Good evening. Welcome to white house history. I am a Senior Vice President at the White House Historical association and the director of the David Rubenstein center for white house history. The White House Historical association is a nonprofit, Nonpartisan Organization founded by first Lady Jacqueline kennedy, dedicated to the preservation of the white house. And also educating american citizens about the white house and its diverse history. This evening, our guest is jim conroy, the author of jeffersons white house monticello on the potomac. Jim was a lawyer in boston for 38 years before he began writing about American History. His previous book is lincolns white house the peopless house in wartime, which won the prestigious lincoln prize. If you would like to ask jim a question at the end of our broadcast, please type it in the comments section of the facebook feed and we will get to as many questions from our online audience as possible. Jim, welcome to white house history live. Jam
We will get into that. Let me say a little bit about scott. Welcome, scott. Many of our viewers know scott from his very long and successful and productive tenure and engagement with the National Park. He has been retired for a little more than 10 years or a little less than 10 years, excuse me. Geez, actually six years. Peter one thing john and i have discussed with many of our guests is interpretation on Civil War Battlefield parks. We also talked about partnerships with academics. We have seen with many of our guests, including our guest on thursday, nina silver, one of the first historians who came to the park and had conversations about ways to broaden the interpretation of gettysburg. Time and time again, john have noticed these connections between academics and public historians. Cant then conclude there is this great gap or golf between the two sides. I thought we could open by howng you reflect upon battlefield interpretation has changed over time during your career. And then,
Is Many Americans have lost confidence in what their government has told them about our policy. The American People cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overall writing issues of war and peace, unless they know the truth about that policy. Tonight, therefore, i would like to answer some of the questions i know are on the minds of many of you listening to me. How and why did america get involved in vietnam in the first place . How has this administration changed the policy of the Previous Administration . What really happened in the negotiations in paris, on the battlefront, in vietnam. What choices do we have if we were to end the war. What are the prospects for peace . Let me begin by describing the situation i have found when i was inaugurated on january 20. The war had been going on for four years, 31,000 americans had been killed in action. The Training Program for the South Vietnamese was beyond schedule. 540,000 americans were in vietnam with no p
Captioning performed by vitac captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 each one is different. Each one has its own sets of governments and own sets of law, and ill use pennsylvania. This room was pennsylvanias legislature. Pennsylvania decides to write a constitution that is so radical for its day that they basically get rid of the position of governor. They are not going to have really a chief executive for pennsylvania anymore. They are going to have a fairly democratically run onehouse legislature as opposed to the standard two houses that most of the states are going to use, that the United States has known throughout its history so pennsylvania has a very different setup. It proves a little too radical to work and our 177 of pennsylvania constitution will last only 14 years. They will have to redo it, go to the traditional two houses of government and legislature setup. This is 1776 that each of these states is going to start itself over. Now, the problem is being al
U. S. Constitution were debated and signed. This Program Featuring National Park Service Ranger matthew ifel is about one hour. We are in a building that was built in the 1730s, so about 48 years before there was any such thing as the United States and at that time, of course, pennsylvania was a british colony. And this was its Capitol Building. They would make laws for pennsylvania and each of the 13 colonies has its own government. These are the issues in a lot of ways that are going to lead to the creation of the United States, most of which will happen in this room, because the colonies as time goes forward or at least many people of the Political Class in these colonies will start to grow dissatisfied with the way the British Government is treating them, is affecting their lives locally. One of the other side issues is americans living in the colonies do not get to vote in british elections. When the parliament in london makes laws for americans, the most famous being the various