To whom maybe an important qualifier for this panel. What does it mean to be a bad president . What counts as bad and how do we define a bad president . Specifically, who might have been the worst president ever . Our panelists are david greenberg, are you full position now . Oh, associate professor. Just a little bit inside baseball, sorry guys. Associate professor of history and journalism and immediate study at news brunswick. Hes the author of books of nixon and most recently of a wonderful book of the public of spin. Again, a kind moment, good work, david. This is a history of the white house. David is a long time contributor and now writes a history column for political. To davids right, although not politically ynette gordon reid, professor at the ratliff institute. A renowned professor and scholar of American History, gordon reid has published six books. American family 2008 which won numerous awards for non fiction. A leading and field changing scholar of Thomas Jefferson and
History programming in primetime. W well take you live to conferences and historic site. Go behind the scenes with us to museums and archives and travel with us to the nations classrooms where you will hear some college and University Professors lecturing about history. As the 2016 campaign continues, watch past and president ial campaigns on the way to if white house. And reel america that showcased documentary and other films. Watch our airing of portions from the 1975 Church Committee hearing of the cia, fdi, irs and nsa. Look for all of you are programming every weekend on cspan 3. All this week while congress is in recess showing American History tv on primetime here on cspan 3. Beginning with american artifacts and looking at photographs. Followed by an event in honor of the centennial ce and armstrong cable in help in coordinating the visits. View the winning documentaries at student cam. Org. Next, a discussion about the worst president in u. S. History. Three historians first
Next, a discussion about the worst president in u. S. History. Three historians first looked at what makes a president the worst, followed by their nominees. The panel was port of the organization of american historians annual meeting held this year in providence, rhode island. It is an hour and a half. Welcome to the oah 2016 and welcome to the planary panel, worst president ever. Im claire potter, professor of history and director of the Digital Humanities Initiative at the new school. And i want to let those in the audience who are tweeting know that the tag for this session is oah underscore bad president and add the tag oah 2016. So the theme of the conference, as chosen by oah president john butler is on leadership. And as 2016 is a president ial election year, and boy, is it a president ial election year, the Program Committee assembled a round table of scholars willing to talk about president ial leadership. But about its failures rather than about its successes. This seems par
Protecting america, it said a great deal about the man. Guest we cover that with his interactions with margaret t from Margaret Thatcher, gorbachev, the ultimate success of his policy toward the soviet union. We made that quite clear that the way he structured his administration, very successful and foreignpolicy. Host relationship with Margaret Thatcher you have some great stuff in here. They both were strong individuals. Guest we got that transcript of the Reagan Thatcher phone call they did not tell his best pal it was hanging out to dry peas he was telling her parliament the United States is not going to do this. And she lets him up on the phone call and we have the transcript. We lay out the whole thing which is why these books are so successful because people get the big picture. Now who was at reagans funeral into using the given him . Even though there was this detachment over granada they came back together again because they were both essentially of like minds and wanted free
About the book. Host i have to disagree. As someone who love this man , i read the book and was delighted to think i would be able to read and talk to you about ronald reagan. Millions of americans have appreciation for his true greatness. He continues to inspire. I got the sense that you are undermining and demeaning his true greatness by throwing his stuff that is irrelevant to the and suggesting he was not really with it. He tells us all of the things he did. Guest i standi stand behind the book, no you are emotionally attached. I am not. I am an historian who writes in on this book. Nothing i say will be challenged because we can back it all up. The selection of what we have is debatable, but i did not set out to write saint ronald reagan. I set out to write here is a great president , here is what made him great. Here is what he overcame. An assassins bullet that almost took his life. It is a compelling dramatic story and we did a good job and im happy to talk to you about it. Hos