time is a project that exists now? >> well, i think luce had a vision of justifying journalism in his time by thinking of his own company. i think if we think about today, i don't think there is any one person or one institution that justifies journalism in our time. i think journalism is justified in our time. what i wanted to say at the end here, first of all, is to thank everybody for participating in this event. but also to just say a word about the connection between journalism and history. i think this panel -- everyone on this panel in one way or another -- has a foot in both of his sides. everybody on this panel is in

some way connected to journalism as well as being historians. i think there are great historians who were not academic scholars. i think we would be impoverished if that were not the case. on the other hand, there is a lot of journalistic history that is ridiculous. bill o'reilly's book on lincoln which is the number one best seller. at least the last time i saw. and it's ridiculous. it's as ridiculous as glenn beck, almost. of course, there are also journalists who write terrible history as well.

i think the connection between journalism and history strengthens both things and i really appreciate all of the people who came today and our colleagues on the panel. thank you. >> we talked a lot about consensus today. please join me in expressing consensus of appreciation to alan and our panelists. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. in may of 2011, historian richard norton smith led a

ten-day bus tour from asheville, north carolina to austin, texas. the group stopped at several historic sites along the route. one was dealey plaza in dallas, texas. the museum is located in what was once the school book depository. from the sixth floor of the building, lee harvey oswald shot president kennedy. curator gary mack talked about the museum and the investigation is presented. >> what we set out to do was to basically tell what happened and not draw any of our own conclusions about what it means, but to present what history has told us. there have been several investigations and various developments over the years. most people, according to the public opinion surveys have never been satisfied that it was

lee harvey oswald. none of the other theories have been proven. the official explanation was three shots were fired all from lee harvey oswald and all from the corner window. the rifle that oswald supposedly used was traced to him and his post office box. he was left behind in the building on the sixth floor. the warren commission had a reconstruction done and one of the exhibits is a scale model of dealey plaza how they helped study how the shooting happened. ultimately, the fbi and warren commission decided that the first shot came from under a car under a tree. the tree is still there. it is much taller. from that moment to when that fatal shot was fired is about six seconds. then they had the problem of

could that rifle be fired that fast? not easily and the faster you try to fire a rifle, the more inaccurate you tend to be. the later thinking is the first shot was fired before the car went under the tree. which adds a total of two or three more seconds. if you have eight or nine seconds to fire, you can do it. the rifle had a scope, but that doesn't mean he had to use the scope. you would normally and i talked to a couple of dallas police officers who fired ten shots from the window in 1978 in the second investigation. they told me and all of the reporters present that these are easy shots. no one would miss. it is the timing that would make it difficult. if you have enough, seven or eight or nine seconds, you can do it if you used that weapon before. there is not hard evidence in the medical evidence that kennedy was hit from any other direction other than from behind

and above. whether there was another shooter who didn't shoot or didn't fire a shot and missed, that's a question that some people are still not comfortable with answering. they just don't know. they are not satisfied with not knowing. let me give you an example. you know, in a criminal investigation, there is always -- there are always loose ends. every investigator will tell you that. when the shots were fired, within 30 seconds, one of the dallas police officers doing traffic control at the intersection started running down the side street here and he ran back to the area that is now known as the grassy knoll in the parking lot. he encountered a man dressed in a coat and tie. the cop had his gun drawn and he went up to the man. the man identified himself as secret service. flashed secret service credentials. the cop let him go and proceeded

to search around the parking lot a and let him go. the warren commission asked about this. they asked who of your agents were located on the ground. none. those of us who study the assassination would then look to see what happened as a result of getting this information. you would think there would be some sort of investigation. who is this guy? why has he not come forward? how come his supervisor come forward to say it is ralph or something. nothing happened. there was no follow-up whatsoever. there are -- i don't know what the total number is -- but there are enough of those questions that make people scratch their heads. what is going on here? is there more to it? was that just some guy for some reason did not or could not come forward at the most people are just not satisfied with the kennedy assassination and how it ended.

leaving some questions up in the air and no motive for lee harvey oswald. no known motive. perhaps that is one of the reasons or two of the reasons that people come here. we have had members of the kennedy family here. we don't identify them by name, but the kennedy family is quite happy with what we we go about it. >> for more information about the sixth floor museum at dealey plaza, visit their web site at jfk.org. to learn more about tours with historian of richard norton smith, go to presidentsandpatriots.com. you are watching american history tv all weekend on c-span 3. this past monday, the national archives released the recording of air traffic on air

force one soon after president kennedy was assassinated. it was made as the plane traveled from dallas to washington and includes conversations among pilots and aides and lyndon johnson and others. it includes over 30 minutes of audio not previously part of the record. here is an excerpt. >> general may is in the c-130. >> 417. the last three numbers. >> right. he is inbound. his code name is "grandson" and i want to talk to him. >> grandson. we will see what we can do. we are busy with air force one right now. >> okay. you don't have the ability to work more than one? >> we are running air force one on two frequencies. we have two patches at one time. that is all we can do. >> i see. >> what is your drop, sir? are you off the washington

switch? >> drop 303 or 79225. if you can't work him now, it will be too late. he'll be on the ground. >> what is your name? >> colonel dormun. >> i'll try to get him back to you. >> that was just a portion of a recording released by the national archives this week. donated by the rabb collection. a dealer in historic documents. the audio tape belonged to a senior military aide to senator kennedy. it was one of two recordings acquired. they donated one to the archives and put the other up for sale. visit our web site at c-span.org for a link to the national archives where you can hear the full two hour recording. this is american history tv on

c-span 3. all weekend long, american history tv is in beaumont, texas to explore the history and lit rath tur where the culture got its start. >> literally in just that one gusher at spindletop, we outproduced the russian oilfi d oilfields in a year in just a matter of ten days. it made the united states number one in the world in terms of oil production. it was this well that did that. this is a monument that was first put up in the early 1940s to mark the place that the

spindletop gusher, the biggest gusher in the united states as of 1901, that is the site on which it came in. everyone knows about the first well that was drilled in u.s. history. that was in 1859 right before the civil war. then, as soon as that war was over, people started drilling all over the place. they were finding oil in a number of places, but very small quantities compared to what was going to happen this well actually got started very early after thewar. some local men got the right to drill in a number of places around here and this salt dome, as the rock broke up around the salt piercement, oil collected around the edges of it. in the case of this salt dome,

no one knew this, really, but they were going to find a huge quantity of oil right on top of the dome. that is not the most ordinary thing. a lot of people lost money trying to find oil on the top of those domes because this was so huge. there were four wells drilled that were dry holes. the wells collapsed or they filled with sand or people ran out of money. all kinds of things were happening. the person who brought in the fifth well was captain anthony lucas. he is croatian. he decided to visit an uncle in the united states and decided simply not to go back. he same over here and saw signs and signs that were indicating that there was going to be salt and sulfur and oil located on this salt dome, too.

ultimately, lucas got leases to drill over here. the fourth well was his. he is the one that drilled the fourth hole, a dry hole. the casing just collapsed into the well and he lost everything he had. he had used his own money on that. he had no more. to drill a fifth one, he was going to have to require major sacrifice from his family and he would have to do serious borrowing. he could not find anyone with faith. he had faith in himself, but he could not find any geologists who thought he had a good idea. until he got to the university of texas and william battle phillips. he sent him to corsicana and had him talk to john gailey.

gailey came here and took a look at this and he thought there was something here. he discovered so many oil strikes all over the country. that he went back and talked to the mellon banking house into putting up $300,000 to drill another well. to do that, lucas had to give up major control of the well. he didn't have the money. they drilled on this location. the drillers were characters that fascinated me. they were three brothers. the hamill brothers from waco. it was an adventure after adventure. they had to invent ways to drill through the formations on top of the hill. they started in october of 1900. they got down to rock right before christmas and they all went home for the holiday. they came back and they just

started putting everything back in the ground again. they dropped 1,020 feet of pipe into that hole and started drilling and the drill bit got caught in a rock crevice. they couldn't get it out. they tried all kinds of things. they were having a terrible time getting it out. they promised to go to 1,200 feet. they were at 1,020. they got to 700 feet into the hole and all of a sudden, the hole started shaking. the ground shook. first water came out of the hole. it was just muddy water. it made a horrible mess. and then it quieted down. and p of rock coming out. fortunately no one got hurt. mi.

they waited after it calmed down and they went out and standing on the platform. and our favorite driller, al hamill. he was the youngest. the single guy. he comes over. there is this hole. something. the drill pipe 700 feet of it blown out of the ground and blew into the air and laying all over the place. but he was looking down the hole. all of a sudden, he could see the oil and it came up and then it went back down. then it came up again and it went back down. it kept coming up a little more every time. al hamill said it looked as though the oil was breathing. i wished he said it looked like

the earth was breathing. finally it ran out over the top of the platform floor. then all of a sudden, it blew again. when it blew again, it was a stream of oil. they weren't sure how to cap it. for ten days, it just blew and literally you had all of this oil and it was here. most of it drained off in a western direction. there is a railroad track over there. it was there when the spindletop gusher came in. they backed it up to the railroad track through earths and dikes up around it. then thought what will we do? they got between 750,000 and 1 million barrels of oil out of the well in just ten days. it was the hamill brothers that capped it. they invented a way to cap that

well. it was on the tenth day that there was enough freedom from rock bursts to go ahead and clamp down what is now called a christmas tree. they are using the oil industry all over the country now. these guys invented it. they put it together. clamped it off and closed the well down then stood back and looked. there was oil everywhere. there was oil in the air. there was oil all over the ground. all over the platform. it stood up to it. it is nothing short of amazing it did. you can imagine that the rush was on. in the next two months, they drilled five more wells. i guess by april, they had five in all, and they were all gushers. what happened is that we realized how much oil truly was available. lucas worked in the field for about six months and then he

sold his interests out and the big companies. gulf, texaco and sun came in and started working the field. it really wasn't so much the little guy once those companies came in in the first year. >> oil production at spindle top field began to decline in 1903. a second boom hit the oil field in 1925. and lasted until the beginning of the great depression. small scale oil production continues at spindle top today. >> in may of 2011, historian richard nortian smith led a ten-day bus toor from asheville, north carolina to austin, texas. he stopped at several sites along the route. one of the stops was the andrew johnson homestead in greenville, tennessee, a site oenld and operate e owned and operated by the national park service. he served as vice president under president lincoln and

succeeded him when lincoln was assassina assassinated. here is park guide daniel luther telling the story of how andrew johnson met abraham lincoln. >> in 1847, i went into the 30th congress for my third term representing the people of the first district. while i was there, i met an extremely tall, raw boned young man representing the prairie state of illinois. and we fell into conversation. i introduced myself and told him that i was from northeast tennessee. and he replied he had relatives in northeast tennessee and perhaps i knew some of them. he identified his great uncle ey isaac as having owned a farm. he also identified another great uncle, gentleman by the name of mordecai who lived in the town of greenville. to which i replied, greenville

is my hometown. and your great uncle performed the wedding ceremony for me and my wife in 1827. as well as mordecai and i served on the town council together in 1829. i reassured mr. lincoln that he was in good hands in terms of politics, that his great uncle had gained a great many more votes than i had. but like many young men who came into congress at the time, when they went in there with goals. and each of us had a cherished goal that we wanted to achieve in that congress. mine was the introduction of a bill. for mr. lincoln, the introduction of legislation which would have provided for compensation emancipation of slaves in the district of columbia. and like other young men who go into congress, we found out it is not so easy to get your cherished goals accomplished. we left that session of congress without those bills passed.

i served two more terms. mr. lincoln, that would be his only term in the house of representatives. at the beginning of the fourth term, i bought the house that you have just seen. but it is irony, those of us who live often felt that we were caught up in the hands of fate and as fate would have it, each of us, lincoln and myself, were 15 years in the future. they achieved that cherished goal. for my part, lincoln signed the homestead bill into law in 1862. in 1864, i helped mr. lincoln gain at least one state into the column of abolition emancipation and that is the state of tennessee that you're visiting today. you heard some of these words earlier. so i'm going to give you just a short excerpt. in october of 1864, word got out

that i as military governor was about to issue a proclamation of emancipation for the slaves in tennessee. and this created a large gathering at the state capitol and i stepped out to address them. and used some of the following words. colored people of nashville, you have all heard of the president's proclamation by which he proclaims that a large portion of the slaves in the states still in rebellion have been declared hence forth and forever free. for reasons which seemed wise to the president, this proclamation did not apply to you. or to your native state. consequently, many of you were left in bondage. they still galled your limbs. gradually this inequity is passing away. but the time has come for the last vestages of it to be removed. therefore, i, without reference to the president or any other

person, have a proclamation to make and standing here on the steps of the capitol with the past history of the state to witness, it's present condition to guide, his future to encourage me. i, andrew johnson do hereby proclaim freedom, full, broad and unconditional to every man in tennessee. those were words some four months later we backed them up with action. the convention i call to re-create a loyal state government to the union also enacted an amendment to the tennessee state constitution ending forever slavery in this constitution with a popular vote of the people on february 22nd, 1865. shortly after that, i went back to washington to take the seat as vice president.

five weeks later the war was over. one of his final pageantries president. with his death, he had waorn fo four years fell on my shoulders. discouraging times. yet, as i spoke to the gathering of the cabinet who came to my rooms at the hotel the morning of april 15th, i told them that i had hope. i had hope that our government having emerged from its present trials would settle on policies more in line with principles of free government than it had heretofore. i believed this nation would come together and move forward. and i had good, strong reason for my hope. i had faith in the union. i had faith, abiding faith, in the constitution. and above all else, i had faith

in the people. thank you for your kind attention. >> there is a bit of a controversy 150 years later over you and the role you played in the decision in the trial of lincoln. >> yes, sir. >> in particular, the decision, the unprecedented decision by the federal government to execute a woman. could you tell us how that came about? >> yes, sir. i will tell you, and i'm aware of the controversy, and i'm aware there are a number of different sides to it that, in my view she was guilty. i believe she was the person who kept the nest that hatched the egg. however, the controversy arises over this. having been military tribunal and having been sentenced to death by that

same tribunal, five of the nine judges on the tribunal recommended clemency. and, in other words, her death sentence be commuted to life in prison. i was unaware of that commutation recommendation. i was freshly into my office. i was allowing myself to be guided by the cabinet and the other officers who had been present. and when judge joseph holt brought me the papers including the death warrants, i signed them. some two years later, 1867, it is interesting. this is when the succession of -- the impeachment crisis was emerging. the newspapers began printing the awareness that a recommendation of clemency had been made. and that i had ignored it. and i sent to the war department request to see the documents. and when i did see them, it appeared to me that clemency recommendation which was right there had been torn out and reattached.

and i thought only two men could have done such a thing. one of them, joseph holt, judge advocate general who had been responsible for the trial. but the other was his superior, edwin stanton. so perhaps i will leave it this way. the next day after i saw those documents from the war department, i sent a short note to secretary stanton which read, dear sir, public considerations of the high character constrain me to inform you that your resignation as secretary of war will be accepted. dear sir, public considerations of high character make me inform you i will not resign the office until congress comes back into session. knowing at the time he believed he was already protected by the ten-year office law. >> thank you. >> you're welcome.

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