socialist. eugene in his name, tried to cultivate a populist image of the underdog battling great odds. he styled himself a es and in f was. he supported the integration of colleges and universities in arkansas. they were already integrated. but when the dispute over integration of the public schools in arkansas turned ugly in the northern town of hocksey in 1956, he decided to sit that one out. at his very core, that was orville. constant, political opportunityist. he possessed this an uncanny ability to objectives of his opponents and device ways to take advantage of those strategies to achieve his own

ends. after the crisis had bubbled on again, after they bubbled on for a while, he sent personal emisarries down there and congressman brooke hayes of arkansas and he did he sort of played his trump card. still, moderation, low key, he asked all of us to come to newport. now, here is ike. this is eisenhower. yeah? the general. the president. the -- calling to set a course and they meet in newport. 14th september and no uncertain terms of the instructions of a federal court must be followed by a state to the letter. now, if he left it right there,

who knows what would happen. and quickly assuming he listened to the tenet has the president talked and then began to cast his spell. he reminded the president that only a few years earlier the captain had been crossing the channel as they invaded armies and as he gazed on the hostile shores of europe, he had thanked his god that his personal fate in the fate of the free world rested securely in eisenhower's hands. now he assured the president that he was but a humble subordinate. arkansas, he insisted, was the most racially progressive state in the south and the crisis at little rock could be ended in

the department of justice investigators. what we need, he said, is a cooling off period, time for emotions to subside and determination to wane. this is exactly what eisenhower wanted to hear. it fit perfectly with this cherished policy of moderation and so it was that under the sustain assault of particular blend of down-home populism, subservients and he saw what he wanted to see and heard what he wanted to hear. he sincerely believed the meeting had been a complete success. the governor, he said, is appreciative. i have allowed him to beat an honorable retreat. he will go home now and direct arkansas national guard to

maintain order and protect the black children when they arrive at central high. he couldn't have been more wrong. within hours after departing the conference, he informed congressman hayes that he had absolutely no intention of issuing any statement announcing new orders for the guard. upon learning of his reversal, the president realized that he had been duped. the famous eisenhower now on the surface but a clear example of the immense character remains, he admitted what had happened and placed his first call to the attorney general. you are right, he said. he broke his word. i could tell he was furious and now acting like a military commander in chief dealing with a subordinate. eight black school children entered central high.

by mid-morning, an angry crowd of more than 1,000 whites gathered outside the school. the speed of which the random mob materialized and the fact that it was led by one of his bird hunting cronies led you to believe that maybe it wasn't spontaneous. but things got ugly in a hurry. at noon little rock mayor wilson man ordered the withdrawal of the black students for their own safety. the integration of central high had lasted all of three hours. eisenhower now knew his policy of moderation had failed and to the man's credit he readily accepted that it had failed and he moved to a new means of maintaining order and implementing the court's directive. he now understood only one course of action remained opened to him and his response was both swift and divisive. in my career i have learned that

if you have to use force, use overwhelming force and save lives thereby. how's this for overwhelming force? he called me secretary of the army at 12:08 p.m. secretary of the army issued the orders and two hours later they had wheels up on the first aircraft. headed for the municipal airport. the black students would attend school of the paratroopers of the battle group. close. how then are we to assess eisenhower in this crisis? the deployment of federal troops might have avoided what happened there. if only eisenhower had demonstrated earlier in the

crisis instead hoping with restraint would lead to no confrontation and the morality of segregation spoke volumes. and his lack of active support for the federal courts in general before the general crisis encouraged lawlessness of those who sought to defy him. that said, as soon as he realize # that his policy failed, he readily admitted his mistake and implemented a very different policy. a policy that resulted in success. so i'll end where i began. how do you get right with ike?

>> thank you to our panelists. with bev 20 minutes now for questions and i believe our microphone is over here. if people have questions, if could you come over to the microphone. but as moderator, i am going to take the first shots exerting my privileges today and i would like to ask the panelists what does eisenhower's performance on civil rights tell us about his strengths and weaknesses as a leader? >> you get all the topics. >> the next time i'm asked that question, i think i'm going to recount dr. sanders presentation. his -- having been enlightened,

one of his strength as a leader was the ability to be nimble to the situation. dr. sanders mentioned governor burns of south carolina who had, in addition to being a political supporter, someone on whom president iceisenhower depended on. he was popular in his own state of south carolina, who had his finger on the pulse of other politicians in the region. governor burns was fueling this notion that -- to overstep risk such a backlash in the southern states that schools would close. that basically states would create segregated schools,

provide funding for kids who couldn't afford to send their kids there and it's a very real possibility of this happening. so the ability of president eisenhower to make adjustments in his posture, as dr. sanders so carefully outlined, i think it's important to keep in mind and with that context. in other words, he believed in the policy of moderation in part because it was very clear to him that there would be this backlash if there was an overstepping and i'm a d.c. virginia resident. virginia was among the leaders in the massive resistant movement. this was actually happening in virginia. it was not a theoretical risk trying to balance on one set of the ledger.

it was occurring in the washington d.c. suburbs. his ability to reach is a major strength. i'm not sure about a weakness given the kinds of challenges that they are continuing to face and very pal pat abl. >> first, i have an enhanced appreciation for eisenhower based on mr. marshall's talk and i've done considerable reading on this but i've never ran across the a.menppointments and forth. obviously i'll get my negative out of the way right up front. herbert brown el was from

nebraska. he graduated from law school and i picked him for a particular reason, his sauf vee of human nature and how to get things done and yet when brown ell said from the very first brownell was saying, nothing good is going to come from meeting this guy. he's going to use you. he was going to follow that policy of moderation right through to the very end. so in failing moderation, i would say that's a weakness. and along with the ones that i recounted here, it's very easy to sit here and poke at ike. it sure is, right? but a strength would be once they have made up their mind,

overwhelming force, 62 we went through this again and, now, robert kennedy and john kennedy came up with the strategy, it was a complete disaster for eisenhower. what they didn't figure out was how many federal martials is was going to take. no weapons or badges. we're going to do this with all civilian people and they worked out an elaborate conversation and you have to pull the guns and bobby kennedy says, you have to pull your guns. and. >> has to be at least eight of you to move me out of the building, that kind of thing. they refused to send in sufficient force. by the end of midnight, those

four men were bottled up and sent a message, send troops or by morning we'll all be dead and now to his credit, eisenhower said very well then, if that is the way that the game is going to be played, i can play that game. you had your chance. >> the james meredith episode reminds me of something. i'll take a stab at -- i wouldn't call it a weakness but maybe it was a sign of the times in being old school and i've had experience with a lot of campaigns, most not very memorable. but there -- if you read -- thinking about the james julie and david reminded me of

eisenhower's recent book coming home to glory about president eisenhower returning home to gettysburg. and there's clearly a lack of s in president eisenhower's demeanor. and he clearly bristled during the meredith episode. for example, thatone hand he can see that this was fairly predictable but no one at the timetoe giving him the credit that he deserved. well, now with the 24-hour news cycles and communication directors, you would think that in a more era surrogates would be addressing the contrast. but that there was -- there's nothing in the books that suggests that he was either chomp canning atk whh

would have benefited his legacy or calling folks together saying, listen, can we get a strike team out to try to point out the contrast? and clearly that would have served him well. i'm not sure as a weakness but it would take a while for people to come to grips with and figure out what would actually happen. >> and that's one thing i'd like to follow up with. commenting on dr. sanders' point that eisenhower was first and last a man of moderation. can you be a leader from that position? so i'd like everyone to think about that. i think we have a question from the audience here. yes. >> first of all, i'd like to thank dr. specht for moderating for us and dr. sanders, and dr. marshall. just a very brief background, i graduated in 1972, which was

six, seven, quite a few years ago after brown versus board. and to my recollection we had three black students, about 1600 students even at that time. it was an interesting process of how the zoning went. that said, i feel like i suffered for it. i don't know how people acted. we just didn't -- i remember the days of blockbusters, people would actually pay off the realtors not to sell to black people because the perception was, rightly or wrongly, the value of your home would go down if a black family moved in. and that didn't sit right with me but it was the fact of the time. now, i guess i have a two-part question. and i want to address affirmative action for a moment. it's my understanding that in the case of several cities -- i

believe also in to be peak ka where i'm now residing -- black students are -- they have a choice of going to any high school they want within the 501 district, which i'm in favor of. however, that same right is not afforded to nonchildren or students of color. and affirmative action has always been a controversial subject and i'd like to get some feedback from you. i find it ironic that the blacks served with distinction and there was relegated to other duties and that sort of thing and they did a lot of driving and that sort of thing. >> of course. >> that said, i'd like to get your thoughts on that and just basically do you think the times for affirmative action is here

or is outdated? you know, as you talk about the criticism of eisenhower also struck me with, this you have tounds the times. >> uh-huh. >> and i thought it was groundbreaking. we look at what is happening with don't ask, don't tell reversal and what a controversy that is. you can imagine the quaint tum leap he made by integrating the military and the schools and that sort of thing. i think he had a good basis in terms of the slow setting. because if you turn that, i think it would have been -- >> yeah. well, first of all, thank you for sharing your experience because we're similar era in terms of schooling but -- and it's fairly recent and the numbers were still often and i share your view that the shared

experiences can help all of us as we go forward and and that for me gets to the affirmative action question which is "a," the ideal of the diverse society and particularly in education where there are opportunities for individuals to not only enrich themselves and prepare for professional life, but also to gain a broader understanding of our collective experience as a society. so i believe that affirmative action is in its most general form is program that our country needs to continue to pursue in various forms. but there are clearly pieces of

it that need adjustment. president clinton for whom i worked characterized it as mend it, don't end it. i believe part of that concept needs to be an effort to make sure that educational opportunity programs bring abred of activities with particular emphasis from individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds regardless of race. i'm well aware that there gets to be a point where different demographic groups push up against others. and we have unfortunately limited opportunities ultimately. but i don't think we're to that point where we can stop to afford to bring team to diversity in all its forms to

our educational opportunity. >> my take was the same i'll simply add i support affirmative action. i say my reasons are primarily selfish. i want as much as any american to have as strong an america as we can have. in history we talk about the diversity of the tapestry. we try to find every piece of the story. not just we got to talk about women for a little bit. now we have to talk about indians for a bit. no. that's part of the story. and you don't have the whole story until you have all of that. right? we don't have a whole nation. we need everybody. so if we want to bus a deserving child from one part of topeka to

another, then i say good. good for the black child. and good for the white children. the point that mr. morrison makes about that bumping up against, that's the cause of a lot of. you know? but that's also success. that's what you're hearing out there is success. when we were kids, wasn't any danger of bumping. my high school didn't desegregate until ten years after brown. all the white kids left, went to a school in somebody's barn. right? and the school went from 100% white to 98% black. just like that overnight. we're past that. bump away. >> thank you very much. >> my name is autumn fox. i'm an attorney. my question is very mr.

marshall. you spoke about president eisenhower's judicial appointments and the moral fiber of those judges and the impact of those decisions. and as a lawyer who appears in front of many courts, it is i would ask your opinion that it's based more on political correctness. i think your fathers foresaw that when we resigned and said he didn't want his seat to become a black seat. he wanted it to go to the most qualified judge. the other thing is i think that many citizens don't recognize the impact of judges' decisions on their lives whether that is a state district court judge or whether it's a federal district court judge. in the state of kansas when we vote, we have retention largely for a court of appeals and for a supreme court in the state of kansas. i know many people who vote either all yes or all no. and know nothing about those

judges. and when our district court judges are up, they know nothing about them. i agree with you about the importance of the appointments. i would like your comments on whether you believe it's based on moral fiber and courage. and also to please address as i've tried to do when i speak at public functions, the importance of our judges and who they are and how they impact your life. >> well, thank you. it's a lot to address. let me give it a try. on judicial appointments, one of the things that's become very disturbing is that there are -- there is a near inability to get judges confirmed. this is something which started several presidents ago.

it grew quite a bit during the presidency of george w. bush. and it's creaturing a crescendo now an inability to get judges confi confirmed. part of it is it tails back into the lifetime tenure and the kind of impact that a judge can have over a long period of time. judge frank johnson who we discussed earlier for example was given his medal of freedom. he was appointed to the bench by president eisenhower. he received a medal of honor from president clinton in the '90s. longevity in these positions has its effect. i think on the issue of political correctness as j

juxtaposed with courage, probably get in trouble for saying that. but i think we have evolved into a situation where there's a first box on the checklist which is -- i'm not so sure i would characterize it as political correctness, but there is this need to find nominees who are going to be in a sense find the least common denominator because of the lack of inability to get judges confirmed. so any kind of blemish in a nominee's record is likely to delay his or her get through a process. it's gotten to the point actually -- so if you can find someone who on the one hand is going to have low negatives or potential negatives but nevertheless has the kind of moral fiber and courage that we want and expect from our judges.

the possibility is still there to thread that needle. it's just become very difficult. frankly i think there's an unfortunately by-product to that. which is why would someone who's thrown themselves into a career of doing these kinds of things put themselves through a process where they may be strung out with endless background checks and hearings only to find that they never get a vote. i've been of the view for quite a while now that one of the other related unfortunately aspects of american politics in recent years has been that presidents who gain re-election, don't seem to have a lot of time to exercise the authority that they've gotten upon being re-elected. i think there's several parts of our process where we're not allowing our leaders to be able

to fully exercise their authority and judicial appointments is one of them. >> we have time for just one more quick question. we're down to the last minute or so of our program. >> my name's pam friezener. i also grew up in topeka. but i wanted to thank you for the inspiration you brought today. wish i would have had it a little bit earlier to mix with my experience to change my perspectives. however, carrying for elderly parents has brought me back to topeka. i am proud and pleased to say that i work at a school in the shadow of the brown versus board of education building. the old monroe school building. it's a magnet school where 30-plus percent of our children get to choose