We wooel weel well look at challenges of the presidency. Four top aides, all of usveat sd president s of the tooits United States and weve seen the ities qualities of what takes for a r president to be able to govern. Weve seen qualities both good and bad. And i guess thats what i want to begin with. Is looking at president s that each of these individuals serve. What was their greatest strengtt and what was their greatest weakness . And how do you think history is going to look at them . We are talking about president reagan, president clent kbron, president bush and president le obama. Lets start with president reagan. Ken . Leon, thank you very much. Leave it to leon and sylvia to put together an alpha bet panbe. David axle rod, a. Ber skin boels, b. Rod, andy card, c. And duber steen, d. M aep p for pa netta. All of it is an absolutely joying to here with leon and ray and all of you. Ronald reagans greasest strengths. He knew why he ran for the presidency. And he knew what he would
Thank you, thank you all very much. And i welcome all of you to our final forum of our lecture series this year. Our theme as you all know is looking at 100 years since world war 1, 2014, 1914, an awful lot of history has occurred during that time. And to onanalyze the changes th have been made, we looked at war and peace and the changes in that arena, we have looked at government and we have also looked at the issue of freedom versus security. Tonight were going to look at the president of the United States and how president s make decisions. And president s very frankly influence all of those other areas that we just talked about. The president of the United States has today assumed incredible responsibilities in facing incredible pressures in that position. Since 1914, we have had 17 president s. Of the United States, all of whom will have various places in history. We have gone from wilson to harding, truman to roosevelt, kennedy to carter and reagan, johnson to bush and obama. Wha
The most important Strategic Initiative of any president over the last 40, 50 years, it was the strategic triangle of nixon and kissinger to allow the United States to build better relations with both china and the soviet union than they had with each other. And it was cia intelligence that provided the impetus to suggest that we could do this and as a result the soviet union would have to engage us which they did in terms of the treaty of berlin and the arms control agreements and we would end up with very good bilateral relations with both of them. So, the cia can be effective as a support instrument in this area. In terms of what needs to be done, because im running out of my time, i think we could do ourselves a lot of good by going back to that oped that president truman wrote in december of 1963. The warning about covert action, the warning that covert action is policy. And covert action, therefore, can taint clandestine collection and even taint intelligence analysis. That the c
[laughter] because she is here, we will be honest. But we wont shock anybody. One thing i alluded to, people did think that our mom was this cookiecutter mother. Those who know her and 20 people in austan do, she is a great mother. It goes to the whole thing where it is much easier to see people as onedimensional. She is a very strong lady who just happens to not shout. That is why people saw her as more conservative than she was or is. One thing about both of my parents that i feel like is a great trait to have is that they wanted us to become our own people. They are both very open and i dont know if people would get that from their public stereotype. She is a secret rust safari and rastafarian. I hope i didnt still that from you. I was going to stay that say that also. Our mother loves music and she loves bob marley. When we lived in austin and my dad was governor i heard a rumor in high school that there was a concert and my mom and i snuck out to see if they were coming. Mom loves
Where for many years she raised thouroghbred horses and where she and her husband remain active in civic causes. You heard something of luci baines johnson, of her sensitivity and her sense of history. Unlike peggy, luci was a young woman when she entered the white house in november, 1963. She wanted nothing more than to be a normal teenager. Life in the white house is many things but normal it is not. Lucis mother said as much when she gave her daughter the following advice, dont ever do anything you do not want printed on the front page of the paper. This would strike terror in the hearts of most teenage girls but luci rose to the occasion, no more impressively than at the time of her wedding. According to one newswoman nobody was invited except the immediate country. And notwithstanding, a press controversy over a nonunion bridal gown, the day went off gloriously. Soon after, luci left the white house for texas in what she has described as a normalcy that never quite materialized fo