history tv, all we can, every weekend. join the conversation on facebook at c-span's history. in 2009, mr. elsey sat down for an oral history interview with the then director of the richard nixon library. the interview focused on the johnsonays of president 's presidency and also spoke at length about his own white house career. this is a 15 minute portion of the interview. 1942, my boss was transferred to the white house and meet with him to a place called the map room.

on map room was a small room the ground floor of the white house which had been just a reception room and had been converted into an intelligence and communication center where fdr and his close associates could come in and get a complete briefing. receivedoom staff information from the navy and war departments on a 24 hour per day basis. information was constantly flowing in. we also served as the secretariat for all fdr's communications with winston churchill, chang kai-shek of other joseph stalin, and wartime figures. we received the messages, make sure they were answered kept a record. we were also communicators. anyever roosevelt traveled distance other than hyde park,

one or two of us would be with theto encode and decode messages that flowed back and forth from washington to him. all classified communications to him when traveling had to go through the map room. we never knew from one day to the next whom we were going to meet or what kind of information we would be handling. when i say home we were going to churchill who was fascinated by anything relating to military strategy or situations used our map room more than fdr himself. we got pretty well acquainted. there is a difference in status between a young reservist and the prime minister of great britain, but he knew who we were and we could speak freely and frankly to him and answer all his questions.

it was fascinating. in time,e the remove do you recall an anecdote with .inston churchill >> i think just about the sure in may oft i have was 1943 when he was back in washington again and we discussed allied strategy with roosevelt and our chief of staff. sharp messagevery came to fdr between churchill also who relayed on from london and stalin wanting to know when the allies were going to move on the second front. stalin was under intense pressure on the eastern front and needed some action on the west to relieve the tension on

the soviet german front. now that the war in north africa was pretty well cleaned up, we had beaten the germans there, and were ready to invade the just-invaded sicily, this displeased stalin to no end. he thought we were frittering away allied forces on sidetracks attacking theo be mainland europe and nazis directly. he was sending a threat, when are you going to act on the western front. this was rough. we had not decided. late one evening, i was on duty alone. door suddenly opened and in came roosevelt,

churchill, our chiefs of staff and the british chief of staff. all had had dinner upstairs, a very convivial dinner, and they came in and settle down to business. what are we going to say to uncle joe as they commonly referred to joseph stalin. they couldn't agree on an answer because at that point, britain and the united states had not agreed on what the next steps were going to be. general marshall was insistent on the earliest possible attack across the channel to normandy or someplace -- normandy itself had not yet been decided on. the british were adamant that we are not yet ready, we meeting the allies. we don't yet have control of the air, we don't have enough landing craft. we will be fully occupied in the mediterranean. sites of the two

americans pressing for the earliest possible attack across the channel and the british wanting to further solidify the situation in the mediterranean. this went on for a couple of hours. churchill speaking a good deal. fdr mostly sitting and listening and was somewhat amused at this tangle between the british chiefs of staff in the americans. chairmansir john, the of the british military group reached for a pencil and a pad and wrote out a tentative answer to stalin. he passed it across the table to admiralty, who was the chairman of our chiefs of staff and roosevelt's personal chief of staff. he did some editing, read it aloud and it was a basic answer. it was not giving stalin what he wanted to know, it was

explaining the difficulties we were facing in planning the next step. a lot of jargon that did not really address them directly because they could not agree on what to tell him. up gave it to me to smooth and after they left i typed it code tosent it off by the soviet union. ismost vivid map or memory that night of seeing our leaders able to make at major decision on what the next steps were going to be. the decision was finally made a few months later. when they met again in quebec, canada. americansint, the succeeded in persuading the british to attack normandy in the spring of 1944. from august of 1943 until the spring of

1944, i was one of the few youngsters who knew when d-day would be and where it would happen. >> there was another secret that you knew about, the manhattan project. >> i knew a little about the manhattan project but very little. churchill and roosevelt were arguing by cablegram back and forth. it had been agreed by the scientists involved that this would become a joint project because the british had engaged in research earlier than the americans. it was also agreed that the significant final words should be and our country for security reasons because britain and 1942 and 1943 was still in a precarious state. this and scientists to this country to work with us and it was to be agreed that this was completely cooperative joint venture.

as time went on, the americans were beginning to pull back and not sharing everything that they knew with their british counterpart. this infuriated churchill and we began to get a number of very poignant telegrams from churchill to roosevelt which came through us. this lack of promised cooperation. i began to be aware of the manhattan project because of the quarrel with these men about what degree of cooperation there would be. >> when you would give roosevelt a document, did he ever write on it. you tell whether he had read what was handed to him? >> usually. the message is, if they were from churchill or stalin would come back to us for filing.

not always. sometimes he would give an answer to admiral leahy or his civilian assistant who harry hopkins who would sometimes put they thought were fdr's wishes in their own words. we were aware of what was going on. i very rarely saw a longhand note from fdr to one of those messages. occasionally we would have some but it was not normal. >> tell us about how the role you played in changing the presidential field. >> [laughter] the presidential flag and the presidential seal. in late 1944, congress passed a law creating the five-star rank for the senior admirals and generals of world war ii.

the military, army and the navy came up with the design for flags for these officers and roosevelt saw them and was not at all happy because admirals with five stars and generals with five stars -- my flag only has four stars. his presidential flag would appear to be outranked by military flags anoint him to no end. incidentally, very tiny things could get fdr upset but especially if they affected the navy. he did not like many of the names the navy would choose for ships under construction. he insisted on passing personally himself on the name of every new naval vessel that was to be built during world war ii. a phenomenal waste of time for a commander in chief but he had been assistant secretary to the navy in world war i and always referred to "my" navy. so much so that general marshall

at one time said the army is also yours. please do not forget that. >> the human interest stories came our way all the time. >> the presidential flag and seal. fdr told his naval aide to do something about this. and the eight as military naval people are accustomed pass it down to me. i was delighted. this was the sort of challenge that i enjoyed. i saw it out an expert on flags and heraldry and designs of that store and very quickly, we came to an agreement. there should be a circle of 48 stars around the presidential coat of arms, 48 because alaska and hawaii were not yet states. and the coat of arms should be in full color rather than just the dark blues it had been before.

so excuse me. i had some stitches made of the new flag design. a coat of arms in the center in full color, a circle of 48 stars around it. .oosevelt by this time had died and truman was president. >> harry truman in his first few months had much too much to think about to worry about the simple matter of the presidential flag. 1945, it wasof the tor him to be given work and he quickly approved the design. day, netting 45, when

the aircraft carrier was dedicated in the name of franklin delano roosevelt, the new presidential flag was voiced it and shown to the public for the first time. i always had some feeling of pleasure about this. hundreds of men and women live and work in the white house and can work their hearts out, that presidential, netting 45, when the aircraft carrier was dedicated in the name of franklin delano assistants do nt leave anything behind to show what they did. that was the one thing that i left behind that survived. the same flag today exists, changed only by the addition of stars for hawaii and alaska. every time you see the president of the united states on television, you see him behind a lectern and there is the seal of the president which i would like to refer to as my seal. >> george, you also change the eagle. tell us why that happened. >> my colleague who was an expert on heraldry said there is one thing we have got to change. it's been a discouragement since the 1880's when summary had the idea that in order to change the

presidential seal from a seal of the united states, we should turn the eagles head to the united -- to the left. that was back in the 1880's. and heraldry, when animal's head is turned to the left, that is an indication of illegitimacy. changed the direction on the new presidential seal. telling the public about what is correct and incorrect and heraldry would not mean a darn thing. so i wrote the white house press release saying because the war had just ended and president harry truman had decided to turn the eagles had to the right because it would be facing the all of branch of peace.

turning his head away from the left was war. he wondered to honor the fact that we were going to keep the peace of the world. elsey whos george passed away december 30 at the age of 97. >> he said to him, we have college-aged kids covered here in alabama. is really the kids in the elementary schools that are suffering. african-american kids are getting poor education and horrible buildings. equalseparate and not c-span.org -- equal. >> the documentary film wake -- film maker talks about her film and theis man

african-american community in the south and the plant build schools to bring education to children in rural america. >> first he said, why don't we just use the kid houses? the best thing that booker t. washington said was say, no, just like at tuskegee, i want the communities to build them. first, the six schools were built and that is really amazing. morphed into five thousand to schools, all over the south, including maryland. monday is martin luther king jr. day. we have featured programs on all three c-span networks. live:30 a.m. eastern, coverage of the british house of commons debate on whether or not to ban donald trump from entering the country. tv, then two, book

university of wisconsin professor william p jones and his book "the march on freedom, andobs, the forgotten history of civil rights." >> when he went to organize this march he had called off, everybody says you had better get martin luther king. he went to martin luther king and he said, i will support you but let's expand the goals of the march. it is not just about winning equal access to jobs or employment termination, it is winning the right to vote in the south. 8:30, the author talks about his book march: book two. et, the2:00 p.m. economics professor on the irani on iran's cold

war partnership with the united states. tothey had a look at britain help its imperial ambitions with russia. a whole generation of moved to the united states, a country that had no material ambitions and no history of colonialism in the region. announcer: and it 8:00, the real american. an interview with martin luther king, his comments on president kennedy's civil rights bill, and how gandhi influenced his work. for full schedule, go to c-span.org. next on lectures in history, arizona state university professor brooks simpson discusses the role of the president during wars, including those waged without a for