Collection. This video is courtesy of the kennedy library. He audience watched mrs. Kennedys full tour, but a brief view is shown in the first few minutes of this program. We considered having this Forum Last Night on the actual 50th anniversary of mrs. Kennedys tour but did not want to make any of you have to choose between sharing valentines day with loved once or with your friends here at the kennedy library. We are so pleased to have so many of you with us here this evening. 50 years ago Jacqueline Kennedy introduced herself to the nation. Ways she the introduced herself to many of us. On february 14th, 1962, it was a more substantive Jacqueline Kennedy who guided viewers on a televised tour of the white house, and the nation was transfixed. 46 million americans watched that night and an additional 10 million tuned in days larle. The reviews were laud tore, describing mrs. Kennedy as a virtuoso performer and an art critic of subtlety and standard. After dinner she and president ken
From our archives, with Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Mccullough. He has appeared on booktv more than 50 times. All of the programs youre about to see can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website, booktv. Org, using the search function at the top of the page. First, in 1992 on the book notes Program David mccullough discussed his biography of president harry truman. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography and was instrumental in changing attitudes about the truman presidency. Here is a portion of that interview. The attempted assassination, a number of president s of been assassinated, why wouldnt the government have protections . Guest just wasnt. Why would there be a pension . Pension for everybody else but opens and for president , he had very little money. He had to borrow some money quite secretly, which dean addison cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown it doesnt mean he didnt have any money, he did have money but needed some ca
Following hughs remarks and a brief video presentation, our panelists will join us here for tonights program. Those of you on this side of the room, no worries. This podium is going to be removed, so you will have a clear shot of our panelists. And i cant end without a little bit of selfpromotion. Our shop is open until 8 30 tonight. Its right at the top of the ramp from the door where you came in. And everybody here will get a 10 discount on anything that you would like to take home with you tonight. You could finish your Christmas Shopping right here tonight. So, thank you very much. Hugh, welcome. [ applause ] thank you, stewart, and welcome to all of you on behalf of the nixon foundation, which i became the president of only in july. And what a great first event celebrating mrs. Nixon to be a part of. I want to get out of the way of the experts and get them up here in a hurry. We all know the definitive biography of mrs. Nixon was written by julie nixon eisenhower. I am pleased to
Images here, these images are of three of our noteworthy president s. Every ten years or so, about 700 political scientists and historians across the country rank our president s. Now, who knows how our current president is going to rank . Nonetheless, whenever those rankings come out, generally these three guys here rank at the top. Sometimes itll be lincoln, sometimes washington, sometimes f. D. R. But the interesting thing about this is that we do not know what george really looked like. We have images of lincoln. We have photograph images. And you can follow those photographs over time and see how he changed, how he aged. And of course we have images of f. D. R. We even have some images of him in his wheelchair. And generally the press did not take images of him in his wheelchair. But with George Washington, he was there before photography so we dont have photographs of him. What we have instead are artists representations and those are not always very accurate. I mean, you look at
But think about to when johnson pivska visited the class and we talked about the Jackson Magnolia. Who remembers the story . Andrew jacksons wife died right before he went to office so he planted this tree because it was her favorite tree. And he brought the seeds from the hermitage in tennessee and do you remember what jonathan told us . He said there isnt any contemporary evidence, Andrew Jackson never mentions planting a tree, theres nothing in newspapers so it seems like this is a story that has these romantic origins and its continued to grow from that ever since. So this is actually first known exterior photograph of the white house taken by a welsh born photographer named john plume jr. In january 1846. So if youre looking at the white house, this is 1846, so in theory jackson planted his tree already, right . But i dont see a magnolia anywhere. So this also bolsters the case that perhaps the magnolia came a little bit later than people think. Heres an outdoor shot by lewis walt