of the foreign intelligence surveillance act of 1978, which we know as fisa. two former staff members are with us and will be with us to help provide some historical context and understand the significance of the 40-year-old video that you were about to -- that you are about to see. from new york city, frederick schwarz who was the committees chief counsel is with us. here in our studio in washington -- in washington d.c. is elliot , maxwell who was counsel to the committee as a his designee in pennsylvania. thank you for joining us. in this installment of our series of connected work 40 years ago of the church committee into the work of u.s. intelligence agencies, we will focus on the committee's investigation into the national security agency and the fourth amendment rights of american citizens and where they come into conflict. to get us started, let's watch a clip from october 29, 1979. sen. church: this morning, the committee begins public hearings on the national security agency, or as it is more commonly known, the nsa. actually, the agency remains unknown to most americans either by its acronym, or it for name. in contrast to the cia, one has to search far and wide to find someone that has even heard of the nsa. >> 40-year-old video of the church committee's work. that was the chairman of the committee, frank church of idaho and immediately to his right was the 39-year-old chief counsel to the committee, frederick schwarz who was our guest joining us throughout this series. he is with us in new york. elliot maxwell here in washington d.c. today, in the wake of 9/11, the nsa is something of a household word for anyone that follows the news in politics. how well-known with the agency in 1975? mr. schwarz: hardly at all. the joke was the nsa stood for "no such agency," and was not meant to be discussed at all and was not generally. it was -- to have the hearings on the nsa was one of the most hard-fought issues within the committee. i think it was a quite close vote and again, not all along -- not at all along partisan lines about whether we should have a public hearing but we decided to have a public hearing. there was dispute as to whether we should provide the names of names of reveal the the companies that for 30 years had given every single telegram, every day to the nsa. we voted again very closely to do that. actually, the wonderful staff member who uncovered that, britt snider had recommended that we , not disclose their names and i disagreed with him because i said, look, they violated the rights of their customers and they did it for 30 years, and so they deserve to be mentioned. another thing of attitudes, i remember speaking to the general counsel of the nsa when we began getting information and indicating we needed to get more information, and he said to me, but the constitution does not apply to the national security agency. that was an interesting idea, that the constitution did not apply to a whole agency. i think i know what was in the back of his mind. their work was met to be mostly, meant to be foreign. they were meant to be doing things overseas, largely. my rejoinder to him was, of course, the constitution applies to the nsa when you are doing things that affect americans and affect americans within america. but elliott may remember more details about that it was a controversial issue within the committee where actually you could not predict who was on what side at all and it was quite a close vote about whether we should have the public hearings on the nsa or just issue some report without a public hearing. >> while you are thinking about that, wasn't it also difficult to get the nsa director to testify? mr. maxwell: i think that was another issue. the nsa is a peculiar beast. and it was the only reference to the legal authority for the nsa was a provision in the espionage act about the disclosure of signal intelligence. this is a large agency with activities around the world, a giant vacuum cleaner for information, and it rested on the legal authority of a crime to disclose its product. that was an odd thing. at that time, if you went to a r booksre and looked about the cia or the nsa or about the fbi, you would come up with one or two. that is all. nobody knew anything about it. nobody knew what was being done or how it was being done, and it was remarkably effective at what it did. it also was a creature of the defense department, and the leadership was a military officer because the primary support was for defense activities. and military officers respond to the chain of command. and they do what they are told absent some really extraordinary , reason not to. and nsa was being told, and partly in the context of the vietnam war and protests against it, was being told to target people beyond that which they would target normally outside of the country. he i spent six months going up every day to nsa, and the conversations i had at the time, which i think were genuine were that we wanted to know what we are allowed to do. we are not going to fight about the restrictions. we will do what we are told to do. we will honor what we are told to do. we are being told by our chain of command to do these things and there is nothing to say that we can't. and that was extraordinary, and they acted inappropriately, they acted improperly. they violated the rights of americans, but they were doing what they were told, largely, not aggressively going out and saying, i want to do more and more and more in the united states, but saying, if my commander tells me to do that, then i will do that. >> much of the work of the church committee, people who are watching will hear echoes in the recent debates in the post-terrorism investigations, and we have another clip that will also resonate. this is of general alan testifying before the committee about the development of watch so -- watch lists. so let's watch it. >> 1967 to 1973, requirements for watch lists were developed in four basic areas. international drug trafficking, presidential protection, acts of terrorism, and possible for support and influence on civil disturbances. in the there was presidential 1960's, concern voiced over the massive flow of drugs into our country from outside the united states. early in president nixon's administration, he instructed the cia to pursue with vigor intelligence efforts to identify foreign sources of drugs and foreign organizations and methods used to introduce illicit drugs into the united states. >> elliot maxwell, it is a must so we can have the same testimony today. mr. maxwell: absolutely. i think that is one of the great lessons from the work of the committee, that one has to be constantly vigilant when power can be exercised in secret. , but when's now, then the next crisis comes, the same questions will be asked and the same forces will be pushing for more and more and more, and it is an object lesson that we have to be vigilant. >> before we show a longer portion of this, anything to comment about the context for what we are about to see? mr. schwarz: i think you always have to have in mind that some of, many of the missions of these organizations are important, vital to the country, legitimate. and in a way, one of the tragedies of where the agencies go beyond the bounds of what they should go, is if they can undermine their ability and the reputation to do the things we want them to do. and -- >> with that thought, let's watch from 1975, portions of the church committee hearing on the nsa and fourth amendment rights. this one was recorded by nbc cameras at the time. sen. church: the hearing will please come to order. this morning, the committee begins public hearings on the national security agency, or as it is more commonly known, the nsa. actually, the agency remains unknown to most americans, either by its acronym, or its full name. in contrast to the cia, one has to search far and wide to find someone who has even heard of the nsa. this is peculiar because the national security agency is an immense installation in its task of collecting intelligence by intercepting foreign communications. the nsa employees thousands of people and operates on an , enormous budget. it is expensive computer facilities comprise some of the most complex and sophisticated electronic machinery in the world. just as the nsa is one of the largest and least known of the intelligence agencies, it is also the most reticent. sweuites in messages -- it world messages around the , but gives little information about itself. even the legal basis for the activities of nsa is different from that of other intelligence agencies. no statute establishes the national security agency or defines the permissible scope of its responsibilities. rather, executive directives make up the soul charter of the agency. furthermore, these directives failed to define precisely what constitutes the technical and intelligence information of which the nsa is authorized to collect. since its establishment in 1952, as a part of the defense department, representatives of the national security agency have never appeared before the senate in a public hearing. today, we will bring the agency from behind closed doors. we have prepared ourselves exhaustively. we have a particular obligation msa and light -- nsa in light of its tremendous potential or abuse. it has the capacity to monitor the private conversations of american citizens without the use of a bug or a tap. the interception of international communication signals test the job of the nsa, and thanks to modern technological developments it does its job very well. the danger lies in its ability to turn its awesome technology against domestic communications. indeed, as are hearings of the houston plan demonstrated, a previous administration and a former nsa director favored using this potential against certain u.s. citizens for domestic intelligence purposes, while the houston plan was never fully put into effect, our investigation has revealed that the nsa had in fact been intentionally monitoring the overseas communication of certain u.s. citizens before the houston plan was proposed and continued to do so. -- continue to do so after it was revoked. this incident illustrates how the nsa could be turned inward and used against our own people. it has been a difficult task of this committee to find a way through the tangled web of classification and claims of national security, however valid they may be. to inform the american public of deficiencies in their intelligence services. it is not of course, a task without risks, but it is the one that we have set out for ourselves. the discussions which will be , held this morning our efforts -- this morning our efforts to identify publicly certain activities undertaken by the national security agency, which are of questionable propriety and dubious legality. general alan, director of the nsa will provide for us today the background of these activities. and he will be questioned on their origins and objectives by the committee members. like the cia and the irs, the nsa too had a watchlist containing the names of u.s. citizens. this list will be of particular interest for us this morning, so we will take up another important subject as well. the dominant concern of this committee is the intrusion of the federal government rights of u.s. citizens that have been violated the cia, fbi and irs. in previous hearings, the nsa has not escaped the temptation to have its operations expanded into provinces protected by the law. while the committee has found the work of the nsa on a whole to be of high caliber and properly restrained, and has tremendous respect for the professional caliber of the people that work there, the topics we explore today illustrate excessive and suggest areas where legislative action is desirable. that is why we are here. >> this complex and sophisticated electronic capability is the most fragile weapon in our arsenal. and unfortunately, i cannot elaborate on that because that would not be proper. public inquiry on nsa i believe serves no legitimate legislative purpose, but exposing the vital element of our intelligence capability and unnecessary , risks, risks of knowledge and the chairman's own statement. -- in the chairman's own statement. it does authorize nsa inquiry and this has been done very thoroughly in closed sessions. beginning in 1967, requested -- requesting agencies provided names of agencies, some of whom were u.s. citizens to the national security agency in an effort to obtain information which was available in foreign communications as a byproduct of our normal intelligence missions. the purpose of the lists varied but all suggest a common threat , in which the national security agency was requested to review information available through our usual intercept services. the initial purpose was to help determine the existence of foreign influence on specified activities, -- specified activities of interest to agencies of the u.s. government. with emphasis than on presidential protection and on civil disturbances are occurring civilbances -- disturbances occurring throughout the nation. later, because of other developments, such as widespread national concern over such criminal activity of drug trafficking and acts of terrorism both domestic and international, the emphasis came to include these areas. during the early 1960's, requesting agencies had asked the national security agency to look for reflections in international medications of certain u.s. citizens traveling to cuba. 1967 to 1973, requirements for watch lists were developed in four basic areas -- international drug trafficking, presidential protections, acts of terrorism and possible foreign support or influence on civil disturbances. in the there was presidential 1960's, concern voiced over the massive flow of drugs into our country from outside of the united states. early in president nixon's administration, he instructed the nsa to identify foreign sources of drugs and foreign organizations and methods used to introduce illicit drugs in the united states. in 1970, the bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs, asked the national security agency to provide communication intelligence relevant to these foreign aspects. they provided watchlist with some u.s. names. international drug trafficking requirements were formally document in the one instance in august, 1971. which foreign suggest or intercepted for specific watchlist purposes was the collection of some telephone calls passed over international medications facilities between -- international communications facilities between the united states and south america. the collection was conducted with specific request of the bureau to produce intelligence information on the methods and locations of foreign drug trafficking. in addition to our own intercept, the cia was asked by nsa to assist in the collection. the nsa provided the cia names of individuals from the watchlist and this collection lasted for six months. the cia stopped because of concern of the activity exceeding cia statutory restrictions. >> with respect to holy domestic communications, is there any statute that prohibits your interception thereof or is it merely a matter of your internal executive branch? >> my understanding is the national security council directive defines our activity with foreign medications and -- with foreign communications and that we have adopted a , definition consistent with the communications act of 1934 and therefore i think that is. >> do you believe you are consistent with the statute, that there is no statute that prohibits your interception of domestic communication? >> i believe that is correct. >> nothing further. >> the interception began in 1969 and as we described him as -- and as we described, as somewhat formalized in the process in which these messages were handled. that had begun in 1967. >> in the initial communications, is it true that one of the equally important aspects was not to disclose the nsa was doing this? >> that appears in the documentation. yes. >> what was the reason for not disclosing to the other intelligence agencies, because this information only went to other intelligence agencies, what was the reason for not disclosing to the other agencies who were the consumers, that nsa was not doing this? >> it is hard for me to answer because i'm not exactly sure as to what the feeling was of the people at the time. my understanding is the concern was that the people of nsa felt it was terribly important that the activity be solely related to foreign intelligence and that , by delivering these kinds of messages to an agency which also had a law enforcement function, there was a danger that the material would be used for a purpose that would not be appropriate. therefore, for that reason, there were a set of procedures adopted, which made the material to be handled in a distinctive and separate way to where went -- where it went only to specified individuals, only marked for background use only and also the void of the kind of designators that are placed on the kind of intelligence information which nsa produces for a broader range of users. >> might there be some concerned -- my 30 some concern that this was -- might there be some concern that this was a questionable legal area and therefore dissemination of who was doing it and how they were doing it might have also been injurious to the agency? >> it is possible. i think the course of concern was, if the material was, the basic concern, as i would imagine it was in people's minds of the time, if the material were used for some purpose associated with prosecuting or evidence, the sources used to obtain that evidence would be -- used to obtain that intelligence, would be disclosed so there was a great concern to ensure this material was handled in such a way to minimize the possibility that it would be used that way. >> if that occurred yesterday, it could occur tomorrow. if we leave it all to executive decision. the as i have said, as for watchlist, the administration agreed to declassify the documents as the lieutenant has. as for the other, the executive branch has consistently opposed public hearings or any other form of public disclosure. >> i really see no legislative basis for this public disclosure. i do not think it is necessary from the standpoint of our legislative mandate. it appears that committee rule 7:5, this rule provides a procedure for ensuring the protection of classified materials. this rule does not authorize the unilateral release of classified information. the proper reading would be the rule goes for disclosure of information, not the classification. the majority vote is necessary prior to committee release of any material of a classified nature. a simple majority vote is enough to declassify it is serious. >> but the case at hand has to do with unlawful conduct that relates to domestic conduct in this country. that is a matter to be debated in an executive session. >> bury well. -- very well. >> good deal. >> we will debated. >> those were video highlights from nbc archives, the church committee hearings. the committee was looking into the nsa and is director had -- and it's director had testified before the committee, october 29, 1975. elliot maxwell, the body language was so interesting between the chairman and the vice chairman. give us some sense on what was going on in that room. mr. maxwell: one of the central issues for the committee in the course of its work was obtaining materials from the executive branch. that back-and-forth between the committee and executive branch went up to the very end of the work of the committee. and there were a number of instances in which the executive branch dug in its heels and said, you cannot disclose this. in some cases, they eventually relented and in others they did not. as frederick schwarz said earlier in the series, john tower had been an active supporter of committee access to material in many early instances but that grew weaker and weaker , over the course of the committee. and as i think in the case of , john tower, as things got closer to the military where john tower had been on the armed services committee for years and was later chairman of the committee, but was not at the time, that was an area where he felt more protective and i think , he felt in terms of the domestic activities of the fbi, that was not his area of greatest interest. and it will always be the case that the executive branch is more protective about its information and the congress is more aggressive, more or less aggressive about what it does. and one of the lessons of the committee is there has to be a -- an ingrained progressive action of congress to get materials or they will not get materials, simple as that. i do not know how you provide a kind of vaccine against acquiescence for the overseers. there needs to be a faxing that provide -- a vaccine that provides skepticism in general about secret activities, recognizing that many of them are very important, but that you have to keep asking the questions to make sure you do not go beyond what people are required and should be doing. >> 40 years ago, april 1976, the church committee wrapped up its work and delivered their final report which is 14 separate , reports on the scope of work that the committee had been asked to look at. what are your your remembrances of the release of the report to the public and how it was met in , washington, by the news media and by the public? mr. schwarz: i have a memory of being very excited that we had gotten the work done, that we were finished, at least with the committee reports and that we had done a great service. i think the general reaction to our final reports was very favorable, and if you step away from what was done, it was never really partisan. that does not mean there were not differences and elliott described and i did earlier how john tower, toward the end of the work, became less in favor of disclosure. but there never was a real partisan difference on that. the impact of the committee, in showing it could successfully information,ret showing it could get the it,rmation, the still distillate, describe it to the public, and bring it to the attention of the american public, the importance of the issues we focused on, i think, was a very, very great compliment and i do know that , never since then has there ever been anything like it in this country or anywhere else. host: let me break down several areas. let's start picking up on the things you expressed. let me go to the congress responsibility for oversight. what happened with the church committee's work? mr. maxwell: they set up an -- they set up a permanent intelligence committee. prior to the church committee, the oversight was some of the senate lions -- the chair of the armed senate committee -- there were eight senators you talked -- senators who were talked to and that constituted the oversight. after that, there was now a permanent intelligence committee and it would have to wrestle with all of the issues that he was just talking about. it,ing information, keeping trying to decide how much to disclose, and there was a requirement that covert action be notified to the intelligence committee, and there is one other piece that for me was particularly interesting. i had come to the committee because i had written a paper about the disclosure of the intelligence committee budget. host: you were 25 years old, right? mr. maxwell: right. voted, andmittee disclosure of the aggregate budget was defeated by one vote. later in the 1990's, one of the cia directors decided they could release the aggregate budget safely without harming national security. one number was disclosed in 1994. in 1995, they decided differently, that it would harm the committee. it was not until the 9/11 committee that the aggregate amount we spent on intelligence was disclosed to the american public. host: the so-called black budget? and there was a requirement that regular expenditures be published from time to time. but if you opened them up prior to -- in 1975, you would not find cia, nsa. it was somewhere hidden in this document. we have some notion of disclosure, some notion of boundaries. i think while the fisa work was extraordinary and was very important we never went further, , as i think the congress should have done, to clarify the authority of these agencies, to make it really absolutely clear what they can do and what they can't do to bolster the worthwhile and important things they do and to prevent them from being pushed by their political masters, or pushed by what the technology can do going beyond their limits. host: so, fritz schwarz, one of the effects that this had, the fisa law, as we know it. so, what was the importance for that act for american society and congressional oversight? >> they cannot just wiretap someone. two things have happened -- the court has approved almost everything that is come before them, but that does not mean the law has not had a positive impact. because the kind of things the fbi and the other agencies were doing in terms of surveillance, but not be tried now because they would not feel they would ever want to put on paper what they were trying to do. and then after 9/11 the fisa , court begin being used in a way the court does not do very well. it was more a sort of public policy agency. let me make a bigger point. there will be another church committee at some point, and there should be. and when that is done, we will learn that there have continued to be things that are done which we would not wish to be done. there will be surprises, and some of them will be very unpleasant surprises. but the culture in the agencies is a little better. secrets tend to last less long for complicated reasons. some of which i talk about in my recent book called "democracy in the dark." but the culture is a little better. the public -- of course when , there is a new attack, you get, oh, let's do more by way of law enforcement, and of course we should do a lot by way of law enforcement, but that does not mean you do not need to have appropriate oversight. and the culture in the congress is better than it was -- infinitely better than it was before the church committee. and the public is more knowledgeable about the complexity of these issues and the importance of these issues. host: let me turn to the agencies. especially the foreign intelligence agencies -- nsa, cia -- what happens with those agencies and their operations in the wake of the church committee? mr. maxwell: i guess i would argue their activities oscillate over time. if you said what they were like right after the church committee and for the next number of years , i think there was a lot more , internal discussion about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. there were a lot more resignation of the importance of their central role, and the need to be able to constrain their activities to that. in the 1980's, that changed somewhat, and it changed because the president wanted it to change and the news and , intelligence wanted it to change. and there were a number of episodes, if you remember, in the 1980's, where the agencies were involved in things as a country we said, they should not be doing. after 9/11 and the patriot act, one saw another swing back to ward older patterns of behavior and toward doing all that the , technology allowed you to do and asserting a kind of general attitude of, we rely on presidential power, and that is almost unlimited and we are being told to use every means necessary to be able to implement the policies of the president, so it moves back and forth with the tenor of the times. i think after the snowden revelations, there was a move that said, these are things we do not want to do. these are things we have to understand what the limits are. we have be able to respond to those and do the work we need to , do. but we will always be subject to , these oscillations. it just means that oversight as a church committee recommended, is critical, but it is hard to do. it's very hard to do. and it's hard, as i said, to have an attitude of skepticism with people you work with all the time. if you imagine a work place where every time you come into the workplace you are looking -- is she doing something wrong? is he doing something wrong? it's a terrible kind of burden. and yet, in some ways, oversight is like that. you need to be close to the people to understand what they need to do. you have to give them the authority to do it. and you have to encourage them and empower them. at the same time, you have to say, beyond this there be dragons and you cannot go there. so, i don't know if there will ever be another church committee but there will be things that go , wrong and they are integrally , related to the pressures of the moment. host: when you talk about the oscillation and the tenor of the times, i know we established at -- established that the period of time the church committee was looking at, presidents dealing with the reality of the cold war, the war in vietnam, also domestic disturbances protesting that war, civil , rights. so there were things going on in , the country that presidents were trying to ensure public safety. can you put that context, the period the committee was observing? mr. schwarz: if you start with franklin roosevelt and run through nixon that is what we , covered. it was crisis almost all the time, and there has been a lot of crisis since then. and you have to be vigilant to protect the country, and you don't want to use the need to protect the country as a device to let you do things that everybody would they are improper. i would like to make two other other comments in response to elliot's excellent summary of how it vacillates. after the snowden revelations -- and the snowden revelations happen when we have dysfunction in the congress because both parties are unable or unwilling to cooperate with each other. but the legislation that was passed was completely bipartisan. in the senate, the leaders were lee a tea party , senator from utah and patrick leahy, a democratic senator from vermont. in the house, the leader was a very young tea party person and the other sponsor of reform in the house was john conyers, a long-time african-american, democratic liberal from detroit. so these issues can bring people , together. the other point i would like to make is, in terms of what the church committee did and didn't do. on the afternoon of 9/11, james baker, who was bush and reagan cabinet member, and bush, hw and ronald reagan cabinet member, and had been the principal bush and ageorge w. real establishment intelligent , person went on channel seven, abc news and said the church committee caused 9/11. far-fetched a very thought. at if you read what the church first, committee said, we said, example, with the fbi that , the fbi should increase attention to terrorism and devote less or no attention to american domestic politics. but they should increase their attention to terrorism, and we said the cia should do more to use human infiltration of bad and not to be tend to rely on the wonderful technology we now have. so, baker, and making the comment because 9/11 did not go , back and read our reports or what howard baker had said, which was the investigation had been good for the intelligence committee. -- intelligence community. but the other thing that was sort of ludicrous about baker's statement was, at that point, it had been 25 years from the church committee. and ronald reagan and george h w bush and mr. baker himself had been in power. , as baker said on a television interview, the church committee had disabled the intelligence agencies they could , have done something about it. so it was interesting, emotional. and i'm sure if mr. baker were questioned today, he would say i was a little overwrought on the afternoon of 9/11 and i said something that did not make sense. and i said something that did not make sense and it surely didn't. host: there was a number of think pieces written pointing back to the church committee, saying that intelligence gathering had been sharply curtailed as a result of your committee's work -- what was your reaction to that criticism? mr. maxwell: i think i share his view that it was nonsense. what was happening, and what the 9/11 commission said happened, was people failing to communicate, and follow-up the intelligence they could have followed up. and it had nothing to do with the church committee had done. these been the notion of isolated towers for whatever , reason, not communicating with the adjoining silo. not responding to the intelligence that was gathered. and it was an easy scapegoat. it was saying we can just point to the church committee and say that destroyed american intelligence. and then we don't have to account for our own failure. so, it was annoying. but you get used to it being annoying. it was a theme that had gone on amongst critics of the church committee since 1975. it will destroy american intelligence, it has the storied -- it has to storied american intelligence. in the future, it will destroy american intelligence. those people were not wrestling with the issues in the way that i think the committee genuinely wrestled with -- how do we affirm the importance of the secret security agencies? how to make sure the don't go beyond their writ? and how to ensure that the rights of americans are protected in a world in which there is danger? by agencies that are, by necessity, secret, but also because they are secret, are potentially dangerous to the rights of americans and to the well-being of united states. so you get a little thicker ,-skinned about this. an enormousi think, expenditure of time and effort by a very talented group of people who were genuinely struggling with the dilemma of how do you have secret agencies in a democracy? and how do you make sure that they operate in a way that we would all say is appropriate? host: over the course of our conversations with you, we have talked a lot about the tensions within society, constitutional rights, and the need for faux security. i would like to close on a personal note. i'm wondering how the work that you did with the church committee 40 years ago affected both of you in terms of your careers and your thinking about american citizenship in our society. let me start with you -- you have written two books. this has become something of your life's work. mr. schwarz: it certainly is an -- certainly was an aspect of my life's work. i did a lot of work for new york city, being its lawyer and andeing its head lawyer changing its constitution. but definitely the church committee work made a huge, had a huge impact on me. it gave me a good reputation, which is always a nice thing to have. stick withcertainly me as issues that were of great importance to the country. those two books, the first one "unchecked and unbalanced" is , about presidential power in the time of terror, and the more recent one "democracy in the dark" is wrestling with something that elliott has brought up a lot of his conversation -- the importance of secrecy. which is necessary sometimes and abused and unnecessary other times. so, it certainly affected my work a great deal. host: how has it affected you over the course of these 40 years? mr. maxwell: i stayed to work on the permanent committee for a while. then had to make a decision whether i wanted to the national security lawyer where, if i did everything right, only six other people would know i was successful, and if i did something wrong, it would be on the front page of "the washington post." that led to me to doing other things. but if i look at the arc of my career, it probably is that the last 14 years or so, i have been writing and speaking about openness and the importance of openness to have progress and innovation. i think probably the seeds of that were in the church committee work, which was for a young, not yet bar certified lawyer, an extraordinary experience to to engage at the deepest level questions of importance to the country. here was frank church and barry goldwater and john tower. and if there were to be a discussion about the tensions liberties, and the needs of the intelligence power of, and the government, and importance of --urity, this is where this where these things should be fought out. this is where these things should be discussed. this was an extraordinary opportunity, not only for me, but fritz and others. i would like to wrap one other thing that, which is, what we talk about the lack of partisanship, lots of credit goes to fritz. but it would be wrong not to say the staff director who served for the staff director of the entire committee, bill miller, was an important part of that. his knowledge of the senate and his relationship in the senate, and his general optimistic view of the world, was buried food important -- was very important in achieving that for the committee. in retrospect, it was a treat. it was a wonderful, wonderful gift that was given to me and i hope i did what i should do in response to that. host: on that note, thank you. mr. maxwell, mr. schwarz, for your retrospective use on the church committee 40 years ago this month, thanks for your time. on c-spann history tv three, tonight at 10:00 eastern, on real america -- cubans fleeing cuba. kilometers to key west florida in nearly 2000 boats. why did they come? why are they so many? >> during the spring through fall of 1980, approximately 125,000 cuban refugees arrived in florida and the port of cuba. here interview some the arrivals to america and find out why they left. sunday morning at 10:00 on road to the white house rewind, the 1992 democratic and republican conventions, bill clinton accepts his party's nomination in new york city. >> in the name of the hard-working americans that make up our forgotten middle, i probably accept your nomination for president of the united states. [applause] >> and incumbent george h.w. bush excepts his party's nomination in houston. receive,am proud to and i am honored to accept your nomination for president of the united states. [applause] thet 4:45, barry lewis on evolution of new york city's greenwich village. >> when it opened on six avenue, it gave us what we understood. if six avenue was washington's hair, west of six avenue was a lower west, nobody ever cross that line. west of sixrom avenue might cross the line to work as ace event in washington square. andbelieve me, the people washington square never went on the other side of six avenue. >> on the presidency -- >> every time i look in washington, unanimously commander-in-chief, unanimously president of united states, unanimously reelected president of united states. unanimously appointed as the lieutenant general of all the armies. what a record. even theexplores that washington was officially retired, he continued to meet with political figures from the new i was often called upon to craft policy. for the complete american history tv weekend schedule, go to www.c-span.org. are cable partners worked with c-span potty -- c-span's city store when we went to the state of nevada accuracy that -- that legalized casino gambling. learn more about las vegas all we can here on american history tv. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> when you talk about the history of las vegas, there are two were said to finer history -- one is water, it brought the earliest travel through here. the other one is transportation. transportation has always been an issue here. water is something that when you are in the desert, is more precious than anything else. we are traveling to the desert, when you are doing leading pack mules, aipac train, you have to carry enough water for every animal. you may not have had water. but your animals had to have water, otherwise they would die and you and i get your goods to the market in your train but not work. what they found was running artesian wells, a running stream and an area that became known to the mexican travelers through here as vegas, which means metal. las vegas is the meadows and it got the name as a descriptor for the location, not because somebody named the vegas was here. it was a description of this wonderful spot in the middle of the desert. in first actual settlement the vegas valley was in 1855. that is when the mormons came into this area. they were sent down here by brigham young in order to create a settlement here. the idea was to help solidify the area that he saw. not just utah, but what is nevada and parts of eastern california and pieces of new mexico and arizona, pieces of colorado and wyoming. this was part of what they were looking at. the problem was a settlement only lasted two years. by 1857, for a number of different reasons, the settlement was unsuccessful and the settlers applied -- were allowed to go back to salt lake city. the church fathers allowed that. and the first settlement here was abandoned. they moved back to salt lake city and beware basically unoccupied for a number of years after that. mormons came to this area, prospectors came into the area near the valley. and in the case of a couple of those prospectors who were better at ranching than prospecting, they came up into the vegas valley and by the 1870's, 1880's, you had six ranches in this area. we are only talking 20 or 30 people at that point in this entire valley. it was not a heavily settled area. named williamlow andrews clark, nexen under from montana decided -- an ex senator from montana decided that he would build a road. he had to had a water stop in the desert. the only place that had enough water was this valley and it was the las vegas rancho. he came over here. his employees negotiated with helen stewart who had the rancho at that point and bought the rancho and brought the railroad through here. in may of 1905, they had a big las vegasle block and townsite was created. las vegas is a 20th-century town. things in interesting the history of las vegas is that most people know las vegas from the movies. they know las vegas as it is today. so they think that las vegas has always been focused on gaming and on entertainment and on the service industry, and it was not. people who did more damage to the history of las vegas than anyone else was oliver stone, when he did bugsy, and had this guy show up in the middle of the desert. there was already a community here. that community was one that had been built by a lot of workers who had come in here initially with the railroad, later on with 1930's, the dam in the the 1940's, what we had here was a lot of federals ending because of magnesium, the airbase, the school -- we had a lot of things going on well before jamie became as big as it was -- well before gaming became as big as it was. there is a bigger history. much different than what we are today. cities tour staff travel to las vegas, nevada to learn about its rich history. learn more about las vegas and other stops on our tour at www.c-span.org/city store. you are watching "american history tv." all we can, every week and on >> next on american history tv, yale university professor akhil reed amar discusses the complex relationship between supreme court justices and american presidents. he looks back at the first appointed chief justice, john jay. he argues that historically judges were geographically balanced and there has been a more recent orientation toward representation based on demographics and political affiliation. >> we are thrilled to welcome akhil reed amar, professor of law and political science at yale university. before joining your lawsuit -- yale law school, dr. amar clerked for then judge stephen breyer. he is also a recipient of yale's highest award for teaching excellence and is the author of several books including "the law of the land: a grand tour of our