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he backed down on that. fighting with the authority to reorganize the federal government. once he had authority, the first seeking did was it greeting that security an important piece of historical context. roosevelt to be fighting with congress not only over a party to reorganize the government generally but never authority to recreate the ministry of health, secretary of health. at the time congress said no, and roosevelt had to accept some authority to reorganize the government. he had to justify every piece of any reorganization on the basis of money saved. he could not create a new cabinet agency. nonetheless carries about set in motion a process that went.

applying for unemployment assistance. and getting help from the federal security to finding a new job, and it is a writer that this agency has created a really critical juncture in american history of. the country had gone through the great depression, but roosevelt is already looking toward what might be a big board in segment on the possibility of war. is this person is going about his business trying to figure out what comes next in his life trying to get some assistance from the federal government to find a new job, what is happening in the background as a roosevelt is having a different effect with congress, not only the one i mentioned. but a fight over all the social welfare on the ground. the people about how social security and the release efforts were not happening. there had been disaster assistance in the past, but

roosevelt did a whole lot to move that agenda forward to my great deal by creating the social security. and so the question was what might happen saw all those agencies that the u.s. government goes to war. one of the challenges for roosevelt at the time that that picture was taken is that not everybody felt great about the u.s. possibly getting involved in some kind of foreign tenement. there was a strong tradition of isolationism in the country, and so there were some members of congress were trying to put roosevelt between iraq and our place because they knew it he wanted to get the u.s. closer to war footing and wanted to help our allies, particularly the united kingdom and is looking to see what might happen in the pacific. they also knew that he wanted to protect the social welfare program. so the pressure was on roosevelt to essentially choose whether to use the federal government's capacity and resources to build up the country's defenses, to

prepare for a possible war, or to protect the social welfare programs. what he did, and a sense, was to create a super agency that could make a distinction between these two agendas and therefore move forward on both goals at the same time. >> well, speaking of super agency, there is another that was created by president bush that you write about. his idea was morris fiorina says? >> well before the september 11th attacks there or national commissions, university professors he talked with the importance of better coordination to protect the country from a tax from terrorism, may be to protect the borders more effectively, but the actual process of creating a cabinet agency was one that really reflected again this interplay of forces that included members of congress, fighting to create the agency in a particular way, but also the president who led a big role in

this process. it is important to note that in the first instance, the idea for the part of common security did not arisen in the white house. this is what that the interest in the subject. what the president's what? wanted to create these agencies? where they try to achieve? what i found is in the very early days after the september 11th attacks understandably enough the president and his advisers were focused on prices response, just trying to make things work effectively. and when members of congress and others suggested that there ought to be a super department under one federal agency, there arose skittish. look, we created a new white house office to coordinate these things. is not obvious when you -- need in the apartment to be created. the groundswell of interest force the president's hand a bit and eventually it was very difficult for and to say no. so at that point the white house role shifted from being quite cautious about it to taking

ownership of the situation in trying to create the department along the lines that might make the most sense for the lighthouse. so in that respect would say, although the original idea was not the white house, the final design very much reflected the white house. >> the author of this book, governing security in the hidden origins of american security agencies. how much overlap to the creation of the super department such as t h. as or at the say create in the federal government? >> it is ironic that in both cases that idea behind the creation of these agencies was to create efficiencies. but one of the things i talk about in the book is that you have this very hard choice when you're putting together a government agency. by unifying certain functions you disunify other functions. of you an example from the hsn and the fsa.

that vhs, plainly it might make sense to put the transportation security agency in a security agency, but in doing so you separated from the federal functions that otherwise involves aviation. with the fsa it was important that the food and drug administration be transferred from the agriculture department to this new superagency, some of the roosevelt advisers felt like that new structure that would be created in the fsa might mean more amicable to the functions of creating a safety than being in an agency that was focused on in some respects promoting the interests of the our culture industry. yes, of course, by separating the fda from the department of agriculture you create this question which is, how much does the fda really know about farming in does it make sense to give the fda the authority to protect people from unsafe food even if that involves lots of

technical decisions that involve american farming in those debates survive to this very day. >> host: added fema become part of dhs? >> guest: it is interesting that in the very early days within the white house about creating dhs was not at all obvious that fema would go in there. there was a debate about whether they're right thing to do would be to have fema report directly to the president, especially in a crisis . white house decisionmaking about how big they wanted the department to become how much power the want of the secretary of homeland security to have been congressional decision making driven in part by the efforts of the senate governmental affairs committee to expand its jurisdiction in that putting fema in dhs. here's the challenge that arose, and a talk about this in the book. wind katrina hits norman's, the question of who is in charge turns out to be a very difficult

and complicated question. you have the military involved, the national guard and the government, president's trying to figure out who is going to give them updates about this and what role the federal government should play, the secretary of homeland security, newly created position and then you have fema. the voluminous reports that have been written after word by the gao, by inspectors general, outside groups, they often highlight a really big disconnect between how clearly everything looked on paper and how poorly it worked in practice. so that underscores, to me, two important points that i deal with in the book. one is that it is very difficult to predict exactly how these agencies are going to work because you're creating a living thing. it has a life of its own to some degree. you can't predict some things but not everything. the other point which runs through the entire book is this a very powerful question of what we mean will we say we want to protect ourselves.

our security. and there was ambiguity a complicated response, and that was the have this is a c been created first and foremost to deal with terrorism or is it surely in of hazards is as it has to be ready to do americans as well? of course nobody would deny that the responsibility of fema extended to hurricanes, but it was also pretty clear her own testimony, led the statute was written and the statements in the white house, the agency leaders and the base that they weren't probably focus more than anything else on preventing a terrorist attack when mitigating the consequences of the terrorist attack. so there's a big and powerful question that arises to the state about how broadly we defend the concept of our national security. >> host: are these superagencies' successful in your view? >> when i started writing the book and did not know whether my ultimate conclusion would be, you really can't get this disease to work very well.

it's too complicated. a risky thing to legislate on that scale. i found something quite different, and i think it underscores the importance of people for one, people who work in these agencies and try to do their best, but also the people around the president and the president to more self. resident -- they approached the challenges of the funding decisions in different ways. in a different judgments about how gradually or quickly to create the agencies. then a different judgments about the resources that should go to these different disease. think it is fair to say that the bush of ministration situation was more challenging because they were, and a sense, but in a position where they had to take the sun right in the middle of a national crisis that of is that it would the issue that was before the agency. in the case of roosevelt, he was anticipating a national crisis. he was doing the creation of this agency in part to make the country, in his view, better

prepared for war potentially, but he could be a little more liberal about it, and i think his choices reflected also, frankly, more long-term view about what he wanted his agency to be. you're welcome back to the point about how roosevelt had tried to get congress to approve an agency to deal with the health and challenges that face america . so viewing this federal security agency in part as a vehicle through which those goals might be achieved, very careful in how we put it together. good documentary evidence showing that the advisers were telling him to rush the creation of this agency and put all of the bureaus in the would be in there eventually immediately. he wrote later on a piece of paper indicating he wanted this to be a little more gradual. i would argue that what he set in motion was an agency that became quite capable of protecting its interests and in many respects executing some very complicated legislative programs. i think it's wrong to assume.

the degree of complexity makes the dangers very real. >> once an agency is created visit with us forever? >> when i talk to my students test in that question, and many of them on their heads. i remind them that, in fact, we have succeeded as a people and as a country in getting rid of agencies. sometimes we have unplugs the interstate commerce commission. we folded the civil aeronautics board. other agencies as well. even within the federal security agency there were changes. but it is also true that these agencies several long, long life in many cases. so when we created agency we think the right question is not like to ask how much is it media current needs. in the case of d.h. is, how much is this agency going to help us avoid tragedies like september 11th, but also compile this agency will fare in 20 or 30 years and what it will be trying to do, who will be working there, if it's ready to

challenge -- handle the challenges of future which is a much more complicated question that ultimately the leaders of the agencies working together with commerce and the president have to take on the issue. >> what is your washington experience and what you teach your stanford? >> i teach administrative law which is basically a course about who controls the government and has the power to do what and the rights the people have. antique legislation, public programs give written, have a legislature oversees the executive branch. i've taught class is an international criminal law and international security, how we protect ourselves, cyber security, weapons proliferation. i have been very lucky in that i have had a kind of parallel career in academia and government. right out of law school and worked at the department of the treasury for a couple of years. in the part of treasury debt is with enforcement issues or national security and intelligence and law enforcement. i had the chance to help the undersecretary manage these

different programs to deal with illicit financial activity and customs and border coordination. later on after i had been outside governments for a little while, worked in the courts as well, bin in academia, i went back and work with the obama-biden transition and don't run the team that was working on immigration and border-related issues. then i went into the white house and work done a series of issues including justice policy and regulatory policy. i dealt with some of the issues that are in the book. in fact, the purpose of the book talks about was attending a meeting one day that featured representatives from both dhs and hhs talking about other country would respond to the h1n1 virus. struck me, we get to make these decisions about how to help these agencies do their job, but we don't talk about where these agencies come from and what that

means for the country. >> host: here is the book. mariano-florentino cuellar, professor of political science at stanford. >> host: professor of law, i should add. >> host: excuse me? >> guest: professor of law. >> host: "governing security" -- "governing security: the hidden origins of american security agencies" is the book. book tv is on location at stanford university in palo alto, california. >> next book tv interviewed william damon about his book failing liberty. in the book professor dagen argues we are not properly preparing r.e.m. people to become responsible citizens. this interview was recorded at the hoover institution on the campus of stanford university. is about 20 minutes. >> i want to introduce you to a stanford professor william damon , also a senior fellow here at the hoover institution. professor, what do you teach

year at stanford? >> guest: i teach human development through life. we call it sometimes birth to death or womb to tomb, everything that happens from rampancy to old age, but my special interest is on character and character development and help people develop their values and their purpose in life. and especially use development, the real focus is the adolescent and early adult years. in terms of education how we might even help young people create a good direction for themselves, a good purpose that takes them through life in a fill the way. >> host: that ties into your newest book, failing liberty is the name of it. how we are leaving young americans unprepared for citizenship to begin here to my you right that the most serious danger americans now faces that our country's future may not end up in the hands of the citizenry capable for sustaining