that america can ill afford to stop producing men like andrew goodpastor and dwight eisenhower. thank you so much. [applause] >> we had a slide show for you, but unfortunately, we are powerless in the hands of technology these days, so we're going to be unable to bring that to you. so do i have any questions that i can answer? yes, sir? >> i just wondered if you --

it's a little bit off topic, but the fact that eisenhower, his remarkable brother -- [inaudible] there must have been something about that family. >> well, it was a remarkable family. they were all successful in their own professions and milton eisenhower, as i'm sure you're all aware, you know, had an incredible career. not only as the president of johns hopkins, but in various fields in government. another brother was a simple pharmacist and he was successful at what he did. so each of them in their own way rose from poverty. and if you ever have a chance, if you have read about eisenhower, you're probably familiar with the fact that that family grew up in inject poverty. you -- in abject poverty. wearing shoes was a luxury and everything that they had was a

hand-me-down. one of the first things that eisenhower learned as a young boy was how to sew, because nothing was wasted. nothing was r thrown away. so this was really a remarkable family. there was no money to educate them, there was no money to send them to college. that's why ike, you know, was desperate to get a higher education, to find his way out of abilene. and out of the poverty that he grew up in. and they had a lot of fun. you read about the lives of these young men. and there's a lot to be said for it. they had a good time. but they -- it was hardscrabble, it really was. they were from the wrong side of the railroad tracks, and if you've ever been in abilene, there are two sets of railroad tracks actually and i think there must have been two in ike's day, but if if you were south of those railroad tracks, you essentially came from the wrong side and you generally grew up, you know, you were

poor. and so it's hard for me to explain, but they -- there was something in what those young men were taught that allowed them to grow up and to be successful human beings. and that's all any parent can ever do. and if you have your children grow up to be successful, the way the eisenhower boys were, that says i think everything that needs to be said about the parents of dwight eisenhower. >> from reading your magnificent biography, i'm struck between the tension of the man you describe as humble and modest tonight and also the perception of one of the most supremely of can dent men that i think i begin to learn something about. how would you explain those two polar opposites? >> all right. we're talking about between ike and general goodpastor here?

>> no, between ike's sense of modesty and humility and at the same time his enormous confidence. >> that's probably the hardest thing for any biographer or any historian, you know, to try to get to the bottom of. all i could do when i wrote about him was to try to give you a sense of what this -- what made this man tick, but there was something about him, and one of the reasons that he was so remarkable, and why i wanted to talk about his legacy tonight, was that you had a man who became so successful, who became supreme commander, who became a president of the united states in the most powerful position in the world and yet who could still retain that humility and i don't know that anybody can actually explain that, but it

goes to the heart of what made ike what he was. that he had those qualities. because so often, what we see in men who achieve powerful positions, is that they forget where they came from. and i suspect that it's probably fairly easy to do. all of a sudden, you're powerful, you have a lot of -- you have people doing your bidding and everything, and you know, ike never seemed to lose that human touch. he always had it. i don't know if this really plays in to your question, but there was such things has when the day he was -- one of the days when he was president, that the superintendent of west point was in the oval office and i don't remember exactly who it was, but they had a meeting about something, and as the meeting broke up, and the

superintendent was ready to leave the oval office, ike called him back and said, whispered in his here, he said general, you need to do something about that damn football team. now, here's -- was it westmoreland? ok, there you go. you know, he had that quality that he never seemed to lose that, and that's what i think attracted me to him. and why last year after seven years and sort of away from ike, he was never out of my picture, but you know, i had moved upon to other things, and going back and looking at what he did, made it all the more remarkable, you know, why i felt he was so special. there's something else that i'd like to share with you. that i think goes to the heart of why men like ike fight, and

why they do what they do. i spent today, a good part of today at the holocaust museum working on something, and i came across a story. that i think goes a little bit toward explaining why people like ike do what they do. and it has to do with a story that takes place in budapest in 1944, and budapest is being bombed, and this is the memoir of a young woman who helped ron wallenberg to save many of the jews of budapest and let me just read to you what he wrote and see if we make the connection here. she talks about how the street cars were still running but then the bombing started and we had nowhere to go. there were really no shelters and it was hard to run into houses where the basements were

already overcrowded, so bravely the tram went on, hoping that we would not be hit. in the midst of the noises, i heard a bird singing. for a moment, i thought i was already in heaven. then i looked up and saw a cage with a canary in it. next to the conductor. at my questioning glance, the conductor explained, i love her, and if i have to die, we will do it together. the tram went on, the bird kept singing, the bombing stopped, we had survived. and you know, i thought to myself when i read that, that you know, when you get right down to it, that's one of the reasons why men like ike did what they did. to of is a people like that. -- to save people like that. oops. that's good. >> can you talk a hill bit about the way eisenhower treated his army field commanders

differently? general montgomery, general differs. >> well, he had his hands full. i think he had a very difficult task balancing a number of rather large egos. and one of the challenges that he faced as supreme commander, you know, was balancing all that. and at the same time, you know, trying to stick to a strategy that he believed what's the right one. you know, we're still refighting the broad front, narrow front strategy of 1944, and i don't really expect that it's ever going to get resolved. i laid out the case for eisenhower, and why i thought he did what he did. and i think, again, that goes a long way to explaining how he worked with allies and with his subordinates, and if you want to sum up the broad front-nair pro front strategy, it's really --

it really comes down to something fairly simple, and that's this. there were american generals, bradley and patton, who thought that we can win the war by doing it our way. you had a british general, montgomery, who thought my way will probably win the war. and eisenhower's view was, we are allies. and we're going to win this war as allies. we began as allies, and we're going to finish it as allies. now you can poke a lot of holes in that argument if it you wish, but what it came down to goes a long way i think, to explaining eisenhower, and the way that he dealt really with people and in this case, how he dealt with a strategy, you know, for ending the war in europe. i don't want to get too far into the monty thing between ike and monty and some of the other

problems that hike had with others. some of eisenhower's biggest problems were not with montgomery, they were with bradley. so i mean, he had his hands full. these were all generals with ideas of their own about how the war should be won. and so one of his challenges has supreme commander was to try to juggle those things and still follow what he believed was the strategy that he felt had to be laid out to do this. and he made a lot of gutsy decisions. i talked about one of them very briefly. another gutsy decision a ike made was in december of 1944, when he realized how desperate the situation in the battle of the bulge was. and he decided to split the front and give the northern half of the bulge to montgomery. and there was howling. oh my god, you can't do that, you can't give it to this little

so and so, and so there's been a lot of -- a lot written about it, but if you go to the generals that fought that battle, in the northern half of the bulge, every one of them will tell you that that was the right decision, and that having montgomery there probably saved their lives. you talk to the people who defended, the u.s. seventh armored devision and they'll it would you the reason they survived that battle was the decision that was made and it -- that ike made and it was a very unpopular decision. and he had a reputation of not doing that sort of thing. so myths grow about people and there certainly have been, you know, myths about ike. and i think one of the jobs of us, who are in the historical profession, is to, you know, try to tell you what we think really happened. and if it means busting a myth,

then so be it. but he was willing to take the unpopular -- very, very unpopular choice, because he felt militarily it was the right thing to do. do i have another question here, sir? >> our country's history, there's been a lot of war heroes and generals that have attempted to become president and have tried to do it. of course, george washington and eisenhower being two that got us through the war, and this beautiful piece you just read is from the museum today, the birds still singing and got us through. do you think it was as much got us through the war, that he was able to be so successful or so many other war generals were not able to become successful or was it his attributes that got him elected? >> well, you know, certainly his war record, one of the pictures i was going to show you tonight, you know, is ike as "time" man of the year. but he was -- i think easily,

after world war ii, certainly the most -- the most respected and indeed, probably popular man in america. people trusted him, as that little piece i read to you from "time" magazine, they liked ike and they liked what they saw and you can't fake that stuff. you know, when you present a persona to the public, you know, trying to fool the public is something that you cannot do that, and if you're a fake or a phony, you know, you're going to show up, and there was -- those qualities, there was something about eisenhower, i think, that struck a chord with the american public. i don't recall the exact size of his majority, when he won the presidency, but it was huge, and so he was enormously popular. you know, because people trusted him and maybe that's the operative word that i want to leave you with.

he was someone people trusted, and if you earn someone's trust, you've really gone a long way towards being a successful human being, whether it's politics or in general as a business person, that's pretty darn important, so i would rate trust right up there as one his great qualities. and i think that's something that i saw in general goodpastor has well. i wish i had known him better, but i just feel very fortunate that i had those few opportunities that i had working with the eisenhower memorial commission to see the same sort of thing with general goodpastor and obviously he had it or presidents of the united states would not be consistently calling on him to be their adviser. i mean, it was amazing that night that i spent at the white house. before the 50th anniversary of d-day. every single occasion, when

something would come up, you know, there was a lot of big wheels in that room. you name it, if they were in the white house, or in government, they were at that dinner, and there's only one person that president clinton would consistently turn to, the man sitting on his right. which was andrew goodpastor, and i was struck by that. that evening about how much trust there was and i don't believe those two knew each other before that night. if they did, it was a very brief acquaintance. so it goes a lot to saying about both these men, about how deeply they were trusted. to earn the trust of a president is something really special as well. so i just thought i'd mention that. yes, sir? >> you mentioned the quality that general eisenhower had. early on, he was a happy go lucky fellow. and then you mentioned the

quality that he exhibited late in life. an enormous temper. >> the temper he had forever. he had a temper as a i don't know man. he used to beat up trees. of all of the eisenhower brothers, he was the toughest one for his mother to handle. so the temper, let me qualify that immediately, the temper was always there. that was something that he had to learn to rein in pretty early on. but there was more than one occasion when he would actually bloody his hands, you know, trying to beat up a tree in the front yard, because he was so angry about something, so he did have -- he did have one heck of a temperament he did manage to learn how to control it and it's interesting, i don't think the american public really knew that, because that was something that he was very good at concealing. certain those around him, you

know, at least during world war ii and i'm sure in the white house, you know, probably got to feel it once in a while, but you never held a grudge. that was the big difference. he'd get angry, and -- but it was over. >> well, did you ever make any connection between his temper and his certainty that he was right? >> i'm not sure that i did, no. it's -- that's difficult to try to sometimes make linkage, and you know, it's possible, but i'm not -- i'm not sure i could answer that. >> last question. >> it's very clear that we finished the war as allies, but what in our allies really think of eisenhower as a leader? you've gone on and worked with the -- your book on churchill, and i just wonder, given the diaries and ward allen brook and

field marshal montgomery that have come out, what ex-post was there a real judgment of eisenhower? >> well, there were obviously differences of opinion. everybody thinks their way is probably the right way. there were a lot of stresses and strains on these men during world war ii. when you stop to think about the responsibilities that they had, and the pressures that were on them, and yes, they all kept diaries, and you know, some of those things that they had and wrote came back to haunt them i think later on and there were mixed opinions. you know, because they really thought that their way was the right way, but i don't think that that necessarily changes history's judgment. i mean, the fact that one individual has an opinion, you know, doesn't change the overall judgment that history -- the cumulative experience of a man is not necessarily going to be

affected by the judgment of one other person. so yes, there were great differences of opinion. and unfortunately, i have to say that some historians had made a little too much hay over some of these differences. you know, because it sells books. and i have rejected some of that. as being, you know, either exploitive or, you know, rather exaggerated. but i think in the case of eisenhower, you know, specifically, to answer your question, yes, there were some mixed opinions, but by others who were close to the thing, that felt their way was the right way, but i don't think that affects history's judgment one way or the other, definitely not. [applause] thank you fo

>> >> joining us now is richard wilier, the author of "chasing normality" and he joins us from lincoln, nebraska. why did you call your book "chasinchasing normality"? >> i fought for a long time to come up with a title and one night in bed i was thinking that's what my life has been, a chase for normality. i think it may be fairly common among post-polio people. we always try and strive to live normal lives. >> and were you able to do so? have you done so? >> guest: it's a process and i

think i've done so to the point that i've had more physical problems, which have made it impossible to live of the life i had lived. >> host: well, mr. wieler, tell us about the life you had lived. you went to law school and of after that what happened? >> guest: well, i guess i'll start at the beginning. i got poleo at 15, -- polio at 15, just before the shot became available, so i struggled to get through high school, thanks to the superintendent of county schools, i started in college, living with my uncle because he said no one would give me a chance unless i could prove that i could do it, and then i spent a year doing that, and then on to missouri. they developed a program for handicapped students and i was expected there and law school had always been kind of a dream,

because two of the patients at the rehab hospital were lawyers and they didn't -- they seem like they had something going for them. they wanted to continue their normal lives, and that's what i wanted. so i applied for law school and got accepted, and how i ever got thank you, that was a different era back then. they invited a bunch of people in and then tried to weed you out. so -- >> host: what was it like to be in a wheelchair in law school in the 1960's? >> guest: it was interesting. thank goodness for law school at the university of missouri. didn't have that many steps. the only room i couldn't get in to was the trial practice room. so -- but there were no aides, there were very fuel elevators,

you -- fuel elevators, you depended on people and i didn't have much trouble there. people were always picking me up and pushing me to the next class. my one good thing about being in the wheelchair is i might have been conspicuous, but i think the of professors didn't want to call on me. my theory was the hang low. >> host: and what does that mean? >> guest: that means keep your head down, keep writing notes and try not to get called on, because the method was rather brutal. in the 1960's. >> host: well, let's go back just a little bit, mr. wieler. what happened at age 15? to you? >> guest: i woke up one day with a severe headache, it was a classic symptom of polio.

i checked into a hospital probably two days later, and i started losing muscle over the course of a week, to the point where i had to be put in an iron lung, just to keep breathing. >> host: within a week? >> guest: within a week. all changed within one week. >> host: now most polio patients don't live but a few years. is that correct? >> guest: i don't know. i don't know if there's data on that or not. we seem of to the ability to live fairly normal life span. one of my friends died of cancer, one died of a brain hemorrhage. franklin roosevelt died of a brain hemorrhage, but i think that was a as a result of overwork and undermedication. >> host: so overnight,

mr. wieler, he went from playing baseball and being part of 4h and being as you say a farm boy to being in a wheelchair? >> guest: that's true. within a space of a week. actually i went from farm boy to iron lung and i spent sex -- six weeks in that iron lung and believe it or not, i didn't want to come out of it when the time game. i was scared to death. i was comfortable in that steel cocoon and i wasn't ready to come out of it. it was like you're comfortable where you are. so when i did get pulled out of it by people who knew better, it expanded my horizons. >> host: now this book has been endorsed, you've got a couple of blushes on the back of the book from two well-known folks. former attorney general ashcroft and also jack danforth, the former missouri senator. did you work for both of these

gentlemen? >> guest: yes, i did. i got a job with the attorney general's office out of law school, and three months later, jack danforth got into office and thankfully for my sake, he retained me, and it was a good working relationship. he brought in a lot of new people, it was a good time. the attorney general's office overnight became a front-runner, part of a bellwether for the state of missouri, and same with mr. ashcroft. he and i had had moved on to some other agencies and when he was elected, he asked me back, so i had a good working relationship with both of them. and they were kind enough to write editorials on the back of the book. >> host: well, richard wieler,

this book came to our attention on book tv via justice thomas. what is your relationship with him? >> guest: high known clarence since the first day he arrived in the attorney general's office, jack done forth recruited him out of -- jack danforth recruited him out of jail, so our relationship goes back some 35 years. we actually worked together on several occasions, consulted with him. we ate lunch and discussed the events of the world, so clarence is a good, good, good friend and i had a feeling somebody must have given you a tip on the bo book, because it hasn't had much publicity. i haven't been able to market it. >> host: how long did it take you to write it? >> guest: well, i started writing 10 years ago.

i wrote the first three chapters. i did it because clarence and other friends were urging me to put my story down. they said i shouldn't pass from the scene without people knowing what happened, and then it just stalled. i couldn't find a way to make it realistic or something other than just bottle and stuff, i didn't want it to be that way an three years ago, maureen clark, just walked into my life. she's a freelance writer, she never had done a project like this but said she would help me with it, so between the two of us, it took about three years. >> what do you want people when they read this book, what do you want them to take away from it? >> guest: that as long as there's life, there's hope. it doesn't matter what you do, just do something.