coming the next her i will have to leave your viewers in suspense. >> we re talking with jefferies toobin. >> when you think of it, come on c-span. >> the obama white house versus the supreme court. you can also watch regularly on cnn. thanks for joining us here at bouck expo america.

>> this week on the communicators we want to get the issue of political communications especially social media. joining us this week or two employees of facebook, katie while harback and konar. what do you do it facebook? >> along with katie my colleague here our job is to evangelize for the adoption of facebook among some key constituencies. government officials both in the agency's i am also elected officials member of congress, governors, state legislatures, but also political candidates and third-party groups, said the obama campaign, the romney campaign, the political committees and also some of the prominent groups you are hearing about whether they are the supertax or the move on of the world, and facebook is a pretty unique thing. it's a mobile devices and applications and all sorts of things. so our job is to help folks in washington and the political

world navigate that and how to use this technology to winning elections and communicate with constituents and voters. >> succumb how does that -- that means td is the republican. so do you do your job differently? >> it's funny when i first started on facebook i opened the the washington office and i service everybody. in 2011 we bought katie on board to divide a little bit more. we don't do our jobs differently our goal was always the same we won the political candidates and elected officials using this technology with constituents and coverage but the nice thing is now covering a whole will only cover half of it and katie is to handle the other half. >> harbath what is your job of the fees' policy? >> it's all of the things adam just mentioned working with whether it is the romney campaign, the senate campaign, even as far down as the mayoral

candidates but we share a lot of responsibility what facebook is doing as a whole around politics and the election commesso in january we did a debate on the republican presidential primary and we worked very closely on that and then the conventions are coming up and so i am focused on a lot of what we are doing as the republican convention, and adam will be working on charlotte. >> so, katie, during of the republican primary did rick perry, michele bachman, tim pawlenty, mitt romney etc did they all work with you directly, did the campion's work with you and how so? >> they did they respond to campaigns and other digital vendors they may have hired. tim pawlenty actually announced it on facebook. i can't believe it was back in march of 2011 but was a long time ago. we worked very closely with each one of the campaigns because they all knew that was very important to be on facebook.

we have more users than who voted in the 2008 election, and facebook is a great way for them to bypass the traditional media filter and be able to talk directly to the voters. and it was quite a while the primary season as you remember there were a lot of people up and down, and a lot of them were really using facebook and looking to add to brainstorm and partnership about the different ideas and different ways they might use the facebook preferences. >> what's your connection with the obama campaign? >> all of the presidential campaigns although i only had to deal with one where she was dealing with numerous, 50 or 20 or however that ended up being but we have the relationship with the obama campaign, the working relationship in 2008 when i was the only one year and continued to work with them and it's similar talking about how they can use the technology and a great example is on the day that the obama campaign announced of the election officially it started with an

e-mail and send people to the web site which had a facebook application and youtube video and the facebook application allowed people to tell their friends that they are in. it's called the "i'm in" application. so from day one this has been a social campaign. >> i would mention, too adam and i are part of a broad team starting in 2011 we really started to grow our team because there are a lot of different aspects with facebook people work on whether it is their facebook pages, advertising, building on the platform, so we are lucky and blessed to have a larger team helping us help here in washington, d.c. as well as back in menlo park. >> why austin? >> it's a great town and as we look to expand coverage around the world allows us to have a central time zone. >> so, katie harbath of the

there's their presumptive republican nominee, how do you work with the romney campaign? how has your job changed and that? >> i have a great colleague that helps out as well, and she really works with them on a day-to-day basis. a lot are on their advertising strategy. they've been having a lot of success around our new ability to have ads and you see it on their mobile devices so there is a close partnership there as well as they launched the famous "stand with mitt" application late last week that we worked with them on and we go regularly to help the developers here what they are working on and be able to help them with the best practices that we see not only in politics but also other vertical retail that they might be double to apply. >> is that just where one thing is? >> it's a lot of increasing

emphasis. the thing that both he and i will tell you is it will get more powerful and more connected and more people are going to have them come and inherently by the very nature they are vocal. when you have to go to a polling location, so understanding how to have the moment and of those campaigns and groups are spending a lot of time thinking about how we maximize that. >> one of the unique things about facebook is your office space isn't your usual office in the ec. we are going to show our viewers that right now but the fact that you sit next to each other, correct? >> we sit back to back with one another. everybody at facebook no one has an office whether you are marked zuckerberg or adamle inaki it is an open environment. we sit at a table and what's great about that is the collaboration that it brings.

one of the things i love about our company is that they really encourage ideas from all over the world and can really start from the bottom-up, and if you have an idea to really just be able to talk to the people around you very quickly to get something done i always think it's very much like a campaign. campaigns are allowed, everyone together trying to get things done and that is exactly what the office is like. >> being the republican and democrat you don't necessarily want to share information, do you? >> we will take private calls and something of that nature, we are colleagues and co-workers and friends and it's great to have a collaborative environment when you are watching the news or talking about what is happening, but the nice thing about the structure is we are able to keep things people would talk to katie about on her side of the fence and people would prefer to talk to me on her side. >> what are some of the typical requests you get from

candidates? >> if you would each come up with an example or two from your side what are some of the typical requests? >> there's a lot of basic how-tos to read our plot from as changing a lot. the best way to post a photo or the best time to try to get an engagement to take a look at their inside and get some suggestions based upon the familiarity with looking at a lot of the pages and what they are doing. last december working with house republican leadership. they came to us and had this idea and wanted to help pull it off and was over 200 members of congress does a lot staffers all inside the capitol looking at how can facebook be used to help the constituents engagement and

how they become law. >> a lot of it is campaigns are not static. the of these is a transition so you might spend the first couple of months working on the name identification and building at the grass-roots supporters turned the final stretch of the last two months of the election so how do we take these we have been using to the report and determine the volunteers and determine the voters how we do persuasion. from the election is coming what we need to do to make sure our strategies. what can we would be dillinger and emphasize to a lot of that is understanding the campaign in front and shifting to say okay great we have been focusing in on fund-raising now it is time to push tv ads and get the volunteers in the office and make phone calls so they can get involved as well. so it is a lot of turning on this machine that they've built. >> very quickly what is your

political background? >> redican pence driver and then was on capitol hill on the house committee. >> on the democratic side. >> katie? >> nine years ago i started the republican national committee during president bush's election effort. i also work on rudy giuliani's campaign back in 2007 and at the national republican senatorial committee last cycle to respect you get requests from local officials for help and is that a part of your job? >> it is definitely part of our job and we get a lot of requests from local officials. we work closely with the mayors conference coming and i was down at their conference in orlando earlier this year to walk them thru how they might be able to -- >> was that a popular seminar? been a very popular seminar. they actually -- a lot of focus is on the presidential campaign as it should be but one of the great powers of facebook is that it is free.

having a page and engaging with the users as free and even our advertising for anybody to get started you can have a very low budget with $100 a day so the local candidates are finding it can be a great tool to cut through the clutter and have an advantage over their opponent. >> when we knew you were going to be on the communicators we sent a request for the viewers in case they have any questions for you and we got many and i just want to read a couple. this is from cress and he says more people are talking about mitt romney on facebook van barack obama. meanwhile obama has more facebook like them romney. what does this indicate? is to make a lot of it is engagement. how many people are engaging on his face the page. people can like your page but that is the first step it's of to the page administration of engaging the fans and promoting

their content and getting their chance to share. so people talking at that number is indicative of people engaging in mitt romney's page and they don't necessarily have to be his fan. i share content of his page and then a friend of mine seize it and shares the comment even if they are a fan of mitt romney's page it still gets counted in that number. so the great snap shot over the past week of how much people have been engaging on that page. >> mitt romney house 27 million. >> it's important but again it's that engagement number and that engagement number is the people who in last seven days have seen that content and somehow engage in that age so that is a much more real time indicator of what is happening on facebook because remember those candidates have

had their facebook pages since 2007, 2008 so they have been building these up for quite a few years. that is a much stronger snapshot which is how many people have engaged. >> but is interesting is i don't think we should be suppressed president obama has more fans. he thought a our primary in 2008. the obama campaign has done very well. they've taken this to a local level so there are more than 50 pages for the state's there's an obama facebook page. the rapid response team is using this and it's very popular. a lot of the activities are not

concentrated cash on the obama page. they're very important and obviously the key. if you are a voter in colorado or activist in new hampshire that information is current be more valuable than someone can localize that action and volunteer and tell your friends. >> if you wanted to get a hold of those 27 million people campaigned in would you said the same message to all 27 million or do you microtarget? >> we see both. they're consistent in the campaign and they are going to be relevant no matter what of

all voters receive the same. a television from market-to-market. so it is i think just a natural extension of some of the things we've been seeing in the campaigns for many years which is how do you move to target the voters to help will vote for you. >> katie harbath? >> i would agree and say the campaigns we have been seeing against the presidential are to integrate the strategy was also there offline a strategy so you are seeing a lot of campaigns and people volunteering providing a link for people to sign the bill and volunteer themselves and those are much better when you are localism them because you don't want someone in california getting an event in wisconsin, but there's also the broad messaging that would go to everyone. >> how would you as a consultant

take my personal information? shlaes i know and like both barack obama and mitt romney so i don't know what that will do to any ads or anything i get but how would you take my personal information, gender, age, the employment etc and use that to target the ed? >> first went you like a page the admin is getting no personally identifiable information about you. all they know is perhaps what city you're in the they don't know that it's tied to you. they don't know that they have 20,000 people from washington, d.c.. they will know that they have 25% are male between the ages of 25 to 34 so that they could get

a sense of the demographics of their fan base that they don't know the specifics about the individuals. they're very clear and protective of the user's information and want to make sure the user is giving explicit permission if they are ever doing anything with the campaign. >> i think beyond that is it the same way they don't have access to the personally identifiable information when they target advertising they are not targeting individuals in the sense they are tools able to target the aggregate groups. so you run and added to mails in washington, d.c. to a certain age range there are 20,000 of them that you could share the had to so they would have been renovating control over their advertising and the target groups but also allow you to make sure they are unsure in the privacy. estimate to local and congressional campaigns and

presidential campaigns all use your services. >> the campaign whether it is a school board they don't have the same goal they would like to win on election de. dennett becomes a resource question. romney and obama have resources to do 75 or 80% of what they would like to do online or the congressional candidate they have significantly fewer resources think for many it becomes about how do you use these resources most effectively so i think what we see a lot of is the folks that may be doing it themselves. he is letting people know where he's going and what he is thinking. we see that a great engagement all over the place. when you look at the phenomenon it is local candidates who decided as painful as it was that is a lot of expense and

they can do it all on facebook now and that is a fundamental shift from where we were two or three years ago. >> harbath as a republican of the national committee how has facebook changed the campaign over this last? >> at the rnc and the candian started -- it didn't. mark started facebook in february of 2004 and the election was given for 2004 so there's a lot of folks who did stuff online. they were doing a lot of videos but there wasn't youtube cingular applauding that and have to have a real time version and quick time version. we had all these tools in 2004 it would have been of some. fast forward now to eight years later and the rnc has the social victory center, volunteer center purely on facebook for people

from all over the country to be doubled to make phone calls and in support of republican candidates. >> look at the media for instance the distribution platform is now that enable folks like c-span2 push that content out to share what they're doing. we see the marina beebee comedian organizations and understand how valuable the distribution is. they will be launching today which is an application with cnn and allow the users to engage both with their friends and cnn as well so we as a company can now highlight and we have the page called u.s. politics on facebook page. everyday we update that with another great example like facebook and politics on facebook.com/politics. the media have been affected, the campaigns, it's not just one sector.

all of these are in. >> what exactly is that and what does it indicate? >> anyone is going to be able to use it. we have a partnership with cnn and a great company and people are going to be able to go there and declare their intention the right to vote and share that with friends and be able to see those that are going to vote as well because we really see the power of france and we find that space 57% more likely to persuade or find other co-worker to rhode. it can become very powerful. but in using that people will be able to not only say they are voting but to share what issues matter and where they land on those issues and how that compares not only to their friends the other people in the state or other people here in the united states. >> you see a time when there's going to be virtual campaigning that you are talking about the social victory center in new

york the encourage nv chabad etc lanham about american democracy is it is fundamentally rich and the physical act whether that is merely an envelope now, voting is at its core and the act candidly getting people to vote has been really this the last four years and eight years a measure of online and offline. it allows people in who york to get the bottom voters out but also allows people to new mexico to go door to door and talk to their friends and people that might be. so you will never remove the physical aspect of that. technology can enhance it and make people that are not physically somewhere. they used to say all politics are local. katie and i like to say politics or social because for the first time if you look at the evolution of american politics you have a door-to-door campaigning on a small scale because there's a limit and then there was television which allows you to have the broadcast. it was one way you couldn't respond back. over the first time the

technology like facebook we are not able to have that human to human interaction on the scale of the broadcast model. we think that is fundamentally going to alter the way that we look at politics and are able to participate. >> facebook is for after the handshake. scott brown in 2010 here is the race no one thought a republican will win. a republican winning a seat in massachusetts let alone kanaby's seat? he does the work and facebook early on to be building that supporters but he's also doing that hard work of going to fenway park shaken people's hands and what people can do is after meeting him in person than people to stand among facebook and stay in touch with them and the campaign and not have to wait for that television commercial to come up or the direct mail piece to come by to risk another of your comment question we have, this is from linda. linda says obama has a lot more on facebook. how much influence do you think

it has on the vote, or is it just preaching to acquire? >> i would say i think what is powerful is not just to look at that number of lakes that he has but what we think is an important number how they are connected to their friends, so that 1 degree of separation. obama has connected everybody in the united states through the friend of a friend, you have the ability if everyone can out not just from barack obama but here from their friends about barack obama and we heard from the years of social science research in general they are the most influential things and the decision making whether that is buying a car, going to a movie that's how it affects the vote. as a part of that is not just the number and the people supporting him, but being able to turn those people and have them talk to their friends and influence their friends as the messenger my friend katie were jeremy. it's not necessarily the candidates themselves and we think that is powerful.

>> katie harbath? >> i would completely agree. there's an element of getting out the vote to make sure all those people that are supporters are going to get up to vote and volunteer but like adams said, people have friends who aren't necessarily -- may be on the fence. we oftentimes say that we are moving away from the power with a generosity for its popular for the power of friends whether it's your voting for what car you want to buy next you are ready to put a lot more weight if a friend recommends it to you than if you are just getting off, you know, the general reporter, general public seems to like. any writing and promoting? >> we have a great page, facebook.com/uspolitics, where we put up a lot of great examples of what candidates of all stripes and levels are doing

as well as providing tips and tricks. we have the convention with a checklist for any elected official campaigns that would be in tampa or charlatan. speed this is a great example of something to convince themselves we've been working to make their experience a social and how to broadcast online. each of those delegates has a facebook user on hundred 50 france turning those into a broadcast to send the experience back to their friends that's a huge potential crowd of influence service in the obama campaign to use, so we are looking forward to what we hope will be a mission. >> when you get a call from a first-time candidate or something, what do you warn him or her about in the use of facebook? >> i think generally two things. first is better have a facebook

page. many politicians in my life the first of the stevan for isn't necessarily the last one. you don't always wanted etd harbath's representative, mabey president or governor. so keep an open mind to the future. and second is facebook itself facebook should be integrated into everything you do. your finance team from the communications team of the many to think about how they can take advantage of the technology to do their jobs to get reelected that isn't something that can be put on one person. you are the center that person. it's something that is to be understood from the campaign down. >> tdo harbath, was a mistake to have seen a candidate mechem facebook? >> i think not putting a lot of time into it and just posting press releases using it purely as a broadcast media and not really playing to the strengths

of facebook and using it to engage with their supporters. >> well, unfortunately we are out of time. i hope we can check in with u-boats leader during the campaign. the conventions are about to start coming and you can find facebook politics page at facebook.com/uspolitics and c-span.org we will be carrying the convention live gavel-to-gavel come and c-span.org is the website you can find a lot of other resources. adam konar, katie harbath ka thanks for being on the communicators. >> thank if you.

>> a look at several biographies stevan ujifusa recounts how william francis gibbs and his creation of the s.s. united states a passenger liner that carried more than a million people across the atlantic over two decades. the ship completed in 1952 and was viewed as a technological lead advancement in see trouble with speeds of 35 knots.

this is about an hour. >> think you all for coming out tonight. this has been a long time in the making for me. i produced this book after basically five years. a lot of research put into this book. i thought i would do tonight is why read the book, and we have worked on probably a dozen stories. they are mere outlines of the book. that is one of the things that surprised me.

first bring everyone up to speed on the efforts because on the issue here in terms of the viability and the future. >> the current status right now owned by the united states which is a nonprofit formed in 2004 to raise awareness and by 2010 the ship was put up for sale by the then current owner of the norwegian cruise line which i thought about redoing the ship as a modern cruise vessel they decided to pull the plug on the project and put on the scrap market and everyone thought this is it after evading the scrubbers this is finally it. well, the day before they called the conservancy line in one of the board members of the crew member on the ship and picked up

my name is jerry, how much is it to buy the ship? he wasn't sure this was real but it turned out he had an interest in the ship mainly because he was a naval officer and his father helped design portions so the ship was purchased from the norwegian cruise lines in february of 2011 and is now charged with redeveloping the chavez a stationary attraction. >> the analogy i like to make is imagined that a divine intervention like this happened when penn station was about to be torn down. look at that today have a torn down in pennsylvania station if we look at what the pennsylvania station placed in that. this is an unbelievable

opportunity but it's divided 20 months of funding after to maintain the ship and if there isn't a clear development plan, the american public rallied behind the project and the s.s. united states will be sold until the gulf coast scrap metal and the would be a very painful image and sure. that is a will happen with the ship. i was one of the many people that passed the ship driven into delaware avenue didn't really think about it much. i was struck by her, by the fact that she looks but i really didn't realize anything about her legacy or linkage of

philadelphia. until about william francis gibbs and what connect. >> we are lucky to be on the delaware river because in many ways that is where the ship is born and in 1894 and eight year old boy named william francis gives sat by his father's side and saw an ocean liner called the st. louis sharing and the crowd in a red and white and blue and william francis gibbs always said when i saw that on july of wanted to do with my life, and he pursued that passion until she achieved his goal. what we gibbs was born in

philadelphia 1886, and after leaving on the square she was a very shy child and spent most of his in his family's house. his father wanted him to be a lawyer and felt that it wasn't a stable profession. when the committee have been and the person has a severe economic reversal they'd lose the mansion and dropout and he basically says if it wasn't for the fact -- if my father hadn't gone bankrupt by wouldn't have had to drive that i had today 23 make myself. so,. then he got his law degree and practiced for one year and heat it and the admiral salles that he had talent and tayler taught him what he needed to learn and

he moved to new york and started a very successful practice of not just designing but also the naval ships to designed 70% of all the naval vessels in world war ii which is an incredible achievement. destroyers, cruisers, designs in the landing craft he was also the man responsible for the liberty ship which was the mass-produced cargo ship but basically builds faster. i was basically the way to build his mind set. but even from out his successful career she remains focused on the grand prize building his ships and what irritated him is the european governments subsidize their shipping companies with vast amounts of money to build bigger and faster passenger ships that are not only to be luxurious but also to have enough engine power to

outdo the previous record holder and this is a time when the highest average speed really meant something >> tell the folks here a little bit about -- we know that he can make a lot of ships and he had an obsession. talk about his innovation know because a lot of levels he was doing things they were not doing enough and that she was self-taught. >> when people asked him they said well, i wasn't formerly trained to think outside the box and in the 1930's he had high pressure high-temperature steam which allowed the destroyers to basically run circles around the british and the japanese destroyers owls well, and he worked in the lobby innovation

in world war ii into the united states. >> what makes sf united states so special to others like the queen mary or some of the other great european ones? first of all, she had the greatest power of any commercial vessel in history and she was only by a few naval vessels. a steel hull was made and it was aluminum, the largest use of aluminum up to that time so everything about the final of the top was aluminum so that allow them to have a tremendous amount of weight. the engines are basically high-temperature aircraft

carrier said she was just an incredibly powerful vessel built for speed. the leyba i liked some of is she combines the speed and the maneuverability of the destroyer was the luxury of an ocean liner something that had never been done before. >> talk a little bit more about the trials and the fact that some of the classified and why did that happen with this vote? >> he was kind of like steve jobs and that he was terrified of other people stealing his ideas, and he was also a very good project manager. i want the ship to look like this and be beautiful to. and then he will work and basically pester them to make sure they fulfill the vision and it looks the way he wants it to work. but the ship was classified.

because two-thirds of the cost was subsidized by the u.s. government which was pretty impressive. it was supposed to be turned into a transport so she was basically a military ship. she could be turned into a 14,000 soldiers within 48 hours, and all of her officers were on the u.s. navy reserve. she was basically a military ship. you couldn't go down to the engine room and say i would like to take a look. not allowed. her speed was classified until the mid 1970's, and during her speech trial no one was allowed to look at how fast she was going. there's also speculation about how fast she could go. she broke the record of 35.59

which is incredibly fast. 41 miles per hour. but when interviewed by the british reporter, he said you are proving even more power. the british didn't like that so they could only do 31 or 32. it turned out the united states could do 38 to 34 miles per hour, so they turn on their size and go fast. >> i think that people would enjoy that. >> the admiral was the founder of the nuclear navy and he pioneered the nuclear submarine program and he was interested in the united states said it was a turban power shift. one day, this is according to a member of the interviewed. he was a radio belli and

delivered messages from the room and he was making his rounds and all six officers on the bridge all with their binoculars out. it's not that far away. the vote on who we interviewed said that marine is going really fast the submarine blanks and then goes back down and joe says was that? the operator says you didn't see anything. a few hours later it turns out it was admiral nichols on board so they asked what was he doing and the radio operator said he he just wants to wish her a happy birthday. but rickover is interested in

keeping up with the ss united states and he went to shipbuilding afterwards which is the company that built the united states. do you know who i am can you tell me what it is? so they asked the food chain. she said i have bad news for you are to know where. [laughter] and knowing rickover's timber he didn't take that very well. >> he was extraordinary. talk about that for a bit, especially -- >> gibbs felt it was a bigger danger than thinking, and she was terrified of the fire breaking out he was growing up where they would often take what he and his brother throughout the city they would hear there

is a fire the former philadelphia firefighter would make up the boys and william francis and frederick would say there's a fire let's take a look so she was fascinated with the disaster that really shaped him took place right off the jersey shore. a steamship with one of his rivals coming back from the pleasure cruise in cuba. the captain was found dead in the bathtub and then a few hours later it caught fire and spread rapidly. the ship was outfitted with paneling and carpeting within a few miles, less than a few hours in a way to get out and they ran aground off the park and bolted for days. people would come and look at

it. about 130 people, so she was terrified of something like that happened in the united states. so when boarding the ship, she was adamant that nothing could be used on board the ship, and of course on any ocean liner you would expect there to be pianos and they went to stein way and said i want you to build aluminum panel. >> days of i can't go do that. the memo is going back and forth and finally said let me build this. takes it in front of mr. gibbs, throws a match on that and he says here are you happy and he says okay, fine.

>> my wife uses this but this will also on board of the sf ss united states. >> they were free went to don and the amount but that not picked up was used to line up and is used for croquet mallets and cricket and it's a self lubricating would which allows -- thinking these are going to be on the wall they will catch fire. >> let's talk a little bit about gibbs as a man. the type of person he was, type of personality, self focused,

self-taught. what was he like? >> in many ways i think that he was like wright he only had intermittent schooling at the university of wisconsin. gibbs took engineering class is at harvard, but gibbs is very driven and he was an engineer with the soul of an artist judy was the sort of man that new engineering but his strength was being a charismatic leader. she was known for having a very bad mouth when he got angry and he had a car phone in the 1950's and used radio waves to transmit. he was always on the phone working and the fcc almost revoked the license for the car

phone because he dropped so many four-letter words over the air. he was also the sort of man that when you were working for him he would always make sure things were just as you put it yet he always would say when he was shown a piece of work to get away, bring me the best. at the same time, he really respected people he felt were in the art, he was connected with the art community in new york and the symphony will. he loved heroic work. his favorite works for the symphony, beethoven and in many ways he saw it as a symphony you can feel and he would always make that analogy. he loved the ocean liner heart. but he was a very in powering simple man who didn't like publicity.

he hated reporters, he always dressed in very plain clothes and he wore the same hat for months on end that had holes at and he also had a very dry sense of humor. you wouldn't expect an engineer to be asked to do the ceremony at one ceremony he was. >> it was a very long evening and is miserable and then he got off with with his tuxedo and said with a sad face ladies and gentlemen i have had many bad experiences. this by far is the worst. [laughter] >> they talked about ss united states both in the passenger and the crew perspective.

>> you have three glasses when we go on the cruises on the ship back then was invited to the first cabin class, and first class usually works for the very wealthy around $5,000 up one way per person to go first class. if you travel first class in the ss united states especially in the high summer season, you are likely to run into at least one or two celebrities on board to name a few. salvador dali, the kennedys, marilyn monroe i don't know if they are on board at the same time, but i don't know the answer to that one. but president truman, eisenhower and seeking the crew members that have served these

celebrities some said they are important like walt disney to sign autographs. others were not so nice like judy garland locked herself up and was very rude to the crew members and only came out to watch the dinner and was in a bad mood the whole time, so it was a very formal atmosphere if you did dress for dinner and a black tie there were two settings in the first and the menus are in multiple courses and there is one crewmember on the voyage that worked for ten years and said anything they want this day or night to they can have and you have to make it quick. they are out there to prove them wrong and on board the united states was described as friendly but not too familiar.

first class was above everything and one passenger if you can call it that was the mona lisa. to transport them to america to put them on a first-class room they put the big issues in the evening. the cabin class is with families, business people still very nice a lot of the wealthy people prefer to travel in the glasses. the tourist class which is located in the bowel in the

storm you are in the bowel and are going to get thrown around a lot and it was cramped. there were no private bathrooms. you had to go downhaul. you had a lot of traveling students including bill clinton who was on the way to his scholarship at oxford leading europe especially germany. they're looking better in america coming over on that ship and people said my grandparent from grand deily for germany met on that ship, and it was rough. was a long work day. they were not paid well because they were unionized but if you are working in the service staff 800 of them were devoted to the

passengers there were stewardesses, whole crowds of people to take care of the passengers. >> i think what i would like to do now is open the form a little bit so that anyone in the audience that might want to ask the author a question of that opportunity. >> [inaudible] >> the service in november after almost 17 years of service, and there were two reasons for this. the first was in the late 50's the aircraft came and initially all of the shipping companies were like this is a huge deal.

they are not -- people will probably want to take the ship one way to relax. by the early 60's, so by the early 60's they had a big cash strainer on its hands and the u.s. government began thinking we don't really need them anymore to try to take the troops who are not using your plans, november, 1969, the government pulled the plug on the ships very generous subsidy. the united states finds we can't afford to operate the ship without the subsidy and there is a lot of labor on the rest. a lot of people like why should we have to deal with this? so she was laid up in new virginia and stayed there until

the early 80's. they could fire up again and then the seattle-based purchaser sold all the furniture and basically stripped the ship of everything and went bankrupt in the 90's. another person from a cruise ship operator were all over ripped out and one thing one of the fatal flaws was we don't need to use wood to build partition's call wall paneling. we will just use of asbestos. he didn't know, people didn't know back then so that has to be taken out. and so she was stripped of her asbestos in turkey and ukraine and then was being pulled back to america by one of her new owners and no one would take her

except for philadelphia so she ended up here in 96. >> [inaudible] >> weld, a lot of it ended up in the collection of a woman who has since passed away and she brought a lot of it for restaurant that she owned in north carolina. when she passed away, she gave a lot of it to the managers of new virginia. i remember her visiting there, and there was a huge storage room and i saw stacks and stacks of these famous red chairs in the dining room. a piano from all sorts of furniture was there. it is now waiting to be reused. a lot of other stuff got in the

collection. you can go on ebay and fine china and crystal and all sorts of things from the ship. it's all there. >> [inaudible] >> right now the conservative seat just lost the new public history and fund-raising campaign called savetheunitedstates.org to travel on the ship, who care about the ship to purchase sections of a digital shipped and it's basically modeled on the island of honor that got involved in the campaign of liberty which allows the american public to purchase and personalize adding stories, videos and purchase sections