to do. even their fiercest critics would agree, why do we criticize them? because they got what they wanted done. we can later decide if it was good or bad. inside theet policies themselves, they set the template for every national security council system that has followed. matt bundy gets a little bit of credit here. security the national visor to a policy position, kissinger takes it one step further. we are now the state where the state department and defense department can't do anything without running it through an xt first. , what i think at the time did look like and understand is nixon's very unusual choice, we can so easily forget this, nixon

kissinger just rolls off the tongue. it is like lennon mccartney, nixon-kissinger. at the time that would not have made any sense. it was a really unorthodox choice at the time. nixon violated almost every rule in the book. the president should have a strong personal relationship with his security advisor. the national security adviser, the textbook should say should be loyal to the president and party. what was very close to nelson rockefeller, nixon's main rival. third, given the jobs almost impossible responsibilities of managing diplomacy, military power, intelligence, and all this national security policy, advisorbook says the should have considerable

government experience. yet his entire professional life had been spent in academia. those are almost the exceptions that prove the rule. this is a weird choice that nixon made. even more so, does anyone member the name bill rogers? one knows who bill rogers was. at the time when nixon text -- nixon picked rogers as secretary of state he would seem like a inspired choice, that rogers was destined to take his place. after all rogers would have everything you are looking for. he had been a long time and a friend of nixon. he went back to their collaboration on his case in the late 40's. the checkered speech in 1952 was this very serious experience.

with him on that. rogers was attorney general so they had a close executive branch partnership. of course rogers had gained tremendous experience running a large agency as attorney general. then he had a successful legal career. so it would have seemed at the time this would be the next in rogers administration and team. this was not to be. in, who isre next one of the most complicated personalities, he was certainly beset by personal insecurities in many areas, but when it came to foreign policy he was quite confident. kissinger deliberately sots someone who although not a political supporter could function as a alter ego.

he also found someone who shared nixon's geopolitical outlook. to re-shape the national security machinery of the united states government. they found common cause in reasserting the power of the presidency. the second theme is remind ourselves of just what kind of bureaucratic opposition they did face in taking office. in fact they succeeded imposing their grant strategic design shouldn't obscure that this was a hard task. it is not just individual foreign officers or cia analysts would have a different take on how the world should work, within the american government they have developed an entire bureaucratic structures that are dedicated to a particular orientation and use of american power in the world. for example the arms control and disarmament agency, its entire

existence was predicated on negotiations with the soviets. any deviation from that would all must pose and existential agencyto an arms control instance. there isl and is -- going to be massive institutional resistance to a concept like a linkage. what is good to bring in u.s. china relationships, the vietnam conflict, bring those new factors into the bilateral relationship. so basing these entrenched bureaucratic interests, nixon needed to centralize control to hold the reins of his own government and steer large swaths of it.

i will mention this briefly but this is something to reflect upon as part of the larger themes of our conference. nixon and kissinger had a particular use of history. this was not kissinger drawing on the doctoral work. rather they did this in a more pedestrian way but still is a particular type of history by policymakers. general good pastor had done this for eisenhower and having him redesign the nfc. it was a dying eisenhower in the hospital bed where he said screw the state department, you can't trust those guys. it also meant reading extensive reports on what worked. that was a historical sensibility. comments of on your

an ambivalent relationship. i think it is interesting to reflect on their approach to consolidate and control the executive branch. or that antidemocratic restoring some sense of democratic accountability to foreign policy? yes to both. hand, they very much believe in the history. they did not want us getting our grubby fingers in the making of high stake craft. they wanted to insulate that from the vicissitudes of public opinion and what they thought were unimportant predilections. they saw the institution of bureaucracy as very out of touch with popular opinion. himself as much more a man of the people, much more in line with the values of ordinary

americans. he saw himself as speaking much more for those values than the elite eurocrats at the state department or the cia. nixon intended to give the people the foreign policy they want through a system that return power from the bureaucracy to its rightful home in the white house where the occupant had been elected and was elected again. i think this democratic ambivalence will pervade his including eventually disregarding and disdaining the law as well. >> fantastic, thank you. the floor is open.

>> i'm going to abuse my power to ask the first question. what is driving nixon and kissinger's desire to concentrate power, executive authority? bundy, but they didn't take it to that extent. they couldn't have taken it to that extent. these processes happen gradually over time. perhaps they would have concentrated power like that. it's not ideology, it's not party affiliation that's leading to the centralization or concentration of executive authority. anyone who holds power wants to do it. what are the structural factors or what is driving this overall process? of this as ank

few. they had a capacious understanding of executive authority. this is where the national security act, there is some ambiguity to operate there. in -- just the way they consolidated power, i don't think they broke laws. they took existing constitutional and statutory authorities as far as they could go. realize the vulnerabilities of the bureaucracy. information and knowledge was power and if they were able to control the information flows, even the paper flows , that that would also give them control over policy. they had a very deliberate strategy about the political appointees.

they had a few there. they had a capacious understanding of all the elements of national power, the reside inhose could the white house, so each bureaucracy was going to be limited the pentagon could only say so much on the dramatic initiatives. i think those were a number of their keys. >> let me ask you about this tendency toward paranoia that you could save may be both men i'm interestedse in nixon as it pertains to the broader thesis of your paper. distrust of the foreign policy bureaucracy and

his desire toward centralization lends to a feeling on his part that the ivy league liberals in the state department were out to get him? >> that is exactly what he said. and even to some extent the democratic congress was composed of people who are going to be out to get them. ofuess i wonder if that kind paranoia is fueling this to a larger extent for nixon and healthspring about this focus this concentration? are exactlyou right. i want to develop it more. paranoia forhat all the labels. was his paranoia, part of it was his time as vice

president, he felt disrespected by them. he loved to rail against the georgetown dinner party set. as i have a little throwaway line. just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they don't really hate you. didn'twasn't just they -- it wasn't just they had contempt for nixon. they had an outlook on how they wanted diplomacy to be conducted. the paranoiaing from all the substances differences, they are all there. been able to parcel out how much was one, how much was another. >> i really enjoyed this talk. i'm hoping maybe you and jeff

can both comment on this, because i'm curious about your evaluation of the utility of executing policy, which is where you derive this from. one could very easily lumped in the third at some point, who becomes kissinger's deputy. as you are discussing last night, generally given high remarks as national security adviser because he is seen as an adjudicateer who can all the different agency positions but will give his personal advice above and beyond. china, he talks andt about his worldview his operationalizing of it for isn he becomes president based in opposition to the model you just described.

as am bassett or he is cut out of everything. is it simply driving on the one hand nixon is so much more self confident in his understanding and view of the world? how would you define the utility of these two different models? i need aroom and -- lot more. them he give you a couple of reflections in this conversation. it worked for the time they were in offense -- in office. for good or for ill. that is why they continue to be talked about so much. long-term,over the their approach failed or at

least did not reach maximal success for a number of reasons. by cutting out the constitutional bureaucracy so much, they were cutting out the vehicles for institution he -- for their own policies. bureaucrats atr state and cia are relieved of that pressure to maintain that whole framework. also conversely going back to my democracy reflections, eventually they lose the american people on the right and the left. i think we can understand the election of carter in 76 and reagan in 1980 as twin reactions against the amoral polity of the nixon kissinger approach. when reagan challenges ford, he's challenging nixon and kissinger. he's wanting to read more allies the american policy. i think the broader sense of

american values and democracy diminished its staying power and sense of build. >> three things on the relationship, which i think is remarkably complicated, he was the deputy at the nfc. bush cannot stand kissinger, and therefore you have this interesting dynamic where you have the mentor to bush's chief strategist as a person bush cannot generally stand. this in the way charlie was kind enough to remark upon. singles basically no insult in the entire document. thee is no profanity in entire document, which is amazing considering it was not written but dictated.

and usually after a few drinks at night. bush refers to kissinger as not a gentleman. thing hethe worst could possibly be in his worldview. is indicative of a broader problem that bush and those like him see kissinger as operating not only in the diplomatic and bureaucratic system, but not properly representing where america should be on the world stage. there was a very detailed brouhaha. i will alleviate you from hearing all the details, when the united states to chose to support nationalist china's continued representation on the united nations general assembly, where as most of the rest of the world wanted to move over to communist china. bush defended it to the hilt.

to undermineided policy by essentially showing up in china the day before the vote in order to demonstrate what they cared about. when bush was down to washington, basically got down to a fistfight. what he wrote in his diary was that i explained to him that he did not explain that he did not understand america, and i did. i think that is a late term there, the kissinger is a man as an immigrant, as a jew, as a new yorker. in a way that a blue blooded wasp could possibly do and should be in the white house. just one quick more thing. >> we have time for one more

question, you are giving the next paper. >> i yield my time to the gentleman from my home state. what is really crucial in terms of the nfc is he is noted as ae best example nationalist security advisor because he wasn't an honest broker. skill croft wrote the model for how they should operate following the iran-contra affair , but of course it is important to remember he did not subsequently want the job. he designed his job and said some of the else should do it. explained to him i actually need you. but it is important to know he described the job which is in his mind impossible to operate. >> we have one more question in the back.

your name? with the glasses. >> i have a question about who really controls the appointments within dod. in his book about layered, he said layered accepted the job of secretary of defense on the condition that he would control all appointments in dod. do you have contrary examples? >> they let layered have some appointments but they have a number of their own keep an eye on him. david packard was close to kissinger. of course as you know he also had his mold, the navy guy who was recording conversations. talk about a dysfunctional environment.

>> join me in thanking will. this brings us to our final speaker of the morning. jeffrey, who teaches at southern methodist university and is head of the center for presidential history. titled george h.w. bush, strategy and the stream of history. >> i used up so much of my time -- i used up my times i will be brief. my center has the wonderful opportunity to put on 35 events per year. as a testament to how much we have enjoyed this one, i have sent them everything you guys have sent us and said this is how we should be doing it. i want to think not only the co-panelists but everyone from the conference.

it is really wonderful to come to a conference where you can learn so much from each of the -- each of the panelists. i want to point out one in theicular, noting that three worst people in the world are "the jews, the chinese, and the blacks." out.t to say i stand as a jew i always eat chinese and christmas and then go out lebron play basketball. we talk about nixon, we talk about kissinger, we talk about john quincy adams. i want to invoke a name we have not yet invoked, and that of course is donald trump.

one of the interesting things about grand strategy is the way in which it strikes me our discussions are often time catchphrases. we like to narrow down grand strategies as a way to instruct others. and we come away with lines that are useful and not particularly deep and not often subject to analysis. evaluate ashould grand strategist is not by what they say, but also by what they value and subsequently accomplished. this is why i bring up trump. if one listens to what trump says, much of it, not all of it, sounds remarkably prudent and obvious, and therefore probably right upon first glance. it is only after you subsequently feel that the surface and think about it do you see the problems.

from his foreign-policy address in washington, he suggested in the same speech we need to be steadfast and always upfront and reliable for our allies. turned around the and suggested we need to be unpredictable. because productive ability is the thing that will most take us apart on the world stage. but then he said we must remind our allies that not only will we theirby them if they pay bills and more specifically pay us to defend them. each of these the average american will listen to. it is reasonable to be unpredictable, anyone who watches a sporting event knows unpredictability. we should be steadfast. who doesn't want some videos to pay the bills? it is only when you put them together do you realize the complexity comes from the way they not only interact but contradict.

george bush.e to a person who had a grand strategy. i would go far to say he was quite the grand strategist. he's also a person we don't put in the canon of grand strategists. he rarely appears in the same sentence as a kissinger, as a wilson. one of the reasons for that as he managed to accomplish everything he essentially wanted, but without telling anybody about it. and more importantly without doing a heck of a lot, except when the things he cared about most were at stake. bush, istand george would like to come back to a phrase that was mentioned by our keynote speaker, and that is a phrase used by the great depression prussian strategist of the 19th century. in one of his writings that the role of the policy maker the role of the statesman

is to not change the course of the stream of history, but to note the stream of history and merely plunge their hand in. not to change the course, but to merely play a part within the stream of history. this is the best way to understand george h w bush. because bush was a man who came to office fully believing that the stream of history that is the way the world was moving, and the ideals the world was beginning to accept, were ones that were not only inherently good to his way of thinking, but more importantly inherently good to america's best interest. bush believed the world was turning towards democracy, that the world was turning towards freedom. that it was turning towards free markets. none of these terms did bush way a need to detail in a that a scholar may find

satisfactory. self evident to him, that democracy was a good thing, that free markets were a good thing. for a person born with a silver spoon in his mouth, born on third base thinking he hit a triple, dish should not surprise us. one important thing to know about players that are rounding third and heading for home is that they rarely choose that moment to stop and question the rules of the game. score and bush took office at a moment when he thought the united states was about to score. more importantly was about to win. the soviet union was turning to a democracy. turning away from an agate -- from an antagonistic polarity to

a more cooperative model. a notion we must cross the east-west divide rather than make a deep break across europe as we had in previous generations. on the world and saw that we were in effect about to win. what do you do? you do not change the rules of the game. we notice from his inauguration speech, when bush proudly said we know what works, freedom works, democracy works. then in the he suggested something that i think was even more interesting, it the stage is a famous article and argument that came out several months later, the notion that we were at an end of history, not because things would not subsequently happened but because democracies had won the final battle that all of human history had been in a contest to see if we could govern ourselves and the key to

understanding the changing world was that democracy has won. we were no longer going to be governed by kings when tyrants but rather through some democratic form of government. this is something bush says several months before fukuyama. we do not have to talk deep into the night about how we should govern ourselves, rather we already know, we already know what works. he develops a style of diplomacy that i like to call hippocratic diplomacy. what a makes sure that crises do not turn bad, the dangerous situations do not descend into chaos. a prime example of this can be seen in china and eastern europe

. that is how bush reacted through 1989 when crowds formed, chanting for democratic reform. bush's reaction to each of these situations was to say, let me say nothing. anything i say is only potentially going to make it worse. if i praise to my craddick protesters, that might lead them barricades. not toeat fear was repeat the mistake of eisenhower , not to inspire people to revolt expecting american help that was never going to come. the united states was not going to send troops into the middle of beijing in 1989 to defend our

.esters i'm not going to say anything. despite bush's best effort to say nothing, the chinese government still used a few .hings he did say he still use that as a rationale for ultimately cracking down on protesters and trying to dismantle and destroy sino-american relations in the aftermath. bush adopted the same approach when the same protesters took to the streets behind the iron curtain, led us through nothing that will row things up. are going ours way, governments will essentially turn around and except greater reform.

by this point in the fall we have a dramatic example of what happens when things go wrong, tiananmen's where. bush's reaction to the fall of and the entire fall of the soviet bloc and turns -- turn towards democracy has to be within the context of the understanding that only months before, people had been met with tanks when they protest. he -- his reaction was, if we can keep people from turning violent, these will eventually turn out in our direction. direct the economy with donald trump, to incorporate the movements he moves away from platitudes into action. there were moments when bush act did. the first you are probably thinking of is not the one i

will talk about trade the second is the one bush will tell you is the most important thing he did in office. singular history that divided east and west throughout the cold war. why did bush think it was important to unify germany? clearly also the leader within the western alliance. the other three countries that occupying legal authority over the germans at the end of french,r ii that the british, and soviet union were deeply opposed to unification. only bush and the germans thought this was a good idea. essentially managed to push it through by telling each of his allies and the soviets that they required a relationship

with the united states more than they required germany to remain divided. he went to margaret thatcher and explain to her that special relationship is the vital plank policybritain foreign and i care about this more than the special relationship. with mikael gorbachev he promised the basis of any post environment could only be based on how the soviets acted and in their acceptance of germany. bush understood, bush had a particular reading of the 20th century which was in some ways not the same as one moat

understand as taught in the schools. like the secretary of treasury for franklin roosevelt looked at the problem of germany in the 20th century, they recognize the problem of the entire 20th century was the germansof germany, that cause all of europe's strategic and military problems. bush's response was that the was not the europe germans but that it was filled with europeans. europeans by their nature across centuries did nothing but fight against each other. national, religious, ethnic reasons straight the only time in his view that europe had known sustained peace was when the united states had been

after 1945, and after nato came into existence, nato which allowed the americans to not only have an invitation into europe, but to maintain a large military presence as the most powerful european country. to bush's mind, if you did not have a continued nato after the cold war, the stream of history might diverge. we see moving towards democracy only works if we keep violence and chaos from developing. how do we do that? you keep an american presence there because that's the one thing that managed to do it over time great how do we ensure the americans stay? how do we make sure nato survives? we have to make sure germany not only unifies, but unifies within

nato. one of the key debate points over whether germany would develop and how it would after the vision was ended at the end of the cold war was perhaps it might become a neutral country, a demilitarized country. perhaps it might join the warsaw someone mosts likely to occur, perhaps all of germany might enter nato but western and nato troops would never enter eastern germany. bush's reaction was that anything that does any ink to diminish germany's role in nato weakens nato. for what purpose do we have to maintain the stream of history going under american leadership in europe? bush canlusion is why be understood as a grand strategist who moves not only within the stream of history, but beyond platitudes.

a person who was able to do nothing to be hippocratic when he thought the stream was moving in the right direction, but a person the was willing to act when he had his core beliefs and values questions. in this case, the core value for bush that mattered more than anything else was that only the united states was capable of maintaining order in a post-cold war world. we can argue and dissect that assumption but to understand bush, this was the most important idea of all. thank you. [applause] in the back. i was interested in what you said towards the end about bush being adamant about the continued existing viability of nato as the anchor of the u.s.

presence in europe. it seems like there were alternatives or at least one alternative for continued u.s. presence in europe but not necessarily through nato, and that's what gorbachev was talking about with the common european home. create or and either alter some kind of pan-european security institutions. was it decided that it was not open for compromise or debate that nato must endear and be the bedrock of the western order, even after the cold war, and who was it? bush himself who personally had this belief? have you seen any of the internal deliberations over that? >> this is an area where we can

put a lot of credit on bush himself. if we look at his policies towards china, he can be critiqued dramatically for underestimating his own influence and understanding of china. when we look to the gulf war, that's a place he really followed the ice of his advisors and they helped him think about the importance of an american response to the gulf war. nato and germany are something bush came to as the leader of his administration and had to fight within his administration to get by him, which is an unusual circumstance, and demonstrates he was not a totalitarian leader. he was willing to ultimately put his name to be piece of paper. adamant ands quite i would argue that you can find proof of this as early as

november of 1989. soon after the wall falls but before from the coal makes german unification the purpose of his singular time in office. bush is arguing that we must keep our role in nato. they were not confident that any other system would ultimately prove workable. it gives you a sense of not only bush's understanding of strategy in history, but also his lack of novelty. this is not a person you would normally associate with originality and foreign policy. he wanted to preserve everything that got us up to this point. when you think about pushes new world order, announced ironically on september 11 of

1990, it's a very clear articulation of raglan roosevelts worldview. at the end of the cold war we get a chance to do what we should have always been able to do in 1945, 1946. most people at the time heard the new order and said, there's nothing new here, to which bush's response was, exactly. mediae for terrible relations. while there were ideas circulating that perhaps the soviets and americans could both , while there were other ideas about different security organizations -- to bush's mind, those were all possibilities nato already existed trade better to keep with what we know works. i haven't even been looking

down at the end of this table. we have 10 minutes. i don't know how we will get through those questions. keep your questions as brief as possible. >> thanks. i wonder to what extent can your description of virtue be applied to barack obama. obama in an interview a few -- this democratic , ilomacy you've identified imagine that is a label obama would embrace as well. right.'s exactly i think obama has talked about bush 41 as a real touchstone for

how foreign policy should be run , and also has this appreciation for the long term structural advantages the united states has that smalld terrorist acts are perhaps less important to the overall trajectory of the market than the bond markets, and we should keep our focus on the bigger issues that matter rather than the surface difficult issues, that we should keep our focus on the currents. i think the best way to understand obama is that he really is the next bush. wondering if you can speculate on how bush's grand strategy would have guided him if he had run a second term in the various foreign-policy crises that clinton faced in his first term. >> it's a great question and i'm

glad it's what i don't have to write about. when you ask bush's people what the new world order was, once they are uncomfortable with the understanding that it was just franklin roosevelt's, they will tell you, we were going to figure that all out in the second term. i think the kinds of issues that quentin had to face were the kinds of issues that bush was ill-prepared to deal with. he did not know what to do with ethnic terrorism and violence. to know if you would have done a better job with those issues. one area i think you could make a good claim that things would have gone better in the long term would have been that i'm not at all convinced the bush administration would have endorsed enlargement of nato. whether or not you think nato enlargement was a good thing or

not, you have to judge or whether or not the statement i made was a positive or negative about bush. if you believe the essential antagonism within russian-american relations today is the issue perceived to be a broken promise over meadows enlargement, i think bush would not have enlarged nato, at least not as quickly as clinton did, and we would have been able to remove that spur. >> if you think about the theories of power of these three individuals we just listen to, i'm scratching my own head about whether or not this is a story about continuity and change, how you would ring bush in dialogue with nixon, kissinger, and kennedy. kennedy this romantic figure

whose kind of out of place in the bureaucracy he's working in. you have a story in the and and kissinger very much rooted in diagnosis, bureaucracies working across purposes. next too early to get the layer down beyond how the administration response to these various crises? >> great question. let me focus on next and. bush was a devoted a of richard and and considered next and -- nixon to considered be a mentor. someone who became friends immediately after nixon lost his bid for presidency in 1960. it tells you a lot about bush as a person, he's such a gentleman

that it does not occur to him that he should write a letter of congratulations as much as he should write two letters of condolence. he became a frequent correspondent of nixon and began to appreciate the same centrality of american power in hardorld and focusing on power that drove much of nixon and kissinger. i'm struck that kissinger and nixon by their nature are skepticss, or at least . and bush is by nature an optimist to surrounded himself with pessimists and skeptics. wrote theand nixon same exact memo about the centrality of american power in the world and particularly in europe trade i have the same memo that kissinger wrote about the need to keep nato going. it was written in 1974.

only the united states can essentially keep europe together. kissinger's subversion ends with, but man, are we in trouble. with, isn't it great when we get this to work. >> thank you. launch off that point about the sunny temperament and and take you on a wild goose chase. ways for the circumstances he inherits that he's talked about. by plungingthe talk your hand into the stream of history and understanding where you think it's going. pushes read is it's going in the right direction. i'm curious to hear you think through and if bush actually

provides a model here about what happens if you have not a benign international consensus, at least an increasingly darkening one. do no harm where things are going well but if you need to intervene, you do. we have interventions. bush laid out one. the gulf is another one. increasingly in a darkening international environment with sunny temperament, is this a model for more introduction? >> let me answer the two questions i would prefer to answer. it's hard for me to imagine how to answer that question for bush. the things he saw going right in the world were not short-term.

one of the papers noted the famous phrase that what drives things? events, my dear boy, events. bush was not concerned with that great he saw the things going right in the world as inherently good, if you did not recognize democracy was a good thing, you will eventually and if you did not see the importance of capitalism, you will eventually. the things that could be going bad in the world are the things you will come to understand how which is are in time dramatic difference between his administration and the other bush administration. one way to understand the utility of the stream of history as a concept is to look at a comparison between bush 41 and bush 43. bush 41's approach was to take

the world and say, we're going in the right direction. administration's approach granted in a different era of crisis and with a different sense of urgency was, the world is going in the right direction so let's paddle really hard and we will stream -- go even faster down the stream of history. bush 41's approach to middle east democracy was, let's be a good example, let's keep chaos from occurring, and we will get there eventually. one of his key advisers aggested that democracy is good thing, let's make them democratic and good things will happen. how quickly do you paddle is the difference. >> both david and will with some brief comments or questions for jeff and then we will get jeff the final word. >> i'll go first.

jeff, you are at the vanguard of .ush 41 revisionism battle here.hill we usually don't think of one term president's as successes, especially those who have one term. did the american people make a mistake in 1992 by not giving this guy a second term? here i had a driver who was born in a saudi refugee camp in the early 90's because his parents fled their under threat of execution, having participated in the shia uprising. don't bush's strategies

do anything to encourage, have you look at the shia uprising and to what degree the bush administration did encourage and do a hungry there following the first gulf war? or is that my understanding, the popular misunderstanding? the bush administration would tell you that they made two mistakes in the aftermath of the invasion of iraq -- liberation of kuwait is a better way to put it, which encouraged the shia uprising. the first is obvious, the second is not and the second is more important. yes, here's a moment where they overstep their rhetorical balance. by saying words which

inadvertently encouraged people to rise up against saddam hussein. the second reason that was more important, all available evidence from all intelligence agencies throughout the entire world suggested that if we're going to ask how long saddam hussein will last in the spring of 1991 after his thorough routing of his forces and embarrassment over kuwait, should not be measured in terms of days but rather hours, that the full expectation is that within hisople government are going to take him out because that's what happens when you are a dictator who loses your army and embarrasses yourself on the world. there is a real sense in which the bush administration was wrong and overstating rhetorically and recognizing here's a moment where we are not

hippocratic in their words, but they hoped it was not going to matter at all because who's going to think that putting down the shia when there's about to in theup within iraq first place. the second question as to whether the united states made a mistake in electing clinton, two points. is, i think in the long term it's remarkably difficult for one party to sustain the white house four elections in a row. it's remarkably difficult to imagine almost any circumstance wins992 where bush reelection just because it's hard to win 4 times in a row. this is why i'm fond of saying, this year put your money on the democrats. [inaudible] i know. let me end with this joke.

the honor and privilege of working closely with president bush. i mentioned earlier, i'm jewish. i felt the need to say to him, i have to admit for you, i did not vote for you in 1992. he said, most people didn't. [laughter] i'll leave it at that. [applause] >> thanks, everyone. we are going to break for lunch will try to restart at 1:30. we will restart at 1:30. that is our grand strategy for the lunch hour and resuming for this afternoon. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

starting monday, august 1 at 8:00 p.m. eastern time, "the contenders," c-span's 14 part series which dealt with the presidential campaign with a historical perspective. key figures who have run for president and lost but changed political history. each night we feature a different candidate. beginning with an re--- henry clay and ending with ross perot. 8:00 p.m. eastern time, august 1 through 14. next on "history bookshelf," hislas schoen discusses book, "on the campaign trail, the long row to presidential 2004." , 1860 to

how political campaigns have evolved over time. this program from the national archives in washington, d.c. is a little under an hour. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the national archives. i'm your host for tonight's lecture and book signing. we are honored to have with us his schoen as he discusses book, "on the campaign trail." following the lecture we will have copies of the book for sale and we will take questions from the audience. i want to thank booktv for being here tonight great if you're interested in our programs, please visit archives.gov. as you look at the images that will appear in tonight's program, many of these appeared from the national archives holdings are