Senate it is my honor to welcome you here. We are going to have a conversation about the intersection of Early American History and contemporary political issues. If this is your first visit to the institute, i want to welcome you to our fullscale replica of the United States senate chamber. We arekennedy institute, committed to engaging the public in a conversation about the role each one of us plays in our democracy and our society. We do that through Civic Education programs that bring the United States senate to life and conversations like tonight that bring American History into focus. Partnerery proud to with the Massachusetts Historical Society on todays program. They are an invaluable resource for american life, history, and culture. All of us at the institute are proud together together a group of panelists for the Program Including our moderator, fred tice. He covers news related to politics in Higher Education at sincehere he has been 1988. Serving as a trusted source of tru
You could ask either franklin del anor roosevelt or Elanor Roosevelt after all the work did you on this book, what would they be . I think with he will anor, i would like to understand why she was unable at a certain moment in the middle of the war wh he asked her to be his wife again and stop traveling and stay home and take care of him to say yes to him. He loved her and she still loved him. Why didnt you do it . Hes going to die soon. For him, id want to understand why he couldnt share himself more fully with anyone. He was the most charming, most sparkling personality on the surface. Everybody thought how warm he was. But underneath, there was such reserve in him. I would want to try to understand why that was so and why he couldnt give himself more to the people who loved him. What makes this book different than all the rest . Well, i think what i want to do in this book is understand not only franklin and eleanors relationship which is looked at in many, many cases about ut to un
Normally when you do book tours you go to different cities, you talk about connections the place has with whatever youve written about. This is a special place in this context and im certainly not here to tell you your own story of what happened in this city 17 years ago because im sure you know it much better than i ever will. And one of the things that is always moved me when i come here is first of all how warmly ive been welcomed by everybody but also how profoundly the bombing touched everybody here. It is a relatively small place. Ive never met from Oklahoma City who wasnt touched in a personal way in some way by the tragedy. The first time i came i spoke to a number of the relatives of the victims, especially the children who died in the Day Care Center and i thought im a British Foreign correspondent, ive been to a lot of not terribly pleasant places around the world, this is just another assignment and then having spoken to them, i went down to the memorial and saw that fence
It is my pleasure to introduce our keynote session entitled ask the historian, Alexander Hamilton. Our speaker, historian joanne freeman. Dr. Freeman is a professor of history at yale university. She specializes in the American Revolutionary period and Early National american politics and culture. She is the author of several influential Award Winning books. I will mention just two of them. Affairs of honor, National Politics in the republic, 2001. Most recently, field of blood, congressional violence in antebellum america which i found particularly helpful for my own work. If you look at these two books combined, it seems like a reverse echo of the current and contemporary political scene in the United States. From honor to violence. I will leave it at that. Dr. Freeman is also known for her leading scholarship on Alexander Hamilton which she rediscovered, i would say, before broadway did just a couple of years ago. I asked dr. Freeman about her relation with history, and she was kind
Of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards. I have met with our team which we assembled to deal with this bombing. And i have determined to take the following steps to assure the strongest response to this situation. First, i had deployed a Crisis Management team under the leadership of the fbi working with the department of justice, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, military and local authorities. We are sending the worlds finalest vefinal e finest investigators to solve the murders. I have declared an emergency in Oklahoma City. At my direction, james lee witt, the director of fema sis on his way there to help the people of Oklahoma City deal with the tragedy. We are taking every precaution to protect people who work in aor live near other places. We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe. These people are killers and they must be treated like killers. Finally, let me say that i ask all americans tonight to pray. To