>> is there not a dichotomy between those who have many responsibilities and who must be elected, i.e., presidents, and those who are pushing the issues, i.e., the ghandis, as those championing as those you would want them to? >> the answer is yes. i was present when kennedy -- you know the joke about franklin roosevelt being persuaded, some big move needed to be made, and he said, i agree with you completely. now go out and force me to do it.

>> that's a good one. >> kennedy didn't say that. i was present when he gave the bad news in a private session with king. that they would not be introducing civil rights legislation in the first congress, contrary to the platform. and it was a major moment. and for a long time they argued reasonably. roy wilkins may have pushed harder than king did. it was a remarkable exchange on just the point you made. kennedy said, look, we know there's no chance for the bill to move. the southern opponents have far, far more votes to keep a filibuster. and make it impossible to pass. to push it now would lose our capital for the civil rights idea, and for ourselves. it doesn't make sense. so we need to do everything we can do to short of legislation. and king pressed for a new emancipation proclamation that would be across the board, a set of actions of the boldest kind. and kennedy wasn't ready for it. when we left, kennedy said -- i mean, martin luther king, as we went out of the white house grounds, he said, you know, i had hoped that he was going to be the president that had the understanding to understand this problem.

the political skill to solve it. and the moral passion and urgency to see it through. and he said, i'm really convinced that he's got the first two. and we'll have to see about the last one. and hamilton -- alexander hamilton said the constitution wasn't adopted because of the argument of the federalists, it was adopted because of the harsh logic of events. and you could say that the kennedys started way down toward ground zero in terms of understanding, or commitment to priority to civil rights. by the time john was killed, and even far more, by the time robert kennedy was killed, they were way up there. and they were committed in ways that no president had really been on the firing line committed before.

but there was a thing in that administration that really -- in the beginning, they were dumb. i mean, just really almost ignorant. now, wait, wait. >> i think so, too. >> they thought -- they started talking to me, but they thought i was roy's kid. they didn't know roy didn't have any kids, and that i was roy's nephew. so they'd send messages to roy. and i have to say, johnson tried it, too. and they came to me, and they said, why are they doing this stuff in birmingham? and kids are out of school, and getting beat on heads -- cops beating them. and so a major kennedy domestic issue and civil rights guy came to me very quietly at a party. i barely knew him. and he said, is there any way to talk to roy wilkins -- he said, your father, to get them to stop this in birmingham? he said to me, he said, it's a terrible thing.

it's a terrible thing to put those kids in the street. and they should be in school. i said, you know something? these kids are learning self-involvement. they are learning that they can control their own world. they are changing the world. and it's more than any lesson they will ever treat those kids in those crummy segregated schools that they prepare for them.

i'm telling you, that was the way they were. [ applause ] >> so let me ask a question -- hold on one second. let me ask this question then. because i've got to get lyndon johnson's name in this conversation. okay. before we end, and we're at the end, and that is, is it fair or accurate then that lyndon johnson receives, i would say most of the credit for civil rights -- i don't want to say

hero, but president associated, affiliated with civil rights, if president kennedy, however dumb he was at the beginning, came around at the end and teed up this legislation? is that accurate and fair? >> no. i want to say that kennedy -- if it was anything, he wasn't dumb. but on this issue, chris matthews' book, i recommend you'll see that he stresses how irish he was. it was not southern legislators primarily that slowed them, or made them very cautious. it was their assessment of what the white backlash in the north and west -- >> we're going to see that. i want you to answer my question about lyndon johnson. >> lyndon johnson, when he signed the first civil rights act, he said something like, we democrats have lost the south for the next 20 -- or three generations. lyndon knew what it was like in the south. the kennedys were scared, and south boston's reaction to segregation was not quite as violent as birmingham. but it was shocking.

and they brought about the emancipation proclamation. the responsiveness of the kennedys -- johnson was wonderful, but he coasted on the tragedy of kennedys, with all of his skill, he deserves the most total respect for the achievement of piloting it through. it was all those events that happened before, including the kennedys' commitment. >> roger, if you would answer that, and then i want kenneth to answer that. we are at the end, so i'll ask you to be brief. >> recap your question. >> is it fair and accurate, or accurate or both, that lyndon johnson pretty much gets the credit for being the civil rights president on legislation, or that was teed up by the kennedys, some would say? >> when lyndon johnson became

president, it happened that my uncle was with me in washington. and he said, this is going to be good. i said, are you kidding me? what do you mean it's going to be good? old southern guy, he talks all that southern talk. i said, that guy is not going to be -- roy said, you're wrong. you're just wrong. this man cares. i've worked with him through the civil rights bill that we got, the first one since the civil war, and his heart was in it, his spirit was in it. he cares, roger. he cares.

you're wrong. my uncle rarely said you're wrong. because i says, beloved brother's only kid. he was really sweet to me, but he said, you're wrong. this man cares. he's got a heart. and he can be pretty mean to get what he wants. >> so it is fair that he should be called the civil rights president? >> i think it's very fair. i think he really cared. >> kenneth mack? >> i would say it's fair, but i would say for slightly different reasons. johnson was a political pragmatist like kennedy. and i don't think that if johnson had gotten the nomination in 1960, that he would have moved with any more dispatch with kennedy. johnson took office at a different time. i would give johnson credit,

though, for his legislative acumen. i mean, he had experience in the senate that kennedy did not. and of course, as most people know, it took a lot of work to get the '64 act through. you had to get it out of the house without it getting amended to death in ways that would cause it to not pass. and you had to get it through the senate, where no filibuster had ever been broken with the closure of motion. you had to accomplish that. and johnson worked tirelessly behind the scenes to accomplish that. he met with richard russell immediately upon taking office and said, russell, i'm going to run over you. kennedy never said that. so i would give johnson credit, not for an additional commitment, because i don't know that his commitment was any greater than the kennedys, but i think for having the legislative acumen to get the thing passed. and it was really, really hard to get the thing passed. five months of debate to get it through. and nothing else was going to be

considered while this thing was being considered. and johnson did it. >> i think -- >> roger, if i may. we're at the end. and i want charlayne hunter-gault's voice to be the last on this. i want you to answer the question from the audience. this person writes, i read your book many years ago and was moved by your story. how did what happened to you shape your decision in years to come and shape your career? >> it's all in this book. [ laughter ] but on lyndon johnson, i will say -- no, it shaped me -- i couldn't be an activist as a journalist, but i could be a passionate reporter for the things that i was seeing, and at the time that i entered, black people were portrayed in ways that were unrecognizable to themselves. and throughout my career, i have tried to portray all people in ways that are recognizable to themselves. now, on lyndon johnson, very quickly, in my book, it's written for young readers. those of you in this audience, it's for you to understand everything that we've been talking about. because there isn't anything

that we've talked about today that isn't in here. but it's in your -- in terms that you can understand. and there is lyndon johnson's speech, which is a wonderful piece of oratory when he passed the civil rights act. and i would encourage you to go back and read it, because you'll get some sense of the heart that he put into it. because this wasn't a speech that was put together by a committee. he wrote it. and so i think to go to your point, he believed in this. but he was also, like all of these politicians, you've got to realize, politics is about rail politic. you can read that word, you can google it. >> thank you all to my panel. kenneth mack, roger wilkins, harris wofford, and charlayne hunter-gault. >> you're watching american history tv. you can see the lives and legacy s on c-span 3.

>> it's a safe bet that few who navigate this circle in washington know much about this man. at the start of the civil war we have a democratic congressman at the start of the civil war. his dwishd service in campaigns earned him promotion to the rank of major general and brief command of the army of tennessee. after the war, he helped promote the first memorial day in 1868. he returned to congress serving three terms in the senate. then he narrowly lost the vice

presidency. 150 years after his death, this impressive tribute joined washington's growing company of civil war generals. tho stranger to controversy, some thought him too political. 12 feet in height, he and his mount share the memorial with a pair of bronze reliefs. one of these depicts him long after the war receiving his oath of office. he actually took office two years before he assumed the vice presidency. taking a liberal view soo, it is explained by saying she merely chosen prominent men from her husband's years in washington to feature on his memorial. easier to build a myth than a monument.

each week, american history tv sits in on a lecture with one of the country's college professors. you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern, and sunday at 11:00 a.m. eastern. college of the ozarks professor david dalton teaches an american history survey course that covers colonization to present. he discusses the origins of the cold war following the end of world war ii. college of the ozarks is located in point lookout, missouri. this is about 1 hour 15 minutes. >> good afternoon, folks. quick question? [ inaudible ]. >> all right. where did i stop last time? we dropped two atomic bombs on japan, correct? august 6th, august 9th. okay. what we're going to do today is talk about the post-war world.

roughly defined 1945 to 1960. we're going to try to get through the '50s today if we can. focus today is primarily on what's known as the cold war. sort of an odd term. cold war. but chronologically we're talking about roughly 1945 up through about 1989 or so. when were you guys born? you have no concept of the cold war. but this is a term that's applied, the post-world war ii period, that talks about the conflict between the united states and the soviet union. we're going to emerge from world war ii as the two great global super-powers. this is a struggle between the

u.s. and ussr for global extreme si. it is a cold war, simply because we, the united states, do not come into direct military conflict with the soviet union. we're going to be battling them all around the world for global supremacy. but never directly. this is the most important foreign policy issue of the last half of 20th century, the cold war. it encompasses the fall of china, communism, korea, vietnam, all kinds of topics we'll talk about over the next couple of weeks. so it not only has a foreign component, we're also going to talk today about what's going on, the effects of the cold war here at home. and we'll talk about presidential elections, about a domestic issue, known as the red scare, sort of the second red scare. and how the united states is sort of going to be gripped with suspicions and paranoias about all things communist. a lot of ground to cover today in terms of foreign policy and domestic policy. all right. so we're going to start with the origins of the cold war.

where do we start? well, let's go back really to 1941. last class period when we discussed the war itself, one of the mistakes that i mentioned that hitler made was when he invaded russia in the summer of 1941. he tried to have a sort of a second kind of blitzkrieg to get in, get out, knock them out of -- you know, knock the russia and soviet union out of this war. it didn't happen. an early winter, he gets bogged down, and then eventually in december of '41, the russian red army gets up and starts to counter attack. hitler gets bogged down in the soviet union. one of the things about the invasion led me to this interesting quote. take a look at this for a second, and without the author, tell me who you think this can be attributed to. winston churchill. prime minister of great britain.

interesting quote, we're going to have strange bed fellows here in world war ii. winston churchill, prime minister of great britain, franklin roosevelt, president of the united states, and our ally in the war against hitler is going to be joseph stalin. interesting quote. if hitler invaded hell, at least make a favorable reference to the face of devil in the house of commons. war makes strange bed fellows. we have the united states, great britain, long ties, long sympathies, longtime connection, history and culture, and yet we also now have the soviet union as an ally to defeat adolph hitler. what do we know about stalin? early in the war? not much. what we know now is an awful lot. the greatest murderer of the 20th century. imprisoned more of his people into camps, murdered more of his own people than hitler killed

jus. he is a ruthless brutal paranoid dictator for the soviet union. i mean he is paranoid about the safety and security of his country. two times now they've been invaded from the west by germany, world war i and world war ii. there's no natural boundary that separates, there's no division on his western front that would be an obstacle that would prevent other nations from invading. and so twice now, his country has been invaded and his people have suffered the consequences. he's very paranoid about the safety and security of his western front. he's also paranoid again about his own position of power. we have on the one hand democracy, capitalism, free enterprise in the west and we have this sort of totalitarian dictatorship in the east. he's very paranoid about the attempts to solidify his power or attempts that he would be

thrown out of power. one of the things that he is going to make or make known early in the war is that he has some demands. one obviously is going to be a western front. hitler's army is bogged down in russia. the russian people are suffering. the russian red army is suffering the consequences of this. he wants or really is going to demand that the allies, meaning primarily great britain and the united states will open up a second front in europe to help his army in the east. that would draw some of hitler's forces from the eastern front and allow his army to gain some momentum. try to drive them out of their country. he wants a western front. another demand that he has, or a consequence of this first demand is that when we actually do attack in europe, it's not actually in europe. that's not until 1944. american forces first go into battle in north africa.

he doesn't like that at all. he wants a western european front. in his paranoid ways, he is thinking that we do this intentionally. we don't attack in western europe to help him in the east. we actually are attacking in north africa, which is very little of concern or help to him. he thinks we're doing this almost intentionally so that the nazi forces in russia could continue to wear down the russian forces in the east. he's -- that's not the case. we talked about this last time. where we're trying to stretch hitler's forces thin. we're trying to make him stretch his resources until something snaps, fighting a three-front war instead of a two-front war. but in stalin's mind, our third front in north africa was intentional to punish his people. we don't like communists so this is a way that we are trying to destroy them. and the other thing that he's going to make known to the west to churchill, to roosevelt, is

that he wants protection. when this war is over and we are victorious, meaning we meaning the allies are victorious, he wants a buffer zone of protection. but he wasn't very specific. that is, he wants to be able to protect his country from any further invasions. does he want 50 miles? does he want 500 miles? does he want part of a country, all of a country, more than one country? he's not very specific on what he wants in terms of this buffer zone of protection. he'll get specific later. but the here early in the war, we're sort of uneasy allies to defeat common foe in hitler. we know a little bit about stalin. we know some of his demands, some of his philosophies. but we'll learn much more about him as time goes on. so what's roosevelt's response? president roosevelt guiding us through the great depression, now into war.

roosevelt believes that the best way to win this war is to cooperate with stalin. if there is one term that i could give you that is synonymous with roosevelt's foreign policy in dealing with the soviet union, it is simply cooperation. don't antagonize stalin. yeah, our systems may be different. democracy, capitalism on the one hand, communism, socialism on the other. we may be very different in terms of our political and economic systems and institutions. but we have to cooperate with each other to defeat adolph hitler. and that is going to be the driving force in roosevelt's foreign policy in dealing with stalin. we're going to go along, get along as far as we can and as far as that will take us. well, the first time that roosevelt, churchill and stalin meet is in 1943 in tehran. they've communicated with each

other with telegrams and the like, but never face to face. they probably have already developed some predisposed notions of what the other guy is, what he likes to do, that sort of thing. but the first face to face meeting of the "big three" stalin, roosevelt, churchill, is in 1943 in tehran. they are going to be talking about several items. foremost on their list is, the progress of the war and by 1943, the war's going well. if you'll remember from last time by 1943, we have already driven the german forces out of north africa, an invasion of sicily and an invasion of italy by now. the russian red army is beginning to push the nazis out of their country. we are also in the planning stages of operation overlord, d-day. all of this is happening by the time these guys meet in 1943. and so it's a pretty friendly meeting.

it's a cordial meeting. they're getting to know each other. they're exchanging, you know, pleasantries, telling jokes. it's sort of a very cordial atmosphere. roosevelt even commented that you know, this guy stalin, he's not so bad after all. thinking that i can cooperate with him. we'll be able to get along. and so the progress of the war really dictates that this is a fairly pleasant meeting. they're also going to be planning for the post-war world when this war is over, we need to be able to cooperate with each other to figure out what peace will look like. one of the things that comes out of tehran is stalin is just insisting this operation overlord, this invasion of normandy, this western front that i've been asking for, it's going to happen, right? yes, we're in the final stages of this planning.

it is going to happen. in exchange for that, stalin informs roosevelt that once hitler is defeated, once hitler is defeated, his nation will declare war on japan. that hadn't happened yet. we're fighting japan in the pacific. soviet union has not declared war on japan. here in tehran, stalin tells roosevelt, you guys go ahead with the d-day. we defeat hitler and with three months, within three months of hitler's defeat, the soviet union will declare war on japan. and help you, the americans, defeat this nation. so it's a very friendly kind of cordial meeting. the next time they get together, it's a little bit different. in february of 1945, the big three meet for a second time. it's known as the yalta conference. this is on the black sea.

this time, things have changed because if you'll remember everywhere last class period, by the early part of 1945, the red army is driving deep into germany by now. they've already pushed the nazis out of their country all the way through poland and into germany and they are knocking on the door of berlin. the western allies, the americans, the british, well, we got slowed down a little bit along that way. what was that? >> battle of the bulge. >> battle bulge. that's going to slow us down in our race to get to berlin. they get there first. we talked about that last time. so what i'm getting at is, when these guys meet again at yalta, the situation favors the soviet union. they are closer to berlin. they are going to get there first and so stalin uses that as a little bit of leverage. he's no longer sort of going to cooperate with the americans and the british.

he's going to start making demands. this is what i want in the post-war world. he begins to get more specific with his demands. one of which is poland. his buffer zone of protection is not 50 miles. he wants all of poland. i want a few other eastern european countries. not all of them, he said. i will allow for free elections to be held in some of them. but he is starting to define what he wants in terms of spheres of influence. there's no negotiation on this. here's the big three again. and if you notice anything different about it, it's franklin roosevelt. this is the impact of war. as well as his health. he doesn't look well.