announcer: our look at rochester, minnesota continues. supreme court justice harry blackmun spent a decade working there, and we learned about his ties to the area in his role in roe v. wade. >> this has to do with the controversial case of roe v. wade. deskcase landed on my early in my years here.

june 1970,oard in and roe v. wade was decided in january 1973. i believe most people would associate justice blackmun with the fact that he wrote the majority opinion in roe v. wade. when the supreme court decided it, he was in the majority, and there were actually seven justices who decided it, and there were only two dissents. when the court seemed to shift a little bit in its reasoning as to what the extent of the right to an abortion was, blackmun became an advocate for his original position, but when roe was still good law. it still stands today even though there have been a number of cases that have chipped away

at the rights that the justice thought existed. son, he was a native was born in st. paul, and he was educated there. he went to college at harvard, graduated from the harvard law school and return to minnesota to work for a judge as his first job out of law school. a later was hired by minneapolis law firm where he was a partner for 10 years, and then came to rochester to be the resident council of the mayo clinic. role inted in that rochester for about 10 or 11 years when he was then dominated by president eisenhower to be a judge on the eighth circuit court of appeals, the area of which included minnesota.

circuit judges do not have to placen a particular except within the geographic area where they serve, so when lack bank was nominated to be a judge, he was able to remain in rochester. he had his offices there, and he would travel to hear arguments in other places like st. paul, perhaps little rock, within that area. but he lived his life pretty much as a federal judge in town here, and he was nominated in 1970 by president nixon to be on the supreme court. in that capacity from 197219 94 when he retired. he was a dedicated individual. recall reading somewhere that he replaced the man on the

eighth circuit, i think judge sanborn, who had worked for originally out of law school as a clerk earlier. and when the judge retired, judge sanborn i believe had his chambers up in st. paul, and i recall a story that blackmun theally asked to have judge's desk sent down to his office here. judge sanborn was an old-school type person in terms of things he would stand at his desk and write standing up, which was the practice perhaps 100 years ago. alsoss blackmun like to write some of his stuff in longhand that way. those of us who practice law have computers that pretty well replicate things almost

instantaneously, but that was the style that he had, and he was particular about his opinions, from what i'm told. he was a man who kept everything. i have read recently that his archive in the library of congress is the largest judicial archive in terms of its sheer volume. except for that of justice douglas, who served a longer time than justice blackmun. he was a man he was meticulous. he kept everything. he kept good records, very careful about the way he wrote things. when you readnk his opinions. the case was argued the term prior to its release. it was one of those rare cases apparently for the supreme court , after hearing the original argument, decided at the end of

their term, and the terms and in year,y june or may of the if a case is not decided, sometimes it's carried over to the next term of court and re-argued. that's what happened in roe v. wade ring that summer. blackmun came back to rochester to visit, and spent some time in the library of the mayo clinic on issues that interested him, and he perhaps may have talked to folks in the community who were physicians who had some knowledge of these things. i don't know if blackmun was ever considered to be a person with a lot of medical knowledge, but working for the clinic with a number of years he did and living in the community as a circuit court judge, he was

exposed to a lot of information. that claimse story he came back and spent some time researching some medical issues that bothered him or were on his mind prior to the case being reargued. the principal argument is whether or not there is some form of a constitutional right that a person has that basically forbids the government from interfering with a decision by that individual to terminate a pregnancy. in the original decision, the majority of the court basically decided that there was a right to privacy which basically forbade the state from in someng a decision circumstances to terminate a pregnancy. the court decided that a person

who wishes to terminate a pregnancy has the constitutional right based on privacy to make that decision without interference from the government in certain circumstances. the framework was basically that the interest of the state and that was well restricted in the first trimester of the pregnancy . as the pregnancy advanced, the state's interest in protecting the health of the mother or the fetus justified more intrusion or restrictions. of theleast in terms first early stages of pregnancy, the court decided that the government had very little if anything to do with that. that was something that was the decision by the person involved and their treating physician. as years went by, the underpinning of that, the

constitutional right to privacy came less important to a majority of the court such to the point that within 10 or 15 years, blackmun was complaining that the way the court was deciding these cases involving abortion rights or restrictions, that they had kind of jettisoned the original underpinning of the decision which was a right to privacy. the majority at that time was starting to find the government had interests overwriting the constitutional rights of the person wishing to terminate the pregnancy. the way the decision was written, it called into question constitutionality of the laws of 46 of the 50 states regulating pregnancies or abortions. there had to be some adjustments made, in some cases because of a state law might have made it a criminal offense, in some cases

because a lot may have forbade a provider from providing the service, et cetera. it had a great impact in terms of the laws of a number of states. i think the social impact of roe v. wade is probably greater than the legal impact. some peopleat probably look at it as kind of a watershed moment in terms of this whole issue of whether or havehe so-called divide we in some places between folks who consider themselves to be pro-choice and those who consider themselves to be pro-life. obviously we have a lot of divisive issues that come before the public, but i think if you go back to roe v. wade, that may have been the start of that political upheaval.

it put people into very different sort of camps. it had really not so much to do but it had a lot to do with conscious, i would suspect, in terms of what they felt in terms of that issue. legally i think the criticism was and i think became the fact that blackmun, his recognition of this right to privacy as a constitutional right in the context of this medical procedure was probably an overextension of the right to privacy. i think in subsequent decisions, as the court took up issues involving regulation of this procedure, the justices or other withs would find fault

blackmun, his view of the right to privacy. i think the most recent jurisdiction would suggest that a majority of the judges at this point would not find a right of privacy as expansive as like being dead in the roe v. wade decision. -- as expansive as he did in the roe v. wade decision. programsd a couple of that the justice gave presentations at after his retirement, and he would sometimes delight in telling the people in the audience, he would read them letters he had gotten from people. he sort of delighted in reading these letters, and some of them were nasty. in some case they would have made threats to him that

would've been probably a criminal offense in some cases. but blackmun supposedly read all the blood letters -- read all of the letters, and i don't know what his reaction was, but he seemed to be somewhat proud that some people disagreed with him. this man served on the supreme court for almost 20 years. he would've been involved in hundreds of decisions. ,e wrote a number of opinions and in some cases his opinions were somewhat at odds with his things,view of certain but for better or worse, he will always be remembered for this decision. -- i meanthat rarely at this point it's hard to remember anyone else who was involved in the writing of roe v. wade. i had to go back and remind

myself who was on the bench at that time. who dissented from that decision and who were the majority, and again it was a decision for seven justices decided that roe v. wade was the right decision. i don't think anybody remembers who else joined in the majority. i think some people might remember that justice rehnquist, before he was chief justice, was a dissenter and so was justice white. the rest of the members were joined in the opinion, and nobody ever tags those folks as being the ones that created the right to have an abortion. it is black bank for better or worse, and -- it is black bank for better or worse -- it is justice blackmun for better or worse.

i can't forecas that one way or another, it may well be overruled, but that will depend court, i think. but it has stood for 14 years now, and i think it is a landmark decision. decision that we must take towards the emancipation of women. announcer: rochester is one of many cities we toured to explore the american story. of our visit, go to c-span -- org/history. you are watching american history.

>> the complete guide to congress is available. it has details about the house and senate. bio information about every senator and representative and information about congressional committees and the cabinet. the congressional directory is a spiral band guide. order your copy for $18 and $.95. announcer: you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. rain court reach you did navajo indians to create a code aced on their unwritten language to help the military. today on oral histories, navajo code talker samuel sandoval on

his world war ii service. here's a preview. >> you are on the beach where you were 61 years ago. anything that is terribly important that you would like to say? >> i would like to say i was very reluctant before, as you , we went them and the traditional ceremonies that were man, and, the medicine i was advised not to return to killing.re was time,kept that for a long

, what wouldbreak it be the consequences? he did not tell me what will my grandfather says you are going to be facing these kinds of obstacles throughout your lifetime. i might well try to discipline in a way that can be avoided, so i was sort of torn between and the religion part of my life. announcer: watch the entire at 2:00 p.m.ay eastern on oral histories. explore our past here on american history tv.

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>> next, from the eisenhower institute, susan eisenhower talks about her grandfather, and dwight d. eisenhower, and his leadership skills. her remarks were part of an all-day symposium commemorating the 75 year anniversary of d-day. this is almost 20 minutes. >> we have a couple of special guests here today. we are fortunate to have general lessee. [applause] lessie's chairman of the eisenhower society board of trustees, and while at west point, a certain john eisenhower class of 1944 taught him how to roll and pack a field pack.