announcer: we continue now with another session from the 40th anniversary of the harry s truman scholarship foundation. madam albright speaks with historians to discuss harry truman's commitment as president and vice president. this begins with remarks from his eldest grandson, clinton truman daniel. this is about 55 minutes. >> it is my privilege to introduce the newest member of the truman board of trustees, someone who is no stranger to the foundation or to president truman. clifton truman daniel is the oldest grandson of president harry truman. he is the honorary chairman of the truman library institute, a nonprofit partner to the truman presidential library in independence, missouri. he is the author growing up with my grandfather, memories of harry s truman, and dear harry, love bess.

bess truman's letters to harry truman. as of last month, clifton is the board secretary for the harry s truman scholarship foundation. this is a role that has been vacant since the 1990's since his mother retired from our board. clifton thank you for joining , our board and thank you for being here today. [applause] mr. truman: thank you, ladies and gentlemen. i am honored to be here. i am honored to serve on the board. i have to tell you a little bit stunned. . was 19 years old i was with my mother in independence when the first truman scholarships were awarded in 1977. i was in college and i was

involved being in that group. as my mother told me i should be. [laughter] clifton,he put it was all these young people are doing a lot better in college then you are. [laughter] -- it isare interesting some of the things of the panel has been talking about. this is a great way to spend the afternoon. a couple of things we've been talking about is my grandfather's leadership style, things i learned and i found out when i was very young. early in my life grandpa came to stay near us in washington -- new york city and visited us. he went for a quick walk, gravity's paper, walked over to our apartment. through it on the floor and waited for somebody to wake up. my brother and i were the first ones down. we thought we would tiptoe past

him to get to the television set. then he caught us and said, where you going? i said to watch bugs bunny. he said you don't want to do that. i thought, yes i do. [laughter] he said i have a better idea. he walked between us and he reached for the top shelf and took on the book. he said come here and sit down. you cannot argue with harry truman. he started to read. my mother came down a few minutes later and stopped cold. shia never seen anything like this in her life. we were not moving. . from a bookeading that do not have a picture in it what are you reading to those kids? he showed her the book. history of the peloponnesian war. [laughter] 6:00 in the morning to a four-year-old in a two-year-old. [laughter] education, which you all know. he was a terrible babysitter.

i had a hobbyhorse. you could kill yourself on one of those things. my mother was always telling me you were going to kill yourself on that thing. grandpa was there back behind newspaper. i tipped it over in atlanta the crash. my grandmother came running out of the kitchen. she almost had me when a voice across the room said don't touch him. she stopped and looked up to see who it ruined this for me. grandpa was glaring at me. i had burst into tears. he said, quit crying. get on and start riding again. i did. i shut up and got the horse up. did not tell me my grandfather had been president of the united states. i found out in school. [laughter] [applause]

and with the first great one morning and the teacher said wasn't your grandfather the president of united states? i said i don't know. i will go home and ask. and i did. my mother told me the story for years, well into my 40's. i dropped my book bag at the door and i walked up to my mother. i said, long, did you know? [laughter] said yes.he just a member something. any little boy's grandfather can be president. don't let it go to your head. it did not. education, a stiff spine, humility. the three things, the hallmarks my grandfather taught me before i was seven years old. the key things in perspective. he work your hardest to get educated and something goes wrong and you don't go crying to your grandmother.

it is my pleasure now to introduce our next panel because i think we have -- these are two folks who really care about this country, about american history and not only by the past but where this country is headed. michael best love is a nationally known president of the story and. he is the author of nine books, one ofng the conquerors, several new york times bestsellers that he has written. he is a nice for it on presidential leadership. michael and i have met. he went to school my younger brother. aside, one you as an good way to get people to read your books if the sign them. thank you very much. albright needs no introduction. and what an honor it is for me to serve on the truman foundation with her. she embodies the best this country has to offer. she is an immigrant and has done so much for her adopted country,

just as immigrants have all over the united states. she served as the 64th secretary of state. in 2012 she was awarded the presidential medal of freedom. i know my grandfather would be so pleased that she leads the foundation that bears his name. ladies and zimmerman, let me turn it over to secretary albright. conversation about presidential leadership. thank you very much. [applause] >> can everyone here all right? if you can't hear, you can apply. i think we are in good shape. this is a rumor president kennedy had a press conference? guess.ry albright: i i will interrupt right away because of hearing about your books and being a diplomatic

historian, you graduated from college -- michael: i was worried she would mention this. secretary albright: you said you will be a diplomatic historian and i thought ok. the -- it certainly turned out to be true. you really have done amazing work in terms of writing about our history. i'm very glad you decided to do that. michael: i'm awfully glad you decided to go into diplomacy and government and compile a record that is important to the history of this country. and maybe i can begin with one word. i love the fact we are here, low what you are doing especially because one of the things i love about president truman is if you go back to the founders, one of the most basic beliefs was that

they were trying to construct a country in which you could become president or secretary of state no matter what your background was. they would love the fact that harry truman, who came from humble beginnings was able to become not only president, but one of the great presidents in american history. know, as hugely strong feeling that education that came from a lot of things, but not least from his own life. this was this brilliant young man, loved reading history. he is to say, and i think cliff will confirm this, i read every book in the independence, missouri public library. i think you really did. he couldn't play contact sports. his parents said we are poor. we cannot pay to replace your glasses if they are broken. one block on the record. -- blot on the record. his favorite history book was a

book with the incorrect title of great men and famous women, 1890's. and the subtitle i think was from nebuchadnezzar to sarah bernhardt. they company wide swath of human experience. life this isin his someone who should've gone the college, graduate school. deeply wanted to. couldn't do it because of his family's economic circumstances. if there was one thing he felt strongly about was when he became president he wanted to help others. one of the ways he did that was to strengthen community college systems. all i am telling you is there would be no one who would have loved to be here more today than harry truman. let me begin said, with a question for secretary albright. we were talking earlier. you all know her background. coming from europe. what difference did it make in your own life that harry truman

was president and someone else? secretary albright: when i was asked to become president of the german foundation i thought perfect, i can to get anything better than putting together truman and education and have that opportunity. we came to the united states in 1948. he was the first president and i really came from a family that loved foreign policy and institutions and very grateful to the united states in every single way. we spent the war in england. my father was a czechoslovakian democrat. he was ambassador to yugoslavia. after that, his last assignment was to go to the united nations representing czechoslovakia. on a commission to do with india and pakistan over kashmir. so i grew up always thinking about foreign policy. i think my lodestar has always

been when america is involved, good things happen. and when america is not there, bad things happen. as a czechoslovak, munich was important and 70 ways and the united states was not at munich. when the americans came into the war, i was a little girl in london and you could see what a difference it made. and unfortunately given agreements made during the war the iron curtain came down in , the country that i was born in came down behind the iron curtain. and so for me when the u.s. did something it really made a difference. and harry truman did something. that was the part that was so important in terms of stating what america's position was going to be. and whether it had to do with the program or the truman doctrine or nato, everything that would indicate that america would be playing a leading role and being out there and doing

something. so in that regard. the other part that i thought about was institutionally everything that i kind of -- we were talking about public service. i do teach. in talking about the national security act, it was basically designed because of the way roosevelt made decisions. it was a punishment by the bureaucracy. michael: tell a little bit about how roosevelt made decisions. secretary albright: he made decisions by pitting people against each other and not getting a sense of where decisions are coming from. the bureaucracy was fed up with it. forestall's revenge, set a national security -- harry truman was the first one that had to operate under the national security act. he was the one that dealt with the fact of how decisions could be made and how the information came to him. he was made clear that the secretary of state would be the leading member of the cabinet, which i appreciate.

michael: and there would be a defense department. secretary albright: and there would be a defense department and the cia. michael: maybe not just intelligence and army intelligence. secretary albright: it would unify things. that is the system that has evolved and is in operation now. the other part that i have to say is that he and the natural -- dean addison said of the system we have all been operating on under a long time. whether there were discussions earlier about the marshall plan, what americans responsibility, nato -- i'm wearing my article five pin, and really how that works. then also strengthening the united nations. a lot of the activities, the response to the korean war, uniting for peace, i won't go through all of that. but most of the things i learned in college and then operated under, whether in or outside the government, were set up at that

particular time. so there's nobody that i can honestly say has had a bigger influence in one form or another that harry truman on my life. michael: i think secretary albright on the this answer. who was the secretary of state who got the idea to name the building after harry truman? secretary albright: let me just say i really thought that we needed to do that for all the obvious reasons. the delegation from missouri was a great help on it in every way. we had the most amazing ceremony here in order to commemorate it. and i'm very proud. and if i may say so, when the next people came in, they wanted to erase everything. but we had granite. we had a name and granite. michael: don't you like that dean atchesonnd

have their names on here in a very big way? secretary albright: yes. michael: there was a dinner that you are nice enough to ask you to come and talk at, at the benjamin franklin room, the evening of the naming. the idea was to have a dinner with a menu that was served in the white house in 1947, perfectly historically correct. the only downside was, a, if you did not like jell-o molds with strange things floating in them, you are probably out of luck. and the other thing was anyone who had a sodium problem was probably carried out of there. secretary albright: yes, it was a typical, jell-o, triscuits. people wondered why we were doing that. it wasn't as elegance. it was real. had the truman piano. a lot of things that signify the whole era. i am so proud that i was able to be in office at the time that we were able to do that. there was nothing more symbolic

in terms of america's role in the world than having harry truman's name on this building. michael: totally appropriate. you were talking about the difference it made that harry truman was president rather than someone else in the late 1940's. i'm not too wild to counter -- factual history, but i have often thought about what life

might have been like for the united states and the world had truman had not decided to replace wallace as his vice president. i've got some views on that. do you want to start? secretary albright: from everything that i've read about wallace comeau, we had completely different views about what america's role was, who the american people were, and a lack, this is not nice,, but a lack of michael: we got to be honest. secretary albright: i talk a lot about the role of individuals in history. and to have had henry wallace in office would have changed the whole direction of american policy after certainly 45 on and whatever influence he might have had before that in a variety of ways. it certainly goes to the point of what america's role should be, what our responsibilities are, and how we see ourselves in relationship to the rest of the world. just totally different. but i think the big surprise for people, not the people here, but how harry truman turned out to be who he was. what is it that made him and do the things that he did. one of the big issues was the recognition of israel that we hear about often. generally, his approach of what

needed to be done in the balkans and in a number of different ways. and his response to what the korean war was about. any number of different aspects that made a difference that harry wallace wasn't there. michael: absolutely wallace would not have seen the soviet threat the way that president truman that. -- truman did. i don't even want to begin to think what life might have been like. it is fascinating because in april of 1945, when harry truman became president, a lot of americans were horrified because franklin roosevelt, one of the many of them knew little or nothing about this recent senator from missouri. it speaks well to franklin roosevelt in the fall of 1944 or summer of 1944, he realized that wallace was not up to being second in the one of succession

during this next term and harry truman was. the downside, famously, was that roosevelt, although it was late in the war and roosevelt, as we now know had plenty of vascular -- cardiovascular disease and was not likely to without that term from 1945 to 1949. he only had two meetings with vice president truman. the result was when roosevelt died on the 12th of harry truman april was left to try to figure out what roosevelt had in mind just before the end of the war in europe, a few months before the end of the work in japan and just before he would have to take up the job of trying to create a postwar world. you have this surreal theme of

truman in the white house wearing a green eyeshade and he called in for all of the documents of the last few that roosevelt had been dealing with, that he could read and somehow figure out what was on roosevelt's mind. truman was reading the minutes of the yalta conference with churchill and stalin and some of the cable traffic between roosevelt and churchill and stalin during the previous two weeks, trying to figure out what was on roosevelt's mind. because roosevelt had not told him. the most famous part of this, the fact that roosevelt had not told him about the presence of the atomic bomb and what a difference that would make not only in winding down world war ii and winning but also the , postwar world. secretary albright: people have been talking about how people viewed the vice presidency. clearly, i think what happened in the roosevelt truman transition is something that

taught other presidents later how not to do it. and i can just tell you from my own experience in the carter administration, vice president mondale really became a complete partner in terms of -- and it was true with clinton-gore. now we're talking about joe biden. there was a recognition that you could not leave the vice president and the dark on a number of issues. and we are lucky that truman had the natural instinct and the streetsmarts people were talking about, and an understanding of the american system in terms of knowing how to work with -- you can't say that he had a great congress to work with. but i do think that there were lessons that came out of not having had meetings with the vice president. michael: that's exactly right. he sort of practiced what he preached by choosing his vice president, senate majority

leader alan barclay of kentucky. tell me whether this sounds right to you. i look at the truman case has one case where history works the way it is supposed to because, when harry truman went back to missouri, maybe cliff for correct me on this, but his rating was about 23%. i remember when i was a young historian, by which time truman was much better thought of, i was curious one i look at the internal numbers and people were impatient with the korean war and corruption in the entourage and a lot of people said we don't like truman because he doesn't remind us of frank and roosevelt who was our idea of , a president. i'm afraid of an apocryphal story but too good not to tell. this story was told that in 1952, truman was asked by a reporter what he thought of richard nixon, who was running for vice president. and his reply was that nixon was full of manure and this was

published. one of the members of the staff grandmother and ask if you get the boss to speak more elegantly. supposedly she said, you have no idea how long it took me to get him to use the word manure. [laughter] whether or not the story is true and i do not vouch for it, it , does make the point that when we americans look at president's in our own time, we are often times of celist with trivia. -- obsessed with trivia. and that is why they look so much different 30 or 40 years later. if you look at a president who is sitting in the white house and you are thinking of the day and things that may seem excessively important at the moment, 40 years later seem trivial and the opposite is also true. tell me if this sounds right to you. from my point of view, this all works with president truman because all these things would cause americans in 1952 and 1953

not to realize he was a great man, here we are 63 years later and we are much better at understanding and appreciate the qualities of leadership he had, the great common sense and modesty, huge powers of judgment, and also the policies worked. if we were here in 1953, if we were talking about what president truman had done, we would have said he would have sent a to greece and turkey and , the marshall plan and nato and we hoped that those things would help america prevail in the cold war, but we can't be sure. you advance the clock to 2016, we are looking back on this with total hindsight and the luxury of knowing how all this turned out. and with total retrospect we say, harry truman was a great man for all sorts of reasons. but one of them was he was the guy who devise the policy that

allowed about 12 cold war presidents to contain the soviet union with the hope it would ultimately it would collapse and we would live in a different world. and with that knowledge of nothing else we know this was a very great leader. secretary albright: no question. but i think what is interesting and i remember this, there was a sense that roosevelt had been this kind of high and mighty figure. literally, what happened, because truman had to live in blair house because they were redoing the white house, which was falling apart, but there were pictures of him kind of being an ordinary person walking around. i think the things that made him so terrific in retrospect was his humility and his humanity and his modesty. but at the time, people couldn't figure out why a president wasn't grander in some particular way. and he did use language. michael: which by current standards would be very tame. secretary albright: yeah, but

i think what i find most interesting, having been to independence, to his house, he was modest. michael: he went back home, where he came from. it is not a common day experience for former president. secretary albright: and then, if i might say, i think part of the thing about him in reading more about him, and david mccullough has obviously been terrific, but basically he was the president who listened to his advisers. michael: beginning with the guy that this room is named after. secretary albright: the relationship that really needs to be looked at in terms of a relationship between secretary of state and the president and their closeness and they were so totally different. i will never forget -- i didn't meet harry truman. atcheson. dean he came to wellesley to speak

when i was there. i noticed that he had on patent pumps with his tuxedo. i thought, who would do that? [laughter] but he had gone to groton. michael: and he wasn't running for office. secretary albright: but i do think they were very different types of people. yet it is evident from their correspondents that they really did click. and that is very much worth examining. michael: yeah, they really appreciated each other. which i'm sorry to say was not entirely true of president truman's opinion of many of the diplomats who worked in the building, who they referred to as the stripped-pants boys. acheson always told him not to do that, with no success. there is one passage in truman's diary in meeting a diplomat who had served in egypt or something. this is my line which, not his, but he said talked in a knack's -- and an accent that suggested he was may be born in england and went to oxford and wore these strange clothes and

jewelry which suggested this , was an aristocrat. truman asked him, where it is -- did you grow up. and the guy said topeka, kansas. secretary albright: one thing that has to be talked about is truman did believe in public service. in a variety of ways the people he did respect were people involved in public service. and that's what i think the german foundation the whole , aspect and the truman scholars are a perfect way to honor the president who believed -- who had all the qualities we talked about in terms of humility and common sense streetsmarts, but also understood that is -- the best way to serve this country is through public service. that is something we need to remember. michael: that's right. he would often talk about the fact and lament the fact that

then even more than nowadays people would attack someone who would run for office as a politician and would say things to get elected and so forth. and he would say exactly the opposite, especially people who were public servants who had gotten elected. their lives have been exposed in public view and had to live their lives a certain way. they had to take into the, take into account the people that had elected them. that was something different. he felt that they were a category that was exalted. it was a really good point. secretary albright: i think his respect for other people's opinions and his capability to listen and make up his mind. he had some really hard decisions. we were talking about hiroshima and nagasaki and clearly that was a very difficult decision. it did save people's lives and it is a time we need to remember

how hard those decisions where. also i think civilian control over the military. he was very much criticized for firing macarthur. michael: i think you all heard from bill brands earlier who has written a wonderful book on the firing of macarthur. secretary albright: a very big deal if you think about the hero of the western world at that time. and to take that position. i admire harry truman for being a normal human being, having a way of operating, then having the common sense and humility yet at the same time being able to make really tough decisions. that is the mark of a great president. michael: i agree, and he had to make more than most. we have 50 more seconds. i will say two more things. he was also assisting. -- sisson. two things i think if you're looking for leadership, the truman lesson suggests.

one is he was, to my mind, more religious than people knew at the time. this was very grounding to him and illuminating to him. he read the bible a lot. the other thing, just to bring it back because cliff was so nice introduces so nicely was , his family. a grounded him and gave him a sense of not only modesty, -- grounded him and give him a sense of not only modesty, by remain a real person in these eight years in world history there were almost unbelievable. secretary albright: i'm glad we were able to honor him and the truman scholars. that is the best way to honor harry s truman michael: we have to disagree on something but we have not done it yet. [laughter] now i think we are going to the audience. if anyone has questions, or comments, questions. i think there are two microphones here. which i think is the way it was

done in president kennedy's time. we are getting more historical authenticity into the next. >> my name is becky. i work at a scientific technology think tank. one of the things i think about is the rapid advance of technology and what that means for us as public servants in trying to still serve the public even though the world tends to advance at a really rapid rate. my question is, is it still possible to serve the public through incremental change, or are we kind of in an environment now we have to take revolutionary steps and drastic measures to serve the public? secretary albright: that is a very thoughtful question. i have been spending quite a lot of time trying to figure out what technology has done to the system that i grew up with, which is the one we talked about that harry truman started. in so many ways what has happened is that technology has outrun social policy.

and the problems that we are finding in dealing with it in our own institutional system at the moment is that we are trying to catch up with it, and therefore, very hard. it has affected everything, frankly. the rapidity -- sitting in this building -- when i was here, believe and not, we had wang computers and that was advanced. given the kind of thing that dean acheson dealt with. the rapidity of the information coming in terms of verifying it, i have one rule when i was secretary -- the first information you get is always wrong. but people are now forced to make decisions based on the rapidity of the information coming in. and the institutional system in the world is not set up. so, i'm chairman of the board of the national democratic institute and we are looking at the role of technology generally abroad. what has happened is it has disaggregated people's voices so

that political parties in other countries and even here cannot respond rapidly enough. a line that i stole when i was in silicon valley, somebody said people are talking to their governments on 21st-century technology. the government hears them on 20th century technology and are providing 19th-century responses. there is no faith in institutions. therefore, what you have asked is the question of the day in terms of how you move rapidly enough to get policy to catch up to the relationship between the people and the government makes more sense than it does at the moment. what we are seeing in europe and here is that disconnected terms of people not having faith in the institutions. michael: totally. the other part of this is with properly laud president truman for the great decisions he made, he did not have to make them in three seconds. when he heard the north koreans

had invaded in june of 1950, he did not immediately have to say on twitter when he was going to -- what he was going to do. president kennedy in 1961 when the berlin wall went up, he had a week before reporters asked him what he would do about it. the cuban missile crisis, kennedy had a week to decide how to deal with missiles in cuba. had he had to do so within an hour, he almost certainly would have bombed cuba and we could've had a nuclear war. it could accost cost tens of millions of lives. on top of everything madeleine said you can have the wisest , president and wisest secretary of state, but decisions made in two seconds under this kind of pressure are never going to be as good as decisions that are more deliberate. >> thank you. truman scholar from ohio in 1984. michael: you are the truman centennial.

with a presidential historian, i wonder if you could talk about truman and hoover. michael: edgar or herbert? >> herbert. even though he was a deep partisan, he faced a republican majority that was hell-bent on a reform commission. hoover to tear that became the hoover commission and created the general services administration and other things. he once called hoover -- he is to the right of king louis xiv. hoover campaigned aggressively for dewey. while the reform commission was going through congress. i guess there was the practical aspect that hoover was president, he would do the right thing. do you have any other insights? michael: sure. franklin

roosevelt as madeleine has alluded to, was not always charitable to his enemies. after defeating who were my -- hoover by a landslide in hoover never crossed the front 1932, door of the white house the next 12 years. roosevelt did not speak to him. especially after hoover in 1940 got very isolationist and nasty about fdr's foreign policy. harry truman did not just -- share that quality. one of the first things he did when he became president, he invited hoover to the white house and essentially said you have been treated wrongly and i want to restore you, bring you back to the american family. he called on hoover to make a study of the food problem in europe, which was grave and the wake of world war ii. hoover had enough for wilson world war i. hoover organized for him two commissions on government

reorganization which, to some extent, led to the national security act that secretary albright is talking about. as charitable as president truman was, he was also a great politician because he knew that hoover was still a large figure on the american stage. he knew he would need bipartisan cooperation, especially on foreign policy in 1947. there was a republican congress. like an excellent politician, which i say is a great complement, because he had made nice to hoover in 1947, hoover was in a position to help him create that bipartisan foreign-policy where if truman had not treated him so nicely, hoover might have been part of the opposition and made more difficult. >> a truman scholar in 1990 from the great state of new york. madam secretary thank you for , being chair of our board and

sharing part of your time with us now. you had referenced truman's decision to recognize israel. while you areas in the building you first learned of your jewish heritage as well. one of the stories i remember from my research going into that interview is the role any jacobs -- eddie jacobs played in truman's decision. was a friend of his from regiment d in kansas city was jewish who came to him at the end and said would you please? from a personal as well as historical perspective, the power of relationships and influencing decisions you may have had looking back at your own history and family lineage what you have taken from it , since. secretary albright: i do think that personal relationships make a big difference. it is interesting in re-reading, especially as there are more and

more questions about issues and a number of issues, who was four -- for and was against and watching a variety of movies about the fact that it was a recognition that president truman basically made by himself. his group around him thought i t was a mistake for any number of different reasons. but i do think that what one gets is the feeling -- when you are in office, trying to figure out what are the influences come influent -- influences, what you really bring to the table? you do not really know until you -- i had a very -- first of all i did not know about my jewish background until i got here. often people said, did you behave the way you did vis-a-vis the balkans because you knew about the genocide? i certainly knew about the holocaust, i just did not know it applied to my family.

but the bottom line is my feeling about why we had to do something about it came mostly from my father, who, in fact, had been a diplomat who understood -- this goes back to the fact -- i have to say i find it very hard to blame roosevelt for anything, if i may tell you the truth, but i do think the way that was a blind spot about what was happening in europe is really a very, very bad thing in terms of american history. and so, one could say that we did not know what was going on during world war ii. in retrospect, i would not say that, but we did know everything that was going on in the balkans. that affected me in terms of decisions that were made. it had nothing to do with what i found out about my background, but in terms of knowing that you know that certain people are being raped were ethnically cleansed for not anything they

did, but their background, that had a huge impact on me. the most impact on me in my life was my father and mother. >> thank you. >> hi. i'm a 2015 scholar from georgia. how has your conception of female leadership changed throughout your career? what do you think gender parity looks like in public service leadership in 2016 and what should we aspire to in the future? secretary albright: i went to a girls high school and a woman's college. actually the same as the next one president of the united states. [applause] michael: obviously, donald trump did not go there. [laughter] secretary albright: i grew up in

kind of a way that it did not occur to me that women could not be leaders. that part. what did surprise me as i kind of developed my career over a very long time is that women had to prove that they could actually do anything. i was going to be a journalist, that was my plan in life. i went to get my first job and my husband -- we were having dinner with him and he said, what are you going to do, honey? i said wok in a newspaper. he said, i do not think so. find another life. i did and it turned out ok. [laughter] they really were questions. when my name came up to be secretary of state, it was said that a woman couldn't be secretary of state because arab leaders would not deal with a woman. the arab ambassadors said they

had no problem with me as ambassador and i did become secretary of state. but the bottom line is i think that women, we are not using, not only our half of the population, but throughout the world. it is an issue. why wouldn't you want women to be more involved in terms of political and economic empowerment? we know that societies are better off if women are politically and economically empowered. i do think that there continues to be questions as to whether women can do things. i hate to say this, whether is -- but there is plenty of room in the world for mediocre man, and no room in the world for mediocre women. women have to work twice as hard. [applause] however i do not think the world , would be better off if it was completely run by women. if you think that, you have forgotten high school. [laughter] you have to have a good coed leadership. michael: depends on the high school you went to.

>> hi, i am the 2014 scholar from connecticut. madam secretary, my question was more to do with your role shepherding young truman's and new classes of truman scholars. as someone who has seen many classes come up i wondered, more recently, what is one thing among the new classes that has inspired you recently or given you hints as to the future of public service that you have seen among some of the newer truman scholars? secretary albright: i do think -- let me say there was a certain phase with people wondered what public service was. when we were talking among the trustees of the foundation, in terms of what public service was the basic part of what the scholars program was set up to do, and it was nice to make money but the bottom line was that public service was the purpose of it. i think what we're seeing more and more are scholars and

applicants who understand that public service is very broad and there are a number of ways to give back. and that there is great recompense in terms of how you feel about yourself. i was fascinated by the previous panel in terms of talking about helping to solve problems for people. i think we see that more and more in the applicants, people that want to go out and not only -- and take great advantage of the scholarship program itself, but the internships later. and developing careers that are broad-based enough in order to give back. i think there is a new enthusiasm for public service. and a recognition of what the truman scholars can do. i am very encouraged by it, i think it is great. i think again, without consulting some of the earlier people, there really is kind of

a sense of giving back, and i think that is the basis -- there are so many different ways to do it. one sees it in the applicant. -- pool. >> hi, i'm one of the 2013 scholars from louisiana. i have a question on behalf of my peers in the room. we are a generation coming of age in a really violent, turmoil time, both socially and politically. while we do want to work in public service and we want to fight for peace and rights, many of us are also members of groups who are targeted every day, even in our homes. what advice you have for us as we begin our public service careers for working in a world that has such chaos and such stagnancy at the same time? secretary albright: in some ways it goes back to the first question in terms of everything being different, and he goes

back to your question about what is it -- i grew up as a refugee in a very distorted world, there is no question about that. but came into a country that had a system that recognized things where in fact there was some way to figure out what the institutional structures were. i think we all have a responsibility now to help develop the system that does not do you are talking about. i think it is a very complex time. i am often asked if i am an optimist or a pessimist. i'm an optimist worried a lot. we need to get institutional structures that are not violent, with your help, not in terms of us older people who screwed up imposing things on you, but try to figure out a way to the way what i way to deal with

think is a disconnected and disjointed and gridlocked -- when you have a great senator talking about how hard it is to get things done, we need to figure out what it is we want and make clear we are the responsible people in terms of saying what we expect in our leadership. that is why i think the selection is so important. the bottom line is it has to be done with your cooperation, not against you or against any ideas that you all have. michael: one other element i think harkens back to the truman time -- harry truman had extremely strong views on just about every issue under the sun. the disagreements with republicans. yet he had members of congress -- relationships with the republican members of congress that he could call on, especially in 1947 when the red army was starting through europe, 1950 when they need to unite to fight a war in korea -- i think one thing he would be

absolutely horrified by is if he came back today and saw the degree in which the two sides barely even speak in congress. and i think that is part of the problem too. >> madam albright i am very , excited to see you here. i am a 1982 truman scholar, also from missouri. the show me state of president truman. i am happy to hear you saying that the arab world, that you would be accepted no problem in dealing with a woman because it clearly states in the kuran, and i would like to quote it. women are intruders and economic development to society.

my question is as president the truman foundation, what is the vision? idc the foundation 40 years from now? do you see it in the container that we live in? , i'm expecting to be here for the next 35 or 40 years. will it be the same container or do you see it being in a larger container? in the context of innovation, doing other public service activities other than just sponsoring scholars to educational endeavors, etc. thank you. secretary albright: i probably will not be here in 40 years, i can predict that.

but i think that what has to happen -- and we have to have more of these discussions -- in terms of something i said earlier about the breadth of public service. also, the things that trouble me at the moment is that as people seek their own identity -- and identity is very important -- that in some places it is reflected in hating the other people. i think that is what the earlier question about violence -- in addition to other aspects that we need to figure out how to have the truman scholars be an pitamy of- op respecting others, of understanding what other religions and ethnic backgrounds and positions and life in a variety of aspects that makes our to set -- our societies in

-- interesting is the diversity. one has to realize what the duties of the 21st century citizen are and how we help to create those citizens through education and mission in a number of different ways. and the hard part is doing that while we are trying to create a different system. it is like fixing an airplane that is already flying. i think it is a good question and it is something we ought to be talking about with the trustees. michael: thank you all very much. [applause] secretary albright: thank you all. thank you all. >> ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our event. we would like to thank you for coming. at this time we would ask all

reception participants if you were given a blue button or gold button please exit the , auditorium and follow our escorts to the elevators to be escorted upstairs for the reception. if you received any other colored pins -- >> this labor day weekend american history tv on c-span 3 has three days of feature programming. tonight at 8:00 eastern on lectures in history, bakersfield college professor shares his personal family history and other world -- oral histories about the national farm workers association. >> chavez was blowing this up. people were suddenly becoming engaged, fighting for their rights, changing working conditions. also mobilizing for politicians. we talk a little bit about this later. friends of the chavez family is the kennedy family.

starting with john and robert. and their children >> sunday evening at 6:00 we visit the national security archive at george washington university with its director for the 50th anniversary of the freedom of information act. signed into law by president johnson. >> the lonely crusader also picked up this bright young illinois congressman as a cosponsor. donald rumsfeld. his statement on the floor the house is a pretty good explanation of why the building became the majority bill. he said the government has gotten so big, involved in so many different pieces of our lives, commercial life, personal life, medicare has passed, we need the right to get those records out of the agencies to be able to uphold our own liberty and freedom. theonday morning at 11:00,

national park service marking its 100th anniversary at arlington house. the robert e lee memorial. we spoke with former director who will oversee a year-long restoration of the mansion, slave quarters and grounds. >> we were incredibly fortunate we were able to really tailor our specific needs for all kinds of things. for the museum objects, for telling the interpretation, and the physical construction that needed to happen. not just to the buildings but to the historic grounds and gardens. he very generously donated $12.5 million to make it happen. >> for a complete schedule, go to c-span.org. her campaign 2016, c-span continues on the road to the white house. >> i will be a president for democrats, republicans and independentss. . >> we will limit the education,

with the second amendment. we will win. >> live coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span, the c-span radio app and c-span.org. the first debate is live from hofstra university in new york. bytuesday, october 4, presidential candidates governor mike pence and senator tim kaine debate at longwood university in virginia. on sunday, october 9, washington university in st. louis hosts the second presidential debate leading up to the third and final debate between hillary clinton and donald trump. taking place at the university of nevada las vegas on october 19. live coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates on c-span. listen live on the free c-span radio app, or watch live anytime on-demand at c-span.org. c-span.org you can what's

public affairs and political programming any time at your convenience on your desktop, laptop or mobile device. go to our home page, c-span.org, and click on the video library search bar. you can type in the name of a speaker, sponsor of a bill, or the event topic. review the list of results and click on the program you would like to watch. or refine your search with our many search tools. if you're looking for our most our homepageams, has many current programs ready for your immediate viewing such as today's washington journal where the events we covered that day. c-span.org is a public service of your cable or satellite provider. if you're a c-span watcher, check it out at c-span.org. each week until the 2016 election road to the white house rewind ring to archival coverage of presidential races. 1976, the first to be between incumbent president gerald

ford and jimmy carter. it was held in philadelphia and focused on domestic issues, taxes and the economy, and marked the first time since 1960 the major party nominees squared off in a presidential debate. it was best remember for technical problems with the audio feed, causing a 28 minute delay where the candidates remained in the podiums. jimmy carter defeated president ford in 1976 general election, winning 50% of the popular vote to ford's 48%. the league of women voters sponsor the event. our coverage is from nbc news. it is just under two hours. edwin newman: good evening. i'm edwin newman, moderator of this first debate of the 1976 campaign between gerald r. ford of michigan, republican candidate for president, and jimmy carter of georgia, democratic candidate for president. we thank you, president ford and we thank you, governor carter, for being with us tonight. there there are to be three ba