as we continue our celebration of our 2015 celebration of the 125th anniversary of dwight david eisenhower. we are grateful for the cosponsorship of this series made possible by the wt temper foundation and the eisenhower presidential library museum and boyhood home. the associate director is here with us tonight. he will be speaking in the library october 13, tuesday at the central library. about the significance of the front tier. presidente day before eisenhower's birthday october 14 where he will be giving his talk at the eisenhower library in abilene. there is a party. you are invited to the party on the 14th as well. we are extremely happy to have professor yanek mieczkowsk here tonight to talk about ike and.net. one of my first memories is of 1956rents watching the republican convention on tv and my mother arguing with my father that since he was point to vote for eisenhower you should register as republican. which he was not at that point. not everybody liked ike at that time. joe mccarthy. the john birch society said he was a communist. russell kirk said ike is not a communist. he is the golfer. that image of ike on the golf course, not accomplishing very much. then things likes but the missile gap have affected our historically, which is corrected in his letter sputnik moment. his carefults in and measured book, and astute 1961, asisenhower, by president kennedy took office we had a huge lead in satellites and the technology of space and missiles. the quality of what we were doing made a greater difference in the history of the cold war than putting a man on the moon or a flag on the moon as the russians did, which were in essence stunts. he built more roads, schools, and houses during this time that any previous president had. yanek mieczkowsk is a historian who believes in the right stuff among presidents. he has written about president eisenhower.esident on president ford's 90th birthday he wrote a piece about him. how especially attractive thing about president ford was his integrity. that kindok you find of right stuff was present in president eisenhower as well. he wasne point said looking for a broader and better type of civilization. hardwaretues, not the of history. you may remember in his famous speech at the end of his presidency he warned us against the military-industrial complex and the scientific and technical elite. he was not one to rush, be rushed by experts or the media, or advisors or anything that he found without merit. it is the virtues of his book and his history that that is what we find out about president eisenhower. artin dempsey: -- yanek mieczkowsk he has written a couple of books on the presidency including the routledge atlas of the presidency and has won many awards and fellowships and is a very fine historian. it is a pleasure to welcome professor yanek mieczkowsk. [applause] marilynne: -- yanek: thank you. thank you to the kansas city public library for having me tonight. thank you for coming. many of you must've had a choice to not because it is the first home game of the chiefs. library talk, chiefs game? you decide on the library talk. i appreciate it. the chiefs might not but thank you for coming. i wanted to start my talk and practice it by paying tribute to somebody who helped me a lot, enormously as a research and wrote my book on eisenhower. somebody who inform my thinking on eisenhower, told me stories, some of which i will share with you tonight. that person is dr. william e walt. he passed away this march will one of the last surviving members of the eisenhower administration. you may be familiar with his legacy with an on eisenhower. he worked during the eisenhower administration as a speechwriter for fred seaton and as you see in the lower right-hand corner, he helped former president eisenhower write his memoirs. then he wrote his own books on whichower's presidency, came out in 1981 and is still one of the classics on the eisenhower presidency. i was lucky to know bill and live close to him. he lived in greenwich connecticut. i would love to see him and interview him. he was my go to guy whenever i had a question. when i was going through documents or literature. i could go and see how and he would answer my questions. he helps me to know and understand eisenhower. when of the most rewarding and challenging parts of writing about any historical figure, especially one who is no longer around, is the ability or the chance to decipher that person. bill helped me to do that to some extent. he helped me to know and understand eisenhower. i entitled my talk, understanding ike. i found a number of eisenhower traits that stood out and shaped his response to sputnik and the space race, and characterized his presidency as a whole. i thought i would concentrate on four. i am violating a rule of good lectures and human learning. the human brain is well-suited to grouping things in 3. that is why there are three numbers and area codes, , three supporting paragraphs and conclusion. , if i stuckng that to three, you would have a good acronym to member the talk by. you can consider the fourth trade as a bonus. what i want to do is go through each trait and give examples of them, show how they related to eisenhower, the space race, and his presidency as a whole. the most personal, his temper. i chose this for his entertainment value, the most colorful of the trade. he was a cradle-to-grave kind of thing. he invented as a young boy into his retirement. when he was 10 years old one halloween his parents prohibited him from going trick-or-treating. he beat his fists against the tree outside his home until his knuckles were bloody. in retirement when you would think he would mellow out, he still showed flashes of the temper. his physician during his he got at, one evening call from the eisenhower residence. he had been experiencing heart pain. that is nothing to trifle with. he suffered a heart attack in 1955, and a mini stroke. a month after sputnik. the doctrine physician rushed over to the home examined him, he seemed to be ok. they asked him about what activities he had done that day. nothing extraordinary. then he asked them what did you have for dinner tonight. eisenhower said pigs knuckles and sauerkraut. oh my goodness. general eisenhower. you are on a restricted diet. you can't be eating things like that. he goes why did you eat such a thing? he glared and he goes because i damn it. there was a meaning behind him getting angry. i wanted to show a couple of examples of eisenhower getting angry. in july of 1961, president john f. kennedy was planning to host the president of pakistan. he was going to have a big event. the first state dinner outside of the white house. there would be a bonfire, the marine corps band. eisenhower was fear he's. he lost his temper. and hannitytator was hosting him at the home of eisenhower's idol, george washington. eisenhower cursed him out. this sacrilegious stunt as he called it. there is a deeper implication. early in kennedy's term eisenhower took a dim view of this young president. he called him little boy blue, the young whippersnapper. he borrowed a phrase from his first defense secretary, the former president of general motors. his flywheel is too big for his engine. [laughter] .his disdain was mutual he once said i have a minimum of high regard for him. after the interviews with jackie kennedy were published, they are available and you can listen to them. he was the historian and kennedy aides. you could hear arthur asked jeske -- jackie, what did your president think of eisenhower. she responds, not much. it was mutual. eisenhower, this sacrilegious stunt of kennedy's made him think even less of the new president. two months before this incident there was another that made eisenhower question kennedy's judgment. in 1951 he appeared before congress and gave an unusual second state of the union address. he gave a state of the union address in january. now he called a joint session of congress and gave a second state of the union address. he uttered lines that became immortal. the challenge the nation to land men on them moon before the decade was out. eisenhower was appalled. he thought it was a grave mistake. i will let eisenhower's words explain it. ins is a letter he wrote 1965. it was personal and confidential at the time. i will direct your attention to the second page in which he writes in 1961, the president of the united states announced this nation challenge the russians to a race to the moon implying the prestige would be riding on the issue. this i thought unwise. it took one single project or experiment out of a planned and continuing program involving communications and meteorology and military benefits, and gave the highest priority to a drastically, and eisenhower goes on to arrange the bad effects of kennedy's challenge. clashas a significant between a sitting president and a former president. eisenhower respected the presidency too much to dive his feelings publicly. now today we know the historical record and know how he felt. kennedy's called challenge of putting a man on the moon nuts, almost hysterical, and a stunt. atn eisenhower got angry kennedy, or the opposite, it was not just personal or political, it sometimes reflected real policy differences. eisenhower did not want to send men to the moon and kennedy did. eisenhower thought that much less of kennedy because kennedy did. i will mention another incident of eisenhower losing his temper that pertains to the space race. this story comes from arthur larson. the soviet union launched sputnik in 1957. it marked the beginning of the space age, october 4, 1957. and on november 5, 1957, almost a month after sputnik, arthur larson is in the oval office. eisenhower specifically asked arthur larson to come to the was theuse -- larson director of the u.s. information agency -- and eisenhower made made larson the special assistant to the president to help him write speeches to but the sputnik achievement in proper perspective. eisenhower was on the phone with his new defense secretary, neil mcelroy. directorned creating a of missile development to give top priorities to america's missile development for defense. but mcelroy was not buying this. finally, eisenhower lost his temper, he cursed, slammed on to phone, and according larson, he said, give him all the power he needs. this shows two important aspects of eisenhower's leadership after sputnik. first, who was this guy? this was james killian, the president of the massachusetts institute of technology, whom eisenhower had just reported -- appointed as a science advisor. some americans feared that the u.s. trailed the soviet union in silence and technology -- science and technology. after world war ii, science became incredibly important everyday life. tists had developed jet engines, developed the transistor. eisenhower realized that he needed an advisor in science. most presidents do not come from a science background. they majored in history, for example, eisenhower majored in history in college. john f. kennedy, george w. bush. -- or theytion it majored in political science, like barack obama, or economics, like reagan and george h.w. bush. only two presidents came from science or technical backgrounds -- hoover and carter. science is vitally important. a president needs an advisor to get him counsel on how to promote science in public policy. after sputnik, eisenhower decided to appoint the first ever science advisor to the president. special assistant to the president for science and technology. the media often called it the missile czar. killian, an james interesting guy. he had no phd in the science field, he had no medical degree. his background was in administration. he had accumulated enough honorary doctorates to where people called him "dr. killian turco -- dr. killian." eisenhower created the 18 person presidential science advisory committee, consisting of 18 scientists, many of them nobel prize winners and fut ure nobel prize winners, who would meet with the president and give him advice on science. a strongerestablish link between the president and the scientific community. something badly needed and increasingly science oriented -- in an increasingly science oriented and technical world. he respected the scientists immensely, calling them "my "cientists. ed,enhower was hospitaliz dying of heart disease. billion visited him will stop during that -- chilean visited him. eon visited him. eisenhower. lot to today, the president still has a science advisor. won, ant obama has physicist by training. you don't often hear about him. he flies under the radar. but this is the legacy of eisenhower's response to sputnik, creating the position of a science advisor. in thatore, you saw outburst, eisenhower trusted killian enough that he toyed with this idea of getting him hisgh power to circumvent own defense when it came to rockets and missiles development when he felt that mcelroy was not cooperating. there is a second aspect of that outburst when he was talking to neil mcelroy, that i think is important. one of the reasons that america's rocket and missile program moved slowly after world war ii was that it had no real direction. it's home was in the pentagon. there was no nasa yet in this time period. missiles were housed in the pentagon. in the pentagon, the services fought one another on who should controlling and rocket and missile development. the army versus the navy. in fact, the very first nasa administrator said he worked with an air force officer and maybe admiral -- navy admiral, and said it was like watching two little boys argue over whose father would beat up the other. that's how bad it was. eisenhower was furious over these rivalries. parochial.they were he used that word so often to criticize these rivalries that wouldrs thought people think he was mixing church and state. when he mentioned this idea of a director of missile and mcelroy, heto hemmed and hot. -- hawed. that thenot believe services would let parochialism in the waywar stand of rocket missile development. these rivalries also created a sense of chaos and disorder in this field. they contributed to a sense of disorder and confusion. that brings me to the second eisenhower case that i wanted to look at. eisenhower was very disciplined in his approach to everything. you would expect that from a career army officer. he brought discipline and order to the presidency. he created positions, like a science advisor post. orders, likeecial psac. who developedwer the position of white house chief and staff, to develop order for the sheer volume of paperwork that comes to the white house every day. away carter tried to do with the position of a chief of staff after the abuses of n found it so critical that carter eventually named jordan his chief of staff. eisenhower'sn see sense of order in his punctuality. he ran his white house like clockwork. he began his meetings on time. his workdays would begin at 8:00 and end at 5:00, a fairly long workday. of hiser editors biography would work into the evening, often until midnight. one morning, another editor walked into eisenhower's office at 8:03. eisenhower looked up at them, and he goes, "you boys may work late, but you get up late too." that might not seem as bad as it is. if you look at the first half of it, you boys may work late, billy told me that was the greatest problem that he had ever gotten. eisenhower was not one who said thank you a lot or complement of people, -- or complemented people am a but that was eisenhower acknowledging for one how hard everybody was working on the memoir. but the second part of the sentence was the approach. i asked hill, did you ever show up late again, he said, oh no. three minutes late was not good enough for eisenhower. it violated his sense of punctuality and order. see eisenhower's sense of order in the space race. after sputnik, there were concerteda more effort in science and space. there were many senators who called for a level -- a cabinet department of science. he thought it would add another level of bureaucracy and thought the most important space endeavors were not for science, but for national security. eisenhower thought the pentagon was the national -- natural home for space endeavors. eisenhower began to support the idea of a separate space agency. one of the reasons he changed his mind was it appealed to his sense of order. 's approach to space was very asked to bring us and lacked an orderly, planned out approach. after sputnik, space was becoming increasingly important. orderlyer wanted a more approach to space efforts, and a new agency specifically devoted to space could do that. eisenhower also thought that a civilian space agency was important. it would emphasize the peaceful nature of american space efforts. that would speak volumes about this country during the cold war. it would contrast this country with the soviet union, which used military rockets to launch satellites, but it was launched by a military rocket, the soviet r-7. so all of the scientists came together to make eisenhower support a civilian space agency, nasa. he later signed a bill committing the national -- creating the national aeronautics and space at ministration. this was less than a year after spot next launch. nasa was a tribute to eisenhower's ability to work quickly with congress on a matter of national urgency. it was a tribute to being flexible enough to changing his mind. and it was also a tribute to his sense of order, his desire to an orderly approach to america's space effort. eisenhowerioned that thought that america's most important space project would be related to national security. that idea gives me a segue to the next eisenhower trait that i want to look at, his focus on national security. this was eisenhower's most important goal, his top priority as president. projects thatut had little scientific value and no national security value. politicians, the media, and even scientists wanted to boost america's prestige on the world stage. these are projects that they thought would win the cold war prestige race. there was the arms race, the space race, but there was also a prestige race in the cold war. as i mentioned, eisenhower scoffed at the idea of raising the soviet union to land man on the moon. it.ften got sarcastic about at one meeting, he said, and of you fellows want to go to the moon? he answered his own question by saying, i don't. i'm happier right here. at one cabinet meeting, where these discussion turns to the cost of sending man to the moon, eisenhower said he could not care less. to eisenhower, that can a project was a waste of taxpayer money with no national security benefits. he once pointed out at a meeting, i don't think we had an enemy on the moon. there was no reason to go to the moon for eisenhower. cared moreower about, the race that really mattered to him, was the race to develop intercontinental illicit missiles. icbm's, . he wanted to beat the russians to it. he approved the development of two icbms. he also approved two intermediate range in her ballistic missiles. in 1956, he approved a game changer, a choleric irb and -- the polaris irbm.\ this would be mobile, and therefore impossible for the soviets to track and destroy. briefedenhower president-elect kennedy on national security before he took office, he mentioned the polaris. he said that kennedy had an .nvestment in alaris -- polaris this was a major accomplishment for eisenhower, and a record he was pierced late proud of. he went from having zero icbms and irb ends when he took office to having an array of them when he left. america's advanced national security by leaps and bounds when you consider how far these missiles could go. when kennedy ran for president, he charged that there was a missile gap. talk about eisenhower losing his temper, he was furious at that charge. it was attacking him on an issue, national security, that was near and dear to him. he knew how much he accomplished , and he knew that there was no missile gap, or actually there was a missile gap, and it was heavily in favor of the united states. also appointed satellites for national security. weedy public did not know about this for decades until information about them became classified in the 1990's, decades after eisenhower left office. but now we know. this was a significant achievement. one of these satellites, corona, provided intelligence information into the 1970's. it gave investigators enough information that they felt confident enough to allow mr. and -- to allow richard nixon to sign a treaty in moscow in 1972. did not live to see that event, he died in 1969, but before he died he did see evidence of his legacy and reconnaissance satellites. while he was at the hospital, the cia director, richard helms, and assistant- visited eisenhower. they showed him pictures of u.s. military facilities taken by reconnaissance satellites. they had asked all medical staff to leave the room, they closed the lines. eisenhower looked at the photos and expressed amazement on how resolute they were, compared to the once he had seen in 1960. in the field of rocketry and space, when it pertains to national security, eisenhower had tangible results to show at the end of his presidency. irbm,m, and irb and -- in and also in reconnaissance satellites. but his position on national security carried a risk, and he knew it. that brings me to my fourth trait. all of you are familiar with eisenhower spell where address -- eisenhower's farewell address. when i say "eisenhower's farewell address," i know you "industrialking military complex," he immortalized that phrase in this in -- in thisop speech. there is another term he uses in that speech nine times. that was a theme of the farewell address. it was just as important a warning as his morning about the military-industrial complex. what was that word that eisenhower used nine times in his farewell address? i will let eisenhower speak for himself. president eisenhower: he is proposing a wager in light of a broader consideration, the need to maintain balance in and among national programs. balance between the private and the public economy. balance between the cost and hopes and advantages. cost between the -- balance between the necessary and the desirable. balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed upon the nation by the individual. lance between actions of the moment and national welfare of the future. good judgment seeks balance and promise,- balance in lack of it finds in balance and frustration. about thewas talking proposals to boost industry and agriculture, to boost national security and defense. this was his morning. he mentions balance seven times. he goes on in the farewell it more.o mention i don't know if eisenhower followed astrology, but since his birthday is coming up on october 14, he was born on october 14, giving him the astrological sign of libra. the symbol for libra is scales, meaning justice, but also balance. whether that has a deeper meaning or not, eisenhower did call his political philosophy "the middle way," in other words, it was balanced between the liberal and conservative wings of his own party, between the liberal and conservative impulses of the electorate as a whole. elections are won in the middle. candidates running should keep that in mind. eisenhower's political philosophy was based on a fulcrum point in the middle of the electorate. it also explains one reason why he won such resounding victories each time he ran for the white house. eisenhower believed you had to spend money to achieve national yourity, but he worried if overspent and overdeveloped the military-industrial complex, it will throw the economy out of .ounds, warp the economy the private sector was vital. the consumer sector of the economy was vital. eisenhower liked to point to farms and supermarkets and cars as symbols of how vibrant capitalism is compared to communism. if eisenhower were alive today, he would probably point to home depot, walmart, and all the cars we have. -- point to home depot, walmart, and the cars we have as vital evidence of how good our economy is. balance.to have the soviet union was a country that did not have that kind of balance. that doomed the soviet union. the soviet union had a first-rate military-industrial complex, but as gorbachev later said, it was a country that security for its people. another example of eisenhower in balance -- after sputnik, he gave two television speeches to try to put the soviet achievement of sputnik in proper perspective. he worried that if politicians and the media exaggerated sputnik, the results would be the american people would get over sputnik and demand more spending on rockets and missiles that the country didn't need to fuel the military-industrial complex. gave two speeches. he was partly acting as a cheerleader in chief, trying to plump up the company -- the country's confidence, showing them that the country was achieving a lot in national security and science. he and arthur lawrence wrote those speeches. the second of those two speeches , delivered from oklahoma city on november 13, 1957, in that speech eisenhower talks about eisenhowere, but says something that is very intriguing. he says, we will need not only s,nstein's and steinmetze but washington's and emerson's. that is a pointed line. an obscure figure. he was referring to the electrical engineer, charles steinmetz. balance, again. the country needs scientists and engineers, but also needs politicalr humanity, and military leaders like george washington. political philosophers like ralph waldo emerson. and one area of balance was vital to eisenhower. that was the federal budget. national security was important, but he knew the national security was also expensive, or is he liked to say, good defense is not cheap defense. but a strong economy was the most important part of national security. to have a strong economy, the federal government needed to balance its budget. he grew angry. he lost his temper at people who talked about having to make a choice, a choice between a balanced budget and national security. in other words, if you want national security, you have to spend a lot of money on defense, run up the federal budget, and run up huge deficits and debt. eisenhower dismissed that idea. he said a balanced budget is actually a vital part of national security. he insisted on keeping defense spending in check. arthur lawrence remembered eisenhower meeting with charlie wilson, urging him, telling him, to stay within the budget. notaid to charlie wilson, one penny over budget, do you understand? id thathur larson say charlie wilson looked up meekly and said, yes, sir. achieved three balanced budgets during his presidency. that is a huge accomplishment. he did it in part by holding the lid on defense spending, keeping defense spending under $40 billion during his entire presidency. he found this budget -- balance this budget despite increased spending in many areas, the highway program, despite two the states. new states, alaska and hawaii. despite any space agency, nasa. -- a new space agency. despite new satellites. most of you might not know this, but at the end of eisenhower's , the u.s. had launched 31 satellites. the soviet union just nine. and the u.s. satellites were far more technologically sophisticated. significant lead over the soviet union in satellites in this key area of the space race. eisenhower cannot get that point part because of the impact that sputnik had on people. my point is this, despite all this new spending in many different areas, eisenhower still achieved those three balanced budgets during his presidency. that was a signal of achievement. those are the four traits of eisenhower -- his temper, order, emphasis on national security, and emphasis on balance, but i want to end by talk i giving two points to you. last year, american history write a asked me to cover story on a very intriguing topic. we are at a hinge point in history. we have had three consecutive two-term presidents, clinton, bush, obama. we have not seen this in 200 years. thomas jefferson, james madison, and james monro. the idea of what constitutes successful second terms is important for any second term president, any president to his lucky enough to win the second term, to act as a roadmap as to how to achieve a successful second term. my editor at the american history magazine started off by deciding what president or presidents should feature in this story. democrats and republicans alike, we immediately ruled out fdr and ronald reagan, fdr because he had the disastrous court backing in his second term, and toward the end of his second term he had the roosevelt recession. in fact, his presidency had -- if his presidency had ended after two terms, he might have gone down in history as the president to failed to end the great depression. and ronald reagan in his second term had the iran contra scandal. scandals become common in second terms, richard nixon had watergate, clinton had monica lewinsky and impeachment. at eisenhowerlook and roosevelt. they beat the second term blues. look at eisenhower's second term. he avoided major scandals. the atom's resignation and u-2 incident, but that did not rise to the level of impeachment. he signed bills for nasa, the national education defense act, he intervened in the little rock integration crisis. he had a very impressive satellite program in general. he had a summit meeting with had aingrich of -- he summit meeting with russia. eisenhower's second term was very successful. i will leave you with one more thought, i don't know if you recognize this person in the middle standing next to eisenhower, that is congressman gerald ford. in 2001, once the 20th century wasover, a reporter interviewing former president ford, and he asked him, who do you think was the best president of the 20th century? ford's answer was eisenhower. ford really admired eisenhower. he said that eisenhower presided over two terms, eight years of peace, prosperity, and progress, balanced the budget. he thought well of his presidency. ford's assessment is one worth considering. it is one thing when historians assess rank, it is another thing when former presidents to, someone who has been in that job, who understands its hardships. has a special vantage point from which to judge the president. gerald ford's assessment of is one worthower considering. i will leave you with that thought. thank you very much. [applause] if you have questions, can you go to the microphone please? go ahead. >> [indiscernible] former president which was the former president? >> dwight d. eisenhower. [indiscernible] yanek: that is very fitting. there is a next want book out on richard nixon and eisenhower by one of my friends, dr. irwin gelman. it was just published a month ago. it is a reassessment of richard nixon and it is part of a multi volume project that dr. gelman is working on. --is somebody who is really who has really mind the richard nixon archives. if you are interested in reading he got usard nixon -- out of vietnam also. i highly recommend that book if you are interested in richard nixon and eisenhower. next question? >> i would like to first thank you for a marvelous evening. it was entertaining. we have attended a great number of these. we appreciate it. i have a question, if i may. it seems that one of eisenhower's traits that did not get mentioned was his ability to work with different people. youing my age again, imagine working with charles de gaulle, winston churchill, bernard montgomery, george patton, omar bradley, and surviving it? it seems to me that this is a trait that i think of as very important for dwight d. eisenhower. yanek: good question, yes. he showed that during world war ii. in world war ii, he was not a brilliant strategist. he does not go down in history as a strategic general. he was no more as somebody who could work well with different egos and allies. he was more a political general than a military strategic kind of planner. president, he worked well with congress. in fact, one thing that both roosevelt and eisenhower had in common that made for two consent -- successful terms as president was their ability to work in congress. eisenhower's specific ability was to work with the senate majority leader of that time, lyndon johnson. after sputnik was launched, johnson capitalized on the launch of sputnik. he and his aides saw space is an issue that he could capitalize on and even bleed johnson through the white house. -- lead johnson through the white house. so johnson had a hearing, asking a slew of different witnesses to testify about the level of readiness about american defense. it was a challenge to eisenhower's leadership. johnson was at the forefront not only of the bill creating nasa, but also the bill creating the national defense education act. privately, i know that views of johnson were a little different. one of his favorite lines that he would drag out is, "that fellow is such a phony." privately, he worked well with johnson. they both suffered heart attacks in 1955. in many respects, eisenhower worked better, especially after the democrats regain control of congress, eisenhower worked better with democrats than the conservative wing of his own party. that is something that i think the candidates today should take note of. , there was a debate at the reagan library. the republican candidates are vying for the man like ronald reagan. would not go off the quips with flags flying, he was not as ideologically rigid as people might think. he wants signed a bill, and one of his aides asked him, why did you sign that will? it is not keeping with your principles that all. well, i got 80% of what i wanted and i just declared victory. eisenhower's of approach to things. he was very good at compromising. gerald ford said that compromise is the oil that makes government go. ford also understood how good an important it was to work with members of the opposite aisle. one of ford's best friends was .ip o'neill, a golfing partner publicly, tip o'neill would criticize ford savagely, but after 5:00 ford and tip o'neill got together and golfed and drank together and had a very good relationship, as did eisenhower with members of both parties. don't think it's particularly well-known, but john kennedy, despite his speeches on the moon, basically had the same opinion as i did. he really did not care that much about going to the moon. my question is, obviously that is not particularly well-known, but i do think it is a fact, did ever findd out -- ike out that kennedy felt the same way he did about going to the moon, so to speak? yanek: i can't answer your question with precision. supposition is, no, he didn't. i don't think documents on kennedy were declassified in the 1960's while eisenhower was alive. i don't know if any kennedy aides spoke to eisenhower about that. but your question is a good one. your question is about kennedy initially resisting and thinking like eisenhower about the space race, not being interested, not being interested in spending -- sending men on the moon. that is true. , an kennedy was a senator bartender recalled kennedy arguing that rocketry and missiles were a waste of money. he first nasa -- the first nasa administrator was waiting for word from the kennedy administration about their plan for space projects, you see his diary entry saying, still no word from the kennedy people, still no word from the kennedy people. there are recordings made in the oval office that are available from the kennedy leidy. -- kennedy library. one meeting in which kennedy is meeting with his nasa administrator, in which they argue about landing man on the moon. the administrator says there are more priorities for nasa, then kennedy puts his foot down and says, no, there is only one priority, putting man on the moon, otherwise i am not interested in space. kennedy understood the political value of sending men to the moon in a way that eisenhower did not. kennedy capitalize on it for a number of reasons. my talk tonight was about trace and how trace can be printed -- painted on a larger canvas of policies. one kennedy trait was that he was very competitive. he competed with his brothers. when he and his older brother, joe, dined during world war ii, they fought like scorpions in a bottle. they once raced their bikes against each other, playing chicken. they crashed into each other. john kennedy, who was a rather weak child, needed stitches, joe unharmed.s i think that incident shows the competitiveness of john kennedy. or was no way he was going to lose the race to the russians. there were other factors that played into his changing of mind , making kennedy realized that he had to regain presidential initiatives. kennedy did change his mind, but behind the scenes he thought very much like eisenhower. he was not a space aficionados. >> [indiscernible] talk a little bit about the relationship between clarity of thinking and clarity of writing in relation to the development of eisenhower's communicating and founding programs? was about question eisenhower's clarity of thinking and writing. good question. eisenhower was known as press conferences to be bubbling and inarticulate. metaphors, break grammatical rules. he would sometimes plead ignorance. he would say, for example, i have not read that bill yet, about the civil rights legislation. don't understand the particulars of it, i will have to refer you to my attorney general. press conferences weren't exactly sterling performances in terms of a display of knowledge. a lot of times, eisenhower did this deliberately. he did not want to make public utterances that could be inflammatory. as a general, i think eisenhower to let hisch trained adversaries underestimate him. he was much more comfortable being in a position of being underestimated. ,n terms of being articulate eisenhower often did not give the best speeches or performances at press conferences. he did as an effort to publicize continued activity in the space race, visiting cape canaveral once, at the speech that he gave there consisted of only three sentences. it was almost embarrassing. in terms done better of his public promotion of his think theefforts, i public would have had a better realization of his own achievements in space, for example, how far ahead the u.s. was in satellites. and there is a difference between extemporaneous public speaking and writing. but eisenhower was quite a wordsmith. something he paid specific, deliberate attention to. when he gave the speech in london, people compared it to the gettysburg address. he practiced it and rehearsed it. but people talked about how good general douglas macarthur's speeches were. eisenhower said probably, you know who wrote his speeches? i did. eisenhower's -- his speeches with arthur larson that he gave after sputnik in early november am a i came across -- early november, i came across 17 drafts of one speech. eisenhower worked on every one of those drafts, but i know he worked hard with larson. again, talk about eisenhower's temper. eisenhower'sresist attempts to change words here and there. at one point, eisenhower said to arthur, i amit going to ask to price this write this anyway! he felt like he had to act as cheerleader in chief and layout the bare facts for the american people. yes, sputnik was an achievement, but it is nothing to get worried or anxious about. that was the main theme of all of those features. take onted to get your .his sewage crisis it seemed to mark a moment where -- definitelyfrom went to a real politic stance. for eisenhower to turn against traditional american allies and put his foot down, i just wanted to see what you knew about that or what your take on that was. the suez crisis of 1956 by dave nichols, i don't know if you have read that. was ansuez crisis important turning point in american foreign policy. it marks the entrance of america into the middle east. it marked a very important point where eisenhower was willing to stand up to three of america's greatest allies -- written, france, and israel. france, and israel. all three of them had really defended eisenhower. eisenhower was willing to stand up to all three of those allies. eisenhower'sof temper, he yelled at the british prime minister so vigorously that helen mcmillan ended up crying on the phone. that was the power of eisenhower's wrath, his anger. but for that reason, i think the suez crisis will go down in history. it marks a point of america's internationalism, of which eisenhower was an expert in. ii, therld war sentiment was the u.s. could no longer afford to be an isolationist nation, it had to , even if it had to stand up to traditional alliances, and it ended up interjecting itself into the middle east. i think you are next. >> my name is miss morgan. what is the lifespan of those 31 how do they know the placement -- like, if the other countries are sending up a satellite, is there a boundary that they have to maintain when they do that? can the u.s. only but satellites in certain places? yanek: good question. it was about the lifespan of the satellites, and also are there any boundaries or claims to outer space? for your first question, some of the satellites launched in the 1950's are still up there, like the vanguard. some last a long time, others don't,'\ like sputni -- others don't, sputnik came down after 90 days. it varies on the orbit of the satellite. generally, outer space is considered about 100 kilometers up. it is a matter of debate among scientists. to get the satellite into orbit, you have to get generally 100 kilometers, 62 miles or higher. the geico synchronous -- the geosynchronous orbit is much higher. but your question about boundaries in space is a good one. eisenhower thought that america's original space project, the vanguard, was probably -- was part of the international geophysical hearing, in which the u.s. would share the fruits of its labor, share the bounty of its satellite with other nations of the world. it would also establish the principle that outer space has no boundaries, that flight in outer space was free to any country of the world. that was a very important principle for national security and reconnaissance that eisenhower wanted to establish. of course, once the soviet union launched sputnik and america launched its first satellite, explorer, in january 1958, there were no complaints by any nations of the world that this was our territory above, these overflights were illegal. what happened in the 1950's was critical, he established the principle of free space. this has all kinds of implications in not only national security reconnaissance , which was a favored field of eisenhower, but for weather, communications, observations, and all the rest. i think you are next. me to my comparison between lincoln and eisenhower -- it struck me, the comparison between lincoln and eisenhower. -- peopleoth underestimated them tremendously. choosing people, selecting people that were extremely competent to do their jobs, and then turn them loose. can you say something about that? yanek: sure. lincoln was one of eisenhower's idols. i mentioned balanced budgets and the activity of government. eisenhower wanted to circumscribed the activities of the federal government. one of his favorite lincoln quotes, how big should the government be? lincoln answered, how long should a person's lightspeed, long enough to reach the ground. that's what eisenhower thought. ,ut in terms of the cabinets underestimating the cabinet or assuming a good one, lincoln's cabinet was the greatest. eisenhower also assembled a good, and it was not underestimated at the time. people thought eisenhower and his cabinet -- i came across a new york times article that said something like, the eisenhower cabinet -- administration is not known for its intellectual brilliance. eisenhower's cabinet. look at billy wald, a phd from harvard. general andrew goodpasture, graduated second in his class at west point. the eisenhower administration with intellectuals, high-caliber people. it was a very good administration. it's why eisenhower was able to have two successful terms as president. when i look at the common denominators of roosevelt and eisenhower, that was one thing they had in common. they had very good aids. and relied onides them. they did not get wrapped up in the cocoon of presidential infallibility. they knew what they were -- they knew they were human. eisenhower did like to say, i am one of the common folks. eisenhower also held dinners to n toune with businessme get ideas and opinions from people outside the white house and government. all of that was very important. eisenhower associated with high quality people, and surrounded himself with them. was a good caliber cabinet and administration. i think you are next. so much aboutsing eisenhower being organized and whathing what he started, thoughts can you offer on the 1953 korean armistice and eisenhower's role in that, and the fact that 60 years later it remains unsettled? yanek: this is one of eisenhower's achievements early in his administration. the war had been going on for years. it was the endless war period, become of period for trade in the tv series "mash," which goes on and on. and in six months, eisenhower was able to get an armistice achieved. partly by using the principle of brinkmanship, saying to china and north korea that we will be forced to use weapons of extraordinary power. were clearly veiled allusions to using nuclear power, which forced china and north korea to bargain seriously. but this was also important in what i mentioned tonight, this idea of bringing the budget into balance. because of the spending of the korean war, the defense budget and shot up. eisenhower wanted to bring that down to a proper level of around $40 billion. withrmly disagreed advocating a tripling of the defense budget. he advocatedason , good defense as cheaply as possible, relying on nuclear weapons rather than conventional weapons. eisenhower knew the pentagon wanted an endless amount of weapons, planes, tanks, and eisenhower wanted to rain that in. you had to have a president working as an arbiter versus the propensity toical overspend. relying on his knowledge as a five-star general . that was an important part of his philosophy. last question. favoriteower was my president of my lifetime. when kennedy became president, i did not have a problem with kennedy, but i surely had a problem with the press. you could not walk down the street without seeing kennedy's face plastered everywhere, especially in business areas, magazines and whatnot. it was as if there was a total eclipse of eisenhower. i fact, up until this year had heard very little of eisenhower mentioned, and i felt like he was the forgotten president, like there was no president between treatment and kennedy. i wondered if that bothered eisenhower, or whether he ever said anything about that, do you know? yanek: i don't know if he said anything specifically about the lack of media attention on him. he did get frustrated with reporters a lot. he would go to photographers of he considered photographers a friend, but he saw the media voices as -- he was frustrated with how the media voiced issues like sputnik. kennedy had much more charisma like eisenhower. kennedy's background and training also explains that. kennedy was trained as a journalist. havelder brother joe might gone on to become a journalist or publisher. jackie had also worked as a journalist. and that he was much more into what made good copy. things like sputnik and space and land management did make good copy. that also helps explain -- and landing man on the moon did make good copy. that also helps explain how he knew what makes good public relations. kennedy never loved photographs of himself eating. he knew that was dangerous. somebody wants put an indian ippedress on him and r it off immediately. he remembered calvin coolidge being photographed with one and looking ridiculous. in that respect, eisenhower is sort of a forgotten president. down touch more modest, earth, and did not have the kind ear for public relations that kennedy did. he did try to use television when he ran for president, but he did not fully master it. ladies and john, thank you. -- gentlemen, thank you. [applause] a very good book is for sale from our friends from barnes & noble in the hall. i'm sure you would be happy to sign copies. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> being ladylike does not require silence. why should my husband's job or present usnts us -- from being ourselves -- preevent us from being ourselves? i do not believe that being first lady should prevent me from expressing my ideas. [applause] betty ford spoke her mind with pro-choice and the supporter of the equal rights amendment. she and gerald ford openly discussed her battle with breast cancer. she struggled with drug and alcohol dependency. confronting her addiction defined her post white house years. betty ford, this sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series, "first lady: influence an image." examining the lives of first ladies and their influence on the presidency, from our the washington to michelle obama. sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. ♪ c-span presents landmark cases: the book, a guide to our landmark cases series, which explores 12 supreme court decisions, including marbury versus madison, korematsu versus united states, brown versus the board of education, miranda versus arizona, and roe versus wade. book features introductions, backgrounds, highlights, and the impacts of each case, written by veteran supreme court journalist torrent -- tony mauro, and published by c-span. landmark cases is available for a $.95 less shipping. -- $8.95 plus shipping. get your copy today. announcer: next, historian don doyle discusses his book, and international history of the civil war. it looks at how the civil war was viewed around the world. the new york military affairs symposium hosted this event. it is a little over an hour and 45 minutes. mr. doyle: thank you, bob. good evening. thanks for coming. don't forget to pay your dues. it is my pleasure to welcome

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