success. i have aloud him to beat an honorable retreat. he had the arkansas national guard to maintain order. he couldn't have been more wrong. after departing the conference, he informed congressman hayes that he had absolutely no intention of issuing any announcing new orders for the guard. the learning of the reversal, the president realized that he'd been duped. the famous eisenhower temple boiled to the surface and the immense character of the man, he admitted what had happened and he placed the first call to his attorney general who had advised him against meeting them in the first place. and i could tell he was furious, brownell remembered. he was now acting like a

military commander in chief dealing with the subordinate who had let him down in the midst of the battle. eight schoolchildren entered central high. by mid-morning angry white his gathered outside the school with which the fact that it was led with the cronies, it wasn't spontaneous. and it got reeg ugly in a hurry. and little rock mayor wilson ordered the withdrawal of the black students for their own safety. the integration of central high had lasted all of three hours. the power of moderation had failed and to the man's credit, he readily accepted that he failed and he moved to a new mains of maintaining order and

implementing the court's directive. he now understood only one course of action remained open to him. in my career he said if twrou have to use force, use overwhelming force and save lives nearby. how's this for overwhelming force? we call the 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, and headed for the municipal airport. the black students would attend school under the protection of the paratreerps of the 327th airborne battle group how are we going to assess eisenhower to this crisis. the evidence strongly suggests

that the employment of federal troops might have avoided what happened there. if only eisenhower had demonstrated resolve early in the crisis. instead, he clung tenaciously to his policy of moderation throughout the crisis and hoping that restraint would lead to a solution without confrontation. further, his silence in supporting the court's decision and the morality of segregation spoke volumes and his lack of active support for the federal courts in general before the crisis encouraged lawlessness of those who sought to defy them. that said, as soon as he realized that his policy had failed, he readily admitted his mistake and implemented a very different policy.

a policy that resulted in success. so it's where i began. how do you get right with ike? ? thank you to our panelists. we have about 20 minutes now for questions and i believe our microphone was over here so that if people have questions if you would come over to a microphone. okay. but as moderator i am going to take the first shot with my privilege today, and i would like to ask the panelists what does eisenhower's performance tell us about his strengths and weaknesses as a leader?

>> the next time -- if you think i'll recount dr. sanders, his -- having been enlightened now, one of his strengths as a leader clearly was an ability to be nimble to the situation. dr. sanders mentioned, for example, governor burns of south carolina who clearly had been, in addition to being a political supporter, someone on whom president eisenhower depended for a number of things when it came to political guidance and advice. this was a guy who was popular and had his finger on the pufls other politicians and governor burns was fueling this notion to overstep presidential authority risk of sch a backlash in the

southern states that the schools would close. that basically, southern states would create segregated schools and provide funding, and it was a real point of this happening. so the ability of president eisenhower to make adjustments in his posture dr. sanders had carefully outlined and it's important to keep in mind 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 virginia resident. there was a massive resistance unit and this was happening in virginia.

this was not something that was a theoretical risk that he was trying to balance on one side of the ledger. it was something that was occurring just a few miles away and it was the washington d.c. suburbs. so his ability to read these situations, i think, is a major strength. i'm not sure about a weakness given the challenges the country continues to face and that were very palpable at the time, and that was to answer the question and my attempt. >> first i had enhanced appreciation. and what he was doing, i've done considerable on this and i've never run across performance. obviously, i'll go ahead and get

my negative out of the way right up front. we had herbert brownell in the cabinet. herbert brownell was a product of the bustling metropolis of nebraska. he graduated from law school and he'd been in the board rooms of the east and all of that. i picked him for a particular reason. his savvy of human nature and how to get things done. when brownell said from the very first, he was telling ike and me, don't meet with this guy. nothing good 8 come from your meeting of this guy. he's going to use you. he didn't listen to brownell, right? he was going to follow that policy of moderation right through to the very end. so in failing to begin a modification before the whole thing blew up, i would say that's's weakness. now strength, along with the ones that i recounted here, it is very easy, by the way, to say

it sure is. a strength, i would say is once the man made up his mind is overwhelming force. let me tell you a caveat here. in '62 we went through it with ol' miss, if you recall. it was a complete disaster for eisenhower. we can do this with federal marshall. what we didn't figure out was how many it would take. so they started pulling guys from everywhere, and parking lot, security people and giving them a federal marshall's badge. no weapon and sending them down to oxford. we'll do this with all civilian people, right? and then bobby and ross barnett worked this elaborate ballet by which barnett would say there's a television conversation. you have to pull your guns and they said -- you have to pull your guns. yeah, yeah. >> there has to be at least

eight of you to move me out of the door and that kind of thing. they refused to send in with sufficient force. as a result by midnight that night, those four men were bottled up and put on campus. nicholas sent a message. send troops or by morning they'll all be dead. now, to his credit, eisenhower said very well, then, if that is the way the game is going to be played, i can play that game. you had your chance. >> the james meredith episode, i wouldn't call it a weakness, but maybe it was a sign of the times being old school and i've had experience with a lot of

campaigns. most were not very memorable, but if you read, thinking about the james meredith episode reminded me of some perceptions in julie and david's eisenhower book coming to fwlory about eisenhower returning to gettysburg and there's clearly a lack of any interest in self-promotion in president eisenhower's demeanor and he clearly bristled, and the episode, and on the one hand he could say this was fairly predictionible, and no one at the time seemed to be giving him the credit he deserved. now with the hyper24-hour news cycles you would think that a more modern era of surrogates would be out addressing the

contrast. there was nothing in the books that suggests that he was either chomping at the bit to get out before the cameras to call attention to the contrast which would have been fitted his legacy or that he was even calling folks together saying listen, can we get a strike team out to point out the contrast, and that would have served him bell, and i'm not sure his weakness, but it was a short coming that took a while for people to come to grips with and figured out to what absolutely happened. >> that's one thing i would 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? >> i would just like everyone to think about that, and i believe we have a question from the audience? >> i would like to thank dr. speck and dr. sand eers and

marshall, just very brief background. i graduated in 1972 which was six, seven -- quite a few years after brown versus board and we had a total of my best recollection, three black students out of 1600 students even at that time, and it was an interesting process of how the zoning went. that said, and i feel like i suffered for it. i feel like i was really, when i went to kansas university after that. it was a culture shock. i didn't know how black people act. i just knew there was trouble and that sort of thing, but i remember the days of blockbuster and they would pay it off because the perception was rightly or wrongly that the value of your home would go down and that would sit right with

them. and i want to address them for just a moment. it's my understanding that indicates several cities, and i believe also in topeka, black student are allowed to have a choice and they can go with any high school they want with the number one district which i'm in favor of. >> that is not afforded, and affirmative action is always a controversial sub jeblg, and i would like to get feedback from you and see what you think of it. one other note, i found it ironic that the civil war and i'm back with the white officers and the airmen, for example, and it was delegated to their duties and that sort of thing. >> we did a lot of driving and

that said, your thoughts on that and just basically -- you think the time for affirmative action is clear or is outdated? >> the criticism advised also struck me. it was to understand the time. it was ground breaking. we look at what's happening with don't ask, don't tell and what a controversy that is. you can imagine what he made by integrating the military and that sort of thing and he would have been masterful. >> first of all, thank you for sharing your experience. we're a similar era in terms of

schooling, and it's fairly recent and the numbers were still often. i share your view that shared experiences can help all of us as we go forward and deal with life's challenges. and that -- that for me gets to the affirm tiff 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 themeses and prepare for the a professional life, but also to gain a broader understanding of our collective experiences in society. so i -- i believe that

affirmative action in its most general form a program that our country needs to continue to pursue in various forms, but there are clearly pieces of it that need adjustment. so, 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 opportunities bring a full breath of diversity and in particular with individuals regardless of race, but i think th that i'm aware that it gets to a point where different demographic groups start to push up against others and we have, unfortunately limited opportunities ultimately, but i don't think we're to that point,

and i don't think we're at the point to stop trying to find people to bring diversity in all its forms to our educational opportunities and our economic opportuniti opportunities. >> i'll simply add, i support affirmative action and i will confess to you, it's primarily, my reasons are primarily selfish. >> i won't. as much as any american to have as strong an america as i can have. and here's where we talk about the diversity of the tapestry. we go out and try to find every little piece of every little story and we have to talk about women for a little bit and now we have to talk about indians for a little bit. no, that's part of the story, and you don't have the whole story until you have all of that. and we don't have a whole

nation. we need everybody. so if they want to bus a deserving child to one part of topeka to another, i say good for the white child and the children. that's a lot of affliction and that's also success. that's what you're hearing right there, it's success. >> the two of us were kids and they were in danger of bumping. my high school didn't desegregate until 1967, ten years after brown expect and the kids left into some trumped-up school in the back of someone's barn and it went from 98% white to 98% black. bump away.

>> my question for mr. marshall, mr. marshall, you talked about president eisenhower and the appointment to president eisen hower and the impact

-- i think it's important for people to know what they do and how they impact your life. >> well, thank you. i find it very disturbing is that there is a near inability

to get this confirmed. this is something which started several presidents ago. but it grew quite a bit because of the presidency of george w. bush. it reached a crescendo of an inability to get judges confirmed. it dovetails back into the lifetime tenure and the kind of impact that the judge can have over a long period of time. and judge johnson was given his medal of freedom. he was appointed to the bench by president eisenhower. he received the medal from president clinton in the 1990s. the longevity in the positions has its affect. i think on the issue of political correctness,

juxtaposed with moral fiber and courage, probably going to get in trouble for saying this, i think we've desolved into the situation where there's a first box on the checklist which is i'm not so sure i characterize it as political correctness, but there is this need to find nominees who are going to be -- in a sense the last common denominator. so any kind of blemish in a nominee's record is likely to delay his or her ability to get through a process. it's gotten to the point -- if you can find someone who on the one hand is going to have -- low

negatives, potential negatives, but nevertheless has the kind of moral fiber and courage that we want and expect from our judges, that the possibility is still there to thread that needle. frankly, i think there's an unfortunate by-product to that which is why would someone who has thrown themselves into the career 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 have been of the view for quite a while now that one of the other related unfortunate aspects of the american politics in recent years has been that presidents who gained re-election don't seem to have a lot of time to exercise the authority that they have 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. >> i also grew up in topeka, kansas. under much the same conditions as the other gentleman. but i wanted to thank both of you, both for the inspiration and the information you brought today and i wish i would have had it earlier. to change my perspective. however, caring for elderly parents has brought me back to topeka, kansas, for 30 years, and 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. and it's a magnate school where 30% plus of the children get to choose whether or not to come from, from including outside of topeka. our school is a magnate school that teaches science and fine arts. i'm pleased as i could be as well that we have around 40% black students at our school. 30% plus of hispanic students and work continuously, but less and less of them are racial issues. more of them because they're disadvantaged students. i wanted to thank you for all you've brought and in informing us on this. >> bless you. >> well, with that, our time is up today. i would like to thank everyone for coming and also if you have other questions for our

panelists i hope they'd be willing to stick around for a few minutes so they can meet you and address some of your concerns. thank you all for coming. >> hosted by our time warner cable partner, american history tv is in beaumont, texas, this weekend to explore its history in literary culture. beaumont is the site of one of the largest oil fields in american history and when oil was discovered there in 1901, the population grew from 9,000 to 30,000 in just three months. learn more about beaumont, texas, all weekend long on history tv. we're standing on crockett street in downtown beaumont in front of a row of historic buildings that were probably built around the turn of the 20th century. they were built along the railroad tracks where the ro so they were an important part of the business district there. at some point, parts of crockett street became more notorious and

they were a mainstream establishment. beaumont had turned a blind eye more or less to prostitution as long as it was in some remote corner of the town. however, this was not. at some point the dixie hotel became a brothel. but it was considered to be a very one and the clientele was limited. the employees there were supposed to be the prettiest girls around. and it was not the sort of thing that anybody could just walk in off the street. and patronize. ms. rita was ms. rita an ins worth and she was the madam and she started off in one of the brothels in towns and ended up marrying the son of the owner. his name was matt haynesworth and they together operated another hotel until he died and

then she took the money that was left in the estate and brought to dixie. it was hers for years until it closed down. if you're a patron of the dixie, which was a bordello, you would have come in through this door and then you would have gone up the stairs. and when you got to the top of the stories, -- top of the stairs, there would have been a counter there and you would have checked in at that point. we're now in the interior of what would have been the dixie hotel, the operations floor. at one time this was just a series of hotel rooms with a long hall and there were also living quarters for rita haynesworth, the