basically dealing with welfare. but they were well known. it british were tolerating because nobody could do anything about it and served the purpose. manage these to things. what i said to the british is i aid you know what you created for iran is a utopia. change the want to system. the iranians look at the mess brilliant, this is what we always work with and we're going to come and operate this operated e we always the system. we know how to manage chaos. you guys at the end of the day frustrated and you're going to leave. but we've moved in, we're going to do the job. -- i wouldn't say a perfect job, but the reasonably good job. are acutely sh aware if there is a, quote, uprising in the south, they ear oing to be in a lot of

difficulties and the iranians do have a certain amount of influence. the question is with them being emboldenened, i think they are emboldenened. of the problem. we have made them stronger. you know, george bush has given empire without iran having to do anything for it. remarkable turn of events, enough to make people republic the islamic does have some divine blessing around it. it's a remarkable turn of events. i would have never predicted in a million years without shedding iranians blood the would now be running southern iraq.

we organized the agriculture department. service was ion affected. dad had a choice. he could go to great falls, or casper, wyoming. he opted for casper. the story if that

hasn't happened, i wouldn't have met lynn. married someone else. and her response was, yes, then he would have been president of states. ed >> he's got a dry sense of humor. you hear this from people who patriots and colleagues over the years for who seems this guy somewhat humorless went on camera and in interviews and, in wit to himgot a good and he says kind of funny things. he generally won't do that on camera, won't do it in interviews. got this e he's private side that's made him a lot of very loyal friends, particularly here in wyoming but i think elsewhere as well. mall town life like in casper from cheney's years from 13 on, lived there, went to high

school. met lynn chaney, a cheerleader nd baton twirler of some renown. played football athletics in a very important in casper. he may not have been the best team.r on the he wasn't, but he was a determined player and did just fine. he wasn't really political at time. but that wasn't really what you did in casper, wyoming as a teenager. i think a lot of people were surprised when i decided to run to be president of the class. but it wasn't a tough campaign as i remember. just seemed like a good idea at the time. politically was motivated. i enjoyed it. had a good time in high school. friends. great we played football and baseball fished and enjoyed growing -- we didn't think it was a small town. that was a e '50s,

small town. we thought of ourselves as the irst or second largest city in wyoming. so we didn't have the small town attitude. but we had all of the benefits growing up in the '50s in america. who knew the people dick cheney in those days would say, you know, i see a future national dent or figure here. most were aware of his determined nature, his loyalty. mattered to him all his life. any number of sort of personality traits that i think later, this quality of holding back in a group not being the guy who talks all the tries to dominate something that characterized in ly his entire career politics and in government. man in wyoming. that's what you

needed to get in there, somebody well connected. one or two top students from casper. then kindage them and of facilitate them, applying to and going to yale. cheney was one of them. yale was a disaster. he didn't do well at yale. so if he'd been a good student t casper, he was not a good student at yale. he was popular. good friends there. epeatedly on the edge of being kicked out. little coming back a ready. he went back, went to work again. a came back and worked as lineman for power companies in wyoming. that's a rough life with rough people. he lived that way. spent some time in bars. little bit of trouble,

ncluding d.u.i.s, and eventually found himself in a jail cell in rock springs. his is a big element in dick cheney's life and the things that shaped him. because, you know at that point, say this is a guy with limited future. came back to casper. with the encouragement of lynn, future spouse. he and lynn now married went in case,aduate work, in this political science. he got an internship with the wisconsin congressman who took washington, d.c. while he was in d.c., more opportunities of that kind presented themselves. one of which was a chance to which r donald rumsfeld

is a kind of young up and coming illinois congressman pulled into the nixon administration at the time. that's where cheney first began the white house for donald rumsfeld who would be tied together in many different department of defense and some subsequent administrations. jobs in in the nixon administration with rumsfeld as a second to him. went off to become an ambassador, he left the white house probably at the right time happened in the nixon administration. when gerald ford took over as pvpt, he brought donald rumsfeld back to be chief of staff. and rumsfeld brought dick cheney to be the assistant chief of staff. light, a young man for

that job getting a lot of notice foralready had this quality working with people in which he could sit quietly at a meeting, and of assess the room, then make the right maneuvers for his boss, the president in a or that didn't showboat didn't take the spotlight or anything like that. things done.ly got when the ford administration left the white house, dick kind of went on a road trip. he left washington, d.c. and back to wyoming and with the tough campaign with ford house. to win the white they lost. so he came back to wyoming as something of a fair haired boy. man in his 30s. well known. nationally now. he knew interestingly he knew coming back to wyoming the should do is walk

in as a politician in washington, d.c. to work for wyoming. did what politicians in wyoming do is you go door-to-door. can is a state where you meet almost everybody who's going to vote in an election. it's still true. when certainly true cheney first campaigned to go to congress that you could get in to car and start driving communities and knock on almost every door. working very hard now in the campaign.the he had his first heart attack. he was 37 years old. attack.ad a heart and there certainly was a moment one might have considered, he did, should i drop out? is this the end of it? didn't. he was forthright about it as he would be throughout his career. i've had this problem, i've had heart attack. i'm going to run. period of est for a time. then i'll be back on the campaign trail. that maybe made him even more the voters and he did

just fine. the vote.r 60% of i think the legislation that dick cheney will be most remembered for when he was in representatives and would rather surprise people is the wyoming wilderness bill. accomplishment. this is a period when a lot of country s around the are trying to set aside ilderness areas and it's generally popular, controversial, depending on which side of that you're on. not a state that articularly favors putting aside public land, disallowing oil and gas exploration, things like that. the bill did. for gated big acreages protection from development. it was one of the big accomplishments in dick cheney's was getting gress that bill passed. after a very short time in ongress, dick cheney was

learly destined for a top -- ership position is >> part of the basis i've been here in the nixon and ford i had a ation, knowledge and relationship with a lot of the members anyway even junior was relatively in the house, i had been in washington for sometime. and secondly it was a time when a lot of positions on the republican side. john rhodes retired as leader that year. was a contest for minority leader, a contest for whip, a contest for policy chairman, a contest for the chairman of the congress that pened up the options and the opportunity existed for someone like myself to sneak in and in candidate.ome a >> he was seen as obviously a man who would be leading his he chose togress if stay there.

interestingly, though, the area one doesn't know much about because it's generally kept activity ont is his the house intelligence committee. i would argue that here's a general understanding by the party, by the republicans, on the importance f adequate military capability hat that's the cornerstone of our security, that it ought to be used. to promote the values we believe in, the democracy, the freedom rights.n that does mean that major commitment, the steady in itment, if you will, terms of the portion of our national resources that we to our capabilities. >> if you remember the the contra controversy in reagan administration, this is a period when dick cheney was in congress. writing a minority report when they did an investigation of the iran ontinue are a affair that

really defended the practices of the white house, the reagan white house during that matter, funneling money to the contra rebels in that some n a way felt was inappropriate through sales to iran, arms sales to iran. in some ways, one could say n the congressional career, this is one of the great shaping that he played in congress serving on the house intelligence committee and it a lot of what he would bear as secretary of defense and vice president in role.reign affairs dick cheney considered a run for the presidency after he served n the george h.w. bush administration, the 41st president of the united states of defense. successfully led the desert storm in defense. favorably on what

favorably on him. and for a number of reasons, it wasn't going happen. he didn't relish the fundraising that he had to do. he did a road trip going around speaking for republican generally.in office, kind of his way of taking the temperature of the country and finding out what kind of he got. some would say that the polls would show he didn't get that great of a response on a personal level. but his reasoning was he didn't want to raise money, he was a little concerned that his health issues, because he had some heart attacks, might come to public's mind and make it difficult for him to run. he would say -- dick cheney inld say that at that point, he early 1990s, he decided not to run for national office again. he decided it's time to try something completely new.

what that was going to be was a career in the private sector. for went to work in texas the halliburton corporation and he was out of politics. talking to dick cheney, he emphasize the halliburton years as pivotal or informing the way kind of vice president that he became. what it did do is put him in texas. and being in texas, george w. the who was governor at time quite naturally came to him finding someone to be vice president on his ticket when he ran for president. would say, both george w. bush and vice president dick heney that almost from the beginning, george w. bush was looking at him as a potential vice presidential candidate. he was saying, no, i'm not interested. eventually, they went through they looked at any number of potential vice candidates. and it came back to one of these

meetings where president bush looks at him and says it really you. to be at some point after talking to his family, he said okay. bush and laura, thank you so much for asking us this effort and thank you for giving me the chance to introduce my husband, wyoming's own dick cheney as the next vice president of the united states. >> one of the reasons this campaign is so important. one of the reasons i was willing to give up a private life and to sign on with governor bush and presidency for the was because of what i've seen him accomplish in texas. -- ofthe beginning of the the george w. bush-dick cheney administration in the first term, the vice president had unprecedented access to the president. they had regular meetings, weekly meetings, daily conversations. all the time.ouch

and dick cheney operated very uch the way he had all through his career in politics, which is he'd be in a meeting. presence, you could always sense he was there, when he said something it was pretty important. say a lot. but what he was able to do, though, was talk to the resident privately in the way that vice presidents historically rarely do. had a very i'd all it a very intimate administrative relationship. they were not friends in the together, acationing hunting together, doing things like that that dick cheney did ith some long -- life long close friends, including politicians. not -- not him and george w. bush. and later, particularly in the second term of the bush-cheney other advisors like condoleezza rice began important role and that kind of ready access that dick cheney had enjoyed for seemed to be reduced

considerably in the second term. number of people who work closely with dick cheney in ongress and in the first bush administration, george h.w. bush's administration. later even in george w. bush's administration who feel of a e became something different person, he was not the same person in this later incarnation as vice president. dick cheney would argue with him our interviews that he didn't change. the world changed. but the change that matters tremendously is what happened on 9/11. but he would say that goes back to his days on the intelligence ommittee in the house when he first saw the sorts the underside of the world and there.going on out and that the world as it is response he kind of eels that the bush-cheney

administration made. dick cheney thinks it's important to speak out and speak the truth. you know, there have been any number of times in his career i'm not running for the higher office. vice s -- i'm going to be president but i'm not going to run for president. herefore, i don't have to be calculating in a political sense. i can speak the truth. sees himself as a very frank, straightforward, and really for much of the career people had seem him that way. the public eye, you've got like a darker cast now. in his own mind, he still sees himself as being a ruth teller, someone who will say the things that other people find too uncomfortable to say or afraid to say for political reasons or whatever. it's w right now, he feels important to speak out about iraq and, of course, he's been obama about the

administration where his president, george w. bush, relatively silent about all these things. he thinks it's important for him he ontinue to speak what sees is the truth. even when it's an uncomfortable truth. -- and i assume viewers want, a deeper understanding of cheney is. >> find out where c-span's local vehicles are going next

c-span.org/local content. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, c-span 3. each week, american history tv's "reel america" brings you archival films to help tell the 20th century. next, from the lyndon johnson a 1968 tial library, documentary produced by the office of economic opportunity. mexican-american, a new hope effortsrtunity, depicts to assist spanish speaking americans as part of the war on poverty. office of economic opportunity was established in in 1981.abolished many of the programs continue to the present day in other federal agencies.

agencies. just new many little boys like juan. juan is a mexican-american. emphasized e i american. hen i became president, increated the mexican affairs committee in 1967. that committee is made up of a-list members of my cabinet. the highest level committee that i could name. speaking e spanish people need to get closer to their government and get action from their government. we're bringing the government so to speak from the people ather than always having the people come to the government. i have always felt this is the better way.

we're here for solutions and not report once a sad again of the many, many problems. to talk about the tunities and not just difficulties. his mexican-american finds himself in an unemployment rate that's almost double in the outreach for this area. that's not right. injustices, storic because his forefathers were driven from their spanish and land grants. his children all too often segregated or semisegregated schools. they get on the average five less schooling than other southwestern children.

our mexican-americans have clearly determined that they must do totever they help themselves. and one wordphrase above all, that characterized america and what it means and for -- not just freedom, not just liberty, not power.ealth or but the word that characterizes and ca is hope and dream promise is opportunity. the opportunity to make something of himself. [applause] next, a panel of history professors traces the evolution of history as depicted in film since the 19 nerdy. drawing examples from the films. panelists discussed how