-- if you could talk about his position and stands in regards to nuclear weapons and how his earlier asked areas with warfare -- experiences with warfare might have shapes that? prof. dickson: in europe at least, nuclear weapons were not considered, although the manhattan project was intended to develop nuclear weapons for germany. germany surrendered before the weapon was actually capable and could be deployed. so i do not think that was part of eisenhower's thinking. i do not even know if he was ready for the manhattan project. the employment of some colleagues we will talk about, harry truman. you can ask for further elaboration later on, but i think that the consideration, eisenhower was candidate for president, he threatened the soviet union and communist china that he would deploy nuclear weapons in order -- in north korea to break the stands off --

standoff. this rather aggressive approach, this new approach, as he said, i have a secret plan to deal with korea, and that message was very clear to the soviets and the chinese, i will consider and not stray away from employing nuclear weapons if necessary to get a resolution. i think that undoubtedly led to the situation of the armistice. eisenhower, of course, in his policy of massive retaliation said if anyone steps out of line, i go nuclear.

and that stayed until the kennedy administration. so i do not think eisenhower was in any way afraid of using nuclear weapons as a diplomatic tool. or, as president of the united states and commander in chief, made sure the united states was prepared to employ nuclear weapons. so i do not think eisenhower was afraid of those in the postwar period. >> that it? [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: we are also taking your questions and your comments, your vote, i should

say, at c-span history and the question is, which party changed the most since 1968? the vote right now with more than 24 thousands casting their vote same the democrats changed the most, 56%, the republicans. to everyone who voted in our twitter polls on 1968, america and turmoil. postedan 200,000 votes on issues ranging from the vietnam war to the presidential election, to women's rights and race relations. you can tweet us questions and comments during live events, see video previews of upcoming programs, or look back to what happened on this day in american history. on twitter, at c-span history. >> we are at mardi gras world in new orleans, where work is already underway for next year's mardi gras float. every year mardi gras world

makes floats for parades all over the city. we work with owner barry kern about how his family has been in the mardi gras business for generations. ♪ >> citizens of new orleans, welcome to carnival! ♪ >> mardi gras is a celebration that predates christianity. when i say christianity -- you have the pagan rites of spring and bacchanalia. people were willing to give up praying to certain gods, but they did not want to give up certain celebratory traditions. they did not want to give up celebrating the rite of spring, and that became carnival.

it is latin for without flesh. fat tuesday is the day before lent. the day of mardi gras can change anywhere from early february to march, and it depends on the date of easter. 2wwe hear of mardi gras world in new orleans, which is the home of mardi gras, and home of the studios where we build and produced and stage most of the productions in new orleans. the mardi gras tradition itself came from france. it was a festival where people would celebrate right before the fasting of the lenten season. they would put on a costume, wear masks, give out candies, toys, trinkets.

it grew from a small group of people that did it. when my father and grandfather got involved in this business, there were eight or 10 carnival clubs and parades, and those parades maybe had 4000 members. we call them crewes. a crewe is like a fraternity, a sorority, a club. these crewes represent everyone in the city, and that is why mardi gras has been so unique and successful as it is. mardi gras democratizes. now today, there are crewes that are men, women, straight, gay, white, black, everything in between, and there are crewes with everyone in them.

new orleans is a very diverse population and a very diverse city. in new orleans, we've got 32 parades that happens in that 12 day period. sometimes, our company, for example we will have as many as 150 floats on streets of the city at any one time. we move them, unload them. our job is not just to build the floats, but the logistics to put them together. every year to length does -- tulane does an economic impact study. it is a $0.25 billion dollars impact. it is like having three super bowl's in our city every year. it fills our hotel room.

all of our restaurant are full. it is a big party and a big celebration. it is a big business. our company is the biggest float building company. we build floats for celebrations all over the world. there are about eight other for companies in new orleans doing this job of building floats. the carnival crewes have a captain, and that captain is a benevolent dictator. the crewes can have as little as 13, 14 floats, and as many as 37 pulling units. the biggest parade will have over 80 floats in it. they will give us an idea of the parade.

they want to do a theme. we will come up with some conceptual ideas. they like it or don't like it. we go to color sketches, then go to building the floats itself. >> this is a robotic arm. right now we're putting it on this rhinoceros. i take a 3-d model. sometimes we do our own 3-d models at kerns. the next step after this committee will go over for a hard coat. they will add more detail with clay. the robot is pretty good, but it can't get down to the nitty-gritty details. this is supposed to be photorealistic. >> i am a prop painter.

i put the caller and update the design to the current art director. this is 1001 arabian nights. we have some updates to do to the turban design, some embellishment on his vest itself. i know he is holding a lamp in the image, but we are trying to -- this is going to the "1001 arabian nights," the title, then i will implement the lamp onto the book space. this is an older prop. i am updating this years design, which is a completely different color and design. some of it being touch ups,

where it is not a full on job. others i have to complete over -- completely white out and start out with its entirety. >> about 20% of the floats are what we call signature events, -- units, the ones that stay the same every year, like the grand marshall's float, or the jester or butterfly king. these signature floats people are used to seeing here after year. the theme of the parade changes every year. it is our job to help them do that. we handle logistics. we get them cleaned off for next year. we work out of about 20 different warehouses in new orleans alone. this building is about 200,000 square feet. carnival den is

about 100,000 square feet for the bigger ones, some of the smaller ones are 20,000 to 30,000 square feet. we are working with millions of square feet around the city on floats, and this job is going year-round. >> during mardi gras, it is busy, busy, busy. but it is fun. it is nonstop. it is nonstop. you don't get to see anybody, but -- [laughter] your coworkers. i am making petals for the float. this is really simple to do. i tried to tell every teacher that comes by how to do it. you just take your posterboard or tag board, cut out your petal shape. cut your wire. glue them together.

every parade we work on -- you want it to pop out. you have these hard edges on it. the flowers we do softens up the edges and makes it nice. >> when you walk through the prop shop, they are working on the props. we have a sculptor shop, where they make models from papier-mache. then are is a group that will put it on the forklift, surrounded with the flowers the flower department has built.