[inaudible conversations] welcome to arlington vermont on booktv. located on lake champlain about 45 minutes south of the canadian border. it's home to the university of vermont and it's the state's most populous city with about 42,000 residents. with the help of our comcast cable partners over the next hour we will feature the literary committee including author willard sterne randall on the war of 1812. >> a lot of people have misconceptions about the war of 1812. they think it was all about the "star spangled banner" and the british attack on washington and it was not very important like a hiccup in history. it had been a long struggle with the british over trade and writes and basically to take us back so it's much more important than the way it's taught in school. >> we begin our special feature in burlington with bill maher's and jeff danziger on their book the full monty, vermont in the age of trump. >> about a month before trump was elected i had open-heart surgery and so i was not in great shape and i was in even worse shape when this election happened and what a wretched work they present that was. so i think like a lot of people who did not vote for him i was really depressed for a month or six weeks and gradually you start to get over them but it's still rankled on me and i just didn't want to sit and be frustrated all the time. so i start to say what can i do and that couldn't go in washington because my heart was still a pretty bad shape and so i started to think well what can i do as an individual besides write a check to the aclu or bill mckibben's organization and i thought well i had written some humor in my life too jeff danziger who had illustrated several of my other books and immediately he said well you know that's a good idea. another book before dementia sets in his something to do. he said i will tell you what the title should be. it would shoot be the full monte. >> bill wanted to put out a book because vermont is i think voted for hillary clinton in greater numbers than any other state. remember it's a small space of the amount to that much but the numbers were oppressive so he wanted to do a book where people in the state answered the question what do we do now with trump in charge. in my view against most of the values and characteristics that vermonters have. >> as for trump's stances on issues that are particularly important to vermonters i would say probably the environment is first and foremost. i think this lovefest with the coal industry, his appointment of people who are determined to reverse as many of the obama environment till programs as possible i think really sticks in people's craw and they think, here is bill mckibben who founded 350.org lives in vermont and is very popular, very popular among the environmental community in vermont and he has, not he alone but certainly he has been in the forefront of sensitizing vermonters to threats of global warming and vermont as i say has had a long history of environmental protection that people see trump as actively reversing that trend trend, that move and they look upon this as a thing of, i don't want to say evil but a thing of great damage to the state, the nation and the world. >> one thing that i did for the book was a series of cartoon showing how donald trump who i would say it's probably never done any physical work in his life and what he would do if he were transposed up here where you have to be able to get your car out of the ditch and you have to be able to change your tires and fix your own plumbing and if you are a farmer you have to do the various jobs around the farm. i have a series of drawings where he's trying to figure out where is the chauffeur for the tractor. i was very surprised when trump was elected. i didn't think that was going to happen and i still think the issue here is the elect roh college which something someone has to do something about. also the computerization which allows people to alter the message specifically when they determine other people in general are reacting properly. it also illustrated to vermont that states have kind of the second judgment to make on what the national government is going to do whether it's health care, education religion, segregation and many people don't realize how different the states are within the united states. they think americanism is americanism. i'm not a very happy person. i think the world is going to hell so it reflects all that. i hope it gets better but i don't think it will. >> how does vermont move forward? well, maybe the second least populous state, we have three electoral votes. we have three i think very thoughtful passionate members of our delegation and they are still only three out of 535. and so everyone wants to think as vermont goes so goes the nation. while we don't. we are still a part of this but i think if we can continue to serve our own people and our delegation and work with other similar minded people in congress we will do the best we can. no one is going to look to vermont and say you are going to lead us into the next era but you look and see what bernie did in this last election and i think it's quite plausible that he won't run again and with a different field. he certainly has staked out a position to be the central figure or at least the central advocate for a single-payer health system and he has been absolutely consistent in his condemnation of income inequality in the country so when you say we are little but we are allowed, bernie has the following far greater than i would have thought he would and not election so as bill mckibben said, vermont always fought above its weight or boxed above its weight and i think it has but it's not boxing on the level of pennsylvania or new york or california but i am modestly optimistic. you have to be. you can't just go into a funk and say i'm going to check out and go fish for the rest of my life. so i don't know it's kind of aid, not a wishy-washy but a helpful answer. >> i'm sitting aboard the ethan allen taking a tour of the lake champlain. this is a 120 mile lake. at next we speak with willard sterne randall on his book, the war of 1812. >> a lot of people have misconceptions about the war of 1812. they think that it was all about the "star spangled banner" and the british attack on washington and that it was not very important and a pickup in history. it really wasn't just the war of 1812, it was the end of the american revolution. it had been going on since july 4, 1776. it'd been a long struggle with the british over trade and writes and the british wanted basically to take us back. so it's much more important than the way it's taught in school. the treason that ended -- the treaty of paris had a couple of things that each side was supposed to do and neither one did it. americans are supposed to pay their debt to the english at interest and the british were supposed to leave their forts on the canadian border and they didn't because we were paying the bill. what the british basically dead was cut off all of our trade and we actually are business went down by 80% in one year when they did that. the object of the war for americans was to take canada which blew my mind when i started digging into this, just take canada. we have the louisiana purchase and that's only 11 million acres 11 million acres. jefferson, thomas jefferson actually said canada may be a mere matter of marching. the indians were organized by the wonderful strategist named tecumseh and he put together an alliance of 10,000 warriors. when the americans kept pushing him and taking his land away he went over to the british side. the british side supporting him was a way to keep americans from spreading farther west, deeper into what we call midwest and we still call the northwest because nobody had been to the northwest. tecumseh of the indian leader was tired of the settlers coming in pushing and being supported by the american army. the army gave a little bit of money and took away money. the british were worried basically not only about us going farther west and becoming more powerful but they were concerned that we would take the fur trade which was what everybody was therefore. the british side chance to have the indians do the fighting for them and supply them with the first that people in england couldn't live without. before the actual fighting of the war of 1812 began president thomas jefferson tried to make america neutral by cutting off all trade with the british, with the french, with the dutch, with anyone to make americans grow things are manufactured things themselves. he impose something called the embargo. the embargo of 1808 which made it illegal for american ships to go anywhere or further ships to come here. at that point all of our business was with europe and so you have a complete collapse in one year. 80% of all trade went away. you had sailors and soup lines in portland maine and in boston and in new york. when his term in ended so did the embargo. people really fed up. the two things that really sparked the war of 1812 i'm after this, one the indians, the threat and the fear of the indians on the frontier and the guns they were getting from the english. most of the people in the united states lived along the seacoast and they depended on -- the british were fighting the french and huge naval battles all over the world. they just kept running short of sailors. they would stop american ships, stop in new york harbor and fire a canon pickup crewmen by saying you are really english and you were really english and you were not really american. the british denied honor. the american sailors many of them had been in the english navy and a lot of english sailors had jumped ship. you could buy a passport for a dollar. in a few years time the british came on our ships and seized nearly 10,000 or more sailors. it was called impressment and if you were impressed you were taken and became part of the royal navy. you were shipped by the indian ocean or the mediterranean to relieve crews in british ships. these were 10,000 families who were never going to see your family again. the combination of the two this year the indians and the outrageous practices they were also blockading our seaports. every time they stopped a ship they discovered things in the cargo. they said really that's illegal. and if they did that they took the whole ship sailed up to canada sold at auction and shared the captain and the crew. we were in an outrageous position. even though medicine and jefferson was president, james madison knew we were terribly ill-prepared and he decided to attack. it was one of the most daring things in a president has done. he's the only president who ever gone into battle with his troops to protect washington. he was not really good at it. what the army looked like at the time of the embargo the whole american army was 3000 men. if you compare that with the british army at that time, they had 250,000 men. talking about our navy we had 20 ships and only six of them big enough to be called warships. the british had 900 so it was a ridiculous lopsided proportion between them. it's true we didn't have much military. we didn't have a draft. the states did not want to provide troops. the states wouldn't go from one state into another one during wartime and they certainly wouldn't cross the border into canada. in other words we were woefully unprepared for the war. what we now call democrats jefferson and the democrats were southerners and frontiersmen. if you are from new england or from new york you are against it it. the country almost split. well must have civil war with half the country on the site of the british. fortunately both sides were exhausted and broke so those sides were willing to end it. the outcome of the war is one of those misconceptions about how it happened. the outcome was nobody one. the diplomatic term was status quo antebellum, go back to where things were before the war. the only people who one where the canadians because for the first time the english and french canadians got together and fought against the common enemy and defended their country from the americans who wanted to take it all over. the only real losers were the indians. the british had asked them and armed them and they have done most of the fighting on the new york canadian border especially against andrew jackson and alabama in the south. they have heavy casualties but in the peace talks to settle the war the indians were abandoned by the british. it just wasn't important enough. they dropped it out of their demands. and so it was all over as if it didn't happen in a way except that got destroyed, thousands dead and thousands of ships captured. when it was all over the peace negotiators in belgium for the americans signed a trade treaty and they had been our most favorite nation clients. in the long one of history it doesn't make sense but had we really lost, had the british one eye invading canada or by invading mississippi from new orleans or by invading as they tried to do the united states couldn't have survived. in the united states we call a the war of 1812. in england they call it the second war of american independence, which it wasn't. it was still the same revolution revolution. in canada they think of it as their birthday. they celebrated. they have a huge centennial when we have almost nothing in 2012, 2013 and 2014. they had a huge bicentennial and everybody dressed up in uniforms and they celebrated the birth of canada. that's how they say it's up to them but canadians one and the americans lost. but when you are all through none of that is true. it's the war of 1812 the end of the american revolution. if people read my book i want them to see how complicated that hole period was. there weren't easy victories in saratoga or europe town. i titled it unshackling america because we were still tied up with england. we were still dependent on them. there were whole this is -- holding us as economic prisoners. the war of 1812 truly and at the american revolution. from that time on we were respected. i think the british didn't need us. we have beaten them twice. we need that kind of competition to understand what a long process it is when you get into revolutionary wars. >> standing on the campus of the university of vermont for up next chris burns shows us some of the items from the collection. >> we collect the papers from the delegation as well as other public policy figures and organizations that the congressional delegation are particularly strong with 20 -- 20th century vermont members of congress. for example george aiken served in the senate from 1941 to 1974. when he retired patrick leahy was elected in 74 in that served in that seat ever since. toward the end of his term a can was a republican, and moderate republicans and kind of known for having a regular breakfast with the leader of the democrats of the senate like mansfield in the senate lunchroom. he had a strong relationship with the white house to the nixon years and he kept a diary of his later years and being senator. the last few years these weekly entries he would enter and this particular one is really interesting a first-hand account of a very significant historical event. for the week ending august 10, 1974 beginning of this diary entry talks about him being in a town in vermont where he says what a week both climatic display and politically speaking with alpa arrived in putney on friday. there was one cucumber big enough to pick. by monday there were 50 grown-up cucumbers a bushel of string beans some early potatoes and carrots already for the harvest. so aiken was interested in agriculture and always interested in gardening and wildflowers throughout his life. it's an important diary entry for political events with a summation of where his gardens were. when you get to page six of this entry he finally gets to the big news of the week. the big news of the week of course the big sensation was the resignation of richard m. nixon as president of the united states. although i've constantly oppose resignation was hard preferring the impeachment process if they were found guilty of the charges made against him my position collapsed on monday when he made that statement even making for the last two years were not true and that he was aware of the watergate break-in scandal soon after it occurred. it was then obvious that he had tried to cover up the evidence and protect the guilty parties. when he made this confession is supporting the congress rapidly dissolved until by thursday he had decided it was best for the country if he resigned. thursday night he called about 50 members from each house of congress including myself down to the white house to state his position and at 9:00 that night he went on the air to tell the story to the public. it was an extremely sorry an emotional occasion with many tears being shed including those of the president himself who had difficulty in starting his story to us and which finally culminated in his leaving the cabinet room in a highly emotional condition. one of our other congressional collections that the papers of robert or bob stafford who was in the house of representatives in the 1960s and with the passing of winston crowley in the early 1970s becomes vermont's other senator in addition to senator aiken. stafford as well as a candle for him and other members of vermont's congressional delegation who were republicans right up through jim jeffers were usually of a moderate cohesive wing of the republican party and this can be seen in stafford's case with his membership in an actually his role at the founding of the wednesday group in the house of representatives in the early 1960s. the wednesday group continued on in the house and later in the senate for many years and is now a version in the house known as the tuesday group. it's generally considered to be a group of moderate senators. modern-day followers of u.s. congressional life with thad cochran, ted stephens of former senator from alaska, mitch mcconnell, richard lugar, a variety of senators from across the country and something you wouldn't think of necessarily as moderate members of the republican party. unlike many of the other prominent 21st, particularly the 21st century from our political figures vermont was mainly republican, moderate republican up until the 1960s when the democrats started to gain office. bernie sanders was kind of cut from a somewhat different cloth and came to the state of vermont around the same time many came back to the land movement. use move to vermont and joined communes and started initiatives in vermont. sanders came in 68 and lived in the country for a little while but eventually settled in burlington and eventually became active in local political activist groups and local politics, ran for governor and other statewide offices member of times in the 1970s before ultimately winning the office of mayor of burlington in 1981 by a very slim majority, 10 votes. the incoming democratic mayor launched bernie into this wild journey ps head ever since then. he served as mayor in burlington for eight years until 1989. we have his mayoral papers that are open to the public that shed light on a number of topics. .. >> sanders was considering a run for the u.s. house of representatives, which he ultimately did decide to run for and lost by a slim majority to peter smith. this individual into sanders expressing concern that he was going to split the world. it is not accurate to state that our views of the same. as mayor of the city i fought against every established special interest group. id. things that very few mayors have attempted to do. i be proud to contrast my record with peter. lastly, there's 434 democrats, maybe it's time for one independent progressive. my election will be of national significance. he did not win in 1980, but he won two years later in 1990 response launched him into a 16 year career in the house. then he became a member of the senate and has continued to move forward in his political career running for president last year and on many of the same issues he was champing as mayor in the 80s. one of those issues was healthcare. here we have a document from september of 87 the montpelier first paragraph reads like something he could've said a week ago when he enrolled his medicare for all legislation. the first paragraph says the issue will discuss today is the single most important issue facing vermonters. that is the crisis and affordability and assess ability of healthcare in vermont. on one hand it's remarkable that he has been say these messages about healthcare and economic equality all of these years. and it's almost disheartening that he has to continue to say these things. we make progress on some buffet similar challenges in solving some of these issues. that he has been raising. >> were aboard the ethan allen. up next, will speak on the book, raven rock. >> raven rock was a bunker built in the 40s and 50s that would have served as the center point of the government's response to nuclear war. it's a hollowed out mountain. inside raven rock mountain pennsylvania that holds a small city, capable of supporting thousands of people for two to four weeks at a time. it is a facility that is as old as it is still very much in existence today. it is fully staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. at the peak of the cold war weather 100 bunkers spread across the united states. the big ones being raven rock, another one in virginia, the norad facility in colorado springs, and also dozens of facilities spread across united states in texas, georgia, and washington as well as dozens of other facilities spread around washington pennsylvania down through maryland, virginia and west virginia. the goal was to have thousands of government leaders and managers people to evacuate in 15 - 30 minutes of notice and ensure core u.s. government that was able to survive whatever the incoming attack was. earlier plans date back to the truman and eisenhower years. there kept updated through the cuban missile crisis, johnson, next and comment carter and reagan poured billions of dollars into the plans. these could've held anyone from a couple hundred to a couple of thousand people. they were primarily for senior government officials, congressional leaders, part arose weird as many u.s. companies build their own relocation bunkers. at&t communication facilities, other top u.s. companies dubbed relocation services inside places like iron mountain. a network of facilities that would have held as many as ten or 12000 people across the united states. they were funded out of the black budget. the u.s. public had no sense of the scale of the spending during the cold war. most members of congress did not understand where the money was going and they certainly had no sense of the scale of these facilities, not just on the ground but secret ships at sea that could've held the president, floating command post in white houses. there are special secret airplanes, the looking glass command post there was a u.s. air force plane that was kept in the sky 24 city from 1962 until 1992. these planes, ships, and convoys that could have set out to a nuclear where from wherever the country ended up they existed just off the radar throughout the cold war. most americans had no understanding there were there. we think of the president is just who we elect every four years. during the cold war one thing we saw was the transformation from one person into the office of the presidency. it ensures the presidency is never vacant. if not just the line of succession were familiar with, the president, vice president speaker of the house, but each official has their own line of succession. fifteen or 20 people long. so when you talk about that you talk about something that could encompass 300 people, ready to step up and leave the united states. the plans were also closely held secret. people working in adjacent offices might not understand who was or wasn't involved. i tell the story of when director aaron was doing the research of what became the west wing and he was talking to george stephanopoulos and george showed him his evacuation pass it was his nuclear war, get out of jail free card. when erin incorporated this into a west wing episode some people might remember where the deputy chief of staff gets one from national security, dean myers who was the press secretary pulled him aside and said, i think this is a bunch of baloney. we don't have these cards in the white house. and there aaron realizes weight, dede myers never knew she wasn't to be saved during a nuclear w war. effectively, none of the plans included the civilian population. that's part of what's interesting. in the early years of the big operation alert trolls even through the cuban missile crisis there is a hope and expectation that you could save large chunks because you have enough warning. you are looking at atomic bombs rather than hydrogen bombs. you're looking at bombers, not missiles. so you would have up to ten hours of warning before nuclear war happen. as missiles arrived and weapons got more plentiful. the u.s. ambition shrunk until they are what they are today. hiding out a small number of officials and mountains and letting the rest of us of ourselves. part of these came up in many crisis there used during the gasoline shortages of nixon years. but we only saw them activated in emergency was on 9/11. some of these agencies reopened, you saw congressional leaders evacuated a helicopter from the lawn of capitol hill up to mount weather in virginia. vice president cheney and other officials when they disappear into those undisclosed locations, is very often these bunkers like raven rock that found new use. unfortunately what we learned was that none of those plans would work as intended. lucky for the country that the leadership was not successfully targeted because it turns out to the government plans would not have been able to safely back to the leadership and the time they needed on september 11 that is a big part of lesson of 9/11. as air force one was fine run the country there picking up little snippets of local tv broadcasts. for much of september 11 president bush was less informed than the average american sitting at home. since then the government has put billions of dollars into new plans. they modernize new facilities. these plans today better suited for prize attack in the way that we thought occurred on 9/11. in some ways what we sow is a philosophical shift, the government shifted away from an evacuation and more towards . these bunkers are running 24/seven. there's always a team inside ready to assume control in case of private attack happens on washington. the story recognizes how serious this whole war really was. we often forget how tense these moments were. we know how the cold war ends. we know the soviet union collapsed is without a shot. we know they were never as powerful and threatening as we thought. today, it's important to learn these lessons, particularly in the area of new nuclear threats from north korea. to just realize how unwinnable nuclear war is. it's possible people are left standing but it's going to be hard to consider them a winner. >> c-span is in vermont to learn more. next we make a stop to make more about vermont sender, patrick leahy. >> about eight years ago i was in sweden, it happened that the dark knight, christopher nolan's second it is a club truly be that day. i went to a swedish megaplex and we saw pat leahy confront the joker in the key scene. i thought it was incredible. i said oh my gosh, that is pat leahy. my swedish brother-in-law said who's that? and i said he's my senator and then he said was he doing in the dark night, and i had zero answer. so i went to the library looking for a biography to tell me, there was not. senator pat leahy was our senator been there since 1974. the longest-serving senator and when democrats hold power he is third in line to the presidency. is a very powerful figure in that way i when democrats are in charge he chairs the senate judiciary committee. and in that way as a gatekeeper for supreme court justices, changes to the criminal justice system. he is also powerful on the appropriations committee. for a very small state he gives huge clout in washington. pat leahy was born about five houses from where we are standing on state street. when he delivered his papers every morning he walked past the capital and i'm sure said to himself one day, i would be in that building. he'll left over the state house 11 be in the state attorney to be in a u.s. senator when he was 34. an amazing jump. because of that his seniority accumulated. his eye now in his late 70s that is the most senior member of the senate. he's had an amazing legislative crew. the one bill i would mention is the u.s. patriot act. follow 9/11 he was the person that must take charge of the operation to respond legislatively to the terror attack. he was pushing against the bush administration trying to write something that would've gutted civil liberties in america. he did not take account technology changes another that allowed terrorists to exploit those people. an incredible job with the patriot act. it has been something that has allowed us to move into the 21st century with our terrorism and counterterrorism efforts. forget that the month following 9/11 came the anthrax attacks to washington, d.c. except that a second letter was found to have pat leahy's name on it. the nation was on the edge. washington, on the edge of this. to act as a must pass legislation. pat leahy was in a difficult position. the only position willing to stand up and say, that moment, we need to go cautiously and protect civil rights. he took a lot of heat for. if there's one moment he demonstrated strength of character anchorage, that was it. like a lot of other senators he's been able to bring home money for important projects. some have his name alone. the leahy echo center in burlington, a street in burlington company he way. that accumulates over 40 plus year career. his legacy, more than anything like bernie sanders, vermont politicians are in your community. they don't bring a lot of security so they go to the farmers market. you will see him if you hang out at the farmers market, you'll see bernie sanders at the bagel store and something vermonters rely on, that's one of the reasons we center senators back in part to gain influence through seniority, but also because we know and trust them. why change when someone has done you so well in the past.

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