote congressman bush a letter and said i was deeply appreciative of your words as he quoted them to me. Please know i value your friendship as i do your fathers and i am glad you are one of us down here in texas. I wish you a long and illustrious career in congress. That is the end of my presentation. Im going to turn it over to mike donald. Mike good evening. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you, barbara for that presentation. I hope i can follow up. Tonight, we will be talking at the Museum Collection at the lbj library. As you know, the lbj library is on the campus of the university of texas in austin and like the bush library our mission is to promote the public understanding of the presidency by documenting the lifetime and lyrical career of Lyndon Baines johnson, the 36th president of the United States. Within the Museum Collection, we have over 55,000 objects. We usually have about 2 of the collection on exhibit at any time. The collection goes from head of state to two everyday objects that were used, worn or own lives johnsons during the presidency. Some of the gifts are from ancient middle eastern objects to objects that were used by the objects that were used by the president in the oval office during his time presidency. We have fine art that goes from childrens drawings to sculptures by frederick remington. Original artwork i charles russell. Diego rivera. We also have everyday items such that the president war. This jacket here, he wore the ranch a lot. We also have items from mrs. Johnson. For example this is the outfit she wore during the 1965 inauguration. Then we have objects that are just handcrafted by the ordinary citizen, both from the u. S. And abroad. This is a lucite paperweight that someone sent to the johnsons that represent their beagles. Everyone in the Johnson Family had the initials of lbj from lady bird, to the president , to the two daughters, to the beagles. Most of the objects that were sent by ordinary americans are sent because the gift or has some kind of appreciation, respect, admiration for the president. This was sent after the president signed the Medicare Medicaid act. We also have over 2000 head of state gifts. Head of state gifts are gifts that are presented to and from heads of state of sovereign nations as gifts to the people of that nation. So unlike the bulk of the collection our property of the johnsons before they were given to the library, the head of state gifts remain property of uniteds government. The head of state gifts that we have for the ones that were given during the johnson administration. They range from sir morning also ceremonial swords given by morocco and saudi arabia. To dynasty febrile sculptures, to art from all over the world. This is an image of the Gift Exchange between Indira Gandhi and president johnson. Everybody has those in their collection. I seen them here at the bush library. What i want to get into next are the unusual objects that are in our collection. The strange connection between dr. Seuss and lbj. What we have in our collection are all of the original artwork for dr. Seusss the lorax. The lorax collection consists of 63 individual pencil and crayon drawings, as well as the camera ready drawings which are of the drawings that actually appeared in the book before they went to the publisher for colorization. This is an example of an original crayon. All of this is original work by dr. Seuss. He would actually type the text up on pieces of typing paper and just paste it to where he wanted it in the book. This is an example of a camera ready. What is interesting about this collection is that not all of his original drawings were maintained in the camera ready. It was a draft, that he finalized it. For example, in the beginning of the book, the lorax is detailed, you can make out all the features. As you get through the book, the lorax becomes a blob as he focuses on other aspects of the book. Youre probably asking how we got this. There was a chance meeting between dr. Seuss and his carpenter. The waste that dr. Seuss tells the story is that he was at a democratic event out in california. He happened to be seated next to liz carpenter, and knew that mrs. Johnsons interest in Environmental Protection was a safe subject to talk to her about. He was describing his new book to liz carpenter, who seemed interested, but after a few minutes got up and left. She came back, and told dr. Seuss that he had a phone call. Dr. Seuss went to take the phone call, and it was lbj at the on the other end for donating all the artwork for his new book to the white house. Outside of the collection outside of san diego i believe we have the largest collection of book related artwork that is not in san diego. [laughter] the next story i want to tell is about the connection between heavyweight champion of the world George Foreman and lbj. George foreman started out box ing while he was in the job corps. A program that lbj started. While he was in the job corps, he won a spot on the 1968 olympic team in boxing. He went on to mexico city that summer, won a gold medal, and after he defeated after the medal round, he held up a small American Flag that he was waving around the ring. Lbj heard about this and personally invited for me to come to the white house so he could congratulate him on his victory. So years later in 1973, George Foreman was fighting smoking joe frazier for the heavyweight title of the world in kingston, jamaica. On the way to the throat v bout, foreman was wondering out loud if president johnson would hear about his victory. Unfortunately, no one in his entourage had told him that the president had died earlier that day. So foreman had no idea. In 1983 George Foreman presented to the lbj library and mrs. Johnson with the rope that he wore during his heavyweight fight, along with the belt, the championship belt. In a letter to mrs. Johnson, he said that he wore the fighting gormanrupp corpsman rope with pride because he wanted to show the other man that one of their own had made it, and the possibility they could make it as well. George foreman also holds the distinction as being the first heavyweight champion of the world to become a permanent legacy of a president of the United States. Thank you very much. [applause] hello, im the registrar here at president bush library. This is debbie wheeler, she is our supervisory archivist. Were going to talk with you about a few of the holdings we have here. As mike mentioned, on the museum site of the aisle, we have artifacts from all different types of media. From foreign heads of state, to domestic affairs. We have about 120,000 artifacts in our collection, which is pretty large. I will go ahead and let debbie tell you about their holdings. Debbie we have a lot. Especially for what a one term president. We do everything from prepresident ial to postpresident ial. Were probably pushing about 44 million pages of documents as well as over one million photographs. We have a lot of things in that are of interest. We love to have people come in research those. Jay we are going to basically highlight some of the holdings in the context of several events that happened during the bush administration. We are going to take it back to the beginning, with the inauguration. The first thing we will talk about is a note which you will see if youre on the screen. This note is significant because as many of you are aware it is tradition for the outgoing president to leave a note for an incoming president in the oval office desk. This is the note from president reagan to president bush on his first day in office. I will read the text for you. It says, dear george, you will have moments when you want to use this particular stationery. We will get to it. I treasure the memories we share, and it wish you all the best. You will be in my prayers, god bless you and barbara, i will miss our thursday lunches. What is significant about this is a first of all shows you the close relationship that president reagan and president bush developed over their time when president reagan was in office. It also shows this special connection that the president s have. There are only a few people in the world at any given time that knows what it is like. You humorous stationery. You will see the humorous stationery. Debbie has a few pieces to talk to you about as well. Debbie not only a sense of humor that you mentioned, but the close lists and a lasting friendship closeness and lasting friendship. I think that finding this in his desk drawer that day meant a lot to president bush. There he is the first day in the oval office. What a way to find start the day, to find a cute note from your friend like that. The next thing we want to show you is a piece of the berlin wall. Jay as you all well know, one of the most important events of the last one to five years, and certainly one of the major events of president bush possibility for asian with the follows the berlin wall. It happened to overnight 1989 november 9, 1989. President bush met with the minister of Foreign Affairs for germany. Here we have president bush meeting with mr. Tincher, and presenting this piece. It is a very significant piece because president bush displayed it in the west wing of the white house and later on in his personal office in houston before many way to the bush president ial library. Debbie this is going to be a little difficult for you to see, but i wanted to show you one of the documents. We have so many in our collection. This is the declassified telephone conversation between president bush and chancellor helmut kohl. This is november the 10th, 1989. I just want to read a little bit of it to use a you can actually capture some of the excitement of that day when people started to terror the wall down. I just arrived in berlin. It is like witnessing and a less fair. It has been share of a festival. The frontiers are absolutely open. At some point there are literally taking down the wall and building new checkpoints. There are many young people who are coming over for a visit and enjoying our open way of life. If he goes on to think the americans. He says it was about 6 30 p. M. And estimates are there were 120,000 to 200,000 people. The overall spirit was optimistic and friendly. When i think the americans for the role in all of this, there was much applause. Without the u. S. , this day would not have been possible. This conversation between these two leaders was really demonstrative of the long struggle that this relationship had to get to this point in history. You will notice on the righthand side, that is that same piece that has now been encased, and the president kept it in the training room of the white house and the used it for many ceremonies to demonstrate the freemen of freedom of the german people. Always strive for freedom in their lives. This is actually a letter, to a donor. This was not the last time the or the last piece of the berlin wall. This particular donor was part of it organization that managed to get large pieces of the wall. He wanted to give a large priece to president bush for his library. The Deputy Assistant to the president wrote him this letter. The president is honored to have this piece of history in the library, and he appreciates your efforts and being this accomplished. Why this is so important to us is because you can go into our museum and actually see this specific piece that they gave to president bush. Now, something fun. President bush as you all know is an avid sportsman. Im not even sure there was ever any kind of sport that he did not try at least once. Camp david was a great place for the president to take his family on the weekends. They tried all kinds of things. We will find many, many weekends when there went to cap david camp david, and it lists all the activities. Horseshoes, running, baseball, all sorts of things. But the winner was a great time for winter sports. January 13, 1991. President bush is barely down that hill, having a grand time. What makes it even more spectacular is that he is with arnold schwarzenegger. Arnold being the quintessential heman, president bush is having a fantastic time. Arnold looks a little bit scared. Fortunately, arnold did not get any injuries. You cannot say the same for mrs. Bush. Bless her heart, she did not make it down the hill. You will she still seems to be in total charge, telling the men what to do. How to take care of things. It took the entire bush team to call down calm down, lay down, we have this. Jay mrs. Bush fractured her leg, and shortly thereafter a family friend presented her with this slide. What is significant about it is there is a seatbelt for her safety. [laughter] debbie of course the white house is always prepared no matter what happens. They always seem to have a team ready to let the public know what is up. The same day they released this White House Press release. Part of it says, mrs. Bush sustained a nondisplaced fracture of her left leg, some bruises and light scrapes as a result of a minor sledding accident this morning at camp david. Mrs. Bush is in good spirits and her complete recovery is expected within to six weeks. Five to six weeks. However mrs. Bush never takes things playing down laying down. Unfortunately in this time, or perhaps fortunately so she did not dwell, they havent on the 13th happened on the 13th of 1991, which was on the cusp of deserts dorm storm. As preparations written, president bush is receiving all kinds of encouragement. Here on the 18th of january, 1991, he gets is very encouraging letter from and a friend that ally. I know you are under incredible strain over the gulf problem. You are on the right track, and were praying for you in the supreme test. Mr. President , you have demonstrated great courage. The best of luck, and god bless. He also got letters from the spiritual community. This is from colonel hickey from the archdiocese of washington. He writes a heartfelt letter, part of it reads i want to assure you of my prayers and support. At noon today at st. Matthews cathedral i am celebrating mass to ask gods blessing and strength for you and all who are risking their lives to halt aggression in kuwait. May god be with you and lead us all to peace with justice. As president bush is receiving these multitudes of notes and letters and words of encouragement, he sends up to congress this authorization of use of military force on the 16th. You would think he has a whole lot on his plate. He is worried about barbara and her injuries, he has desert storm, and he calls president reagan. They talk about this friendship that we saw with that beginning note. President reagan talks about how he is on his side. He states emphatically that im totally supportive, and president bush promises to call him in advance of that happening. Just when you think he has so much on his plate he cannot do anything else, what does he do . He does what all of us at the library have had great experience in, reading his personal letters. He always has time to respond. He responds to friends, family political allies, cohorts, he is always writing to someone. Here on the very day the 17th, 1991, he takes a moment to write james back. He says thanks so very much for your warm supportive letter of january, 15. I know in my heart and made the right decision, but the support of friends mean somewhere much so very much. And so the war begins. Jay so we have a number of artifacts in our collection from desert storm. I have a couple to highlight tonight. The first one is this display case. It features two pieces of shrapnel. The piece on the left is from a Patriot Missile, the piece on the right is from a scud missile. The Patriot Missile is sort of iconic when we are talking about desert storm. It is significant because it was the first time it had been used in formal combat. It had been in development and existed for several years before hand, but this is the first time it had been used in formal combat and proved itself as an antiballistic Missile Defense mechanism. So it is a very important piece of history here. It was presented by the head of the air Defense Forces for saudi arabia. He later became the Defense Deputy minister of defense. Use also a royal Family Member as well. And our second piece is part simpson, wearing his desert storm chocolate chip camo. It is a great pop culture. , but also puts things into context. We have things that are extravagant, and thinks that are were whimsical and hubris humorous. We have an image of him with it in the oval office. He actually kept it in his desk for a time. [laughter] president johnson debbie one thing that really enjoy about this picture and he knows the seriousness of the situation, but the American People are sending gifts like this to help them have a smile through the day. They know the stress he is under, they appreciate all the gifts. President bush always gets a kick out of anything that the American Public sends. We want to say thank you for coming out. We have so many more things this is just a tiny drop in the bucket. We want to thank our collections department, our audiovisual archives because they work very hard to maintain these materials so that you can come out and research and go to the museum and see them. We hope you will. [applause] good evening. Im one of the supervisory archivists, and this is christina all over all over\\\oliver. Lets dive right in. The bush library in dallas is situated on smus campus, and at this time we had approximately 68 million pages. We also 80 terabytes of electronic records, that is about 200 million emails, 4 million digital photographs, and if we were to print out all of the emails that would be about one billion pages worth of electronic records. We also have 43,000 artifacts. Christina we are the newest president ial library. We were dedicated on april 25 of 2013. We had not yet opened to the public, but we had been offering special tours for special groups of people, including the five living president s and their families. There is a photograph of all of them of the day of dedication. Everybody had the opportunity to speak, including bush 41, very proud of his son. It was a very spectacular event. We opened to the public may 1, 2013. The photographs of president bush with the schoolchildren that is our replica oval office where a fullsize, to scale replica of the oval office. Several schoolchildren were selected throughout surrounding School Districts and given the opportunity to meet president bush the day that we opened. They walked into the oval office and they were waiting for them. It was a pretty special moment. We have, todays, over 700,000 visitors. We will very proud of ourselves to reach half a million in our first year. We have had four temporary exhibits. Mrs. Bush loved christmas, so we have had to christmas exhibits so far. We also presented president bushs portrait of World Leaders that he knew during his administration. Weve worked with over 50 museums and institutions already in our program on museum artifact and document loan, both incoming and outgoing. Loaning to other institutions and borrowing from them. There is a graph beam of the World Trade Center in our collection. We decided not to make it artifact because the emotional connection for people is so strong, and it is important to everyone involved with the development of the museum that visitors be able to touch it. If it wasnt artifacts, they could not touch it. It has been specially designated as a memorial, and people are allowed to go in and touch it. We have had over 150 Daily Research visits of our research room. We have Educational Programming constantly in cooperation with smu university. We obviously focus on some of the more current u. S. History. It was a very volatile first decade of the new millennium. 9 11 was a turning point for president bush, for our country, for the world. We have many artifacts and documents related to 9 11. One of our more iconic pieces is that bullhorn. We call it the ground zero bullhorn. It was used by president bush it was just on hand and handed to him, it was not planned when he arrived to tour ground zero and speak to the first responders. He climbed up on a pile of rubble, which at the time he did not realize was a fire truck. He found out later. The gentleman next to him was a retired fireman, handed him the bullhorn, so he could speak to the people gathered around. He famously said someone from the crowd said we cannot hear you, president bush that i hear you, the people here you hear you. The bullhorn is in our permanent exhibits, and will be for a good while. But we did loaded to the 9 11 memorial and museum in new york city for their opening. Brooke working with the textual records, you become really good at reading other peoples handwriting. I is want to say that, because we are going to see a variety of handwriting in our piece here. This is a document that was written by president bush on may 30, 2002. This is the day that they removed the last piece of debris from ground zero. It says somber day, removed last priest of debris from ground zero. Thanks from our nation to all those who worked hard. Pray for those who still suffer. Very touching. It is in our permanent exhibit and it shows his thought process on that day. He wanted to stop and think about what was going on still at ground zero that today. Christina education. The photograph of the print that you see there, from a Museum Perspective this is a fantastic case because what matters to an artifact is the story behind it. What this is, it tells so many stories, this one piece. It is a print of an original painting by ted kennedy. The original painting he gave to his wife on their wedding day after having i guess she had a favorite home about dancing with death itself. He painted this and gave it to her on their wedding day. He had prints made, and gave this to laura bush and it speaks about prior to 9 11, president bush was very focused on domestic policy. He wanted to focus on education, health care reform, very domestic focused. People do not remember about that time, senator kennedy was a major ally to president bush working on no child left behind, and focusing on education. What people remember is president kennedy being a huge opponent of the iraq war. But this piece shows the solidarity that they shared when it came to education. This was presented to laura bush by ted kennedy, and he wrote on the mat on the bottom, to the first lady of education, whose impressive leadership is enabling millions of American Children to dance with the daffodils. Your friends ted kennedy september 11, 2001. Laura bush was scheduled to speak to the Education Committee on september 11, but then the news was starting to come out of new york, and it put things on hold. And then they realize that the country was under attack and they evacuated her. The gift got left behind. It was not important in that moment. Senator kennedys office sent it on leader to the white house so that it could get to mrs. Bush. By that time they had had the anthrax attack, and everything that was mailed to the white house went through irradiation. It was basically microwaved. At first i do not know much about irradiation, but my understanding is that there are various levels. It was turned up to 11 at the beginning, and then it was toned down at the end. But the glass of this has turned brown because of the irradiation. So in one piece you get such a rich story. This is president bush with senator kennedy in the oval office. They are talking about their plans for education. Brooke on june 20 8, 2004, the coalition for authority transferred authority to iraq, this happened at a United Nations summit in istanbul turkey. There he is shaking hands with tony blair while this transfer of authority is taking place. Dr. Condoleezza rice passes him this note that says mr. President , iraq is sovereign. At 10 26 iraq time. He writes back let freedom ring. It is a nice little note passing at the summit. Even while Something Like a nato summit is going on, they are still taking time to account what is going on outside of this one little meeting. Not that it is little. [laughter] but this is a monumental thing that happened. Hurricane katrina. We wanted to show you some things that the president saw. He went and actually viewed these places. But right after the hurricane went through his staff put together these maps to kind of show him the level of this the station that happened in the areas that were affected of devastation that happened in the areas that were affected. It would actually have a stamp that said the president has seen. This is something that he touched and did take all of this in. Mrs. Bush, meeting with displaced persons from the hurricane. Christina we do not have very many Museum Artifacts that relate to katrina. One, it was not a moment that people, for instance 9 11 a lot of people got into quilting after it happened, and we are one of the largest quilt collections, my understanding is the largest of the president ial libraries, because it was a way for people to deal with what was happening in the world. Hurricane katrina did not inspire that same kind of reaction in people. It was to devastating, and so many things were lost. This tattered American Flag, we are not sure where it came from, but it ended up eating found in the debris being found in the debris. It did not get directly given to president bush, but there was an Emergency Management meeting and the gentleman who found it wanted to come to president bush as a reminder of what happened but the resiliency of the American People. We are battered, but we survived. We have a lot of serious things in our collection, because a lot of serious things happened. But we have some really fun things as well. The bushes are very wellknown pet lovers. Bonnie and miss beazley were very prominent parts of the first Family Members of the first family. Barney has his own website. It was a wonderful way to reach children. I visited it every chance i got. It was a really neat outreach for the president and mrs. Bush. One of our favorite artifacts related to barney is his favorite toy. He loves volleyball and golf balls. That popped volleyball you see is part of what we call the west wing collection. That collection, president bush and his close advisers can fix things that they thought were important. Things they wanted the Furniture Library to understand future library to understand they thought were important. That popped volleyball was one of them. It is now part of our permanent exhibit. Yes he is the president , and she is the first lady, but they are now a married couple with family pets and children, and actually lived in the white house. We do feature the dogs in a lot of places. Brooke i love the photo at the top right corner because that is actually president bush participating in a barney cam video. We also included a short i will not play the whole thing but this is actually one of the barney cams. It is the Spring Garden to ur. This is part of our collection too, because we have the videos. We are in the gardens, this is one of the ones you will see on the yourtour today. Brooke i do not want to play the whole thing, i just want to show you the breadth of our collection. One of the other initiatives that the president took on with global diplomacy, he took on things like the president emergency plan for aid relief. He also started the president s Malaria Initiative. Those were started in 2001 and 2005. By the end of his administration it was estimated that pepfar reached 1. 5 Million People across the globe, and by the end of his administration is estimated that the Malaria Initiative that reached around 25 Million People. It shows how effective these initiatives really were. The photos there show them on their africa trip in 2008, going and really looking at what was going on with these initiatives. Christina in the Museum Collection we have actually quite the large collection of african art. A lot of it is traditional african art ebony tree carvings some ceremonial masks and things like that. The african nations were very positively affected by pepfar and are very thankful for the initiative and show that appreciation with material with president bushs faith printed on it. They made dresses out of it to greet him when he visited their country. With this carving specifically mentions pepfar, and it was given to mrs. Bush because she was the representative that visited rwanda at that time. It shows the country will wander with relief of rwanda with the citizens theyre able to go about daily life again with the help of the medications and all of that stuff they were receiving through pepfar. It was just a thank you for helping. Brooke we have one final slide. You will hear mrs. Bush talking in the background. This is mrs. Bush, an audio recording of her giving a weekly radio address. She was the first first lady to give a weekly radio address in its entirety. While others would just give snippets, and that was done in november of 2001. She really advocated in this address, talking about afghanistan and afghani women and the abuses they were suffering at the hands of the taliban. That is what youre hearing in the background. Again, showing the breath of the collection we havent the bush 43 library. Here we have a photograph of a trip she took to a burmese refugee camp. Again, she was just advocating for global diplomacy. In the top board you see my life and camp is better than burma, but i do not have opportunity to go outside my camp. I like to speak english, so im not trying hard . She was advocating better life for these burmese refugees. Bush 41 and bush 43 in statuary. Come see them. [applause] thank you. If the four of you want to come up and we will take some questions. We have microphones, so raise your hand. First of all, i would like to thank you all. That was fantastic. [applause] i want to thank tracy and her staff are hoping to put helping to put on tonights program. Any questions . If you do not ask questions, i will ask. In the back, we were microphone coming to you. Anyone of you could answer this, or all of you. What are some of the upcoming future exhibits that we can look forward to at the president ial libraries . Actually we have some pretty exciting exhibits coming up at the lbj library. Opening next saturday we have a photographery exhibit that is called march for freedom. It highlights photography during the montgomery march. The first march, bloody sunday. It is a joint venture between the lbj library and the center for American History. And then opening in june, we have an exhibit that is a collaborative effort between us and the museum and l. A. It is called ladies and gentlemen, the beatles. That is open through january 3. We are planning a blowout celebration on the 13th. We do not have any details. Jay we will be opening a new exhibit called the texas a m forest service. Were going to highlight conservation efforts of the texas forest service, as well as some of the work they have done in the past. Some of the early work they did, and how their technology has changed. Beyond that we are going to have an exhibit on the national parks, featuring photos by martin burns. That is opening in november december. Beyond that we are having an exhibit of the history of the automobile, followed by a history of ranging exhibit and world war i. Christina we do not have hours planned out quite as far. [laughter] we are trying. We had a baseball exhibit and how baseball and our president s relate to one another with personally and politically. Well come to the public march 21 and only open through october. I do not think we have a closing date yet. We will have a christmas exhibit. With those, we have had two so far, and we are going back to mrs. Bush in each year chose a theme. Were revisiting christmas 2001, home for the holidays. Past christmas we did christmas 2002 the which was all creatures great and small which was very popular. It talked about all the president ial pets, him and her were featured. Millie was featured as well. I know that very soon president bush very much wants to develop an exhibit or have developed an exhibit for veterans. He has huge respect and Close Relationships with the veterans especially the iraq and afghanistan wars. That will probably, we want that to be very great. I do not know if it will be next year, but that is coming up for us as well. One more question . Im a question. How do you balance exhibition with preservation . [laughter] you have a great artifact, or a great document, but if you know keep putting out an exhibit, the likely get severe it will disappear. Christina digitize it and show it in that way. Online, you can access things like that. Jay the president ial Library System is actually working on a program to debut in maybe a year , they are in the process of rolling it out, called emus em emuseum which will make artifact Holdings Available to the public. One of the archivists may be able to talk about it. Barbara we are talking about a Digitization Program to make this available. People that are not able to get to the library would still be able to see the original documents. Join me again and thanking our colleagues from the president ial library. [laughter] [applause] that is the end of tonights program, but if you will join us in the rotunda for refreshments, we would love to have you. You can meet those who presented tonight, and if you do not get to ask your question you can ask it then. Thank you for joining us. With live coverage of the u. S. House on cspan and the senate on cspan two here on cspan three we show you the most relevant congressional hearings. On weekends, cspan three is the home to American History tv with programs that tell her nations story, including six unique series. The civil war, american artifacts, history bookshelf the presidency, lectures in history, and our new series, reel america. Cspan three created by the cable industry and funded by the local cable or satellite provider. The most memorable moment of this week for me was hearing senator Corey Gardner in our lunch yesterday say you need to be firm in your principles, but flexible in the details. That really reflects the solution, the harsh polarization we are seeing across our country. If all of the senators and congressmen and women and state legislatures could adopt, we could come together as a country and software issues. My favorite quote came from the secretary of the senate be strong and have a good work ethic. The people you meet on the way up you will be on the way down. As much as i may disagree with him, john mccain did something very impressive last year. He committed to the Veterans Affairs reform bill, in reading the torture report and maintaining how staying away from fortress important to the character of our democracy. When you have people who are willing to cross the aisle and make these decisions with people with he may not often agree with, that is essentially what we need to maintain the security , the integrity of our nation as we go on. High School Students who ranked academically in the top 1 of their states were in washington dc as part of the United States senate youth program. On cspan q a. Join American History tv on april 9 and 12th for live coverage of ceremonies marking the 150th anniversary of the surrender at appomattox. In april 1865, confederate general robert e lee met Union GeneralUlysses S Grant in the village of Appomattox Courthouse and surrendered his army of northern virginia, effectively ending the civil war. We will be live from appomattox National Historic courthouse as historians reflect on the last battles and explore the aftermath and legacy of appomattox. We will bring you reenactments of some of the key moments from 150 years ago and open our phone line