it was one telephone line from himself to the world in the 50's. he finished writing his articles meant he would jump on his bike and ride three miles to the town. in fact, the only time he ever got mad at me was when i got fed up with writing into town within instead of reading a book in the evening. i let the air out of the tires and his bicycle. he said any other father would beat you. ..

it got easier to be a columnist outside new york actually. and then of course i really only went on line it must have been 1998 or 1999.

i was lead to the game. jefferson -- that was obvious to do it so what are our work habits now? at the typewriter away, it was these electric ibm and i thought i will have you out in a little bit so i got the poor things out and felt kind of treacherous about it and then here i am with a map with, with a laptop. >> i am a hunt and peck guy. no rippling with all ten fingers for me. hammering away at the keys. people used to laugh at me imagery of where the characters of the key is because i hit them hard. >> presidential biographer richard reeves presents a history of the berlin airlift which occurred from may 1948 to

june 1949. he focuses on the exploits of the american airmen called back into service by president truman three years after their duty in world war ii. the national constitution center in philadelphia posts this hour-long event. >> thanks for your patience. good evening and welcome, i'm steven frank the director of national programs of the national constitution center. we are pleased to welcome the cleaned historian richard reeves whose latest book, "daring young men," recounts the story of the berlin airlift and the braves pilots who risk their lives to supply humanitarian aid during world war ii. as many of you know the success of the berlin airlift is viewed as the first cold war victory for america against the soviet union. as the editors of publishers weekly said in the review of daring young men, quote, reeves gives a mesmerizing portrait of america at its best when challenged by russia's tierney.

utilizing previously unpublished documents and numerous interviews reeves provides a voice for the extraordinary service men who accomplish extraordinary things. it was that same spirit which brought the constitution center to life and our exhibit the story of we the people that demonstrates how ordinary americans have helped protect an extraordinary document. this desire evident through the nation's history to improve upon the present and make things right exists inside a borders as well as outside as the recent earthquake in haiti should remind us all. richard reeves is the senior lecturer at the annenberg school for communication at the university of southern california. he served as the chief correspondent on the pbs series front line and made six television films garnering numerous awards including the emmy for lights, camera politics for abc news. as a syndicated columnist his articles have appeared in more than 100 newspapers since 1979 and he's the author of several

books including ford not a lincoln with the people know, freedom and the press, president kennedy profile of power and president nixon alone in the white house. leading tonight's conversations thomas childers from the university of pennsylvania where he has taught since 1976. in addition to teaching at penn, professor childers elkus in professorships at trinity hall college, cambridge, smith college and swarthmore college and has lectured in london, oxford cumberland, munich and other universities. he's widely recognized as an authority on 20th century germany and author of several highly acclaimed books on suffered a right and second world war. we are very honored to have both of these accomplished speakers tonight so please help me in welcoming richard reeves and thomas childers. [applause]

>> it is a pleasure and an honor to be here at the national constitution center and to be able to have a conversation with richard. i will look restraint to keep my temptation having read your work about the president's to ask you about the current president but instead talk about this new book of richard's which is a remarkable book about an absolutely astonishing series of events in 1948, 49. it's particularly important to me i left several years in berlin but as a student and teaching at the free university which was founded precisely during this period, so in one of the things that was the major event every year and the year i was in berlin was the chairman of american friendship day held in the temple of airport and the spirit was always recognition of the men who were involved in the

airlift and berlin was a great place to be an american throughout even the roughest times in the postwar period because of the airlift. so i think we will have very interesting things to say. it's a remarkably interesting books from looking at things on the international politics lifland domestic politics but also a human dimension which is absolutely central to this. i think before we begin though we are going to see a brief film about giving film coverage from the period. >> what we will see is a couple of minutes of newsreels from the period, american israel, as some of you will recognize voices like edward murrow and walter cronkite but it gives a picture of the political situation which was that germany was divided

into four occupation zones that is american russian british and french and then the british, french and american sections were essentially merged at the point so that you had what we all came to know as east and west germany. because of its symbolic importance, the city of berlin was also divided into four sectors and shortly after berlin was rubble and it was a city of women, children and old men and wounded men, and people were literally living in caves. for food they were dependent on agriculture from the eastern zone which surrounded it. berlin was 110 miles inside east

germany. there came a point where joseph stalin was determined to drive out americans and british and french part of it just pried apart espionage he didn't want a western window into the east and middle of his territory nor did he want a window where his people could see any of the west and decided to try to drive out the allies were blockaded the land, rail and water routes into the city leading the allies with the option of trying to feed more than 2 million people by air and by air i mean planes like dc-3 which could hold only three times and dc-4, dc-54 which could carry four times. i wrote this because i was looking to write about a subject

that i felt was about the american -- america i grew up in and what i thought of being an american as opposed to what many people think now and there could never be a better example of us at our best in this great humanitarian and venture which had a great political the implications but also was stunned basically to save the people who had been trying to kill us and we'd been trying to kill and these newsreel's give you a sense of what it looked like during that time.

in june 1948 blockade, train and road traffic was stopped. the threat of starvation for 2 million citizens of west berlin blockade imposed by the

communists to force withdrawal of the western allied forces. >> is it possible the americans will be forced out of berlin? we are not going to be forced out of berlin. in your opinion is there any danger of war, general? >> i would not like to minimize the seriousness of the situation in germany. in such a situation there is always a danger. i consider it a small danger because the people involved do not really want war. >> the people of berlin headed last week to protest communist terrorist tactics worked against the city of freedom. over a quarter of a million of them streamed in from all four sectors to make this the greatest of berlin speed freedom rally. here the symbol of german democracy as they assemble to put their case before the world.

you people of the world, you people in america and a england and france and italy, look at this city and see that you may not abandon the city, that you cannot abandon this city. [applause] estimates but the west does not withdraw and instead the berlin airlift is launched by a combined allied task force. >> the air force assigned more than 300 airplanes and more than 20,000 men to the airlift and britain made a large contribution of both aircraft and personnel. >> it was an operation without precedent and severe test of precision, logistics, communications and within a

surface. >> it was narrow and dangerous with 40 to 50 airplanes going through simultaneously. until the late stages of the airlift they were flown at five different levels at 500 feet apart. this called for extremely precise air traffic control. >> some of us bombed berlin and now we were trying to keep the same city alive. it meant we had to get more from each airplane and each man had than ever before. sprick the biggest item of coal from the utilities. it was packed and jihadi their ex mex. the second was made into pumpernickel bread. and milk for the kids. the than medicines. every ounce of cargo was checked

a new agreement signed in new york between the u.s.s.r. and the united states reaffirmed their removal of all restrictions on communications, transportation and trade between west berlin and the western zones of germany. >> attention, attention. we have a communique about the lifting of the berlin blockade. it was officially announced by the big four powers at 2:00 this afternoon that the blockade will be lifted on may 12th. >> it is one minute past midnight. the gates are being opened now and the first vehicles are going through.

now in the background they seem rather have the about the whole thing. [inaudible conversations] >> no matter where i may go i shall watch always with interest the part of the berlin will play in the formation of a german government and with complete confidence that his part will be a democratic party. therefore i shall not use the english word goodbye but rather try to say to you [inaudible] >> the last voice and earlier general lucius clay when he left berlin at the end of the

airlift, 750,000 people lined the route to temple hall support silently as he left the city. >> it was a remarkable scene. the scenes of berlin. one of the scenes there was a man announcing the news on a street corner. he said this was rios. was this? >> retial in the american sector. the american ingenuity and innovation and just general ability to do things was quite extraordinary. the russians got to berlin two months before we did. they took everything that wasn't bolted down and that was including the power stations in west berlin and moved them to the soviet union and construction equipment, and radio berlin, which was the largest and strongest radio station in europe was in their

sector of berlin. what we had was an 800 what radio station that was carried on her telephone lines which there were very few so that to deal with the russian her voice, the russians telling the story of what was happening we use trucks and jeeps with announcers like that who went from square to square during the airlift announcing the news of the day. >> you mentioned in your introductory remarks we were talking about the general view of the soviets and what they were up to in trying to close off berlin. what was it in the summer of 1948 that prompted dramatic action? this was the closest we came before the cuban missile crisis to a shooting war between the soviet union and the united states. >> i certainly think that if the

war had begun it would have been begun in berlin. what happened at stalin had a meeting with the german leaders, communist leaders of east berlin said in march in the secret meeting there are very few soviet records of this. it is pretty typical things that didn't go too well for them and find no records either because they were not kept for they were destroyed but they are all minutes of meeting that which stalin said the east germans were complaining about the west germans and the fact they were beginning to progress more economically and stalin said maybe we can figure out a way to drive them out. let's do that. the moment he waited for was, or the moment he thought he had a provocation and to them it was was when we introduced a new

currency. for those who were too young to remember and most here are the united states to mobilize almost immediately after world war ii. it was bring the boys home, they came home to its comedy club med was either buried or put in their plans were left in the bone yard, the call them deserts' in arizona. the soviets on the other hand had a million troops surrounding or berlin. we had 6,000, and one of the reasons for that was the soviets ever paid the red army during the war and one of the reasons they left the army in east germany in addition to wanting to dominate that part of the world was the were able to pay the soldiers in what was essentially worthless currency. it was reichsmarks in germany, and when we decide it, and basically lucius clay decided

that we wanted a vital and industrial germany. there had been many americans who felt we should try to return germany to a past the cup pastoral state and hold the population to 1500 calories a day a person so they could never start another war back again. play the lottery governor of germany of thought that was a losing policy and the what we needed was a strong germany as a buffer zone between eastern and western germany so he pushed for the new currency and when the new currency came the soviets took the opportunity to set up the blockade. >> that example is just one of many it seems to me that comes emerging from the story where you have a local commander in this case lucius clay who is the mother to recover as use of the

american sector taking actions that are not really waiting for the chain of command to be in operation but presenting them with what was in effect datacom please. >> clay was a very strong man to beat him was the only general in american history who never commanded troops. he never got to come and troops because he was so -- first and his class at west point, father was a senator from georgia, and he was a wizard at organization and basically was an industrial czar working in washington during the war. he did what people did in those days and maybe it is unfortunate it can't be done now. people like lucius clay with confidence in their own abilities, there was a bunker underneath the american military headquarters in germany and part of that in berlin, part of that

was a teletype room where the what teletyped to washington and then on a screen much like this washington's answer would be typed out. that would be done in the middle of the night in europe. but basically that gave clay 24, 48 hours on any decision he made and this was a man as was the air force commander, general curtis talk -- lamay. today with instantaneous there are communications and what not local commanders, local political, the state department had people in germany, washington gives all the orders. now the most important order was given in washington when harry s. truman after the blockade

began met with the joint chiefs of staff headed by a legend, omar bradley, the cabinet led by a legend general george marshall, his cabinet and the new national security council about how to respond. they voted unanimously the we should leave berlin, that there was no way that we could feed the city or do that. and when that finished robin love it, the assistant secretary of state said mr. president of the russians need to overrun berlin is shoes, and harry truman said we stay in berlin, period and he said have you really thought about this mr. president and truman got up and walked out of the room and was the truman's determination along with the clay and the competence and bravery of these

young men that want one of the most unlikely, it wasn't a battle but situation in the biggest in humanitarian history. >> i think one of the things this striking distance of the capitol of these very prestigious military men, bradley, marshall and so on and marshall's staff have not only love it but george kennan. they were opposed to this and also opposed for political reasons that couldn't be done but also just a thing for the logistical issues involved they didn't believe, they thought it was impossible. >> they also thought we have 37 planes in germany when this began to try to bring in 4500 tons per day british carried one-third of the load so that they number one thought was impossible and number two thought there would be a huge

embarrassment. omar bradley's son-in-law was living in germany, captain of the air force with bradley's daughter and grandchildren, and clay had ordered that anyone, any americans serving in berlin if the had a family there could leave if they wanted to but they had to take their family -- they could move out their family but if they moved all their family they had to go with the family. they were gone and the only exception to that turned out to be bradley's own family because he thought the russians would come in and sees them as hostages so they just thought there was no way this could have been. what did happen in fact was the approval polls were not quite what they are today. it was over 85% of the american

people. this is how americans saw themselves. the country, the nation was wildly enthusiastic about this and i would conclude there could be arguments about this in fact it was the airlift that free elected harry s. truman in 1948. no one expected the people would react enthusiastically to the country that would be that the united over an effort to save our former enemies. >> and truman's opponent did that election famously and the man who was going to be eckert expected to be dewy's secretary of state. sprick the republicans opposed their lives because they thought it wouldn't work and number two because they felt it was expensive. they had the same argument about anything. one of the great scenes lucius

clay was not the easiest man in the world. his staff which was terrified of him would say when he is relaxed he is a nice guy. the problem is he never relaxes. [laughter] and he didn't get along particularly well with germans despite what we saw and when john foster dulles who already said the first act of the dewey presidency would be to get rid of lucius clay team has a few weeks before the election it was just assumed dewey was the next president and dallas came and had been looking better left, came to clay's house for lunch in berlin and they barely spoke. they despise each other, but clay had invited the mayor of germany, an extraordinary man, the mayor of berlin who we saw in the film to come halfway

through the thing, halfway through the lunch and dulles quite broadly set to reuter and he spoke six languages including english, how can we expect the people of germany will not fold to the russians rather than starve to death and be beaten down? he said the people of berlin produced a great deal of suffering and they are willing to take a great deal more to avoid russian domination. clay got up and said to reuter he's all yours now so it's lost to history what happened loiter and dulles were alone but he never saw another bad word about the airlift. >> what actually was available about the possibility of this,

feeding 2 million people providing heat, berlin on a good day in the summer, berlin is not terribly warm so there was very little fuel to do this. did they have any sense of how long an airlift would go on? >> it's an interesting question. also something else he said, one of the reasons the military was against it is that it meant taking every plane we had and many that american airlines had about our military planes were all in the pacific and the generals and commanders didn't want to strip anything on what they considered this fool's mission so what was available in the beginning were the 37 planes, d.c. three could carry 3 tons, dc-4 could carry 10 tons and at the end of the airlift we were landing the major cargo

being cold, the second being flower and down the line we were landing at each of the three air fields in berlin call landing and taking off the plane every 45 seconds and that is what it took at one point on one day they delivered 13 million tons of, i'm sorry, 13 -- 4500 -- 1300 -- 13,000 tons of material to the city. but it was donner, one british officer described the american air fleet as a collection of plates to the car parts fly in loose formation. the plans were sold along the things is what all the time in northern europe is probably

known, so long as the many problems the young men have when they were called away from their families was universally hemorrhoids because they couldn't close the windows or doors on the plains. they would be filled with water because the two major cargo, coal and flower are both explosive in closed situations. so they had to fly with all the windows open and usually the doors open as well to avoid that but it was cold, it was wet and they were flying in and out three times a day. >> and the cruise, you mentioned the small number available initially but almost instantly they called up reservists, 10,000 pilots, ground personnel and so on. >> well, that was to be the most exciting part of this story and the thing that attracted to me. on an june 26 when the airlift

started all the world didn't know it yet telephones rang all across america and smaller towns police came to the door and the daring young man who had been pilates, weathermen, navigators, mechanics, statisticians which were very important for told to report to military bases within 48 hours it within 72 hours many of them were flying in to berlin so that in many ways the book is the story of these men mostly men all men who had given three or four years of their lives to the surface. the comeback, the net new why this, newbies, new jobs. in one story after another and they were called back, and was believed the would only last two weeks that than diplomats would

work something out. our relationships with the russians were not that bad but that isn't what happened and they were there for a year. one of the big problems when it ended was the number of young man who could not remember where they left their cars, and if they could find the cars, they forgot where they hid their keys when they were told this is temporary duty for two weeks. we also stripped the airline's -- in those days there were many flights, airline schedules for different in the winter because flying conditions were so much more difficult so that the government took not only the plains of american airlines, the pilots, the chief pilot of american airlines then was a man named harley nixon who made $550 a month and that was a lot of money in those days. he went back to being a captain

nixon at $140 a month and when he arrived in maine in frankfurt which was in the american zone and on the first what turned out to be the first day of the airlift went into a local cafe and as he did every german in the cafe and they were the only people in there stood up, left their food and walked out. two weeks later and when we talk about how the germans, nixon went back to the same place and as he walked in the door all of the germans stood up, went to the bar, each ordered a beer and brought them to the table one at a time. more he said that he could drink and a year and these guys were known to drink a bit and do what to. they were living in the barns. they were living in mud. they were sleeping under their

planes. there were no preparations at all and they were flying in the worst fall to in european history was that winter and fall in northern europe is such that the facility was zero. when we finally got the thing organize it took six to eight weeks all of the feeling was instrument flying so they flew to italy by instruments and the plans were in such shape the word among the pilots was if one instrument works it goes. it didn't matter what the instrument did. >> yeah to join an interesting thing. the german view because not only were american mechanics and meteorologist and control tower personnel called up, but the airlift had to rely on german mechanics and german meteorologist seem so long.

>> that was one of the -- ticket that as secret as they could from the american people. but we did not have enough mechanics. remember these plans were being used five, six, seven times their rated capacity so things were breaking down much quicker and there was a much more dangerous. there were an awful lot of crashes particularly on landings. and general william konar who commanded the airlift, he was another workaholic, will lead the -- willie the whip was his nickname. he on his own and then went to clay to higher mechanics, hiring men and give them a meal a day. so suddenly you had a situation where young man from colorado named corky and who by young man 1919. that is how old the occupation troops were found himself

supervising 16 germans working on american planes and him not speaking a word of german, many of them had not speaking anything but german and in his crew was a former submarine captain and two former squadron leader's now working to keep the americans lobbying and keep berlin alive and corky was in all of these people. there were all older than he was, they were veterans, he was not but he's a very funny guy. still alive. he taught the germans. he couldn't teach much about the mechanics, there were good mechanics but he did teach them to say the first day as commanding officer came in the germans lined up and said good morning, major, you son of a bitch. [laughter]

>> only the germans could get away with that i think. there's the story i think that you tell in the book about this one man who says one of the pilots who had flown 20 missions over germany so a lot of these pilots have seen it from 20,000 feet into the twenty-four's but he says here i am, five years ago i was killing these people. >> the pilot's name was thompson who was a farmer from new hampshire and his roommate and a their force and best friend named daniel denis, his b-17 was shot down over the eastern part of germany during the war and dennis was when he landed beaten to death by the farmers in the

area. this was very common. people don't like the people who bomb them and many pilots were beaten to death that way and in fact if you remember or check out that is what happened to john mccain over hanoi. he came down in what amounts to the central part of an ally at the people were drowning he can donner lake they were drowning when police and north vietnamese soldiers came and pulled him away from them so suddenly no thompson knows the exact spot where his friend was slaughtered and was flying over and thinking my god this is quite a world, isn't it. but he fought like all of the others and you know a great deal about post-traumatic stress, my own feeling is that no matter what you did, good war or bad,

the act of killing people, trying to kill people is going to do something to you and as know what thompson told me he thought as he flew over that i would rather be feeding these people than killing them without exception the people i talk to your combat veterans much preferred and said their greatest satisfaction was flying in a bear left and i think because as i sure some of you know many veterans never talk about combat or about what they did in the war. but they love to talk about what they did in the airlift because they thought they had justified themselves in the eyes of whatever god they believe in. >> it's a strange experiment to the to experience for americans and what the world to be bombing these people few years ago and now i'm saving them. for the germans they responded by saying they couldn't believe

how much the americans trusted them, german mechanics were working on plans that are going to be flown by american pilots and so on. >> it's free interesting society study of the americans the british and the french. the french absolutely hated the germans. after all the and then occupied and realized by the germans. the british were correct but they would have no fraternization with the germans except both countries love what they call football, what we call soccer and the british and the germans, the german mechanics and looters would play soccer games when they were not working. they were about the roughest soccer games in the history of the sport. there was blood all over the runways at times from those

games. but the americans, the germans simply couldn't believe, the americans were pointing to the plan and saying you know, take the engine apart or what ever and then go have a smoke, and talk and what not. they had never seen people as one young boy described the americans as being so totally different from german soldiers. first they didn't carry weapons, second they looked right at you and they didn't have hard faces and this 11-year-old boy, exact same age i am said that she couldn't believe these people who obviously had a good life not only were willing but wanted to share it with other people. his name was wolfgang samuel. he looked at the end of a runway in a false byrd and they're came a day as a lot of love and marriage in this book there came a day when an american sergeant

came to see his mother, you have to remember again germany was almost a country without men and he said to wolfgang my name is leo ferguson, call me leo, eventually he married his mother, they moved to colorado and balking samuel retired a few years ago as a colonel in the united states are force. >> talking about the danger the men went through falling into and out of berlin, the three corridors into berlin, one in the north, one in the south and then the central one arranges the return but one of the things i wonder if you could describe the conditions of landing at temple of airport in the center of berlin. >> temple of airport for any of you who have seen it one of the most extraordinary places in the

world on one side of it is a building, it is done and not see gothic, it is the largest building in the world, three-quarters of a mile long leaked a round with seven levels there were hospitals, plane factories dak into the ground. they have more floor space than any building in the world until the pentagon was finished. on the other side of the bowl, very pretty on the other side of the brass bowl for six and seven story apartment buildings and they couldn't be torn down, not in a city that have lost 80% of its housing so that the planes had to come into this grass airstrip with metal bats you put down metal mats called marston mats after marston north carolina where they were built. the planes had to come in over and again they were doing this in default at night. it was 24 hours a day and on

instruments only. the clearance of the apartment house is to come into the runway was 17 feet and many pilots swore there were tire marks on the roof of those buildings. then in a short runway grass airfield they would practically have to dive in. at that time the landing lowest allowable landing ratio in the united states are force was 40-1. that is for every foot you went down you would forward 40 feet. the landing at temple of 410-1. they came down like this and hit so hard that would rip the metal cover it up the ground and as they landed behind them what rush german war cruce mostly women wearing the on the clothes they had, sometimes beating suits, sometimes evening gowns

who almost with their bear hands the russians had taken all the construction equipment would fill in the stones and rubble and bricks and dirt before the next plane popped out of the sky 90 seconds later and then they would run off the field and that plan but land and they would run back on to repair. not only did they do that, but there were not enough landing strips obviously in berlin so they built a new airport which is now the main airport in the city but that was just a drill field in the french zone. 17,000 people almost all of them when men built with their bear hands again an air strip in 60 days and their pay as always was

one more meal a day which was no small thing. but that was the link and you feel that strong in germany and in berlin. you feel that. i write stories of the reunion of these people but they pretty much feel that way. anybody who is not old enough because they teach this in the schools, i mean, they feel about americans the way young wolfgang samuel did when leo ferguson came into his life. >> that's right. this is a city that was still starving in 1948, 49 and as you said 80% of the housing stock was gone. people were living in basements and so on so they called them rubble when and for clearing things away, building things. it was quite remarkable. still in the 60's and the 70's i have to say landing at temple off in jets used all sort of went like this, and i often

think i am being hyperbolic but i'm not. >> you could look as your landing into this apartment buildings and see people in their kitchens preparing lunch or dinner so one can only imagine what it was like when the planes were coming in in these bad conditions. >> one of the ironies was of course when the plane stopped coming the airlift continued after may 12th because we were building stockpiles in case the russians tried another blockade. so the planes kept coming. when they finally stopped in september and many german had trouble sleeping without the noise they couldn't go to sleep without the noise of the planes coming over which amounted to every 15 seconds a plan would be coming or going from all of the airports. >> psychologically for those germans during your plans

haven't been a good thing in 1943, 44, 45 as they were being bombed. >> one of things about this book that is really i think only gripping in the stories of land in their plans but also these human stories that to tell about the relationships with the man and his wife, the pilot and his wife, the wife finally gets to guilaume resistance station and discovers he has been sent to berlin across the world but there are also things, the candy donner think. >> the woman that you're talking about is named mary wetmore and i did a program in denver she was there and was stunned. people went crazy applauding her. the kanaby bomber was a man named gail halvorson who was a mormon and later became provost of the university of utah who like any he had an 8-millimeter spring loaded movie camera and

he was not to use it and the first time he landed in berlin as a pilot he went around the periphery of the great bowl this temple of taking pictures of it and when he came to the end of the runway by these apartment buildings, there were a whole bunch of kids standing there watching the planes land. the kids loved seeing that and watching that and he talked to them for a while. he actually spoke a little german and when he was walking away he realized they had never asked him for anything. he had been serving in the pacific and in europe and course kids were always asking him for candy, money and he realized these kids didn't ask for anything and he walked back and the only thing that he had was a stick of wrigley's devilment, and he tore it into ten pieces, there were about 20 kids and they divided among themselves

each taking a bit and he had the others taking the bit of tinfoil because it had some sugar and they could like it. these were kids who never tasted sugar ever, and then they said would you come back and do it. gail halvorson ended up the next day came in with 17, he and his crew used their serial a lot to buy candy bars and they dropped 17 the next day they made a little parachutes of handkerchiefs so the stuff wouldn't break up when it hit the ground. by the end of the airlift, we have passed along and people collected a around the country can be in the amount of 40 tons of candy which was collected by americans. the other thing that was collected if it was sent by americans from home, harry

truman said the first one or care packages for these ten account or 18 lb boxes of all sorts of food. it was the food left over care packages for this should have been prepared for the invasion of japan. since there was no invasion of japan was there and was sent and many people could vividly described the first time they saw a care package opened and what was in it and what it represented and among the people who told the story was helmut kohl who became the chancellor. he was a 10-year-old boy at the time who became the chancellor, first chancellor of the united germany after the wall went down in 1989. but americans for sending over shiploads of candy. it was being collected at fire

houses all over the country because dale halvorson had done and he thought he was going to in it actually. >> the british -- which is quickly and at the british were very much also involved in the airlift. they couldn't drop candy because britain was still under -- still living under austerity terms and rationing of food so they didn't have the candy. >> there were times during the airlift where we kept up in the aisle as you could get more stuff into the calories at one point it got to 2200 calories per person that we were bringing in. that was more than the british were giving themselves. the airlift by the way was a british idea. when all of the american said you can't do this, it was a british air marshal named rex who set up all night with a slide rule and 4500 tons is what they figured they needed each day, and he brought in how many

planes would take and how often they would fly etc., etc. and went to word robertson who was lucius clay's british counterpart and at first lucius clay was against the airlift. he thought it was impossible and he wanted to use and 10 miles down from the western zone and so that when it robertson talked about an airlift trustees it's impossible. we can't -- it is absolutely impossible and robertson and then ernst bedzin, the foreign minister of britain both said well, we are going to do it any way. and it is certainly going to be embarrassing that americans can't do with all they have what we can do with nothing, and clay gave the right answer which is fine with you.

but the british were amazing in that more of brits died in the airlift and americans partly because their planes were even worse shape and they had larger crews to read it for men and a plan and we had three. when the planes crashed the tended to have a higher casualty rate. but i for one who i suppose was a bit of an anglophobe came away with an enormous respect. the industry are so interesting. their virtues and faults seem to be the same. that stubbornness that they have. but certainly served them and us and the world will in 1948. >> right. well i think we have time for just one last question or observation and then we will open things up for questions from the floor. there's some interesting stories in this and i am particularly taken with the american pilot and co-pilot who were listening

to the army-navy game on the radio and were not paying attention to the ghanem philadelphia, it went we were beyond berlin and found themselves in soviet territory and had to come back. there's lots of things like this. but i think maybe one closing remarks, what do you think the united states, was the lesson drawn possibly by the government but by the american public from the airlift? >> well, i think the lesson was already there. i mean it has to do with what we recall in the classroom american exceptional was a man won not. this was and the reason the truman is in my mind a great man is that he knew somehow instinctively certainly no one could tell him this is how americans see themselves. this is how we want to be. this is the way people my age

were brought up believing we were. i decided to do this book because of abu ghraib. i've lived a lot of places in the world including the middle east and asia and the idea of america being hated in my old age as it were compared to what it was when i was a used to get almost personally. i mean, the berlin airlift is who we are, not the torturers, and i wanted to bring that story out to the extent i can to reevaluate who we are, where we came from, what we do and what we don't do, and i think that that was the way, that is what was tapped in the america of tom brokaw's america, the greatest generation and your talks about

considering it not the first battle of the cold war. but the last battle, last year battle of world war ii. but so in the and if i represent the american people in my heart these are a people i want to be. >> it is a marvelous -- it is a marvelously and we've just scratched the surface with it tonight. but i think we have time for questions and what we would like to ask you to do is if you would come to -- is there just a microphone on the one side? come here and que up, as the british say. i'm sure that richard would be happy to take questions. >> [inaudible] -- as i was listening to the reading a little bit of the book i realized how much of a hero truman again was