and visit the house i am reminded of 10 remortgage saw who was fdr neighbor at dutchess county and knew him as well as anyone who said rose about had a sickly forested interior that net rose about was a rather enigmatic and to stand or secretive man in many ways. by folksannyt when you visit a house especially to look bad day you get as close as you willge ever get to appreciate franklin roosevelt as a human being and where he came from and what he was and how he became what he did become. i am delighted to be here at the roosevelt library which is the first we forget off 10 that he invented thoughd whole concept of presidential libraries.s. it was his idea to preserve his papers and memorabilia

here on the grounds of his old family estate in 1940. and who i am a great fan of presidential libraries around the country and have made it my lifelong task to visit each one so i patiently await the george w. bush one in dallas which is supposed to open in the next year or two and a friend of mine is an official soy keep hinting theresi must be a panel discussion. [laughter] . . is that i think that they reflect in some ways what i call the civic protestantism of america. and by that i mean we don't as a culture, we don't revere religious relics so much anymore.

we don't, we don't bow before the fragment of the true cross and that sort of thing. but because america is a nation founded on an idea, we've sort of substituted that human instinct and transferred it to our political founders. so you go to the archives in washington where i live, and there's the declaration of independence and the constitution, and they're housed in the these brass and glass helium-filled rell squares which are completely reminiscent of the sort of medieval ones that you see where one of christ's thorns or one of the fragments of the true cross is located. and you go to presidential establishments -- mount vernon, monticello, recently montpelier, james madison's home in virginia has become a sort of museum and center -- and here they're wonderful institutions because they have brought together every

conceivable object, paper. i know, i've been writing a little bit about the madison house, and they have surveyed all the general region, they've found furniture that madison had owned and touched, articles of clothing, toothpicks, spectacles, everything you can think of. [laughter] and they're all lovingly collected and under glass which i think is wonderful. but if you look at it from a sightly skew as i do, it's kind of interesting, too, the way we retrieve these things. and i think it also, it also belies the idea that americans are not interested in our history. i think we're deeply interested in our history. not every american is as interested in others, but i think our presidential libraries and museums definitely, definitely reflect a national interest in our, in our past.

um, now, if you'll forgive a die depression, the reason i mentioned all that is that in this, in my little monograph i address myself to two, two themes. one is i wanted to make some biographical observations about these two individuals who are usually not united historically. we don't think of fdr and eisenhower together. but my thesis is that they did come together at a very strategic moment in american history, and, um, it's to our long-term benefit that they did. um, but secondly, i'm very interested in historical memory, how we look at the past, how our views of the past change and evolve. the speaker just before me, professor moy, has written this wonderful book about the tuskegee airmen, and he quoted a

1925 army air corps study of african-americans in the military. and it's full of these terrible condescending, one might say racist views of black people which we are, which we, of course, recoil from, obviously, from today. but we always have the sense in history that right now we've come to a consensus and that our attitudes at this moment are the correct ones and that all the wisdom of, you know, the past was complicated and people had kind of strange ideas about things. but now we've got all the research in the, and everything -- we've come to our senses. and so now the current thinking among historians is the right thinking. um, and i was struck by that, um, a dozen years ago when i covered the dedication of the

franklin roosevelt, um, memorial in washington. i don't know how many of you have visited it. it's on the mall near the world war ii memorial. um, which is another wonderful story that i sort of tangentially covered over the years. um, the roosevelt memorial, actually, was, um, it was dedicated in 1997 which was, um, what, 52 years after fdr had died. and there was this -- and they had been contemplating a memorial to fdr almost from the time he did die. um, and there was this general sense that they could never come to a conclusion, that there would be a, there would be a design submitted and congress would approve, and then there'd be some obstacle, the archives -- i mean, this just went on and on for decades. when are we ever going to get a memorial to franklin roosevelt? and it was finally dedicated in

1997, a half century after he died. and my reaction to that was, well, it was actually more or less on schedule because not too far from the, from the roosevelt memorial is the lincoln memorial which you all know, and that was dedicated in 1922 which was even longer after lincoln's death than the fdr memorial was dedicated after his death. so these things always have a kind of gestation period. and also things are not, things are not always as they seem. we now regard the lincoln memorial as a national treasure, and whenever we want to have any kind of unifying event in washington, people are always careful to stage it in front of the lincoln memorial with abraham lincoln sort of benignly looking down on them and the reflecting pool in the front. well, i grew up in the washington, d.c., and i'm now old enough to remember when i was a little boy there were still elderly women in washington, friends of my mother's, who still were not

really very happy that the mall had been gummed up with a memorial to abraham lincoln. so we don't always, we don't always arrive at these consensuses instantly. but what interested me about the roosevelt memorial is that as with many monuments to historical figures, it really tells us almost as much about the times in which the memorial was made as about the subject of the memorial. and i think that's particularly true in fdr's case. my own opinion is that i don't know that -- i mean, i'm, as a great admirer of franklin roosevelt, i'm delighted that there is a memorial to him, and better the one there is than none, but i'm not a huge fan of the fdr memorial, and i don't know that it's really a memorial that he would particularly like. we have a, we have a notion of what he considered a good presidential memorial because

fdr was the, was the, really, the energy behind the building of the jefferson memorial in washington. it's a kind of funny side light on franklin roosevelt personally. he as a good democrat, of course, always paid o bee sense to thomas jefferson, and i always thought fdr slightly overdid it a bit because all of his forebearers -- isaac roosevelt, old james roosevelt -- were all hamiltonians to the core. the roosevelts, in the time of jefferson, none of the roosevelts thought very much of jefferson. so fdr kind of overdid this. and, once again, i think there should be a monument to thomas jefferson in washington, but that nice neoclass call structure that you see along the tidallal basin, and i've always

thought was fdr's taste, the memorial, i think, is very much a 1990s view of franklin roosevelt. and, um, i say this partly out of, from design conviction. and i don't think the structure is what he would have particularly liked. but, also, it's franklin roosevelt that we now think about historically, and that is the franklin roosevelt of the new deal. the fdr memorial in washington heavily concentrates on the depression, it concentrates on his domestic policies, on his conservation, his stewardship of, of national parks and so on, all of which is true. but to the total exclusion of certain other aspects of him. you would never know that the great conservationist was also one of the great dam builders of the 20th century which is somewhat anathema in our time,

but fdr thought that was a very logical thing to do, to generate energy and to put people to work. also you would never know that this was a monument to the man who prosecuted the greatest war in american history and very vigorously prosecuted it. and i don't think reluctantly prosecuted it. so one of the -- and i think that's, i mean, obviously, any student of roosevelt will know that, but when you go to the roosevelt memorial in washington, you're only seeing the -- you're, essentially, seeing the 1997 sort of congressionally-approved view of franklin roosevelt. and this happens with historical figures all the time. i mean, in the journalism particularly we always when we refer to fdr, it's always the fdr of the new deal. and similarly, my other subject -- the somewhat unlikely partner of fdr, dwight d. eisenhower -- the only time he ever gets quoted nowadays in the

press is that one sentence in his farewell address where he warns against the power of the military industrial complex which he believed and which is true and which is valid. but it's just a speck in the great ocean of what eisenhower really represented and is a little bit, i think, misleading. and similarly, with fdr i think that while he is the, obviously in be my view, the dominant president, the greatest president of the 20th century and, obviously, the man who invented really our modern politics in many ways, he was also a global theorist. he was also a man ambitious for american power in the world. um, and, um, as with all such things you often wonder where did this come from? why did roosevelt think this

way? what, what made him a kind of liberal imperialist, to use a scholarly term, as he was? why did he actively pursue a kind of american, what i call an american empire without colonies which is to say american power around the globe, um, but without necessarily acquiring real estate the way the europeans tended to do? and i think the answer comes from biography. franklin roosevelt was born in 1882, the united states in the immediate post-civil war, i mean, the united states has never been a deliberately imperial nation. we never have set out to create a map of the world that's colored red, white and blue in various places like the british, the spanish or others did. but we have a kind of, we've kind of become imperial is a bad

word these days, but i can't think of an alternative. we have become a global power to some degree through inadvertence, but also -- and when i say inadvertence, partly because of the vacuums of power we have filled especially after world war ii, but also deliberately. in the period after the civil war when franklin roosevelt was born, the united states became very much an economic superpower, competitive with the british. we didn't have the strategic power that the british empire did at that age, but we certainly had comparable economic power. um, and another point is that we often tend to forget that because the oyster bay roosevelt, that is to say the theodore roosevelt branch of the family was somewhat hostile to the hyde park/franklin roosevelt branch of the roosevelt family, we forget that, n., they -- i

mean, alice longworth used to make fun of eleanor roosevelt and this, that and the other, but they were closer than we think. and, in fact, not only did franklin roosevelt marry theodore roosevelt's favorite niece, but he also regarded theodore roosevelt, as he said, as the greatest man he ever knew. and i think theodore roosevelt's influence on his distant cousin, franklin, was a reality in his life up until his death even though we tend to ignore it. remember, too, that theodore roosevelt became prominent at strategic moments in fdr's life. franklin roosevelt was a schoolboy when theodore roosevelt became mckinley's assistant secretary of the navy. he was at school when theodore roosevelt charged up san juan hill. he had just become, just entered

his sophomore year at harvard when theodore roosevelt became president. so roosevelt's vision of an american sentry, of a globally-assertive united states was something that was bred into franklin roosevelt really in his youth. and i don't think ever left him. and all through his public career you hear kind of theodore rooseveltian rhetoric. i was just reading and listening the other day to his third inaugural speech where he talks about, um, in lincoln's day the great challenge facing the presidency was danger from within. now we are dealing with danger from without, namely fascist nazi germany and fascist italy. but ea also ends -- but he also

ends about the mission of the united states is not only to be vigilant about this, but also to defend and promote democracy around the world. um, so it's a consistent theme in his, in his public life that is, um, i think, striking and striking to some degree because it's not, it's not really recognized as such. there's this, i think the historical consensus about fdr is still, as about any historical figure, it's still in flux. but that, um, he was fundamentally a domestic politician who dealt with the depression in the first two terms of his presidency and then as the war in europe came, he suddenly had to pay attention to world affairs and became what he did. and i think that's not quite true. i think roosevelt was thinking

globally from the very beginning. um, certainly if you go back to his tenure as assistant secretary of the navy under woodrow wilson, um, he was a constant promoter of -- which is an interesting innocent incidens life because the president, wilson, was a kind of diffident person as far as foreign relations were concerned. he felt that the united states should refrain from interfering in foreign affairs. he department think that we thought that -- he didn't think that we thought that we should be very restrained in our use of american power. roosevelt -- wilson's secretary of state, william jennings bryan, was a pacifist who really was a pose today the exercise of american power, resigned because he thought the wilson administration was getting too belligerent by 1915.

fdr's immediate boss was a will sewn yang and a disciple of bryan's who looked upon the uniform navy with kind of bemused suspicion. he was always reluctant to use the navy in any way. and, of course; this was all anathema to franklin roosevelt who spent his entire eight years as assistant secretary very, in that wonderful way of his, very charmingly but effectively undermining his boss on a day-to-day basis. the extent to which franklin roosevelt was insubordinate in the wilson navy department toward his boss, i mean, when daniels would leave town, franklin would have fun and do all sorts of things which daniels would have to undo when he returned. and yet the amazing thing is that daniels retained his affection for fdr. he loved franklin roosevelt. he actually survived franklin roosevelt.

i think he, i think he thought of franklin roosevelt as his kind of like a naughty nephew that he indulged. but it's a kind of interesting thing. and, of course, in the 1920 roosevelt was the vice presidential nominee. on the democratic ticket, he was a strong supporter of wilson's, of course, by then wilson had become an internationalist as we now think of him, promoting democracy abroad, the 14-point program for the reinvention of europe as a kind of american-style democratic community. um, fdr was a strong supporter of that after the war, after, i mean, after the election which the democrats lost. america lapsed into a kind of isolationism, but franklin roosevelt was very active in the founding of the council on foreign relations in new york which was a gathering of kind of -- actually, it was a kind of

republican organization. it was very much dominated by henry stimson and william howard taft and some of the other republican elder statesmen. probably would have had theodore roosevelt in it if he hadn't been president. but fdr was part of that. and i've always thought it was interesting, and, actually, there's some fdr -- fdr did some writing in the 1920s both for small newspapers and for magazines, and almost invariably -- not almost invariably, but frequently on foreign topics. and a strong proponent of america in the wilsonian sense as a beacon of democratic enlightenment. we have this power, we have this great example of our people and our system, and we should be promoting this to the extent that we can around the world, that we're challenged by alien ideologies in russia and in germany and italy and elsewhere

and that america is a beacon of hope. there's an interesting incident in 1932 right after, um, the election. you may know the story. fdr is president -- of course, in those days there was a four or five-month gap between the election and inauguration which was in march, not january. and fdr famously paid a courtesy call on president hoover, and somewhat to his surprise and annoyance, hoover had with him another duchess county neighbor of fdr's, ogden mills, who was the secretary of the treasury in the hoover administration. and the reason hoover had mills there was that hoover had wanted some sort of bipartisan confidence-enhancing measures during this ambiguous transition period. and he wanted to get roosevelt onboard. of course, nowadays we would think of this as wonderful

bipartisan cooperation, isn't it nice, republicans and democrats getting along and uniting for the good of the country. well, fdr was deeply annoyed by this. he didn't want to get anywhere near uniting with the hoover administration on anything, um, and declined to issue the statement that hoover wanted him to. nevertheless, the one person that roosevelt did meet with during the transition from the hoover administration was henry stimson who was hoover's secretary of state. who was another new yorker, henry stimson lived on the north shore of long island, but he, like fdr, came from an old new york family, so they probably had a lot of concentric circles in the roosevelt/stimson orbit. but roosevelt actually asked stimson who was secretary of state to come here to his house

in hyde park where they had a long meeting, with they discussed -- where they discussed, of course, by that time the japanese were on the march in manchuria, and also there was a pending meeting on, um, the world economic conference in london which stimson would have, would have attended if hoover had been reelected. but roosevelt wanted his views on things. so the one aspect of bipartisanship and cooperation and all that during transition as we now call it that fdr welcomed was on, in foreign affakr&9ñ um, i make the point in my book that one of the most important points of the roosevelt presidency, um, came a few years later, um, when he, in 1937 when he gave is so-called quarantine

speech in chicago which, i think, a very important event, i think, in the roosevelt presidency. but it's also a very important event in american history because it kind of lays the groundwork for american foreign policy really ever since. and it's interesting because by 1937, of course, hitler had come to power five, six weeks before franklin roosevelt was inaugurated as president. mussolini had been in power in italy for a decade. the japanese, by then, the rather fascist japanese were on the march in asia. the world was getting dangerous. by 1937, of course, hitler had remilitarized the rhine land, mussolini had invaded ethiopia. it was clear that the fascist parties in europe were, were aggressive and ambitious and

college rent. belligerent. but roosevelt, of course, was stymied by several factors, one of which being public opinion. um, most americans in 1937 felt that we had been sold a pig in a poke in world war i, that we had fought and hadn't really -- we'd lost 100-plus-thousand troops, but we hadn't really gained much of anything. europe had gone back to being its usual argue meantive stuff. here they were again, the germans and the french and the poles and the british all at each other's throats. who knows how it will turn out. you know, this is nothing to do with us and, you know, if we get involved, it will have the same unhappy end although x number of americans will die in the process. so isolationism was a widespread and bipartisan viewpoint. we often forget that some of roosevelt's most vigorous isolationist opponents in

congress -- it wasn't all partisan. a lot of them were new dealç democrats. one of the most prominent isolationists were senator burton wheeler of montana who was otherwise one of fdr's closer supporters on -- and most southern democrats tended to be less interventionist and so on. so it wasn't, it was hardly a republican even though the republican party at that time was predominantly isolationist, it was a bipartisan sentiment and reflected in the neutrality acts which were a consequence of legislation in the mid 1930s that came out of, utterly, democratic-dominated senate which reflected that, that point of view, but also was once again reflected, i think, the predominant views of most americans on the subject, um,

effectively tied fdr's hands from, in any sense, intervening and showing favortism in helping people that we liked in the hostile act against people of whom we disapproved. by 1937 i think franklin roosevelt was one of the few political leaders in the democratic world, small d democratic world, global democratic world who perceived the genuine threat that came from the fascists in europe. and in 1937 he went to chicago to the dedication of a bridge. and as with many presidential speeches, the occasion was neither here nor there, but the location, i think, was significant. chicago was, of course, chicago is more or less the capital of the midwestern united states. the midwest is the, at that

time, was the citadel of isolationism in the united states, and chicago was the home of roosevelt's old classmate, colonel robert mccormack, who was the publisher of "the chicago tribune" and by far america's most prominent and vociferous isolationist. so he came to chicago, he came into the lion's den to say, in effect, that america, that to lay out what he felt -- and this was all done in kind of slightly ambiguous language, but clearly he's saying that we face a threat from the rising tide of authoritarianism in europe and that the united states, uniquely situated as we are, uniquely conceived as we have been as the great democratic republic, we must be the great arsenal of democracy. that's where that phrase, that term comes from. and that we of all nations must

prepare ourselves for the coming challenge, um, and this will not only be a political challenge, but a literal military challenge that we must, we may, we may have to do this, we may have to do that, we may have to fight. so, um, i think that that is kind of -- that has kind of been, i mean, if you look at the incremental development of american foreign policy since, since the war -- the truman doctrine and so on -- that is kind of the overall design of american foreign policy. we don't, we don't want to, you know, we don't want new zealand as a colony or anything like that, but wherever democracy is under threat in our, in the world america stands there and says, not so fast. i mean, i think, certainly, president kennedy's inaugural speech in 1961 is very much an expression of the, of the

rooseveltian quarantine speech thesis. so i, my, my mission in my little study was not, you know, in history we always are going over the same facts and interpreting them in light of either current wisdom of current thinking or how thinking evolves on things, but my, my intention was to try to look at franklin roosevelt in a slightly different way, as a global thinker and not just because global responsibility was thrust upon him as it was in world war ii, but because this was something he had devoted really much of his life to and thought through very profoundly and had very strong and deeply-committed feelings about. now, where does eisenhower come

into this? since we're at the roosevelt library, i've -- i'll just mention parenthetically, i want today concentrate on fdr. and, in fact, my book is, to some degree, almost a little bit more about eisenhower because eisenhower, the historical consensus on eisenhower is, i think, in much more flux than as about fdr. you have to make the case a little bit more for eisenhower. but once again with eisenhower youok have someone who in the,n the what i call the journalistic memory is, was this general who was elected to two terms as president. then just as he was leaving the white house, he had this epiphany that, oh, my goodness, the military industrial complex is very dangerous, so i should mention that and warn before i ride off into the sunset. and i think that's a terrible simplification of eisenhower's thinking. um, not only because, um, it's

misleading, but eisenhower, too, had, um, had spent his whole life pondering these questions as roosevelt did. but in the guise of an officer in the army. um, harry truman famously said ike's going to be miserable as president, he's used to being in the army where they, you know, do this, do that, and he expects everyone to jump. that was really not true. truman was one of the most -- eisenhower was one of the most politically experienced people to enter the presidency. he had, he had been, worked for the chief of staff in the 1920s, he'd been in paris in the 1920s working for general pershing at the battle monument's commission, he was the war office -- war department, rather, in the early 1930s. he spent the late 1930s as macarthur's deputy in the philippines, building up the philippine army as, prior to independence. general marshall brought him back prior to pearl harbor

because he had recognized in eisenhower a gifted junior officer. he brought him into the war plans division. he actually tasked eisenhower who was barely at that point a brigadier general with the plans for the defense of the philippines. he did the same thing with, when it was decided after pearl harbor to, um, mount an invasion of north africa from the west. the british were pushing rommel from the east, and we were going to land in morocco, and marshall tasked eisenhower with the, with the design of those plans. so eisenhower came to the presidency not only a great diplomat-general, but someone with, who knew a lot about the way washington worked and who'd been dealing with global issues for a dozen years by then. he not only was the great diplomat-general of world war ii, he had held together the grand coalition of the second

world war, the allied coalition. after the war he was the army chief of staff, he presided over the desegregation of the army that professor moy talked about a few minute ago. he, and he took leave of absence as president of columbia university to be the first military commander of nato in paris because at the time it was recognized if there was one american we can send to europe who personifies the american commitment to nato, to the freedom of western europe, to america's continued responsibility in the world, it would be dwight d. eisenhower. and last but not least, eisenhower was over in, um -- the story of eisenhower's nomination is often forgotten. in 1948, for example, james roosevelt, franklin's son, had

been one of many prominent democrats who tried to get general eisenhower to run for the presidency as a democrat. and eisenhower declined largely on the basis that he didn't think, he was a professional soldier, and he didn't think that it was appropriate for him to be involve inside politics. but by 1952 things had changed, and his great fear at that time was that the republican party, the likely nominee, was senator taft of ohio who was the most prominent isolationist in, in the republican party and, really, this country. and eisenhower felt that the only way that this republican party could be saved from isolationism and that the post-war consensus that had grown between the two parties about america's role in the world would be, frankly, for him to run for president partly to, to prevent taft from being the nominee and probably becoming

president. so that was really eisenhower's instinct. i won't bore you with details of the eisenhower presidency, but what intrigues me about roosevelt and eisenhower, too, is that you have these two vivid figures in american history who are utterly dissimilar personally. if you have the, if you have the pleasure of visiting the eisenhower library in homestead and abilene, kansas, and compare it to the roosevelt homestead here in hyde park, you'll see the social difference between the two. they're two exceedingly dissimilar places, not to mention western kansas being very different from the hudson valley. but nonetheless, you have these two very dissimilar individuals who, nevertheless, thought alike on what, in my view, the most critical challenges facing the country at the most critical time in our modern history which was at the end of world war ii

when europe was prostrate and exhausted, and the united states with its vast economic and by then military power found itself presented with the responsibility of superpowerdom. not something that the united states particularly wanted. i don't think americans are an imperial-minded people. but nevertheless, that what fdr talked about in the quarantine speech, that defense of democracy that to be the great arsenal, the both political and military arsenal of democracy was, came to the united states at that time. and you had these two, probably the two most famous americans of the time, dissimilar as they were -- one republican, one democrat, one a kansas farm boy, one a new york aristocrat -- nevertheless, thought exactly the same on that critical issue. and their, their mutual interests coincided.

fdr, after all, did deliberately choose eisenhower. he had wanted, initially, general marshall to be the supreme commander of the allied invasion of france but chose eisenhower knowing, i think, to some degree this was going to make eisenhower, if he succeeded, a historic figure and, perhaps, a political figure. but i think it's a kind of a nice story about america that these two very different people, um, did have, did have common views on a critical issue and that we were fortunate as a country to have the service of the two of them simultaneously. and that the world that they inherited and dealt with is the world that we know today. so -- [applause] >> [inaudible] if you have a question, please, come up to the microphone.

>> thank you, mr. terzian, for that wonderful lecture. um, i'm a huge fan of "the weekly standard" and have been for many year. one of the things i most appreciate about it is that the articles there frequently portray franklin d. roosevelt in an appreciative and admiring light. it's one of the few conservative periodicals that does this. i recently defended finishing dr to a -- fdr to a professor, and my question to you is if by some miracle roosevelt had lived to finish his fourth term, what do you think his take on stalin would have been? what would their relationship have been like? >> well, let me just make a

comment on your earlier. the weekly standard likes fdr. and we like the sort of roosevelt/truman/kennedy approach to foreign policy in the democratic party. when i took my present job, um, i was putting my various things in my office. and one of them, they have a few over here in the library, i have a clock which has -- it's franklin roosevelt, it's this little statue of fdr, and he's standing sort of holding the clock as if it's a, um, a ship's wheel. and it says at the wheel of the new deal. and i put it on this table behind my desk, and i remember our editor, bill kristol, come anything and looking at that and saying it's truly a neoconservative office. we have a shrine to fdr here. [laughter] i think, you know, who knows?

i mean, it's always difficult to tell what historic figures would think about anything after their death. i mean, democrats are always lecturing republicans confidently about what lincoln would think about things, you know, he'd be horrified by the republican party today. um, some -- [laughter] somebody asked, somebody asked me the other day on a panel what would, what would people like franklin roosevelt think of annie wiener. [laughter] -- anthony weiner. and i said, first of all, the first 20 minutes of my answer would be explaining to him about computers and the internet and twitter which many people alive today don't fully comprehend. so, i mean, it's an unanswerable question. however, to answer your question i think roosevelt gets an unfair rap about that. i think that, i mean, 25 words or less, i think at yalta he was, he and churchill were presented with a fait accompli.

i mean, the red army was in west, was in germany and poland and czechoslovakia. it was not their fault. it was hitler's fault that they were there. i don't think, you know, the soviet union at that time was our ally. i don't think there was any -- i think they did what they could, but thanks to the germans the russians were where they were. and i think short of suddenly making war on our ally who had just defeated the germans, it makes no sense to me. and certainly, i mean, roosevelt famously thought that his charm could, perhaps, manipulate stalin to some degree. i think he underestimated the degree to which stalin was psychopathic about things and impervious to the sort of charm that roosevelt could exert. um, but there's a lot of evidence if you look at roosevelt's correspondence,

certainly, toward the end of the war that he was under no illusions about either stalin or soviet intentionings at the end of the war -- intentions at the end of the war. now, where that would have led, i mean, i tend to think the truman administration was the roosevelt administration as it would have proceeded. it certainly was many of the same people. um, so to answer your question, i think that roosevelt was, um, his thinking evolved a little bit in dealing with the soviet union. but i think on the whole he had no illusions about, about what the soviet, the nature of the soviet union, certainly stalin. >> thank you. >> sure. >> this is a country of immigrants. roosevelt family came early. they were in trade, china trade, international. it's a mindset, it's right down to the roots of who he was.

he was an international -- >> right. well, that was developed, that was the delano family. actually, it was in the china trade, but you're right, of course. >> when, when roosevelt hosted, hosted, um, winston churchill, his family said my family were, you know, among the first families here. churchill said, and my family greeted them because churchill -- [laughter] was from his american roots, an american india. >> right. >> these people were international, global figures in their roots. i think we have to remember that. now, if you're from kansas, you're in the middle of the country. eisenhower's in the middle of the country. if you're at all enterprising, you reach out. eisenhower was an international figure. my father happened to know him as a cadet at west point, as commandant general of west point and as president. my father was an

international-type person. that's a lower social order, but he knew these people. >> well -- >> you know, they're international people. we're immigrants. we're world people. >> no, that's an excellent point, and i would make one other point about eisenhower which is often ignored. he was, he was from kansas, but he was a german-american. and he was, he was very conscious of the fact that he was a german-american. and one of his, one of the reasons eisenhower was especially aggrieved at the end of world war ii when he saw what the germans had done when he visited, um, bellson and some of the other concentration camps, he felt a personal shame as a german-american. and he famously said at bellson, and it's an interesting sentiments with modern resonance that he said he was viewing the atrocities and the carnage and the piles of bodies and what not, and he said that he wanted

to make sure that this was publicized as much as possible because all through this war people have complained that they don't understand what we're fighting for. if they see this, they will at least comprehend what we're fighting against. so, um, eisenhower's germanness -- by the way, i drove up here, i have a smart car, so i took the sort of back route through pennsylvania, and i wanted to avoid 95 if possible. and went through gettysburg which is, which is, of course, where the great german wave of immigration moved west from philadelphia and down into virginia, and that's where eisenhower's forebearers were from. people often wondered why he settled in gettysburg after world war ii, and it was actually an ancestral area for him. so -- >> unfortunately, we've run out of time.

mr. terzian will be signing copies of his book right after the session. i invite you to go over there if you want to have a book signed and thank him again for -- >> thank you. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> philip terzian from the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum. booktv will be back to hyde park, new york, for more from the 2011 roosevelt reading festival in about an hour. to get a look at our schedule of coverage from today's festival, visit the booktv web site. it's booktv.org. >> and here at bookexpo america, the publishers' annual convention in new york city. regnery publishing inc. is here as well, and with booktv to preview some of their fall 2011

book titles. we are joined by the publisher of regnery, marji ross. marji ross, i want to start with a book that you don't have out yet because you just signed a deal today. what is that teal? >> you are right. thank you, peter. well, the big news for regnery today at bea is that we just signed a big book with donald trump, and we're going to be doing a political book with him this fall. and we're really interested in doing this book because we feel that he touched a nerve with our marketplace and with a lot of people out there in america who said, gosh, he's saying a lot of things that i agree with. i kind of agree with what he has to say about oil and china and trade and taxes and the economy, and isn't it refreshing to have someone who's able to say these things and -- >> are you speaking of me? moi? ben franklin? >> that's ben franklin. >> everyone shows up at the

bookstore. >> so we're very excited about the book, it's about how to put america back on top, how to make america rich again. frankly, there's no one better than donald trump to talk about how to be competitive, how to get what you want out of any deal and any negotiation. whether that's a real estate deal or, frankly, whether you're a country negotiating with another country. >> marji ross, it's may 2011, and you're saying this book is coming out in fall 2011. >> yes, that's right. we are probably the experts, for better or worse, at crashing books. because we do so many current events books, so many news-driven books, we do something that most of the rest of the industry doesn't do, and that is we put books on a very fast track. we know that when we capture the imagination of the audience, we want to get that book out as fast as possible. so we are putting this on the fast track, and we will have it, um, out there before christmas, and we're very excited about that. >> well, you've got a couple other books we want to talk about, and let's start with newt

gingrich's most recent book. >> all right. we're very excited, also, to be having our next book with newt gingrich. we've done several books with newt over the past six years. they've all been big bestsellers, and, of course; he's a real leading figure in the conservative marketplace on the republican stage and, in fact, has driven in a lot of ways the discussion about the important topics that are going to be coming up in this election cycle. but this book is a little bit different, actually, from the books we've done with him before because previously his books were very policy-heavy, and they talked about a lot of solutions for problems that we face. and what he's doing with this book which is called "a nation like no other" is taking a more historical viewpoint which, of course, newt is perfectly poised to do because he is a historian, and talking about what makes this country exceptional. what makes this country great, and how are we many danger of -- how are we in danger of losing

that? in polls across the country when you ask americans do you believe in american exceptionalism, they all say, oh, yes, we do. when you follow up and say what does that mean, most of them don't know or they can't answer it. and his argument is that's given the liberal media and elite an opportunity to denigrate it and to say, oh, american exceptionalism, that's just, you know, jingleistic, it's bragging about how wonderful we are, and we're no better than anyone else. newt gingrich makes the argument it's not about us being better or more, more, um, talented or smarter, it's actually about being luckier than everyone else for having the good fortune to be born in a country that really is based on freedom of expression, freedom of speech, the freedom to work hard, reap the results of that and, um, live your life with great individual liberty.

>> marji ross, for the first time in six years, mark stein has a new book coming out. >> he does, indeed, and we've waited a long time for this book. mark stein, one of the best writers writers and the most insightful writers on the scene, the political scene, wrote a book for us six years ago called "america alone." it was an instant bestseller. it was a wonderful, wonderful book, and we've now been waiting another six years to have the follow up. we've got it now, we're excited. it comes out in august, and it's called "after america." his previous argument that america was alone in sticking to the principles that made western civilization great. and, unfortunately, the follow on is not so sure that america's on the right path anymore. and if we abandon those things which made us great, we are very much in jeopardy of losing it all. >> now, mr. stein is -- i use the word "rechoose," and maybe

i'm wrong about that. >> no, i use that word too. >> okay. will he be going on tour? >> he will. and it's interesting, he's one of those rare authors who has said to us before, you know, why would i be on tv if i don't have a book to promote? which is wonderful to hear as a publisher. but he's very excited about promoting the book, and he's a terrific book person. he's just witty and funny and incisive, and, you know, because what he's saying is so frightening and devastating, you need to add a little humor and wit to make it palatable. and he has that perfect combination of all those things. >> marji ross is the publisher of regnery. regnery is well known as a conservative political imprint, but they have a new project coming up, and it's called regnery history. what is this about? is. >> we do. thank you very much for asking about that because we are very excited about launching a new line of books on history. military history and american history in the particular. um, we've published history books in the past, and they've

done quite well. we've done the occasional history book. but we realize that, a, this is a category that our market is very interested in and likes a lot and, b, that, um, we were publishing our history books on the same sort of crash, breakneck schedule that we were publishing our current events books on, and that budget really serving them well. they were almost successful despite our best efforts. so this time around we said, you know, we're going to dedicate a team, and we're going to put these books on the kind of timeline that really makes sense so that we can give them all the support, the media will be able to let them have galleys and get them in the hands of reviewers long in advance and, frankly, already it's proving successful because our first book out which is called "omar bradley," which is a biography, of course, of the great world war ii general, that book has been picked up by both the military book club and the history book club. so when we give ourselves enough

time, we see that these books really will thrive. and we're excited about that. um, and a couple other books that we have coming as well. >> what's one of the history imprint books that is coming out in the future? >> another book that, we think, is going to do very well is a very interesting book called "bully," and it's, not surprisingly, about teddy roosevelt. one of the unique things about it is that it includes 200-plus original, vintage political cartoons. and so we feel there are a lot of people out there, of course, who are big t.r. fans, and there have been a lot of wonderful books about roosevelt, teddy roosevelt. but this book is unique, and these cartoons are unique because most of them have never been seen since they were published in a magazine or newspaper 100 years ago. so we really feel like this is a wonderful way to illustrate his life, the times that he was living in and to give some flavor to a biography of one of the most interesting and beloved

presidents. so this is going to be a lot of fun for us. >> and we've been talking with marji ross who is the publisher of regnery, getting a preview of some of the upcoming books from regnery publishing. >> thank you very much. .. this is another livingston lecture which is made possible

through the generous support of the livingston foundation in atlanta and we are grateful to them for their continued support. our next livingston lecture will be held may 16th and will feature james b. stewart, author of tangled web of legal false statements undermining america from martha stewart to bernie madoff. seeing some of the previews of this book, you would be well advised to be here. it is fascinating. join us for a lecture featuring the best selling author of a double in the white city, erik larsen will be here discussing his new book in the garden of peace but a lovely girl terror and hitler's berlin. please turn off your cellphone and pagers and electronic

devices that might disrupt our program. as a delta airlines flight attendant said turn off everything that doesn't keep you alive. david nichols is an expert on the eisenhower presidency and he will discuss eisenhower 1956, the brink of war. which was called one of seven -- he is a matter of justice. and lincoln and the indians. he holds a ph.d. from william and mary and resides in kansas. please join me in welcoming david nichols to our stage.

[applause] >> thank you. it is an honor to be here and to be with people who love history. that is the best audience one could ever have an r m grateful. we need to shoot down the nasty rumor that has been going around that my publisher stirred up all the trouble in the middle east just to sell my book. that is not true. not true. this is also a day when the news is telling us again and author has been making up stuff and i want you to know that this book people except in some commentary in the conclusion, not a phrase is in it that is not rooted in a document or compelling circumstantial evidence. eisenhower "eisenhower 1956" the new story in many respects

because it is based on hundreds of top-secret documents that have been declassified since the last major work on the suez crisis was published 30 years ago and when i get done with the presentation those who have not read the book and i assume most of you have not will think you know the story but please read the book because the book is better than the speech i guarantee you. and it is above all a deeply personal story about the man we affectionately call hike. a word about this complex man. he was a military man but not militaristic. he did not think the war was often a solution to anything. he was slow to pick up the sword. his public persona, the grandfatherly man with a big smile was largely his personal intervention. behind-the-scenes he was strategically rigorous and a tough minded commander-in-chief.

people who worked for him never doubted who was in charge. eisenhower was a citizen of the world more than any other president yet he never forgot where he came from which is why his presidential library is in kansas close to where i live. he was not a professional politician yet he was one of the most successful politicians in our history and supremely protective of his image. he did not hesitate to use subordinates like secretary of john foote -- john foster dulles as lightning rods for conversion policies that were in fact ike's creation. he had a temper that exploded like a rocket but a tense moments requiring great decisions he was unfailingly cool, calm and deliberate. this was a profoundly religious man who had prayer at the beginning of cabinet meetings yet when that famous temper erupted he could turn the air blue with profanity and did so

frequently. above all eisenhower saw himself not as a warrior but as a peacemaker and that is what this book is about and tonight at a time of war and unrest in the middle east it is fitting we review the most dangerous international crisis of the eisenhower presidency, that crisis was also in the middle east. this is the tale of nail biting trauma which begins on september 23rd, 1955, in denver, colorado, on the golf course. dwight eisenhower had not destroyed a vacation so much in years. the president of the united states had himself quote a huge breakfast that morning for his fishing buddies. the gulf was the president's priority for the day. after a briefing, eisenhower headed to the cherry hill country club and with this his

secretary remembered she had never seen him look or act better. eisenhower's golf game was interrupted four times that day from phone calls from secretary of state john foster dulles. this was before cellphone so irritated and -- probably profane bike. only one phone call got through. that call was important. dallas confirmed to eisenhower the soviet union had made an arms deal with egypt. i knew this bold move would open a new chapter in the cold war and take and dulles agreed the president should send a message to the soviet premier but the president wanted to think about it overnight. he told dulles he would call him the following morning. that phone call was never made. i went back to golf. his game deteriorated.

as the day wore on the president experienced a growing discomfort. declined his usual evening drink. had little appetite for dinner and retired early. in the middle of the night he said i have a pain in the lower part of my chest. since he had complained earlier about in digestion, mimi gave her husband milk of magnesia. at 2:54 she called the president's physician who rushed into the white house. schneider put out the word that this was a digestion upset when he knew it was a massive heart attack. he waited until midafternoon that day before transporting the president's to the hospital and even then had a cakewalk to his car instead of calling an ambulance. if you want more details on the mismanagement of this situation you have got to read the book. don't have time tonight. eisenhower was in the hospital

for six weeks. in those days the gold standard for the treatment of heart attacks was total bed rest. ike's doctors would not permit him to read the newspaper, watch a movie, listened to a football game on a radio little and do much serious presidential business. he did not take a step across his room for months. this was an incredibly active man. he felt like a caged animal. so at the very moment the soviet union attempted to change the balance of power in the middle east eisenhower was out of commission and secretary of state john foster dulles was unable to conform with the president as he normally did. this dispels the myth that john foster dulles rand american force in policy in the eisenhower years. everyone close to both men and i talk to a number of them knew that ike was in charge.

dwight eisenhower -- he was out of the white house for three-1/2 months accepting two nights on his way to recuperating gettysburg. number 2 is the one that a heart patients are restricted in his other activities was upset about which is whether he should run for a second term in 1956. i am satisfied that he always intended to run. in the age of roosevelt you had to have a second term to be a great president and he wanted to be a great president but the heart attack raise the enormous question of whether physically he could run. he repeatedly discussed possible successors none of whom have a snowball's chance of a love being nominated love alone elected. the only republican a sufficient stature to run was chief justice earl warren of the supreme court

and if you want to know why ike for water and that cold love and you have to read my other books, eisenhower on civil-rights. chapter 5 will tell you about that. eventually ike shot down every argument against running and convinced himself he would be healthier serving and retiring. he also feared no one else could prevent a nuclear holocaust. in january 1956 eisenhower was informed that in a nuclear exchange with the soviet union 65% of american population would be casualties. years later chief of staff sherman adams said what surely applies to president obama today, the real reason a president wants to run again is because he doesn't think anybody else can do as good a job as he is doing. after waiting so long that no one else put together he really

did wait a long time, so long that no one else could put together a viable candidacy he announced his candidacy on feb. 20 ninth, 1956. drama and number 3 is about the aswan dam. it was the sea bed for the suez crisis. in the centerpiece, the plan for egyptian progress. historians often ignore the fact that eisenhower attempted to resolve the arab-israeli conflict that indoors to this day. on august 26, 1955, before his heart attack john foster dulles publicly announce the administration's plan for resolving the arab-israeli conflict. that plan reads like it was written in 2011 discussing

borders, palestinian refugees, places in jerusalem and so on. the plan would be in facing nasser to make peace with israel. like most middle east peace plan the alpha plan was dead on arrival. once he began to recover eisenhower revived the question of aid to the aswan dam and persuaded the national security council united states should make an offer that would head of soviet financing of the dam. in the following months negotiations with the egyptians broke down and i paid little attention to those negotiations. he was preoccupied with his health, his decision about running for a second term and beginning to campaign. by june 7th, 1956, eisenhower appeared to have recovered. that morning he presided over a

national security council meeting, had another 15 appointments and attended the white house news photographer until midnight as scheduled for doctors to veto a few weeks earlier. the president's car dropped garter schneider of his home and i retired to bed almost immediately. the doctor was removing his clothes when of phone rang. schneider reached for it with a shudder. only the first lady could be calling at such an hour. this was another a wishing medical drama your going to need to read the book if you want to know. turned out that unlike had an obstruction in his upper intestine which the doctors called ileitis. 13 darters agonized for hours whether to stick a knife and a president who had suffered a heart attack eight month

earlier. they were up until 2:00 a.m. on saturday to operate. the surgery would have taken place hours earlier if the patient -- once again eisenhower was out of commission for weeks. in the middle east the timing could not have been where is. by this time i returned to the white house in 1956 john foster dulles had decided to withdraw the american offers of aid to the aswan dam project largely because congress was opposed to it. on july 19th, 1956, dollars -- bolus --dulles obtained eisenhower's ascend. ike was not on top of the issue

-- the next day dollars proudly told friend the united states had ulles proudly told friend the united states had made, quote, a big chess moving and esther was in the heller spot. he nationalized the suez canal. saying he would use his powers to build the aswan dam. the british and french had controlled that company for decades. two thirds of the oil from western europe came through the canal and now it was the united states and its allies that were in a helluva spot. immediately the british and french prepared to go to war but eisenhower was adamant that war was not justified. egypt, he said, had a right to nationalize the canal because it

was located in egyptian territory. to mike the only question was whether the egyptians would keep the canal open and functioning effectively. eisenhower shook off the lingering effect of his surgery. for three months he and dulles made frantic average to keep the french talking instead of fighting. you have to remember this is only 11 years after the end of world war ii. still shellshocked the british and french maid nasser into another hitler and by late september, 1956 eisenhower's allies gave up on him and any support for taking out nasser and implemented a program of blatant deception. the failures of american intelligence, the cia did not foresee nasser's nationalization of the camaro and completely missed the plotting among the british, french and israelis.

nor for the plot. on wednesday, october 24, 1856, in a villa outside carriage, the french foreign minister and the prime minister of israel and patrick been, deputy undersecretary of state for great britain signed a secret protocol providing that is really troops invaded the sinai peninsula on october 29th. this was the plan. once the israelis advanced for the suez canal zone britain and france would issue an ultimatum to israel and egypt to cease fighting and accept french occupation of the canal zone. if as expected egypt rejected the ultimatum britain and france would begin bombardments of egypt on october 31st followed by planting but remember this was secret. it was not in the newspapers. what was in the newspapers was the soviet union had sent troops

into budapest, hungry. killing dozens of protesters. eisenhower knew nothing of the secret meeting in paris. that day intelligence advisory committee chaired by cia director john foster dulles that war was not imminent and for the revision of intelligence. the committee ignored an fbi report that an unnamed country was considering military action against nasser. on monday, october 29th, eisenhower, campaigning in florida, boarded his plane for richmond, virginia. the note said the israeli army had attacked egypt and israel's forces in 25 miles of the israeli canal. back in of the white house that night and a greek and profane eisenhower ordered secretary

dulles to fire a message to the israelis saying we will apply sanctions, we're going to the united nations and we will do everything there is so that we can stop this thing. i knew that if the suez canal was disrupted the pipeline was destroyed, the british and french would attack. he didn't know they had already planned to do that. of the british intervened, i said, they might open israel between us. with the election eight days away, eisenhower announced he did not care in this latest whether he was reelected or not. on october 30th the british and french implemented to the letter the secret plan they endorsed. they delivered a 12 hour ultimatum to israel and egypt to cease military operations. and accept occupation of the canal by anglo-french forces. the british and french

mistakenly assumed that once they acted, their number 2 ally in the white house would bail them out with oil and military equipment. they were wrong. instead, eisenhower told an aide of those who began this operation should be left to boil in their own oil. that night in the un security council the british and french vetoed an american resolution calling for a ceasefire in egypt. less than half an hour later the deadline for the french and british ultimatum expired and the largest naval armada seen in the eastern mediterranean since world war ii went toward egypt. the next morning, october 31st, eisenhower was heartened by news that soviet troops--the soviet government had declared its intention to practice non-interference in the internal

affairs of the state. in egypt, british planes were bombing airfield and, ports and communications centers turning the lead part rows of aircraft into burning smoke and wreckage. nasser's troops sunk a 320 long ship loaded with rocks and cement in the suez canal, first of thirty-two ships. eisenhower concluded that he should address the nation that might, october 31st. foster dulles, sick and exhausted, wrote a draft of the address and ike read it, declared it an absolute disaster and late in the afternoon ordered that a new speech be written. minutes before the broadcast in the oval office a speech writer fed the speech to the president across the table. the speech was short and terse.

eisenhower revealed that given the veto in the security council he had taken the unprecedented step of appealing to the united nations general assembly. the united states was not consulted in any way about these actions, eisenhower said. nor were we informed of them in advance. and he pledged there would be no united states involvement in these present hostilities. and whitman describe november 1st, 1956, as another day of great crisis. chairman adams called this, quote, the worst week i have experience in all the years i worked with him at the white house. that morning the president was besieged with rumors that the soviets were planning to deep for aircraft on syrian bases and a lake asked the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff if the

russians might have slipped some atom bombs to the egyptians. eisenhower canceled all campaign events except the one scheduled for philadelphia that night, november 1st. and whitman recalled the typewriters had to go to the train to give the speech in time. in philadelphia, in convention hall, ike looked out at 18,000 partisans who came expecting a rousing campaign speech. instead he launched into what a columnist called a high level speech by a man who spoke not as a republican partisan as president of all the country. eisenhower stated that the nation had pursued a path of honor by staying against the use of force in both hungry and egypt. the united states, he said,

cannot and will not condone arms aggression no matter who the attacker and no matter who the victor. we cannot in the world anymore than our own nation subscribe to one law for the week and another law for the strong, one law for those opposing us and another for those allied with us. there can only be one law or there will be no peace. the president concluded, we believe that the power of modern weapons makes war not only perilous but preposterous. the only way to win world war iii is to prevent it. eisenhower was completely drained by four days of unrelenting crisis. he drank two scotches before dinner on the train and three high bolts after word arriving at union station at 12:29 a.m.

nov. second. on friday morning november 2nd eisenhower learned the general assembly had passed the americans cease-fire resolution by a vote of 64-5 with the soviet union voting in favor. democratic candidate adlai stevenson was harshly critical of the situation. we have alienated our ancient and strong as european allies, he said. we alienated israel. we have alienated egypt and the arab countries. in the united nations our main associate in middle eastern matters appears to be the soviet union. in the very week when the red army has been shooting down hungary and poland stevens and concluded i doubt if ever before in our diplomatic history that any policy has been such an abysmal, such a complete and

catastrophic failure. mike was not sleeping well. his doctor was concerned the president's blood pressure was bottled up. his heart skipped beats and he suffered constant abdominal discomfort and diarrhea. the records at the eisenhower library are so marvelously detailed. i told one of the library staff daily reports of the president's diarrhea was just a little more information than i really wanted or needed. lake in the night of nov. second, john foster dulles was rushed to walter reed hospital. the next morning doctors removed a cancerous tumor from his colon. the news from the middle east

was dismal. syrian saboteurs had blown up the oil pipeline going through the country. egyptian troops were pouring into cairo to defend the capital and the a glow french air strikes destroyed the egyptian air force on the ground. eisenhower's political opponents fiercely attacked his policies. , or roosevelt accused the administration of favoring the arabs over israel and asserted britain and france has been brought to the point of desperation by american policies. it leaves us in the strange position of supporting the kremlin and an egyptian dictator against our oldest and strongest ally. six of the eight democratic members of the senate foreign relations committee agreed with stevenson and roosevelt that the president's middle east policies had failed.

eisenhower had presided

>> and suddenly the leaders of the soviet group onpoured more fuel on the international fire. the premier sent messages to france and israel alluding to modern weapons of destruction and rocket weapons. mobilized their naval fleets to

stop aggression and terminate further bloodshed. he warned the president, if this war is not stopped, it is fraught with danger and can grow into a third world war. eisenhower interpreted the russian proposal as an ultimatum. he drew a line in the middle east sand calling it unthinkable. that was one of his favorite words, unthinkable, that the united states would join forces with the soviets when the general assembly had already ordered a cease fire. unilateral action by the soviet union, eisenhower stated, would be forcefully opposed by the united states, and he ordered the navy's sixth fleet stationed in the mediterranean, ordered it placed on alert. this was election eve. the stresses were taking a toll on the president. after a tense meeting over the bull gannon message, ike's

doctor found the president's heartbeat irregular. he laid down but developed a headache. after all, he'd only eaten a dish of carrots and a glass of yo gut since breakfast. the president's agitation, the doctor recorded, was due to what he termed an ultimatum that had been served upon hip. and ike growled to howard snyder, i'm confident, he growled that if he were a dictator, he would tell russia if they moved a finger, he would drop our entire stock of atomic weapons on them. tuesday, november 6th, was election day. ike arose to a middle east and even greater turmoil. at a meeting that morning he was somber. our people should be alert, eisenhower said. the presence of russian planes in syria would inevitably trigger british and french

attacks on those airfields. if that happened, as ike liked to say, the fact would be in the fire. he inquired of the chairman of the joint chiefs whether american naval units were equipped with atomic anti-submarine weapons. not long after the president and mamie left for gettysburg to vote, ann whitman recalled that the news from the middle east looked so bad at one point that the white house staff contemplated asking the president to turn around and come back to the white house. rumors were rampant that soviet intervention was imminent. some of the bad news came directly from moscow. chip bo lin, the american ambassador, cabled that the soviet mood had become more ominous and that he feared soviet leaders were prepared to take action unless a cease fire was quickly achieved. the staff hastened the

president's return by flying him back instead of having him drive from gettysburg. ike arrived at the white house at 12:38 p.m. following a short briefing, he strode into the cabinet room where 18 men were waiting. the vice president and the top leadership of both the state and defense departments including the joint chiefs. this was a could council of war. admiral ratford briefed the president regarding the steps of the joint chiefs. we're prepared to assure readiness for fighting a major war with the soviet union. eisenhower reviewed each step urging careful and deliberate implementation. then his son broke from behind, and the president was informed in the middle of this meeting that british prime minister anthony was available by phone.

eisenhower interrupted the meeting to take the call, and he confirmed in that conversation that eaton had ordered a cease fire in egypt. this was a tense conversation, it's much more detailed than i'm presenting here, a tense conversation with a clearly-resentful eden. ike asked if british compliance of the cease fire would be without condition, and eden growled, we cease firing tonight at midnight provided we are not attacked. eisenhower had foreseen what games eden would still try to play. he insisted that british technical troops not be used to clear the canal that would have constituted a de facto occupation and that no british or french troops or soviet or american, for that matter, served in a proposed united nations peace-keeping force. when eden asked about foster dulles and the election, and ike

replied, we have given our whole thought to hungary and the middle east. i don't give a damn how the election goes. eisenhower knew that the peace was still fragile and that soviet intentions were still unclear. he ordered implementations of most of the readiness steps discussed at his noon meeting. that night the joint chiefs put the sixth atlantic and pacific fleets on battle-ready alert and deploying additional ships, submarines and tactical resources, and they placed heavy troop carrier wings on a 12-hour alert. about 10 p.m. the eisenhower party travel today the sheraton park hotel in washington where a suite had been reserved for watching the election returns. now, as you all know, the president won re-election by a huge marginment -- huge margin. but ike did not go downstairs

until 1:45 because his reluctant opponent, adlai stevenson, waited until there to make a concession speech. meanwhile, hours earlier, approximately 2 a.m. cairo time, 7 p.m. in washington, d.c., the fighting ended in the middle east. permit me a much too brief epilogue. after november 6th eisenhower continued to be concerned about the possibility of soviet intervention because the british, french and israelis declined to withdraw their forces even though there had been a cease fire. they would not withdraw. eisenhower adamantly refused to provide oil and financial support to his bankrupt allies, and they were truly bankrupt. there was a run on the pound, the british finances were in terrible shape. he refused to provide support. and the allies were facing a cold winter, but he would give

them nothing until they publicly committed themselves to withdrawal. and it got so tense that in paris cab drivers often refused to pick up americans, and gas stations declined to sell them fuel. it took a month to get the commitment and another month for withdrawal. israeli withdrawal took even longer, it's a huge story that i don't have time to get into. the israelis evacuated the sinai but refused to, to leave the gaza strip and the mouth of the gulf. they continued to occupy those two spots. finally, after four months of presidential pressure, on march 1, 1957, the israeli government announced it intention to withdraw. there's a big story about this because politically this was a hot potato too. then there's the eisenhower doctrine. in a four-hour meeting with congressional leaders on new year's day, 1957, who else but

dwight eisenhower could hold a four-hour meeting with congressional leaders on new year's day? the eisenhower presented a resolution to those leaders endorsing military and economic aid to the middle east and, if necessary, military intervention by the united states. the house passed the resolution on january 30th, the same day that ike paraded the king of saudi arabia before the cameras in a state visit. now, the king insisted that the president come to the airport to greet him. that's something that ike had never done with any other former leader. but saudi oil had its clout in those days, too, and ike finally agreed to go. he grumbled to ann whitman that now he supposed he'd have to greet everybody at the airport in the future. once israel agreed to withdraw from egypt, the eisenhower doctrine passed the senate on march 5th. in a breathtaking two months,

2008 eisenhower persuaded -- dwight eisenhower persuaded the congress to reorient american policy toward the middle east. the eisenhower doctrine committed the united states including oil resources in the middle east. and for good or ill, as president obama has experienced the past few weeks, for good or ill that obligation is still the cornerstone of american policy. thank you. [applause] >> if you have questions, if you'll come up to the microphone, we're being recorded, and we want to be sure we're heard. >> so use the microphone, folks. come ahead. no such thing as a dumb question. come ahead.

or a comment. contrary comment. it's all right. >> that was a great talk, thank you very much. um, i had a question. did the obama administration contact you about their involvement in libya, and if not, did you find similarity in how he dealt with libya in comparison with the suez canal incident? >> no, they have not, the obama administration hasn't talked with me. i'm meeting with former senator chuck hagel tomorrow in washington, d.c. who, i'm told, bought 27 copies of the book and gave one to the president, one to the vice president, one to the secretary of defense, and i haven't talked with the senator yet about it, but my suspicion is he's a little uncertain that intervention in libya is a good thing.

it always is tricky, we have to be very careful about taking a historic figure and applying him to a situation 50 or 60 years later. but there are principles in the way eisenhower approached things that are worthy of consideration. eisenhower, generally, did not like what we called brush fire wars. he ended the one in korea, he refused to go into indochina or egypt, he just didn't do it. and he disliked very much marginal military interventions. he believed that if you went in -- colin powell gets the credit for the doctrine of overwhelming force these days, and i often think that general powell ought to remind us that dwight eisenhower talked about that all the time. but, of course, eisenhower got it from the great german general. anyway, overwhelming force and that marginal, the trouble -- ike understood very well the trouble with partial interventions is they spin out of control, that they are very hard to manage. and the libyan one appears to me

to be that way, too, so i don't know whether the president would want to talk with me about that or not. [laughter] i'm a little concerned about that it's becoming a stalemate. and you can have not only a unilateral quagmire like we've had a couple of other places, you can have a multilateral quagmire too. yes, sir. >> what was richard nixon's role in if all this, if any? >> richard nixon's role, there's a lot of mythology about nixon and eisenhower. there's just, you know, i don't want to get too involved, but the eisenhower presidency has just been distorted by my profession shamefully. just because people didn't do the research. and one of them is the relationship with eisenhower and nixon. eisenhower, and i'm satisfied would have never kept nixon for a second term as vice president if he didn't want him. you really have to know eisenhower to understand he just didn't abide people -- well,

it's not true. he kept that doctrine. [laughter] but anyway, you know, dr. snyder was an old crony, but nixon was, basically, to answer your question, ike's political surrogate. and when eisenhower quit campaigning, once he did once this crisis broke out, nixon went out and substituted for him and took on adlai stevenson. nixon also provided much other support in the congress, and i haven't looked very carefully at what he did with the eisenhower doctrine passage, but i'm sure he played a major role. he was the vice president, so presided over the senate, and i'm sure he was deeply involved behind the scenes. but he was a political operative for eisenhower, and a very skilled one. nixon, the way nixon left the presidency always tars him, and people forget what else he did. somebody else? yes. >> what was the effect of these events on nasser? >> well, eisenhower -- the

effect on nasser, he asked. eisenhower saved nasser's heart. you know, if eisenhower decided to join with the allies, nasser would have been toast. now, what you would have done we egypt after that is an interesting thing to speculate, but there isn't any question. now, you've got to remember that in those days nasser and arab nationalists were considered pretty progressive. they were getting rid of, of royal thrones, and they were getting rid of the political powers, and so they were pretty progressive. so what happens is nasser stays in power who's followed by sedat who's followed by you know who? mubarak. mubarak was a 28-year-old officer already on the rise at the time of the suez crisis. and so eisenhower's policy, we have to say, you know, i sound very pro-eisenhower.

there are always the law of unintended consequences operates, eisenhower's policies opened the door for military strongmen to rule in the middle east. and at the same time it would not be fair to hang that around eisenhower's neck altogether 50, 60 years later, of course. but never the less, that was a factor. and personally, i have an op-ed i'm trying to get somebody to print at the moment. my prediction is that the military is not done in if egypt. -- in egypt. they've been in charge for 60 years, and i will be real surprised if we don't have either a military officer or somebody with very close ties to the military emerge as the next president of egypt. yes, sir. >> aside from the fact that they were in different parties, what was eisenhower's relationship with truman? >> sir, i don't pretend to be expert on that. there is a, oh, i always fete this author's name -- forget this author's name, there is a book called "harry and ike."

that's the correct title. i'm sorry i'm forgetting the author's name. i'm an old guy, and the part of my brain that remembers names has died. [laughter] and so i get caught with that sometimes. it was not an easy relationship. having said that, you know, truman chose eisenhower to head nato. we now know from truman's diary that he attempted to persuade i'm as early as 1948 to run for president on the democratic ticket. how serious that was with truman, i haven't studied in depth, but we now know that's in truman's diaries. and on the other hand, it was very tense in 1953 at the inauguration. eisenhower did not get out of the car and go into the white house to get the outgoing president, and harry was very offended about that and talked about it later. it was not an easy relationship, although the book i mentioned said they kind of reconciled

years later quite a bit. but it was a tense relationship partly because truman later in an oral history alleged that ike had wanted to come back, wanted to marry his driver, kay summersby, his driver in europe, and wanted to divorce mamie and had written george marshall about that and that truman had taken those letters from the state department and destroyed them. at least one scholar i know of who's pretty good thinks that truman made that up. i don't know, i'm not qualified, i'm not giving you a very good answer but a because i'm not an expert on that. i'm sorry. >> thank you. >> yeah. >> i had heard that sedat had made a statement years later that nasser told him that because we didn't back our allies, that the united states couldn't be trusted, and then they became allies with the soviets. is that true? is. >> that sedat said that to nasser? >> no, no. nasser had said that to sedat.

>> oh. i couldn't dispute that. there's another thing i tell folks i know a whole lot about a little, and i know a whole lot about what i just talked with you about. that i couldn't, i couldn't dispute that. um, i think there's still work to be done on the evolution of things after the eisenhower years. the tendency of the colonial, or the diplomatic historians has been to assume the eisenhower doctrine, policies were abject failures and that nasser ends up being allied with the soviets. i'm not sure nasser was ever really -- it's true the soviets helped build aswan dam, that's true. but nasser played both sides against the middle. and whether the united states could not be trust thed, i don't know, you could take that kind of statement and look at it two or three different ways, couldn't you? certainly, the allies didn't

think they could be trusted to do what they wanted. i'm sorry it's a poor answer, i'm just not qualified to answer any better. >> thank you. >> i think if i know my history fairly correctly that the role of israel after world war ii which was the implementation of the darfur treaty or agreement, what was eisenhower's view of the reluctance of israel to withdraw? um, from, you were saying from the gaza? >> yeah. that you're asking about that, you're not asking about the creation of israel? >> no, no. i'm asking about, you know, when he was president and, um, they were, you know, going through what, you know, how israel was taking over some of the territories that were not involved in the agreement. um, what was his feeling about that? >> if you're talking about the balfour agreement, i only know about the suez situation in if

gaza and the gulf in particular. i'm not qualified to speak about the rest of it. but he certainly put enormous pressure on israel to withdraw after the suez crisis. and he appealed to the congress on february 20th, 1957 for support for that, and the congress turned him down. and so he turned around that night and went to the people with a televised address. and behind the scenes, according to his memoirs, he threatened to the israelis to cut off private contributions from american jews to israel which at that time is still major, but at that time was really, really major. now, whether he could have done that, i don't know. but in terms of the politics of the united states, eisenhower took extraordinary steps to oppose israel's policies at that time. now, the earlier stuff i'm not as good on in many terms of the creation of the state of israel

generally, truman recognized the state of israel in may, i believe, in 1948 part of his presidential campaign. and that was really opposed by, by george marshall who was then his secretary of state. and you've got to remember george marshall, general george marshall had been eisenhower's mentor. and i think there's circumstantial reason to believe that eisenhower agreed with marshall, certainly key people in the state department believed, loy henderson is a graduate of my school, southwestern college, and what a great diplomat who really believed that the recognition and creation of the state of israel would lead to endless turmoil in the middle east. and he's not wrong. that doesn't mean you can't support that because there's a dramatic and wonderful story for the state of israel. and i am moved and touched by it, too, that, my, the weeds are mixed with the flowers in that kind of situation. i wish i could answer you better.

>> did the hungarians expect the americans to come to their aid in 1956? >> >> oh, significant evidence that a lot of hungarians did expect the americans to come to their aid, and there was great disillusionment among pro-hungarian groups and some of the refugees, now hundreds of thousands of refugees left. and all the united states did was make provision, and i forget the numbers now, for thousands of hungarian refugees to come to this country. but there was great disillusionment and criticism of eisenhower before that. he was very clear-headed that it could not be done, and this is eisenhower -- to get back to our earlier question -- who didn't believe on taking on military tasks that could not be completed successfully. he, he, you know, he regretted it deeply, but he quickly made the decision. you have to go back to world war ii. we have a lot of mythology about what happened in world war ii.

without the soviet union in world war ii, a case could be made that the war would have come out very differently. and the soviet union suffered 35 million casualties, estimated, on the eastern front. and the united states and the allied powers didn't land on the mainland until 1944. this was a totally different situation. the soviet union was, obviously, on the other side. britain and france were not available to help. he thought it was just not viable. but he was roundly criticized, much, much more so than -- my book doesn't do justice to that particular subject, i regret to say. >> would you address the eisenhower and vietnam? >> yeah, i, i sound like a broken record because i -- [laughter] i tell you i know a lot about a little. i do know about that. he, clearly, made the decision

not to intervene in indochina in 1954, particularly at the siege of dien bien phu, and he had a number of advisers who wanted him to do it. and he thought and thought about it, and he was surrounded by a number of people who thought he should do it. and he went overnight and came back the next day and said i'm not going to send one soldier to die this those rice paddies. and he did not. having said that, eisenhower left a bit of a mess in vietnam. um, the geneva conventions of 1954 -- i know something about this because i used to teach a course on it -- the geneva convention of '54 called for unifying elections in vietnam, and those elections never took place because the united states supported, in effect, the creation of a separate country in south vietnam even though it really wasn't a separate country, never was. this is, you know, an outcome of

this cold war. and so eisenhower's policies otherwise are open to a lot of question. i haven't done the detailed research on that like i have on this. but he, clearly, chose -- again, typical eisenhower -- not to intervene militarily in indochina. he believed that putting ground troops in the asia was a fool's errand. and i would submit that our american experience since then validates his judgment on that score. anybody else? how are we doing for time? good. i think last question. >> one more question, okay. really good questions, folks. terrific. >> so along the same lines, eisenhower chose, was involved in the bay bay of pigs, and that crisis arose soon after his presidency ended under the kennedy administration. his decision to, to be involved

with the freedom fighters in cuba, would he have -- that sounds inconsistent with all you've said about eisenhower's reluctance to engage in brush fire wars. >> that's a matter of -- yeah. the bay of pigs is a matter of some controversy among the historians, and i can't resolve it, though i know some historians who are working on it. and the historians who have tended to deify john f. kennedy, i will confuse the life out of you when i tell you i have a son named john kennedy. but anyway, you know, i really liked kennedy in so many ways. but the historians who are biased toward him have tried to argue that eisenhower really had set this up, and kennedy just carried it out. i am convinced, and one scholar i know who's seen the documents that i haven't seen is convinced, that eisenhower would have never done it the way that kennedy did. he withdrew the air support, and

even the plan with the air support just didn't look like an eisenhower kind of intervention. eisenhower would have done more what he did in lebanon in 1958 when he landed 14,000 troops. i mean, he really believed in overwhelming force, and you do it. now, he was open to covert action, and we know that in guatemala and iran. so he was not an angel when it came to covert action. but the cuban invasion is a strange phenomenon. you know, the cia, if you knew today what contingency plans the cia has, you'd be horrified. so these contingency plans were around. and so when the new president came in as every officer does, alan dulles and all those people took in the new plans to president kennedy, and there were after eight years quite a few people who were upset with eisenhower and anxious to have a president who would do something differently. and one of the big arguments was

about limited war, about whether we could have limited war. because eisenhower said massive retaliation, that limited wars were dangerous. he didn't like them. he felt they could lead to the holocaust whereas maxwell taylor who's head of the joint chiefs of staff for kennedy and headed the army when ike was there believed in limited war and wrote a book called "the uncertain trumpet." and their argument was in the nuclear age the only kind of war you could fight was a limited one. and so that's a great debate. but i do not, i cannot conceive of eisenhower having okayed that operation the way kennedy did. but that doesn't mean he had no fingerprints on it. it's probably, you know, as i like to say, the weeds are mixed with the flowers in these situations. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. and thank you folks for excellent questions. [applause] >> and now more of booktv's

all-day live coverage from the 2011 roosevelt reading festival hosted by the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum in the hyde park, new york. coming up in just a moment, mario dinunzio examines fdr's new deal legislation. it's booktv live from the roosevelt reading festival. ..

used of all presidential libraries and this year's group of authors reflect the wide variety of research done here. we are delighted to highlight these works in book talks throughout the year especially at our annual reading festival. let me quickly go over the format for the concurrent sessions. at the top of each hour procession begins with a 30 minute of her talk followed by ten minute question and answer period. than the authors move to the tables in the lobby next to the nubile store where you can purchase your books and have the authors sign them. at the top of the next hour the process repeats itself. let me ask everyone who has a cellphone or other electronic device please turn it off or put the rigor off. there was an incident earlier today involving my cellphone so i am very conscious of that now. now is my pleasure to introduce

professor mario dinunzio. he is professor emeritus of history at -- where he taught nineteenth and twentieth century u.s. history and surge as director of the development of western civilization program. he will speak to us today about his new book "franklin d. roosevelt and the third american revolution". his other publications include books on theodore roosevelt, woodrow wilson, a comparative study of democracy in europe and the united states and essays on civil war history. he earned his doctorate at clark university. please join me in welcoming professor mario dinunzio to be roosevelt reading festival. [applause] >> thank you. it is a pleasure and an honor to be at this wonderful place. let me cite two quotations from franklin