weekend on c-span3. like us on facebook. next, journalists paul brandes discusses his book under this roof about the white house and the presidency. 21 inside stories. he explains how presidents from george washington to barack obama have left their imprint on the executive mansion. abraham lincoln's war office. jfk's situation room. the study of george washington at mount vernon.

we have a great one for you this evening. vernon has had a relationship with the ford motor company. going back to henry ford. keep the mansion safe. it continually make sure that the mansion is safe from destructive fire. i would mention that this relationship to ford is crucial. they have never taken any government money.

we only accept money from private patriotic people and foundations. that allows us to maintain the house for the public. it is a continual challenge going forward.

he has 200 and 46,000 followers on his twitter account. wing reportted west it was ranked as one of the most influential political twitter accounts. but, when it became all the rarage, it was like, who is running that. we are delighted to have paul here. worked across wall street and

was a foreign correspondent. he has traveled over several continents. more than george washington. he is on many boards. you is partto give of the investment capital group that rights to air the super -- and >> i did that by myself. >> his cell. self. >> i did this at the rubenstein. theasier to talk about inside stories. he is jumping the gun.

i have one more thing to say. we know the importance of telling stories about houses and them. that go on in the white house is, arguably, ount well-known than m vernon. everyone give him a big mount vernon welcome. >> thank you. ok. ok. well, thank you. what an honor to speak at mount vernon. i am thankful. thank you for the introduction. thank you to mark san angelo.

st. angelo. he is the director here. my thank you to all of you. there are lots of books about presidents and the events they went through over 240 years. i want to add the layer of the white house and how it is changed over the years. how it changes to the building oft reflects the building america. i will break this down into two areas. n overview of how the white house expanded. by seeing ifut

this works. out that, we americans like to think of our country as a young country and, in the overall scheme of things, it is not that old. it, the think about white house is one of the oldest continuous residences for heads of state in the world. i do not know what happened with the numbers. presidents have lived in the white house longer than kings and queens in buckingham or the kremlin, would became a capital -- which became the capital in 1918.

there is a gentleman who never lived there, washington. he picked the winning design for tragically, he, would die about a year before john adams moved in. construction of the white house took eight years. this is what it looked like. this is a wonderful painting by peter for the white house historical association and you can see the basic contours of the building taking shape. and was the south lawn roosevelt island is off in the distance. a wonderful painting that is. ookways, the construction t $72 millionand cost

today. by the way, the real estate besite says that it would prime location, 18 acres. pretty good. tenants iny new about a year or so. a four-year lease. if we like them, it will be extended. adams, this is what it looked like. this is the south lawn. at the time, you notice no north. added forot be

another quarter-century. these steps, at the time, it was 1800, these were the principal entrance to the white house. the north entrance here. that is basically what john adams saw when he moved in and he was quite pleased. on his first full day of the white house, he wrote abigail amountte her a letter, ing to a benediction for building and he said, i pray to heaven the best of blessings on the house and all that shall inhabit it. may none but honest and wise men live under this roof, which became the title of the book. roosevelt was moved by this.

fdr found the phrase when he came in the white house and the mantle it carved in the above the fireplace. when you go in the state dining room, this is what it looks like, carved by roosevelt. adams did not last long, losing the election to thomas jefferson. beingefferson moved in, the architect he was, he made some changes, adding pavilions, the east and west wings. fastidious at was the president of the united states could run out

to the outhouse. isferson was very fast it and said it was not dignified thea president, adding reservoir the collected the and it was a big improvement with jefferson also changing the entrance to the side and this became the principal entrance to the white house and a window above the door carved by scottish stonemasons who would waste no opportunity for that. jefferson also made the extra a modern plan and he

actually made this into his office. jefferson's office, this goes and thishe northside statee office that the wanted as a dining room. this is the historical association. i will come over here and show ,ou what jefferson did surrounded by all the books. you may not know that thomas jefferson actually had a pet mockingbird up here in the upper right of the painting that he allowed to fly about and he would sometimes feed his bird out of his lips. he had it trained and it would

sit on his hand. just a wonderful painting. the painting also shows jefferson meeting with one of his closest assistants and meriwether lewis of lewis and clarke. lewis was recruited from the he was anrginia and officer in the army, offered a chance to come and work. plan, hek to the floor roomewis live in the east off small partitioned and a small working space. jefferson and lewis would go

plottedlong and they the crowning jewel of the .efferson administration decadeump ahead about a to dolly madison, who we were talking about earlier. she is a fascinating first lady. a wonderful first lady. everybody loves dolly madison. she is outgoing and everybody wanted the invitation when the medicines were in town. not so much because of james. dolly.dy wanted to meet she knew how to throw a party

with the food and the booze that was top shelf. lot of her entertaining took place in the blue room and she had a different color preference. it was read in her day. red in flames when the british came to town. and isaved what was then still now the most famous piece of artwork in the white house, the gilbert stuart portrait of george washington. painting,the average eight feet by five feet, half the size of the screen. it is gigantic. she knew that the british were coming and refused to leave

until the painting was safe. she said she is not leaving. the president was out in front. a couple of assistance tried to take the painting down. the frame was bolted to the wall. they took a hatchet and it was only then when she left. truly courageous. i think they named some snack cakes after her a little later on. a story of a president who was nearly killed in the white house on his own inauguration day, andrew jackson. one of the very few photos we have of jackson was taken in 1845, after he left the white house. a striking picture of him and he

died a couple of weeks after this was taken. that there wasas upell wish and crushed against the wall. the aides pushed him through the to theand evacuated him and these are some of the early ones. these are the early stages of the white house with jefferson adding the bathroom and a change in times with running water coming in during jackson and gas lighting during james k. polk. i will start with him.

we do not think about him very often. he was consequential as a president. probably the most consequential one term president we ever had. more territory was added during time.ars than any other more than the louisiana purchase. in, he was a big believer technology during the mexican-american war. touch with hisn commanders in mexico, using high-tech electronics in a wartime setting. presidents are criticized for taking too much time off with and obamalinton playing too much golf. i think they deserve a little bit of time off. this guy did not take any time off.

he literally took a handful of days off in his entire four years, worked his fingers to the bone, micromanaging everything to a granular degree and he dropped dead a couple of weeks after leaving office. presidents, whether riding a horse, playing golf, watching movies, they deserve downtime. we will talk about the movies in a few minutes. when k. polk was president the first known picture of the white house was taken. is no balcony on the south. the balcony is known as the harry balcony after truman had a long and nasty fight. for most of the history, that is what the south look like.

let's jump ahead with this gentleman. i'm sorry that the screen is a little blurry. he needs no introduction. this is a famous photo of lincoln taken. taken onhis was february 18. colorized.has been look at this. lincoln is in the flesh and it is just remarkable. lincoln and you want to pause, he was such a powerful photo and he suffered from depression, the war was stressful. you can see all of this in with a sadness in the

eyes. his is two months before association. lincoln was impressed by the telegraph and he got a and heo-coast telegram ordered the federal government to discontinue the usage of the pony express. at the time, it would take eight days to get something to the with the telegraph, lincoln did away with the pony express. it was this technology that helps him manage the civil war. if you have seen the steven spielberg movie, lincoln, it is

very authentic and gain of they ands plays the part -- daniel day-lewis spends a lot of room that was adjacent to the white house. use of the technology was mirrored by presidents. another president we do not hayesabout, rutherford b. , was a very high-tech president and was friends with edison and alexander graham bell, inviting them. helped speed up the entry into the marketplace and he knew what he was doing.

the number of the first white house telephone was 1. .hat was the number not a lot of people could call. there are 2-3 other phones and who was going to call? there was a phone at the treasury department and some private citizen had a phone. there might have been three phones in all of washington, at that time. phoneesident answered the himself sometimes. pretty sure that does not happen. back to theome second floor and lincoln for a second. i want to tell you about a great misunderstanding about him "so-called"he lincoln bedroom.

today, this is the current floor plan of the second floor and this is what is today called the lincoln bedroom. not so. that was his office and he called it the shop. this is what his office look like. it was the nerve center of the lincoln presidency with his ,abinet here, his speeches here everything happening in this room. he had maps on the wall to track the civil war and you can see that window on the left that looks out on the wall -- small and -- on the mall. there is the half-finished washington monument. they stopped the construction thate can look the aunt and at how the war was going to

and theconfederate flag campfires of troops. the enemy was often close. remarkable wartime conditions. so, that is lincoln's office it turned into a and this isruman what it looks like today with the rosewood had that was purchased by mary lincoln. bed,ln never slept in that by the way. the furniture is authentic. didquestion is if lincoln not sleep in the bed or the bedroom, where did he sleep? this is the authentic for plan and he actually slept down here

in the southwestern corner where the presidents now sleep. lincoln had a separate bedroom and the crush of visitors during the civil war was great. to whole life was confined just these couple of rooms and he insured his privacy and security with a secret passageway builds that led to a yellow room that they called a library and this was the second floor during his day. is not just the lincoln bedroom. lots of room have changed identity and purpose over the

years. here is one more story about how those rooms changed. the currentin, thend floor and i added north side of the white house and the second window from the right. room ofa private dining first family's and, if i come in early, i see the light on and that is a private dining room winda sometimes shadowy and mrs. obama fixes herself a cup of coffee or something. here is president ford sipping his morning oj. cool tv.he

remember those tvs? here is nancy reagan on the visit to the white house in 2009. this is the private dining room. , people do not know about this room. it is, today, a private dining room and it actually has a morbid history. william henry harrison, the first president to die in office died in the room. he died in that room in 1862 and assassination, autopsy, and informing performed. occurredcreepy things the presidents, when they are eating breakfast, they are aware there is kind of

a morbid history and it did not he can become a dining room until the kennedys moved in with jackie kennedy. she wanted more privacy for her kids and she converted the room in 1963rivate kitchen in the last year of the kennedy presidency. as long as we're talking about to thisedys here, prior , this was the dining room and mrs. kennedy did not like the fact that she was going downstairs to the state floor. it was cumbersome and intrusive.

now, as long as we're talking about the kennedys, everybody knows about the way -- the andoration made in 1961 1962. she never got the credit deserves. it is the changes to the west wing that we need to talk about here. intoow that, three months teddy's term, he had the worst humiliation with the bay of pigs and, in the aftermath, the president decided he was knocking the information he wanted quickly enough and it was not the right information. he wanted his own set up and he and he situation room moved it to the old executive

building and this was the first 1960's.n in the early what john f. kennedy wanted and what he got i. he went faster without going through the channels in the state department and he wanted .aw and unfiltered information that is what he got. the irony is, after the bay of pigs situation, there was a big role in what was the greatest foreign-policy achievement, the cuban missile crisis against the soviets. hugehe situation room was in his presidency for that reason. the situation room is badly named.

this is not one room. a several rooms. this is the oval office for and above. you can see that it is several rooms. night obama got bin laden, this is where that was taken. did to thet kennedy west wing. is a littley story thepy and it concerns documented cover discussed events of the 20th century. it concerns the kennedy assassination. mrs. kennedy redid the mansion and she wanted to redo the oval office and there is caroline kennedy, who hated the green

carpet that went back to truman. she said, i want to redo the office. out anded everything the workers told her they both needed to be away for about two days to do the job. and the only two days when they would be away happened to be the third weekend in november and, literally, as from forttheir way worth to dallas to get into the motorcade, work and went into the oval office and removed the resolute desk, ripped up the , and as the president went from fort worth to dallas, they put in the new carpet on the day of his murder and the color is a deep blood red.

the afternoon of the association -- assassination in 1963. daniel patrick moynihan, who went on to be a senator, he saw said, it was as if they knew a new president was coming. mrs. kennedy saw the carpet the next day for a few minutes while the casket was in the east room. she returned to the white house only twice for the rest of her life, it was too painful for her. these the stores i try to find and talk about. here. , look atevelt,

how young the girls look when they came back. that is why the more confident pictures i have taken. theater.ed a movie the movie theater is one of the great perks in the white house. watching ae reagans movie and obama lexapro super and i think this .as 2009 if you look at the records of what they watch over the year, they reflect the tastes of the

president and the times they live. -- in thene movie quiz section of the evening -- that resonated with more presidents than any other. can you guess the movie? it will be obvious when i explained. >> patton? >> everyone from eisenhower to the president. gone with the wind is a good guess. that is not it. >> manchurian candidate? >> that would be -- that would be -- no one ever gets this. the one movie that resonates with so many presidents is "high noon." the gary cooper western.

a lot of people have seen it. eisenhower loved the movie, so did ronald reagan, george w. bush, bill clinton claims to have seen it 20 times -- "i love this movie!" was that good? what's your name?" why high noon? , it is up to him to defend the town all by himself. presidents, that resonates with presidents. they sometimes feel the world's burden is theirs alone and this helps them make life and death decisions on the run and that is

why the presidency is called the loneliest job in the world. with good reason, i think. there are a ton of other stories i can tell you here. i will stop and thank you so me and iinviting appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. thank you. if they would any questions, feel free. -- if somebody has any questions, feel free. speak untildo not you actually have the microphone. anybody? footprint ofs the the structure changed since they burned down? did they rebuild on the same architecture? change?tit

>> the outer shell of the white house was there and they told uilt around it. it expanded with grant as president. they thought about moving the house over a bluff right after the lincoln assassination. in the truman era of the white they gave margaret a p get it fell through the ceilingiano and they really thought it was going to collapse. they had to move into the blair house. it was interesting. pianoy gave margaret a

and it fell through the ceiling. they really thought it was going to collapse. they had to move into the blair house. it was interesting. >> you talked about coming into the white house in seeing the dining room lights. can you talk about some of the things that you have found to be a pleasure in the job, as well as a burden? the reasonsure is why i decided to run. it was such a privilege. you are enveloped by history. i was in the east room. i have been there a million times. you go into the center of the the famousu have gilbert stuart painting on the wall was chilled forward sworn

in after nixon resigned. ford, swornh gerald in after nixon resigned. the history is just remarkable and you cannot escape it. when you walk when they can walk and were thomas jefferson and lledklin roosevelt ro around, it is mind blowing to go in there. in the floor plan, i think it was the current white house on the second floor where they have " room noted as "cos. what is that? >> the chief of staff office. >> it looks like it is in the private area. >> oh? i will go back and look at it.

sure. >> fascinating. rdve you cover the fo children smoking marijuana on the roof of the white house? was just a lad. that. heard there is somebody in the room who could comment on this. i will not put that on the spot. i have heard that story and with jrenna bush. their children. date -- they are children. it may be true. it is probably true. >> i was interested to see the painting of the white house while it was under construction and we were told that, during

the complete reconstruction of the white house in 1950, when it, my friend got the bricks and built the slave quarters in the greenhouse from the bricks? >> the entire structure was not from the bricks, but they were part of it. that is correct. reconstruction, 1948-1952, truman told the guys to get the job done. wood, frames, they were a if you are an

archaeologist, this became a good project. faceting presentation. i have a question from the introduction. what did the russians make of the super bowl? a supernot normally get bowl question. russia, this is how long ago it was. the redskins were a good team. beforer for, -- the year , they had won the super bowl. i actually figured out that i had big screen televisions and i could make this happen and i called called the nfl and

and they said,is convince us and we will let you do it. russians, iand the do not know what to make of it. they think that they invented a small. they do. they did not know what to think. question? mount vernon has the best questions for any speaker. there must be something to ask this man. i will go ahead. >> this gentleman. >> what is the most interesting story about grant? , i am not sure if this is apocryphal, he got a speeding

ticket. horses and a buggy and like to go out around town and was speeding down the road and and he started to give the president a ticket and grant said, do your job and he got the five dollar ticket and grant thinks him and went back to the white house. one of my favorite stories. he is the president while -- who got the speeding tickets. that eleanor roosevelt used to have also to time. come during her what was the wackiest one that she had?

sometimes invite total strangers she met on the streets and there were often not enough bedrooms to go around. i am sure that polarity would ensue. just like to talk to people and that is what she did. she was an interesting character. >> was sally hemmings on staff? >> you are talking about jefferson's mistress with it is believed that he fathered six children with.

i do not think she was. that is a good question. >> one of my favorite stories in wilson, theates to last virginia president who got interestingthey had relationships. died while heife was in office and he wanted to meet somebody else and thought he never would. later, he saw a woman on a street corner who happened to be a friend of the person he was with, his personal

physician. her name was edith and the president was smitten. they began to date and the president -- as if being president was not impressive enough -- he really wanted to impress her and he shared top government secrets with her. andas a huge security lapse i would think that being president was enough. that is what he did and they wound up getting married and, during the first world war, to code and decode government messages for the war department and she sent messages abroad and decipher them.

very interesting. stroke in 1919 that nearly killed him and he could not speak or move for a long time. it was one of the greatest history.in american his wife, doctors, staff, they completely cover this up. the president was absolutely paralyzed and she took it upon herself to do his job and she looked at papers, signing documents, deciding what was and was not important. this was kept hushed. people figured it out when the president did not appear for weeks on end. this is one of the most under told stories it is remarkable -- under told stories. -- undertold stories.

it is remarkable. storyteller.great i remember you telling me about a speed dial. >> a speed dial? >> you hit a button on a phone and you got a gentleman in california. >> that has nothing to do with any of this. it is like the super bowl. come do these questions from? >> is not being reported -- this is not being recorded. ended up hanging up on ronald reagan one time. no big deal. i was working for a public relations company. they are still in business, despite this story. on the staff, after reagan left on staff atuse,

this public relations company formerila tate, a assistant to nancy reagan. it was 11-12:00 and they decided to take a break and these offices. there is athere and rolodex on her desk and somebody started looking at it and said, oh here is the private number four the reagans. -- for the reagans. number.e, i called the i was 24 years old.

i thought that an assistant or someone would answer the phone. they picked up the phone and there was the unmistakable "hello?" up and just hung hightailed it out. i was certain that we were all going to get it. nothing ever happened. so, that is the time. that is the time i hung up on the president. >> one last question to finish this off. >> that will go in the next book, maybe. hi. excellent presentation. i have not been to the white house in 40 years.

would you consider giving a behind the scenes tour to a few of us? >> i think that i just did. there,t way to get in with security so strict now, is to go through your congressperson. that process is laborious. weeksve to start 6- in advance. to be on thepeople gate and i do not encourage jumping the fence. if you can take the tour, you should. it is wonderful. you see the east room and the state dining room. you can see the adams benediction. if you are lucky on the day you is there, when the president

coming or going, they may take you out back and you can watch the chopper, which is really a thrill. i hope you get to do that. >> let's give him a big round of applause. thank you all for coming out tonight. a couple administrative notes. these books are for sale outside the door. in them to the desk. if you run out of the stock of books, you can purchase them from us at a discounted rate and we will ship them to you. you can have them personalized for you or anyone. it is a nice gift for thanksgiving. >> if you like the book, get on amazon and write a review. that would be helpful.

shameless plug. >> thank you. let's give them another round. >> you are watching american history tv all weekend and every weekend on c-span. night, on the communicators, differing views on nets neutrality.

the company was the first to sue on internet service providers. and, christopher lewis supports plan.c >> we objected to the way they the internet standards and they adopted them as regulations that were pursuant to common carrier authority. this was applied to calming carriers and it has been repealed for all the common carriers and we do not think it is the right form of regulation of the internet. >> we are worried about consumers and that drives us. and to the best they can

make sure everyone has access to the internet. two-tierede the internet made. this creates concern. .> watch campaign, c-span takes you on the road to the white house as we follow + the candidates. -- as we follow the candidates. >> thousands gathered to discuss a recent shipment that is

related aid debates over a new libertyving the sons of to protest and dump the sea. -- the tea. this >> and now, ladies and gentlemen, the 242nd anniversary celebration of the boston tea party. >> good evening. my name is george. perhaps you have heard of me. i have been a shoemaker most of my life, a tradesman of the humble class, but now as an old man, i parade around in my colonial clothing as the last