josh koerner, he helped write to a morris. bookhen bill wrote his own on eisenhower's presence is -- a classic, including on the eisenhower presidency. was lucky to-- i know him. he lived in connecticut. i would go visit him. he was my go-to guy on eisenhower. when i was going through documents or literature, i could see bill and have him answer my questions. he helped me to know and understand eisenhower. one of the most rewarding and challenging parts of writing any historical figure, especially one no longer around like eisenhower, is the chance to decipher that person's essence. bill help me do that. he helped me know and understand eisenhower. "understanding four key eisenhower traits and their role in the space race." it characterizes presidency as a whole. concentrate onld four. i am sort of violating a rule of good lecturers and human learning. human brain is physiologically well-suited to grouping things in threes. that is why there are three numbers in an area code, there are three paragraphs in a model essay. i was thinking that if i stuck to three, you would have a good acronym to remember the talk by. it's "tonb." you can consider the fourth a bonus. i want to go through each trait and give examples of them. show how they are related to , andhower, the space race his presidency. i want to start with his temper. i chose this partly for entertainment value. thes the most colorful of four trades. eisenhower did have a temper. it was kind of a cradle-to-grave . 10, onewas just halloween, his parents prohibited him from going trick or treating was so angry, he a trees fists against until his knuckles were bloody. in retirement, you would think he would mellow out. he still showed flashes of temper. his personal physician during a call onegot evening from the eisenhower residents. the former president had been experiencing heart pains. that is nothing to trifle with. eisenhower suffered a heart attack and a mini stroke in november of 1957. thehe doctor rushed over to home. they examined him. they seem to be ok. they asked him nothing about what activities were going. nothing extra near. then the doctor asked him what he had for dinner. knuckles and sauerkraut." the doctor goes general eisenhower, you are on a restricted diet paid you cannot eat things like that. he goes why did you need that? eisenhower glared at him and goes "because i like it, damnit." that was eisenhower even into retirement. some parts of his temper i found pertinent to the space race. there was a meaning behind eisenhower's getting angry. i wanted to show you a couple examples of eisenhower getting angry. 1961, president john f. kennedy was planning to host the president of pakistani at mount vernon. the marineg to be corps band playing, a bonfire. eisenhower learned about this and was furious. temper -- his his temper. that president was a dictator, and here kennedy was posting him of at all places, the home personal idol. kennedy.ely cursed out at least early in canada these term, eisenhower took a dim view of this president. he called him things like "young whippersnapper." he borrowed a phrase and said "kennedy's flywheel is too big for his engine." disdain was mutual -- or this minimum of high regard. eisenhower one side of kennedy, i have a minimum of high regard with them. in interviews with jackie kennedy -- they are available as a cd. at one point, you could hear arthur ask jackie, what do you think of president eisenhower? jackie responded and said, not much. [laughter] it was mutual. eisenhower's it made him think even less of the president. just two months before this incident, there was another incident that really think differently of eisenhower. he had just appeared four months jointr, now he called a session of congress. he challenged the nation to land on the moon before the decade was out. eisenhower was appalled. he thought what kennedy was doing was a great mistake. why? i will let eisenhower's words explain it. this of the letter the eisenhower wrote to an astronaut in 1965. at the time, it was confidential. i will direct your attention to the second page, the second paragraph, in which eisenhower writes, "in 1961, the president of the united states suddenly a challenge to the russian race to the moon, the it.ng on writin it gave the highest priority, unfortunate, in my opinion, to a race. in other words, a stunt." this was a significant clash between a sitting president and a former president. eisenhower respected the presidency too much to dive his vulge his feelings publicly. now today we know the historical record and know how he felt. eisenhower called kennedy's challenge of putting a man on the moon nuts, almost hysterical, and a stunt. when eisenhower got angry at 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. you see eisenhower with arthur lawsorson. 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 white house -- larson was the director of the u.s. information agency -- and eisenhower made larson the special assistant to the president to help him write eches. on this date, eisenhower was on the phone with his new defense secretary, neil mcelroy. he mentioned creating a director of missile development to give top priorities to america's missile development for defense. but mcelroy was not buying this. he resisted. finally, eisenhower lost his temper, he cursed, slammed on the phone, and according to larson, he said, give him all the power he needs. this display of temper 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 appointed as a science advisor. after sputnik, the media, politicians, and some americans feared that the u.s. trailed the soviet union in science and technology. this was the golden age of science. after world war ii, science became incredibly important everyday life. scientists had developed jet engines, developed the transistor. there were a flurry of scientific developments. 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. both roosevelts. john f. kennedy, george w. bush. or they majored in political science, like barack obama, or economics, like reagan and george h.w. bush. in the 20th century only two , presidents came from science or technical backgrounds -- hoover and carter. yet science is vitally , important. a president needs an advisor to give him counsel on how to promote science in public policy. after sputnik, eisenhower decided to appoint the first ever science advisor to the president. he created a special assistant to the president for science and technology. the media often called it the missile czar. for this position he appointed , james killian, an interesting guy. he was not a scientist by training. 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." eisenhower created the 18 person psac, the presidential science advisory committee, consisting of 18 scientists, many of them nobel prize winners and future nobel prize winners, who would meet with the president and give him advice on science. eisenhower established a stronger link between the president and the scientific community. something badly needed in an increasingly science oriented and technical world. , he eventhe scientists called them, "my scientists." eisenhower was hospitalized, dying of heart disease. killian visited him. that meant a lot to eisenhower. today, the president still has a science advisor. president obama has won, a 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. what's more, you saw in that outburst, eisenhower trusted killian enough that he toyed with this idea of getting him enough power to circumvent his 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 have privacy and controlling 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 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. he thought they were on pg arctic, narrowminded, and parochial. he used the word roadkill so often that advisors warned him that people may think he was mixing church and state. this is how he felt about it. when he mentioned this idea of a director of missile and development to mcelroy, he hemmed and hawed. he said, the army would want this, the navy this. he could not believe that the services would let parochialism and a turf war stand in the way of such an important endeavor, rocket missile development. these rivalries also created a sense of chaos and disorder in this field. rocketry and missile development. they contributed to a sense of disorder and confusion. that brings me to the second eisenhower case that i wanted to look at. eisenhower's sense of order. 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. he created special organs like , psac. it was eisenhower who developed the position of white house chief of staff, to help bring order for the sheer volume of paperwork that comes to the white house every day. it has been an essential post for presidents ever since. jimmy carter tried to do away with the position of a chief of staff after the abuses of nixon, and he found it so critical that carter eventually named jordan his chief of staff. you could even see eisenhower's 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. the other editors of his biography would work into the evening, doing research, editing 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. [laughter] eisenhower was not one who said thank you a lot or complemented people, but that was eisenhower acknowledging for one time how hard everybody was working on the memoir. but the second part of the sentence was the approach. -- reproach. i asked hill, did you ever show up late again, he said, oh no. he was not going to risk eisenhower's wrath again. three minutes late was not good enough for eisenhower. it violated his sense of punctuality and order. you could see eisenhower's sense of order in the space race. after sputnik, there were cries for a more concerted effort in science and space. there were many senators who called for a cabinet level 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. at eisenhower thought the first, pentagon was the natural home for space endeavors. eisenhower changed his mind. 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. the pentagon's approach to space was very asked to bring us and lacked an orderly, planned out approach. after sputnik, space was becoming increasingly important. the country clearly needed a more orderly approach to its base effort. 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 -- sputnik 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. in july 1958, he signed a bill creating the national aeronautics and space administration. is less than aat year after sputnik's 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. i just mentioned that eisenhower 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. as he liked to say, he waged peace as president. he worried about projects that had little scientific value and no national security value. projects with the media,, politicians 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. for example, as i mentioned, eisenhower scoffed at the idea of racing the soviet union to land man on the moon. he often got sarcastic about it. 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. [laughter] there was no reason to go to the moon for eisenhower. what eisenhower cared more about, the race that really mattered to him, was the race to develop intercontinental illicit -- ballistic missiles. icbm's. he wanted to beat the russians to it. in he approved the development 1954, of two icbms. he also approved two intermediate range in her ballistic missiles. in 1956, he approved a game changer, the polaris irbm. it was actually a submarine much ballistic missile. this would be mobile, and therefore impossible for the soviets to track and destroy. when eisenhower briefed president-elect kennedy on national security before he took office, he mentioned the polaris. he said that kennedy had an investment in polaris. this was a major accomplishment for eisenhower, and a record he was pierced late proud of. the u.s. went from having zero icbms and irbms when he took office to having an array of them when he left. eisenhower advanced america's 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. eisenhower 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 negotiators enough information that they felt confident enough to allow richard nixon to sign a treaty in moscow in 1972. eisenhower 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. this was so secret that 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 ones 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. in icbm, in irbm, and also in reconnaissance satellites. but, his emphasis on national security carried a risk, and he knew it. that brings me to my fourth trait. all of you are familiar with eisenhower's farewell address. when i say "eisenhower's farewell address," i know you are all thinking "industrial military complex," he immortalized that phrase in this 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. 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. balance between actions of the moment and national welfare of the future. good judgment seeks balance in promise, lack of it finds imbalance and frustration. yanek: he was talking about the proposals to boost industry and agriculture, to boost national security and defense. this was his morning. -- warning. he mentions balance seven times. he goes on in the farewell address to mention it more. 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 security, but he worried if you overspent and overdeveloped the military-industrial complex, it will throw the economy out of bounds, warp the economy. the private sector was vital. the consumer sector of the economy was vital. eisenhower liked to point to american 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 the cars we have as vital evidence of how good our economy is. you have to have balance. 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 cannot provide 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 exercised over sputnik and demand more spending on rockets and missiles that the country didn't need to fuel the military-industrial complex. he gave two speeches. he was partly acting as a cheerleader in chief, trying to plump up 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 this new age, but eisenhower says something that is very intriguing. he says, we will need not only einstein's and steinmetzes, but washington's and emerson's. that is a pointed line. steinmetz is an obscure figure. he was referring to the electrical engineer, charles steinmetz. but the point is balance, again. the country needs scientists and engineers, but also needs victors for humanity, political 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. he said to charlie wilson, not one penny over budget, do you understand? and arthur larson said that charlie wilson looked up meekly and said, yes, sir. eisenhower 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 balanced this budget despite increased spending in many areas, the highway program, despite two new states, alaska and hawaii. despite a new space agency. despite new satellites. most of you might not know this, but at the end of eisenhower's residency, the u.s. had launched 31 satellites. the soviet union just nine. and the u.s. satellites were far more technologically sophisticated. the u.s. had a significant lead over the soviet union in satellites in this key area of the space race. eisenhower cannot get that point across in 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 magazine asked me to write a 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, 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. in fact, debilitating scandals become common in second terms, richard nixon had watergate, clinton had monica lewinsky and impeachment. we decided to look at eisenhower and roosevelt. they beat the second term blues. look at eisenhower's second term. he avoided major scandals. he had adam's resignation and u-2 incident, but that did not rise to the level of impeachment. he signed bills for nasa, the national defense education act, he intervened in the little rock desegregation crisis. he had a very impressive satellite program in general. he had a 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 was over, a reporter was 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. who has a special vantage point from which to judge the president. gerald ford's assessment of dwight eisenhower is one worth considering. i will leave you with that thought. thank you very much. [applause] host: if you have questions, can you go to the microphone please? go ahead. >> [indiscernible] yanek: a former president which was the former president? >> dwight d. eisenhower. [indiscernible] yanek: that is very fitting. there is an excellent 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. he is somebody who has really mined the richard nixon archives. if you are interested in reading about richard nixon -- he got us 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 one of the most entertaining programs. 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. showing my age again, you 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 known 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. as president, he worked well with congress. in fact, one thing that both roosevelt and eisenhower had in common that made for two successful terms as president was their ability to work in congress. specifically, eisenhower's ability 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 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. despite this, eisenhower worked very effectively with lyndon johnson. 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. [laughter] 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. came to work -- 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. last night, there was a debate at the reagan library. the republican candidates are vying for the man like ronald reagan. reagan would not go off the quips with flags flying, he was not as ideologically rigid as people might think. once signed a bill, and one of his aides asked him, why did you sign that will? it is not keeping with your principles at all. reagan said, well, i got 80% of what i wanted and i just declared victory. that was sort of eisenhower's 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 tip 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. >> i 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. .di ke did did he ever find out that john kennedy had the same opinion about going to the moon, so to speak? yanek: i can't answer your question with precision. my 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 sending men on the moon. that is true. when kennedy was a senator, a bartender recalled kennedy arguing that rocketry and missiles were a waste of money. when 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 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 painted on a larger canvas of policies. one kennedy trait was that he was very competitive. he competed with his brothers. 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 kennedy was unharmed. 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] >> could you 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? yanek: the question was about eisenhower's clarity of thinking and writing. good question. eisenhower was known as press conferences to be bubbling and inarticulate. he would mixed 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. he said, i don't understand the particulars of it, i will have to refer you to my attorney general. his 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 was very much trained to let his adversaries underestimate him. he was much more comfortable being in a position of being underestimated. in terms of being articulate, eisenhower often did not give the best speeches or performances at press conferences. he did, as an effort to publicize his continued activity in the space race, visit cape canaveral once, at the speech that he gave there consisted of only three sentences. it was almost embarrassing. if he had done better in terms of his public promotion of his own space efforts, i think the 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. this was 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. [laughter] his speeches with arthur larson that he gave after sputnik in 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. larson would resist eisenhower's attempts to change words here and there. at one point, eisenhower said to larson, damn it arthur, i am going to ask to 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. >> i wanted to get your take on this sewage crisis. crisis. it seemed to mark a moment where america definitely 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. yanek: the suez crisis of 1956 by dave nichols, i don't know if you have read that. at the suez crisis was an 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 -- britain, france, and israel. all three of them had really defended eisenhower. eisenhower was willing to stand up to all three of those allies. another sign of eisenhower's 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. -- was a foremost exponent. after world war ii, the sentiment was the u.s. could no longer afford to be an isolationist nation, it had to get involved, 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 satellites, and 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, 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 geosynchronous orbit is much higher. 22,000 miles. but your question about boundaries in space is a good one. eisenhower thought that america's original space project, the vanguard, 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. >> it struck me, the comparison between lincoln and eisenhower. they are both -- people 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, shoulda person's legs be? long enough to reach the ground. that's what eisenhower thought. but 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 administration is not known for its intellectual brilliance. look at eisenhower's cabinet. look at billy wald, a phd from harvard. general andrew goodpasture, graduated second in his class at west point. phd in international relations at rinsed and university. at princeton university. the eisenhower administration was stocked 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 aides and relied on 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. roots in abilene, kansas. eisenhower also held dinners to commune with businessmen to 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. it was a good caliber cabinet and administration. i think you are next. >> after stressing so much about eisenhower being organized and finishing what he started, what 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. it was partly by using the principle of brinkmanship, saying to china and north korea that we will be forced to use weapons of extraordinary power. there 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. he firmly disagreed with advocating a tripling of the defense budget. it was one reason he advocated the new look, 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 militaries typical propensity to overspend. eisenhower was relying on his knowledge as a five-star general. that was an important part of his philosophy. last question. >> eisenhower was my favorite 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. in fact, up until this year i had heard very little of eisenhower mentioned, and i felt like he was the forgotten president, like there was no president between treatment and 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 considered photographers a friend, but he saw the media voices as something -- he was frustrated with how the media voiced issues like sputnik. kennedy had much more charisma than eisenhower. kennedy's background and training also explains that. kennedy was trained as a journalist. his older brother joe might have gone on to become a journalist or publisher. jackie had also worked as a journalist. kennedy was much more in tune with what made good copy. and that he was much more into what made good copy. things like sputnik and space 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 once put an indian headdress on him and ripped it off immediately. he remembered calvin coolidge being photographed with one and looking ridiculous. in that respect, eisenhower is sort of a forgotten president. he was much more modest, down to earth, and did not have the kind of charisma or 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. host: ladies and gentlemen, thank you. [applause] host: 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. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> come into this house and there's so much to do. there is so much coming idea that there is no time to think or reflect. we are here digging up soil because we are about to plant a garden. will be satisfied, nor will my husband, until every single ande -- notes are a veteran spouse has a job who wants one. at the end of the day, my most important title is still mom in chief. [applause] announcer: in 2008, michelle obama became the first african-american first lady when her husband barack obama was elected our 44th president. her work has been in social issues, launching the let's move initiative. michelle obama tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's :riginal series "first ladies influence and image." 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. announcer: c-span presents landmark cases, the book, a guide to our landmark cases series, which explodes -- supreme court decisions . landmark cases, the book, features introductions, backgrounds, highlights and the impact of each case, written by tony morrow and published by c-span in cooperation with cq press, an imprint of sage publications incorporated. landmark cases is available for $8.25 plus shipping. get your stay at www.c-span.org /landmarkcases. announcer: next, a panel discussion on the people's temple. the community in guyana. a 1978, more than 900 people died in jonestown. the panel includes two former members of the people's temple. and two authors of a book on the subject.

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