. >> wow, today we're gonna be talking about your 1864. we're gonna start with the action in virginia in 1864. focusing now, especially now today on the action in may, june, and the famous jewelry train ulysses s grant and robert e. lee. could pick showdown between any case the best general. maybe any other campaign in the civil war. i think the reason reason is because of expectations. you know today in politics you would see say there's a presidential campaign. the primary campaign is going on and several candidates are seeking the nomination of one of the parties and they're coming up on one of the nominating the primers the state primary and you'll typically you'll hear some politicians say oh if i finish in the top three, that will be a win that if i to finish in the top three, i'll be

very happy or something like that. and of course, he's trying to manage expectations. because if he does that successfully and if people and the press and so forth buy it, yeah top three finishes a win for him and he finishes number two, you know. oh wow, that's great. you know he exceeded expectations. but on the other hand if he doesn't bother to manage expectations or if he's not successful at it doesn't get people to buy it then you know, he finished his second. oh, wow. what a loser. what a defeat for him. he finished second the thing with this campaign right here. what's called the overlyan campaign grands campaign up to the point that he gets to petersburg. is that promoting there. yeah the thing with this is that the guy who finishes first winds up being looked at as a loser because of expectations. now grant we've already met

grant before and we've seen some of the reasons why expectations are high for him. so we saw his brilliant success at the battle of fort donaldson which catapulted him to national recognition fame and promotion to major general and then we saw him stand off a very determined confederate counter-attack at shiloh in 1863. he conducted a brilliant campaign of maneuver in the interior of mississippi. which enabled him that was in may of 63, which enabled him to besiege vicksburg? which then six weeks later surrendered to him. not only the town of vicksburg confederate bastion in the mississippi, but the confederacy's main army in mississippi, which was trapped in vicksburg as a result of grants campaign and the victory

at vicksburg ultimate winds up within a few days giving the union complete control of the mississippi river. it's a huge success not a turning point, but certainly another nail in the confederacy's coffin and then in the fall of 1863 grant is brought into remedy a situation that has risen from a disaster that happened to william s rosecrans. rosecrans was defeated at the september 1920 19 to 20th 1863 battle of chickamauga rosecrans, then allowed himself to be sort of quasiabassiged inside chattanooga and they bring in grant and grant. straightens things out defeats confederates at the in the november battle of chattanooga wins a big victory and at this point grant's reputation has become huge nationwide and there's virtually a really a consensus among the northern

people not unanimity, but heavy majority the northern people are very eager to see grant promoted given command of all the union armies and there's really a feeling that as commander of all the union armies grant ought to at least a company the army of the potomac if not actually outright commanded. in virginia and take on lee and finally beat lee and accomplish what the union's been trying to do futally that that union futility and virginia now for three years that grant should do that that should happen. northern politicians are for it. actually. it's a bipartisan thing. it's not just republicans who want to see that happen. it helps that grants political background is unclear grant by this time really is a republican but his and it seems for more democrat and he's never been very political. anyway, so both parties are

eager to see a main general. in fact the democrats kind of would like to recruit him to run for president in 64, which he's hearing nothing of that won't have that at all. but he gets that promotion lincoln is is eager to promote him. he gets the promotion to lieutenant general. the only lieutenant general three-star general in the union army at that time the only person to hold the rank of full three-star lieutenant general since george washington kind of a select company there. winfield scott we saw before was a brevet lieutenant general three stars. will honorary lieutenant general grant is a regular full lieutenant general outranks every officer in the union army and officially is given the position of commanding general of all the union armies. and yeah, it's like here you go grant here are the keys take it away win the war for us. and i don't think there was anything grant could have done. to have managed expectations

after all that the expectations were that grant was going to come to virginia. he was going to win. quickly cheaply and easily that within a matter of weeks grant would of course when the war and certainly by the end of the summer. yeah. grant will have won the war lee will be defeated in everything will be fine. and of course that is radically unrealistic. the generals that grant had defeated in, mississippi and at chattanooga were good generals confederate generals, john, pemberton and mississippi braxton bragg in chattanooga. they were good generals, but they were decidedly second cheer. albertsoni johnston was viewed as a first-year general. we really don't know how good or bad. he was grant beat him too quickly. and then he died at shiloh. but lee is obviously the best

that confederacy has lee's stature and reputation are towering dominating. the his soldiers had very high morale. they really don't believe he can be defeated. they don't believe they can be defeated. this is going to be stand them in good stead and they are quite good and lee has put together quite a bit of a winning team one advantage that lee has had and putting together a winning team with the army of northern virginia. is that lean knows how to handle jefferson davis and when lee once an officer transferred out of my army, this guy's not getting the job done. davis will let him do it now lee. lee has to do it right lee has to use some tact and some finesse, but he knows how to do that and he can get it done and so lee has the team that he wants there in virginia. well, he doesn't have stonewall jackson because he's dead.

he would have liked to have had him. but otherwise lee gets to get the officers he wants there in virginia and he's got a good team. he's very good his men are good. his army's good. so it is totally unrealistic to expect grant to win within a matter of weeks. or to win very cheaply and easy and another another unrealistic aspect of expectations about what we're going to be seeing here. was that that somehow? not that picture. let's look at this one somehow. with an officer like grant people expect that he's going to call his shots. he's gonna be like babe ruth the famous time that he points to the center field stands and then hits the ball there. i think ruth probably got lucky. but you really have to get lucky to be able to do that. so here's a plan. i'm going to do this and this and actually to some degree grant actually did that is we'll see but you know grant really is

an opportunistic general. he will look for you to make mistakes if you're as opposing general he will look for you to make mistakes. he will take advantage of them. and so he can't necessarily tell you everything that's going to happen in the campaign before it does. so anyway, grant does we're gonna see is grant does pretty well, but because he doesn't meet the expectations that unreasonable expectations that people had going into the campaign. both then that summer of 64 and since then there's been a tendency to look at this campaign as a failure for grant as a success for lee. i'm an argue that it was not that at all. all right, so grant. all right, go over there. great experience plans for this campaign now. i'm going to briefly just tell you really quick. in addition to a campaign through virginia, you can see

this old m of the interior, virginia. label this railroads richmond. you've we've we've discussed this topic already review it in a minute. before i discuss that grant does have a couple of peripheral campaigns planned in virginia. it's not just the grants going to take the army of the potomac and he's not going to be the army of the potomac commander. he's gonna we'll get to that in a minute. but he is going to be supervising the army the potomac directly, but from a distance he's going to be supervising a couple of other other small armies and peripheral campaigns. that he hopes will pay off for him. one of those is going to be in the shenandoah valley now. we've seen the shenandoah valley before we saw jackson was out there and made a real headache. for the union in the spring of 62. well grant's going to send an army into the shenandoah valley. small army, which he hopes will keep the confederates from using the shannon to a valley to

distract from his main campaign. and hopefully will distract some confederate troops out there himself. he's also going to send another small army on a campaign somewhat similar to what we saw mcclellan do back in 62. that is approach richmond from the rivers going to off the map here. but the rivers well, yeah right here. james river right there now mcclellan, you know went up the york river and then followed the richmond new york river railroad for various reasons. this little peripheral campaign that grants planning the smaller army is going to go along the james river. and we'll be able to strike either for richmond. or for the smaller town of petersburg so what about petersburg well? in order for the confederates to feed lee's army. need supplies. of richmond they supplies, come on.

four railroads the confederates would have to keep at least two of those railroads. at least two in order to keep richmond fed to keep lee's army fed to maintain their position in virginia. okay, so they've got to keep two out of the four. three out of the four come together at petersburg. so if the union that union forced that subsidiary arm is smaller army. i'm going to tell you about little more in a minute were to go to petersburg and take petersburg now and the commander has an option go for richmond go for petersburg. if the confederates cover richmond leave petersburg uncovered and that smaller union army takes petersburg. the confederates are done in richmond. they will not be able to hold richmond. they will not be able to maintain lee's army nor the richmond and they're gonna lose northern virginia most of the state really so this is very this is a very sensitive target. the grant is poking out with a

smaller army. it could be grant's entirely open to the possibility that while he is up here in northern virginia directly supervising the army of the potomac. these guys will win the war. well, it might happen. and so any hopes without by stretching lee and all those directions he will be able to gain an advantage over him. well that leads to another problem though. another thing that grants going to have to deal with is here. so he's got good things going for him and there's some things against him. going against grant is the problem that this is 1864. this is an election year. and there's going to be a presidential election lincoln is up for reelection. now there were actually some republicans. who said and suggested to lincoln we ought to postpone the election. let's not hold this election in the midst of a civil war. it's a huge civil war going on. the major faction of the

democratic party at this time. believes that the wars of failure they've been saying for years the wars of failure we on a negotiate and kind of the subtext of that is and accept confederate independence. so if the if the democrats were to win this election, there's a chance historian still argue about how much of a chance there's a chance. the confederacy could become independent. and there's almost a certainty that emancipation would be revoked. that slavery would survive. so people had said to lincoln you ought to cancel this election and lincoln said no. we're fighting. to preserve self-government. we're fighting against the idea that if you lose the election you get to start a war and see if it can win it with the war when you couldn't win it in an election and we're fighting against that kind of idea. and if we were to postpone the election because of the war.

we've already lost the cause we were fighting for. yeah, we postpone the election so we say in power. but we were fighting to maintain the id of self-government so we can't do that. we're going to hold the election exactly a scheduled we're going to do exactly what the constitution says. right but politics is tricky and how's that going to affect grants campaign? well for one thing it means there's going to be a lot of scrutiny. it's going to be important. but another thing and i've already told you about the idea of political generals. that these are generals. who are actually politicians because we can't trust the experts. i'm not saying that but i mean the people kind of there's a belief among the people. i know this sounds incredible today, but we can't trust experts they've been educated in this they've studied this so in their naturally bad at it we need to we need to trust guys. you don't know anything about it. i and so that i yeah that idea was around back there too specifically with to the military.

and so they've got political generals and so why do you why are these guys generals because it will gain political support. and grant has been very respectful of lincoln's need to have some political generals now and then guys like mclaren and grant tolerated him for quite a while. grant knows that in this year of 1864 lincoln's going to need to have some some of these political generals guys. these guys have been in the army for a while and they haven't necessarily done well. but they're going to need to have important roles because they garner important political support for lincoln and unfortunately, but probably unavoidably both of these two subsidiary campaigns wind up being under political generals. the campaign out in the shenandoah valley. actually, there's the shenandoah river that's right out there. the campaign out in the shenandoah valley is entrusted to a german-born general in france eagle.

now i think 20th century hiory. well actually 18 19th century history too is showed us that german-born generals can be very good indeed. but francisco was not. he was not very good, but he has this command. you just hope that maybe this time he'll perform better and he'll do something good, hopefully. and then the command of this smaller expedition along the james river this goes to a real american-born guy named benjamin butler. he's a massachusetts politician a democrat. and he's important so the lincoln needs these guys. he needs siegel because having siegel in uniform helps link and win the german-american vote. there's a lot of german-american voted that time. having been butler an important command helps secure lincoln the

support of new england democrats or former democrats who might vote for lincoln. so ben butler's important, too. and this leads to where i can dismiss these subsidiary campaigns and say they're not going to do anything much because both guys performed at the level we've come to expect from political generals. thus both subsidiary campaigns were complete failures. butler didn't take richmond didn't take petersburg. got his command a bottled up in the end of a peninsula between the james and appomattox rivers and that was that the confederates were able to contain him with minimal force and detach the rest of their troops to lee ziegel also failed in the shenandoah valley. so these two subserior campaigns that had the potential to help grant a lot. you know, they're out. so now it's going to be all on grant. and the army of the potomac which he is not commanding, but

he is supervising. more in that in a moment. well, yeah, it's time for that not right now. let's talk about the because this is a problem that grant has what would really work best we can say this with the benefit of hindsight is that would work best if as if there were two of ulysses grant and one of them commanded the army of the potomac and the other one commanded all the armies of the union, but unfortunately, there aren't two and of course the confederacy would like to clone robert e lee too so they can't do that. you can't clone grant. you could potentially and maybe this would have been better. it's hard to say. you could just give grant say all right, grant you're going to wear two hats your commander the army of the potomac. you're also commander of all union armies mcfolin actually had that job briefly in spring of 62. it didn't work out well. and it probably you can't expect that to work. that's too big a job for one man.

something's going to get neglected. so grant is traveling. what grant does he makes his headquarters with the army of the potomac headquarters, actually grant and the headquarters of grant and the headquarters of the army of the potomac's commander general george, gordon meade. are kind of co-located they're literally adjacent to each other most of the time during the campaign. we're going to talk about and but grant grant tells me, you know, i want you to be as independent as you would be if you were commanding the army of the potomac and i was in washington. but that can't be that's not realistic. that's not going to happen. so in that grant really is trying to do something you can't do. because grant is present with the army so grants responsible for what the army does if grant were in, washington. and me decided to do something dumb with the army. i grant would be responsible in

the sense that he was in command of me, but he wouldn't have known what happened in so grand can see me. what did you do, you know? whereas when grants present with the army, he's responsible to a greater degree. he almost has to intervene and tell need no don't send those guys over there. send them over here now don't send that core around there. send it around here. he's got to do that. and so this sets up a constant tension through the whole campaign really through the rest of the war. between grant trying to supervise mead and yet trying to give me some degree of independence to let him command of the army of potomac. probably again, what might might be better would have would be if need recognized himself as almost a sort of a chief of staff in the army of the potomac and i like the idea that what i think would have been better. there would have been problems with it. but for grant to bring his friend james b mcpherson out from the west and i think mcpherson and grant would have worked well together with

mcpherson being sort of army of the potomac commander kind of glorified. chief of staff and just sort of run the army walk grant tells it what to do. as it was mead was constantly feeling resentful of grant. he's always telling me what to do and grant it, you know, it reminds me of a parent teaching their child to ride a bicycle. you know, it's all right. now you get in the bicycle and you've got your hands on them, you know, and all right that's needs on the bicycle right and grants the dad and okay, okay and take your hands away and oh, they start wobbling and grab again, you know and i it was kind of like that. grant keeps trying to take his hands away from mead mead keeps making mistakes, which that has to intervene. you've got the problem that means upset because grant has intervened meanwhile meat has made several mistakes, which across the army a lot. and that's a problem. they have throughout this campaign. okay. anyway, so grant's going to command the army potomac the

potomac now. we've already been. several times over the idea that there are a limited number of ways. you can take an army to richmond and supply it. and so there is the origin alexandria railroad going from alexandria, virginia down to gordonsville. you catch the virginia central and ride that down to richmond. it's the longest way. but and another problem with it is in this upper reaches of the orange and alexandria. it's vulnerable to confederate guerrillas. confederates can raid and potentially disrupt your supplies. but that's at least one way you can go. okay. another way is the richmond in fredericksburg railroad from the mouth of aquia creek on the potomac there straight down to richmond. it's short it's direct it's got problems too in 18 late. 1862, december 62 ambrose burnside tried this at the army

the potomac and found that although you can force your way across across the rappahannock at fredericksburg. it's almost impossible to force your way up out of the bottom lens of the rappahannock river onto the bluffs beyond it. and lost a battle that way. and in the spring of 63 joseph hooker with the army of the potomac tried going around fredericksburg that way and that didn't work all that. well, either it maybe could have but it failed. so there are real problems getting past the rappahannock river on the orange and alexandria railroad. oh and in other problem by the way back here with the excuse me that richmond and fredericksburg with the richmond frederick on the origin alexandria. there's a problem that robert e. lee has his army deployed and heavily dug in. yeah, just south of the rapidan around orange courthouse. so that's a problem. you're gonna have to do

something about that. if you're grant, if you say well we're gonna follow the line of the origin alexandria. you're really what you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to turn loose of the railroad cut your supply line maneuver away from your supply line for a while, which is very dangerous. usually grant would do that. in fact if granted had the army that he had with him out in in mississippi. he would have done that. he knew them knew the officers knew they how they worked but. not being familiar with the army of the potomac didn't want to do something that risky. so that's not an option. of course you could go. up the peninsula the way mclellan did following these these large rivers here these estuaries. and we've seen that grant is sending a minor expedition to a to futility here that he didn't want them to go to futility, but they did. but there are problems with this and in fact lincoln almost would not tolerate the main union force in virginia the army the potomac going down there again, the thing with mclaughlin who worked out so badly the

confederated left, northern, virginia, so wide open lincoln doesn't like that and really is just not going to let that happen. so that's not that's a non-starter for grant. now what grant is going to do? he's going to use a combination of all three plants. his army is on the orange and alexandria railroad near culpeper. when he starts out. so and leah's eltham, so grant is going to angle so i'll get oriented here. there we go. it's going to angle across the rapidan river there. angling to the southeast like that towards the little courthouse town of spotsylvania. and if you can get to spotsylvania before lee does leah's is blocking his root over here. grant's going to go that way if lee if grant can get down there before lee dies grant's going to get a head start and if he can get there before lee does he will actually be in the enviable

situation of being closer to richmond than lee is and lee will be in a lot of trouble at that point lee is almost checkmated if grant can do that. grant and grant would be willing to accept the quick victory, you know all those expectations for victory in two weeks leads to army destroyed in a month or whatever. grand wouldn't mind he'll give it a shot if you can't. but he's also. realistic enough to know probably he's going to have to play out the whole campaign. what he plans to do is basically and he's got this in mind not the details of it, of course, but in broad and broad terms is to keep moving to the southeast and circle around richmond. to the east if you can get straight into richmond sure take it. but on the other hand. he thinks probably and he tells a staff officer before the campaign starts. so they're still up here for the armies have left their camps.

tells the staff officer. actually several of his staff officers. when we get here, and he points to petersburg when we get here. the world will be over. and it's pretty close to being true. so anyway, the campaign begins in may of 64 so you can see there. grant starts out north of the rapid end crosses the rapid end early in may. and lee meets him. we as and i don't think grant really thought lee was going to let him. you know steal a march all the way to spotsylvania, which is there. yeah. lee meets him over here. and this is an area that is favorable to lee. it's unfortunate. the grain has to go through it, but there's no other way to get there. it's called the wilderness of spotsylvania. it's an area of i don't know 30

or 40 square miles of area where during colonial times in the 1700s. there were large iron order but no small iron ore deposits found there. they were large but the standards of colonial virginia. they were small by the standards of anything else. they found iron ore there. the iron ore played out it by the mid-1700s. but by that time they had cut down most of the forests around there to burn them to smelt the iron ore. so with the forest cut down what came back was a second growth. not a climax forest but a second growth and you've got low scrubby woods with a lot of thickets. it's very thick for us. now today our forests tend to go into thickets anyway for various reasons. one thing is we don't grades catalan hogs in their woods like they tend in the woods like they tend to graze catalan hogs in the woods, which kept the understory of the woods grazed

out, but they're especially because the woods have been cleared out the soil apparently wasn't that great and what you've got is an area of maybe like i say 30, maybe 40 square miles of thickets mostly very thick very dense artillery is useless in that terrain. advantages in numbers are almost useless now that lee really wants to fight there if you can and they do fight a battle there now, it's not the greatest place for grant to fight but grant is eager to fight lee any place he can get to him. and so they fight a battle here on the sixth and seven. well, they say fifth to 7th. yeah 57th of may. 1864 it's the first battle between lee and grant it is very intense at times. very unpleasant. it's a lot of its thought it close range because visibility is short within those trees. there's a lot of confusion again because of the thickets and the terrain so grant is not able to

make that sort of that free dash to spotsylvania. he fights lee first, but even at that grant almost wins it all right here in the wilderness. and because grant had you know, he thought if he could get a shot at lee if he could. bring me into battle. he might be able to beat him and he almost did. and there's a famous episode on the second day of the battle and with one of the few large clearings. there are amongst the wilderness grants. grant had launched a big attack and it broke through and it had broken through lee's lines and were about to get to lee's supply wagons, and it was pretty much going to terrilies army in half take out his supply wagons and be the end. and how close this was to the absolute and utter dumen end of the army of northern virginia can be seen in the reaction of robert e lee and if anybody knows if the army of northern virginia is in big trouble would

be the man. and he was and he knew that it was and what lee does is to react in utter desperation as the only reinforcements he can find start coming what happens to be the texas brigade arrives lee actually places himself in front of this brigade and starts to lead them in. an infantry attack lee is going to lead on horseback and infantry. haven't we seen a high ranking confederate general do that before? yes, we have. and that was the end of albertsoni johnston and now lee's going to do that. and i think what that tells me is that lee recognized that this is it this he's practically doomed at this point. and so this is an act of utter desperation. what happens is the texans the soldiers of texas brigade? force lead to turn back is they they're shouting lead to the rear lead to the rear and it's

the first of a couple of lead to the rear incidents that occur during this campaign. they actually take grab the reins of lee's horse and turn traveler his famous horse and they turn travelers head and make lee go to the rear and they wouldn't go forward until he turned back to the river. he reluctantly did. and the counterattack by the texas brigade and other troops of fields division were able to plug that hole. and hold the line. and the day was saved for the army of northern virginia, but it almost wasn't it's very close. after two really hard days of fighting there at the wilderness and a day of really standoff grant. was able to go around the flank of lee's army. he just was able to move off and that direction got some pictures here. i want to show you these are actually done by artists who

went along with the army potomac and were sketching. so these are the closest thing we would get to an action picture here. there are crossing the rapper the rapidan river. and here's actually a sce sketch artist made from position behind the union line of battle hey were engaged with the confed whom you can almost not see over there. they're very hard to see. and there again another shot of union line of battle engaged and is is again a guy sketching it with a pad in paper from position behind the lines. this is a sketch of made again by an artist who's on the scene. the reaction when grant of his staff and mead with his staff is their riding along the road leading to the south. they passed by the positions of some of the troops the army of potomac and this is the first that the troops the army potomac realized. we wanted to battle against lee. we advanced into virginia.

we fought a battle. and we're advancing. first time that's happened that has not happened before not under mclellan. pope burnside hooker every time the army the potomac advances in virginia and they fight a battle. and they go back and they retreat this time. they fought a battle against the army of northern virginia and their advancing. it was a hard battle casualties were high. i was i'm very unpleasant experience, but we won this battle. we're advancing now. how do you decide who wins the battle soldiers by the way, they're cheering here. i don't know if you can see they're waving their hats and cheering there was quite a cheer a grant was eager to get them to be quiet because we don't want lee to know where we're moving any place. how do you know who won a battle is it is the side that one the side that suffers fewer casualties you know, we haven't gotten to world war two yet, but if the side that takes the fewest casualties is the winner.

then irwin rommel won d-day. right and the united states lost and currently bradley was thrown back into the sea and we'd all be speaking german today. well known not exactly but no that it's not how you figure out who wanted that it's who gets more of what he wants of the situation that he wants afterwards and the person who gets what he wants after the battle is grant. he's colliding with lee and then he is just slid off. you want to use a sporting analog just like a running back who hits a linebacker and bounces off and goes around him and tearing down the field and that's exactly what happened. so grant. has hitly here and he moves down here. again, if grant can get the spotsylvania before lee does leah's virtually checkmated and he almost does it is very close. perhaps a matter of less than an hour the confederate troops getting into position and the circumstances that led to that

were complicated. the woods were on fire one of the things that made that battle of the wilderness. so unpleasant the woods can't fire. but because the woods were on fire the confederates did not stop for rests along that march. they just kept marching which worked out for them while he was very tireing, but they marched through the night in very dense smoky woods, very unpleasant circumstances, but they got there with maybe 30 minutes to spare. also there was a controversy about the union cavalry the cavalry of the army of the potomac. the commander of the calvary of the army potomac was one of few officers that grant brought with him from the western theater to command to command something in the east this is general philip sheridan. sheridan has not commanded calvary in the western theater his commanded an infantry division. but there was a saying in the civil war whoever saw a dead calvaryman and there was a

belief that calvary don't really fight. so grant wanted sheridan, you know, i want you to come in. i want you to make the cavalry fight like infantry. and sheridan he doesn't invent this idea. he just advances this idea. we're going to use cavalry like like mounted infantry like you know a sort of a mobile in a modern battlefield a motorized infantry unit. but maybe because sheridan wasn't familiar with calvary operations, maybe. he didn't do a good job of getting his cavalry out in front where they were supposed to be and getting them to spotsylvania first when they needed to be there. is controversial because some people defend sheridan and some people agree with mead that not sheridan did a bad job. in fact, there was a huge row between sheridan the calvary commander of the army of the potomac and george meade the overall command of the army of

the potomac undergrad. both men were known to have terrible tempers. and their tempers were in true form on this day. and they had a just a shouting match. probably we didn't get recorded word for word, which is probably just as well. but it was was pretty pointed. and mead was furious and he went over to grant. he says grant, you know, sheridan says if i just turn him loose he could go and whip the confederate cavalry under jeb stuart. and grant says insurance say that it says yes, he did. grants as well. sheridan usually knows what he's talking about. go ahead and let him. so he turned sheridan loose. and sheridan let it raid. there's judge stewart the confederate calvary med commander. we've met him before. he's a legend by now. and so while grants and lee face off at spotsylvania their

respective cavalry course go galloping off across the country and actually collide all the way down here just outside of richmond at yellow tavern. the fight was inconclusive sheridan got back to union lines. joint butler and then eventually rejoined grant. but significance of yellow tavern was jeb stuart was morally wounded died the next day turned out the confederates had a decent bench in the area of calvary leader, and they got they had another good leader after that but at least sharon or at least stuart was out of the fight. back though to this situation so grant almost grant's forces almost got this spotsylvania before lee but not quite lee takes it. there's a standoff for several days. grant season opportunity to launch a major assault by this time yeah by this time here's

another sketch by someone who's ere, i don't know if you can tell what's goingn but there's a trench all the way along here they're starting to dig trenches. they're starting to build log breastworks. they're srtg to build a lot more in the way of field fortifications and entrenchments. troops have tended to do that in this war consistently after they've had a heavy fight. what's happening in this campaign? is they have a heavy fight and then they stay in contact and keep fighting at spotsylvania both sides built strong login trenchments and log breast works and entrenchments and you can go to spotsylvania today to the battlefield. and the trenches have slumped in a lot and there's grass growing over them, but you can still distinctly follow the lines you can walk the lines because of these the ditches that they had. sometimes it's a trench. sometimes it's the ditch in front of the long breastworks. well grant saw a vulnerabity in the confederate line and launched a major assau.

and it almost succeed this led to the son lead to the rear cident just as we saw at the battle of the wilderness. so at spotsylvania lee apparently is desperate enough to try to lead an infantry counter-attack to plug this gap in his line several thousand of his troops had been captured. a division commander been captured confederate division community captured many confederate guns and battle flags have been captured. and we in desperation is about to lead an infantry assault. when the men forced him to go to the rear not the texas brigade this time, but in other units forcedly to go through the rear. in the end the confederates were just barely able actually after 24 hours of close range fighting by various units. the confederates were able to hold their line there. and avoid disaster, but if you're keeping square at home, i

think this is maybe the third time at least that it came very close to being an early grant victory that would pretty much fulfill those unrealistic expectations, but but didn't happen. after the unsuccessful attack the almost but not quite successful attack. it's spotsylvania grant ain goes around. lee's flank again hits him and slides off now. again result of the battle. we don't do it by counting bodies on the battlefield, you know, famously the united states and the earlier is the vietnam war tried to gauge how well it was doing us forces tried to gauge how much they were doing by counting bodies the body counts not the way to do it and we're not going to do body counts here casualties were about proportional to the size of the true the forces engaged. grant goes down here. he's shooting for hanover

junction. where the virginia central railroad crosses over the richmond in fredericksburg grand is already he started with the virginia central railroad as his supply line. he's picked up the richmond in fredericksburg. lee blocks in it hanover junction. we takes a very good position lee is a very good general and i don't know if you can see that little upside down red v right there. that's the position that lee takes in order to get at that position grants troops will have to cross on either side cross the north anna river on either side of the apex of lee's v. and by doing that they'll be much separated from each other. so lee has essentially put a wedge into the union army. it's got a lot of potential but lee can't follow up on it because lee's army is getting worn out lee is getting worn out. he's suffering from heart disease and he may have had a heart attack in late 63. he's not in the greatest of health by this time. he's on his back in a cot in a

tent and he's trying to command the army from there. his top subordinates have been went out to his his best support his first core commander james longstreet badly wounded in a friendly fire incident at wilderness his second core commander you will becomes basically a psychological casualty after spotsylvania. by the time they get to north anna his third core commander ambrose p hill has succumbed to bad health. stress i think probably added to it so. all of these three the three cores of leaves army are being commanded by division commanders who have moved up to that position within the last few weeks. they don't have a lot of experience. we can't go out and provide that experience for them personally by riding around on horseback as he did say in the seven days battles. he's on his back. he can't make anything happen out of this grant pulls back.

and oh, yeah, here's a shot of the north anna river and a union pontoon bridge across it. that's actually a photograph taken at the time. so anyway, that's a more zoomed in picture. there's the confederate fee on the north anna again grant slides around them as lee land is tent on his --. he said we cannot let those people go around us again, or we can't let those people pass us again. but they did he can't stop them grant is going around him again. and again, i don't know we just say like a running back that. i used to love the way we're all through payton, you know, he's hall of famer, you know, he'd get back to read hit a defensive back. he'd slide off and go on and hits another defensive back slide off and me go on grant is grand is having things his way up. the wilderness was 65 miles from richmond spotsylvania about 55 miles the north end. it was 25 miles from richmond and when grant gets down here where the line they're gonna

face up against each other again and a place called cold harbor not because it was cold or a harbor but because there was an inn where you could only get cold meals. they're going to be 10 miles from richmond. so grant is making progress here. as they again advance in a side long way that way. they get down here. cold harbo qckly because we don't know how much time is best known for an unsuccessful attack onay 3rd. the attack did not result in 7,000 union casualties in 45 minutes more like maybe 1,500. grant again struggles with getting mead and meed subordinates to attack in the ways. he wants when he wants in a coordinated manner and then another thing that grant tries to communicate in his orders and you read this again in again is and if you see that the confederates have a strong

position and if you see we're not going to break through right away. stop the attack. do not keep doubling down on a failed attack. unfortunately the generals of the army of the potomac tend to double down on failed attacks. they're not as fast in getting their attacks going as grant once. but when they do get going they don't want to stop even though they're failing. so that ran casualty lists up but the two armies remained in contact at cold harbor. beyond june 3rd when the unfortunate attack happened all the way up to the 12th and in some of the movements and attacks that happened afterwards grant actually did better than lee and then final move of this overly in campaign was maybe the most brilliant of the side moves the grant makes? he really fakes lee out. and he takes his army down and across the james river.

and they moves on petersburg. and that was another one of those moves that should have by rights of given grant what he was seeking. unfortunately fatigued bad decisions by generals various factors led and i got to say a heroic confederate defense of petersburg, which is just off the map there. led to that of the failure to take petersburg but at that point it becomes really a quasiase of confederate positions around richmond and petersburg with grant on the outside of that line constantly drawing driving to cut additional railroads. and as robert e lee had said about actually when the armies were up here. lee said we've got to stop grant before he gets to the james river. there's the james river. grant said if he gets to the james river, it's going to be a siege and then it will only be a

matter of time. and from the time grant got to the james river. in mid-june of 18 for it was a matter of time for the confederacy although a lot more time than union voters would have wished. okay, we are out of time. so thank you for your attention and i'll see y'all on wednesday.

the private world of the presidential retreat. >> hello welcome to another episode of history live. i'm doctor colleen i'm a senior vice president at the white house historical association and the director of the david science center for white house history. the white house historical association is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a mission to educate americans about that rich and diverse history of the white house and the people who live and work

there. our guest this evening is michael he is a retired rear admiral from the navy civil engineer corps. he served in a variety of assignments around the world and is 29 year military career. including as commander of camp david. after retirement thousand ten, michael jordan private industry is a chief executive officer of the building information technology company headquartered in his hometown of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. in october 2017, he published his first book inside camp david the private world of the presidential retreat. mike travels often speaking about the book has been covered by the wall street journal, the today show c-span and many other print radio television outlets. after our conversation, mike will be taking questions from

our live audience. please be your questions for mike and the chat we will get to as many as possible welcome to white house history live mike. >> wonderful to be here. it's an honor to serve the nation. [inaudible] >> only start from the beginning, your story with camp david. tell us about how you were selected as commander of camp david, what that process was likely. >> camp david is actually a navy command naval support facility and a town nearby. the navy has operated and maintained it since it was started in 1942 by president roosevelt. civil engineer corps officer with history. 1998 is put on a short list

for possible officers to be considered, how the interview with president clinton, went through a visit to the camp about a week later i got the call. >> visited once as an assignment officer left the visit that day the next assignments. that cut a really difficult place to work it will be weird to work there someday. put it away, went on for the next few tours and lo and behold i was shortlisted was selected reported in june of 1999 and the end of president clinton's second term bird.

>> let's talk a little bit about the history of camp david. the history begins later talk about that. >> let's go back to 1942 roosevelt loved with a three presidential's in his times in the potomac. new book on the right is oakland california today. secure as hobbies it's a place

to go get away from the white house helicopter squadron existed, that got to find somewhere drivable nearby. interestingly because of the new deal, bring us out of depression and part of the work projects are the progress administration on the conservation corps put money back into the country i rebuilt a lot of the roads and parks. you place in maryland, also known as camp number three. rose was given three sites nearby to visit. he went to all three when he came to camp number three he looked at it and said this is it. and here's the first and this is my shangri-la. joe roosevelt amended chandra

law applying a utopian mysterious place of the mountain. he had that whimsical nature about naming things bridget that's what its name. as mail president eisenhower renamed after his grandson, camp david. that is how we know it today. >> you describe kempton for a lot of our viewers and listeners who i'm sure have never visited camp david in person. i'm probably will not visit camp david. when you paint a picture of what the camp is like? >> i will try. great partners of ours 1800 feet elevation, on the spring and summer months. a leafy canopy perfectly manicured yards, the road meanders to the camp. in these cabins we presidential walk-through all

the cabins have this oak plank siding with the certain shade of green paint. all the roofs are cedar shake shingles. these very rustic, very leafy, very fresh. but at night i find it particularly surreal definitely quiet, no white except pathway light. no noise except for a squirrel in the tree no lights, no noises from below eerily quiet peaceful. inside the campus is called cedar just from the corner from aspen and the president's logic. >> how many cabins are in camp david, how big is the site? >> there are about four guest cabins president eisenhower started that called the presidential watch eisenhower

when he renamed it camp david named all of the trees, all named after trees coat 12 for entertainment 20 total that include the fire department, the ash, clinic, eucalyptus, popular, the cycle of drought the staff at camp david pretty were the commander. was assize the military staff at camp david? what kind of job do they perform? >> over 200 sailors and marines, officers maintain their maintenance. officer supply corn to marine officers in washington d.c. also put all of the sailors and rings together just over

200 staff. there's also white house communication detachment there in charge of communications that is a joint command coming out of the main command. >> q tells a little bit about how camp david is changed over the years? it was very rustic is been some notable additions to the complex. mention there is a chaplin so there is a chapel at camp david. that also about the activities and how that complex is changed over time. >> >> to fdr again apparently it's why the navy has it. he took the sealers of the uss potomac of not had a job and took them with him to camp david brought them for security. they went there during the non- winter months. truman, not a favorite of camp david prefer to go to key west. had the trees pushed back on

during eisenhower's time it was winterized and installed the other cabins. they still maintain that, over the years use of a family cabins have been added president nixon during his time but a lot of expansion into the camp, putting in the hourglass shape pool adding laurel which is the main entertaining cabinet you see sometimes on news report and coverage of world leaders and visiting number of other features throughout. to modernize the time they challenge the president to modernize the cabin and expanded that's been going on last for five years but a very sequential smart way to keep current but maintain the rustic nature outside. and the amenities on the inside part is not a marble, brass a four star resort is not meant to be.

it is a rustic, comfortable place to get away, to think, to walk in privacy and silence. and recreate on your own or meet with other world leaders. the most unique thing the bottom right of this photo of the evergreen chapel donated to private money, with camp david commissioned in 1994 during president george h.w. bush. >> how do presidents get to camp david customer could talk about fdr within driving distance. but present to circle do not drive to camp david in a morbid. >> we prefer to bring them end by the helicopter squadron eisenhower was the first to come in like that. and weather permitting they will fly in the talk marine one. they'll come up by motorcade from where ever their departure platform is.

>> camp david is a presidential retreat. yet you know presidents often find themselves working in camp david. tell us a little bit how it functions as the white house? >> thank you. i think most people recognize no matter who is the president, there can be a lot of critiques about what you do when you're off duty for how you do your job. but the fact is you are always on duty. and you need time off, we all need time off. in addition to a second home some of us have been some do not, camp david provides that peaceful getaway for family, friends, and if needed for staff and for world leaders. it's a great the presidents going to get away most of the time as a couple to get away, to recreate but also i'm sure to think about things every is

a little different. to me the outsider think the best val is a personal respite for your family and friends. then you find it's a great place to bring world leaders to to talk privately. there is no press unless you invite the press and pray there is no press, there are no protesters, there is no traffic, no plane flying overhead serenely, private and peaceful. >> how do people get around? >> it's golf carts everyone is assigned a golf cart program golf cart one. so golf cart one, golf carts for all of the gas, bicycles are available for pedestrians. we have cross-country trails through the woods in the winter months if you want to do that. snowmobiling saw the president president ford and his family. principally golf carts to get around or walk.

>> just a reminder to everyone we are going to be taking questions at the end of our conversation. if you do have questions for mike about camp david comments history, what it's like please put them in the chat will get to as many as possible. stock a little bit about the history of camp david the historic events that have taken place for camp david. can you talk about some of these episodes for them and why presidents might choose camp david for the setting of these historic occurrences? >> i will mention four events and then i will focus on the fifth one in particular. we have seen photos from the nearby stream. but the point of the bottom left of them talking about how, roosevelt on the top left inside aspen the stone hearth fireplace is still there for there is a wagon wheel the

roosevelt table is still there. president truman, i only went ten times in his tenure he preferred key west. the presidents come that that's the first time with fdr and churchill. president carter made it famous for most people 1978 with the peace accords with sadat and israel. during my time 2000 president clinton brought arafat and the prime minister of israel to camp to try to represent a similar thing for president 12 president obama hosted the conference at camp david. the single time the most world leaders have been in camp at any one time. the incident want to go back to his 1961. april 1961. president kennedy inaugurated in january succeeding president eisenhower. bad things are being planned by the scenes with the cia, u.s. government and others

passed off to the administration you see the photo of the top right of pulitzer prize winning photo called serious steps. what's interesting about this i think from a human and political point is that president kennedy inherited the operation. it was launched, and did not go well hence the name. riches across the political and personal i'll and invites president eisenhower to come to camp david and help them understand how to get to this how do i fix this mess, what do i do? it's a very poignant and significant moment i think part of the new upstart democrat inviting the old guard five-star general to talk about what to do. i think it's a very humble may be possibly desperate measure. very humble way to recognize leadership and what passes between administrations and

talk about what to do best for the country. >> you mentioned this already, mike, who talk about this in your book. some presidents and first ladies visit camp david or frequently than others. if you talk a little bit about the differences in how the presidents and first families use camp david and explain why think that is? >> one, i think it depends on children. what are the ages of the presidents children. i think that dictates are they going to leave their intramural leagues, back in d.c., are they hosting their friends, of the running out of the house, too, some have second homes and go there for they could do both. three, some like the quiet nature. president clinton really went to camp david his first term but did a lot more second term. over two terms is on the

value. some prefer just to go somewhere else. prefer to entertain elsewhere. you have seen a mix over 80 some years of how they use it. >> host: can you share this one or two of your most favorite memories from your time camp david? >> are certainly the historic moments most people recognize the middle east peace summit, work with the state department to welcome president clinton meeting yasser arafat and having a photo shaking his hand, watching from the sidelines as president clinton spent two weeks trying to forge the peace agreement. watching president bush welcoming the blairs to couples getting to know each other much like as you would moved with their neighbors as you move into a neighborhood. there very poignant things to watch on the sideline for even you get to serve there, see things, you have to remember

you are in the role you get to know some personal things about the families but you are not of their world you have to maintain that corm. i will tilt two stories that are a more personal nature. i think it helps to relate to the families. the first one is the final clinton weekend four days nonstop, hundreds of guests coming through, dinners, musicians performing in the chapel, just a wonderful event we said goodbye with the hanger that night with the family some walking to the helicopter at 10:00 o'clock on that sunday at the snow on the ground, thanking them for leading our country and walking them down to marina one, might for last time to see you then. when gerald student stanford turns to me and hands me too stuffed animals. when jesus commanded i've had these in my bed and for eight years in aspen for please give them to your daughter breonna and ryan and think your wife

michelle for everything you've done. just a touching unexpected moment of course a very human approach. great keepsakes now for the two girls. that was the first whimpered as the final time as to the clintons of 2001, the second was a humorous story from the book about goldfish. and the commander of the camp, the factor responsible for security, we have to run errands to do official things for us during the middle east peace some of the first week, michelle and taken to the city fair, common thing to do here at camp david in the summer. she's coming back to the gate with the two girls the backseat they each had one a goldfish. there goldfish in a plastic bag are each holding. we have a strict policy at the time no animals at camp david, no pets. the marine corps guard, who knows us we know all the marines, they know us.

everyone is doing their job reese's ma'am you cannot bring pets into the camp. she looks at him with a bit of an incredulous look. the girls are hearing this and steers tears start to come down there i paired she was looking at them he's looking at her, she's looking back at him he's doing his job mom is doing her job, michelle is into the window and says they are for dinner. i'm kind of winks. yes man please proceed. most little funny moments like that there are still people there. we have these times, we all live with rules and regulations but sometimes you see the human side and work through it. that's her favorite store because moms and dads get it. thank you. >> the final chapter in your book is called the true meaning of camp david. can you tell us what is the true meaning? and is it different for every

president and first hamlet spends time there? >> is definitely different as we described different families use a brief president george w. bush love going to camp david like his dad. basement every christmas there. for some at the time for family to come together for special holidays. during my time, the clintons loved camp david for thanksgiving. again every president is done it differently. president reagan nancy reagan love their almost by themselves. he did always radio addresses from the cabin and elsewhere. they all used it differently. the meaning comes from has a theme of a camp david kind of place for the spirit of camp david one by one the soviet premieres at the time was about a place you come together with trust, within nature, no press unless you

want them there, the ability to sit down as people, break bread, share a story, get to know each other. to me that the true meaning of camp david a place of the presidents to get away and relax the best they can. a place to entertain family and world leaders probably one of the most unique places in the world to do that. growth and reasonable distance of the white house. >> michael had some really great questions from our live audience. nancy from facebook asked i know president reagan and nancy reagan rode horses while they were at camp david. is there a stable there? what other activities are available besides swimming? >> the only time we had a stable there, a corral's during the kennedy years the pony macaroni was kept there for the children, the kennedys. otherwise horseback, had one incident where president clinton and chelsea wanted to go horseback riding.

so the national park service from d.c. brought the horses up we use the back gate into the wilderness with secret service on horseback to to go to the nearby woods. horseback riding is possible but there is no corral for their skeet shooting, trap shooting, mini golf course, a driving range, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, presidents want to go golfing to go back to the nearby golf course. if they want to fish this nearby fishing hold on private farmland so we arranged to take them. there is a bowling alley game room, rex david asks, never approach the perimeter of camp david? >> it happens and there are some warning times. you could drive by the roads in camp, three do have

protocols if you do happen to approach the fence and get closer things to deal with. again it's a no-fly zone i'm sure that happens and continues to happen. >> didn't fdr, didn't he make a wrong turn when he was driving once to try to get to shangri-la and didn't come across a neighbor who is not too happy to see him? >> yes it has happened. when we did not drive around as much as we do today and we were not always surrounded by agents there's been those humorous events you knock on the door and the yelled who are you. what's the long essay president has stayed there, wasn't carded there for a week or more during the middle east peace talks? >> yes. there is a time almost two

weeks for the peace talks president carter also went there during the 1979, he came back and gave that talk about the condition of the country, what was going on we had the hostages taken, all of this was going on. he supported himself almost two weeks working there during that difficult time in his presidency. typically presidents go for a weekend, up friday back sunday night too. >> jeff asks a good question, how did eisenhower get naming rights to name camp david, camp david for it was there an executive order? was it legislation or did he have someone go out with lumber and paint and redo the sign? >> i like the second explanation best but i do not know. i imagine that henry something

signed to change the name from the shangri-la to camp david. will have to check the archives together. >> karen asks, when a president chooses not to visit camp david very often, how does that change staffing and operations? >> staffing and operations do not change. you are always ready or your mission is always to be ready to receive. some let camp david be used by desperate president carter visited with his whole family during president clinton's term was a former president visiting. some presidents have allowed staff to use it. but if no one is there you are just maintaining the place and taking care of it. that can be a morale issue. i had a gap of five months with president clinton. a lot of time not to do your job per se you get a little rusty sifter practice at times but some weekends the presidents are always on a big comes and operations tempo you

would say. >> that is the question that gaudi had, what happens at camp david when the president is a way? what do you do as a staff? >> we have more time to do training, physical nest programs, contest if time allows it. we send our sailors and marines to school you always have to be ready. you are really sitting waiting taking care of the place, mowing the grass, training, firefighting training is constant. certainly because you're always ready your way to execute when the president does visit we look forward to those visits. >> has hollywood or the news media for a documentary ever films on site at camp david? >> harry reasoner with abc news interviewed president ford inside the camp. i believe that was the only

time there's an interview done in that regard, certainly during world events like middle east peace summit the press was there in a secluded area to film. the principals coming in and then they were escorted out on the bus. there have been hollywood guests over the years and musical guests and sports guests. no real filming, documentary done on camp david other than on the archives and as it any presidential films from the libraries. >> peter asked, what is the reason for the no pets rule at camp david? >> who is a self grown and today the are allowed to have a pet. it depends what happened in history. with the french poodle in the camp commander's dog. it is a humorous time which is why this it changes at times. today we are a little more

reasonable i would say with the pet rule. kathie asks you mention the library paid what kind of books are in the library and it does it depend upon the administration, to the books change depending upon the president or the first lady? >> we keep some archives in an open public library near the game room. more of the history, that is where the white house christmas cards, there cap the president sends out we frame those, put them in the movie theater in the library. in the cabin holly which is where carter chose to meet with sadat because it is a smaller nature, i like that room because that library is close to the presidential papers. too there's copies of the presidential papers published in other historical novels about the military services. that is what we mean when we refer to the two libraries. one for public use, one with a history of camp david. the second is the presidential papers.

: : : works to make it harder possible and how to do the air-conditioning and all the things they did in their own home and he talks about the transition through kennedy reacting to the assassination and the shaded administration and president johnson and his family. >> grant asks has president biden visited camp david, do you know? >> he has been there a time so far.

he goes on to delaware and he's been decamp david eight times as president it has been there many times as vice president. >> has camp david ever been damaged by bad weather? >> yours a mic or burst on the hill and there's when those will knockout trees in the state park in a national park but fortunately nothing serious is it the area. >> vivian asked a good question. has there ever been a wedding at camp david? >> one wedding one of the bush daughters was married in the chapel. >> salt from facebook asks what was the biggest surprise you ever had while working at camp david? >> the day the sprinklers went off when president clinton was chipping golfballs. the sprinklers go off and i was

watching nearby. the sprinklers went off again and he threw his clubs and to the golf course and went to the driving range and it's humorous but you have to understand the frustration of someone dealing with that. i tried to make light of it that night when he left camp david. it was a poor attempt at humor into you when -- you learn a balance of when to be serious but not too serious and went to be humorous. fortunately i had no serious incidents during my time. i left the month before 9/11 occurred and we spent a lot of time describing that the light moments during my time there. >> how much heads up do you get to know when a president is coming?

>> it depends on the president. the change of command day at 10:00 a.m. my predecessor didn't know at all the a.m. ceremony and we get word the president is coming that night. so a fascinating factor to realize you are about to inherit the camp then you know nothing about what goes on and you get briefing that you are the new ceo and you are driving a car. i signed on to be -- because it taught me just to sit back and let them do their job and all i have to do is get dressed walk walked down there introduce myself and shake hands and that's all i did that or stay but i learned a lot about my crew and i said let people do their job trained them have their backs to support them but let them do their job.

the bush administration very descriptive and you always knew well ahead of time. again it depends on the person. >> can the vice president and his or her family go there as well? >> if the president allows it. it has happened in curse -- history and not a lot but occasionally. some go away for leadership retreats. president obama did that a lot with this staff members so the commanders and in the chapel and they welcome people may do what they are there to do. so it varies. >> if you know this teen on how the pandemic has affected to camp david or the new procedures in place? >> very observant of mask rules and vaccinations.

again this is telling of the trump administration in the beginning of the biden administration but everyone is observer in the following the rules. whether by the white house or the navy commissions so a very appropriate response. a lot of outside guess calm but no world leaders have been there in five years. but i think that will open up and i hope it will. >> i think i know the answer to this question but i will ask it anyways did camp devon ever -- camp david open its doors and has the average person gone to camp david? >> it's not open and there's a fake web site out there that advertises it. don't believe that. not true. the other way to get decamp is on a nonpresidential visit

weekend so either know someone who works there if allowed or know the president and be invited by the president. >> what is the food like it camp david? good question. >> we run a galley operation for sailors and marines and there is the lounge on the bar but for visits we work with the first families and social secretaries and the first lady to work the menu. we have well-trained culinary specialist who work with the chef for the navy master prepare the meals. for world leaders we sometimes work with the state department especially for kosher meals during the yasir arafat visit they were brought from d.c. to provide meals for all guests so we accommodate the guests but they today we have a galley that serves a crew that works there.

>> jackie is watching on youtube asks what is something you think every american should know about camp david? >> it's a place called shangri-la navy command just like the marine command in air force one etc. and it was first established in 1942 by president roosevelt. >> macias was the highest rank of someone from the marines are the navy at camp david? >> the camp commander is the u.s. navy commander. sometimes that officer might the selected as captain if he or she is departing the camp but it's a job for the commander. the senior captain of the marine corps and for the white house communication detail that's their navy lieutenant colonel of the u.s. army.

>> the last question this evening several viewers have asked this. why did you decide to write the book on camp david and what was one or two things that were fascinated that you learned while you were researching for the book? >> thank you. on the day of command there's a photo of my wife and two daughters ages seven and four and my wife michelle and she hands me this journal and the oeste thing in the journal are scrawled notes from my two daughters saying dear daddy please write stories about the president's. i had never thought of it so after every visit weekend or event i would sit down and write down what happened. i did it after the clinton administration and the inauguration and i put that away in my desk.

i never thought i could write a book. over the reunion weekend a lot of the former training officers were there and they were all meeting each other some for the first time and some had known each other for years and i here heard many of them talking about how to capture some of the history and they have learned later many had their own story. i first realized i could write the book as far security so it was possible. i did want to write anything that was unattractive to any president and a new i could read 15 stories of other commanding officers from kennedy forward and that would bring the history of a lot of the camp together and the ceos you will see their stories and their photos. and i would use it that way to

tell a historical narrative of some of the personal insights. some people wanted third in stories but that wasn't the purpose or wanted to show respect and to tell the story. a little bit about the inside workings and how the military supports the president 24/7. >> thank you so much. this has been a really comprehensive conversation aboue

anytime at c-span.org/history. let me tell you about our speaker this evening. dr. alan pietro ban is an assistant professor of global affairs at trinity washington university since 2011. he has also served as an assistant director of research at the nuclear nuclear studies institute and his primary research and teaching areas are modern us history in us foreign policy focusing on nuclear weapons policies and cold war diplomacy. but he also believes in making education more accessible to people outside of universities. so he works to give public presentations on wide ranging topics like the cultural impact of road trips throughout american history. they rise of the american suburbs the gilded age the role prohibition played in shaping the 1920s the history of food and dining in the us or like this one had the 1939 world's

fair in vision the future. now alan will also be back with us on january 11th to discuss kennedy nixon in the debate of the century. we hope you will consider joining us. now we're so excited to have alan with us this. things without any further ado. please join me in welcoming alan pietro bun. thank you for that generous introduction heather. i am dr. alan pietro bond a professor of global affairs and modern american history at trinity washington university here in dc and i want to start tonight. by giving you a number 1939 it's one of those years that stands out in history. for those who know their history, it's a year that evokes a reaction much like 1776 with the american revolution or perhaps 1989 with the fall of

the berlin wall or 9/11. there are just some dates that just sear themselves into the historical memory. and 1939 holds special significance because it's the year world war two begins. hitler's armies role in the poland sparking a global war that would go on for nearly six years and result and upwards of 85 million people killed. that starts september 1st. 1939 and much much less remembered is the fact that that exact same day. the united states president franklin roosevelt extended a formal invitation for all european nations. to return to the united states

in 1940 to continue celebrating the next season of the ongoing new york world's fair. his invitation said quote the continuing hope of the nation's must be that they will increasingly understand each other. and the new york world's fair is one of the many channels by which this continuing conception of peace may be known. end quote and yet on that same september day that the war broke out the ongoing new york world's fair saw record attendance numbers. it had sort of become a de facto gathering ground for those who wished for comfort or solace. or maybe just those who wanted to revisit the world as it existed just the previous day. a world not plunged into a catastrophic war.

a world of hope for the future the following day on september 2nd the new york times headlines said that europe's turmoil was reflected at the fair. they wrote quote. with bombs bursting over poland yesterday the impact of general war that seemed to threaten europe finally broke with full force at the world's fair. which such a short time ago was dedicated with brave speeches of international peace and goodwill. end quote the 1939 world's fair was supposed to be a celebration of mankind's progress a glorious vision of the future literally called the world of tomorrow. and so with that by means of a teaser what i want to explore in tonight's presentation is exactly that how did this fair

full of such promise? collapse into the fires of world war two and what vision of the future did it present? how far off were we? so for about the next hour or so, i'm going to explore this fascinating moment in history, and then there'll be plenty of time at the end for some q&a so you can feel free to enter it into the question in box throughout or hang on to it for the end. and i want to begin by looking not just at the world's fair and the vision for the future that it presented but really the fact that there was an enormous amount riding on this single event. and event, that would be marred by the outbreak of war. so, let me set the scene and give first the general overview and then we're gonna come back through and fill in some of the gaps expand expand our context a little bit. because our story sees us.

on october or rather april thought october april 30th, 1939 a muggy sunday afternoon. when the new york world's fair had its grand opening with over 200,000 people in attendance. it wasn't especially exciting moment because franklin roosevelt the president of the united states was going to be there there to officially open the fair. i'll show you a newsreel from that moment. america's world of tomorrow is ready for its formal debut the mighty exhibition, which is a monument to imagination showmanship and industry. to see the exhibits of 58 nations crowds pour in from subways trains buses and cars half a million strong and for 40,000 invited guests. the moment has come. right speaks in the court of

peace i hear my dedicate. the world's fair the new york world's fair of 1939 and i declare it. open to all mankind. should have mentioned before it started. it's an old video clip and depending on your speed of your internet connection. it might the video might be a bit choppy, but the audio should come through fine. but right from that very moment. this fair was already opening a window on the future the world of tomorrow because roosevelt's speech was broadcast on a brand new invention that was being debuted for the first time at the fair. television roosevelt's speech launched the very first scheduled television broadcast

tv station in america. nbc that first broadcast station breathlessly proclaimed the president's address was being beamed from a transmitter at the very top of the empire state building the signal which could reach for a whole 25 miles. now in reality only about a thousand people we think tuned in because there were only about 200 tvs in existence in new york at that time mainly because this is what a television look like at the time. five inch screens smaller than some of your cell phones today. it wasn't even technically black and white. it was actually a weird greenish hue. and if you the regular person wanted to buy themselves a television it cost today's equivalent of about $4,000. for that wooden box but this was

an incredible thing that we now know in hindsight would really go on to introduce the world of tomorrow. but the irony here and the one that would continuously haunt the entire world's fair. was the fact that while this may have been the first broadcast in america. it was nazi germany that beat us to it. by three years the first live television broadcast was the opening of the or the opening ceremony of the 1936 olympics in berlin where hitler featured prominently. it has a interesting thought experiment inside note the astrophysicist carl sagan once considered that since this was the first mass tv broadcast sent out on radio waves that might mean that perhaps the first

message that aliens encounter the first transmission from earth would be a picture of hitler. but back to roosevelt's speech. as exciting as this moment was there were some storm clouds gathering. a reporter asked a fair representative wouldn't a european war completely ruined the fair. and the representative responded there will be no war that's all newspaper. talk europe is excited about this fair. in fact, it's all they're talking about not about some war. well not everyone would have agreed with that statement. the fair was open to all countries. each country was invited to attend and build a pavilion to exhibit their culture their their products their industries and hitler's germany had signed

a contract to build the pavilion in new york city. and there was a lot of consternation at the time in america about whether to let nazi germany even attend. two years earlier at an exposition in paris. the nazis had also been invited and they built a giant and imposing building with a swastikas all over. and this was meant to be a bold display of nazi. germany's reimagined role within the global community. what they were projecting was that hitler's totalitarian form of rule was good and not just not just good. but it was the way of the future. that democracies were old and fading they were a thing of the past that national socialism, right? nazism was a new political project to be taken seriously to be respected and even to be

admired was the image they wanted to project. in fact, the organizers in paris had put the nazi building on the left of this image and the building for the soviet union on the right directly facing off against each other. and germany leaned into this idea that national socialism was a welcome bulwark against the evils of communism. and so right away this illustrates one of the major clashes of 1939 the major fears that overshadowed not just the fair. but overshadowed that moment in american life the idea that was real at the time that maybe we in america were about to be overtaken by these two countries that offered alternative and more modern political systems.

and to understand the reason why this was a fear. let me go back for a moment to put this fair in the context of its time which of course was in the midst of the great depression. by the time the fair opened in 1939 the united states had been through 10 years of economic calamity a 27% unemployment rate at time. this is a time in american life when both family most families did without. without extra food without an extra pair of shoes without going to the dentist. a time before there was modern medicine or penicillin which meant that a child or an adult for that matter could die of a sore throat or a simple cut that got infected. this was the time when most roads in the nation were made of dirt. not even gravel, like literally

just a dirt that turned completely to mud when it rained. in 1939 fewer than 25% of people living in rural areas had electricity. and that should astonish you this is 50 years after electricity is commercialized and still only 25% of people in rural areas in america have it. and this is a time when the national emergency council reported that much of the southern united states was and i'm quoting from the report. a belt of sickness misery and unnecessary death from syphilis hookworm malnutrition typhoid fever and malaria end quote the us south was so underdeveloped that it's more akin to what we'd probably recognize today is a third world country malaria typhoid fever malnutrition.

and so there was a growing understanding among the american population that as the great depression dragged on and on and on for a decade. that seemed to indicate that seemed to prove. that capitalism as an economic system was a failure. and worse overlaying that was the democracy as a governing system also had failed. it seemed unable to remedy the problem. democracy was old slow creaky subject to the whims of the masses on one hand and on the other hand held hostage by bickering politicians all trying to pursue their own political interests. democracy was obsolete. and in contrast a bold and most importantly new political system had arisen starting in europe in

the 1920s the system of fascism. it originates in italy and then it spreads to germany and the fastest fascist ideology argues that liberal democracies are doomed their past that only a one-party state led by a strong leader in charge of a martial law government that could tightly control the population that only that government could respond effectively to economic problems and forge the positive national unity required to maintain a stable and prosperous and orderly society. the problem was that approach seemed to be working in the 1930s. fascist italy and germany seem to be doing well thriving even in 1935 the german autobahn was opened a full 20 years before

the us interstate system was even inaugurated. in 1936 the german economy in the midst of the global great depression. germany was roaring at full employment. and so there were many in the united states throughout the 1930s including members of the united states government who pointed to nazi germany and thought that perhaps the way out of the great depression was for america to be more like germany. but it's even worse than that. that maybe fascism with its strict control of society wasn't quite your cup of tea. well, that's okay because there's yet another new alternative to democracy. communism in the 1930s the soviet economy was also booming was rapidly industrializing so much so that there were russian recruiters working in the united

states to recruit out of work americans to move to russia to work where there were more jobs than there were people and tens of thousands of americans did move to russia in the 1930s in search of a better jobs a better way of life than what they at least thought they had in america which what america offered at the time was a huge number of shanty towns that had populated the outskirts of almost every major american city. now to be clear the early 1930s. this was largely before we had learned about the atrocities of the soviet union and to a lesser extent of nazi germany. these were seen as largely respectable prosperous european nations. and so in 1939 american style capitalism and democracy was under challenge and no one quite knew how things were turned out.

maybe the fascists were right that just like democracy had superseded monarchy, maybe fascism and communism were the next logical steps in human political development that they had solved the problems of politics. so to say that most americans had experienced these years as a constant stream of obstacles and struggles and and existential fear would have been about right. to some nazi germany was the positive model of the future. but to others in fact to most they were up in arms in america about allowing a repressive freedom restricting german state to participate in this fair, which was focused on freedom and the future for one the mayor of new york city fiorella laguardia never missed an opportunity opportunity to heckle hitler claiming that if germany was

allowed to attend then the fair also had to contain a building that he called the chamber of horrors. he said quote. containing a figure of that brown shirted fanatic who is now menacing the peace of the world end quote. the nation magazine said no swastikas at the world's fair. ultimately despite these clashes it would come to not because the germans would withdraw on their own from the fair at the last minute. partly, i mean they claimed it was because of the foreign exchange problem. they didn't have enough money, but it was really as a protest and a front to what they saw as insults against their nation. so many were happy germany withdrew. but perhaps they're absence from a peaceful gathering of nations. maybe they're absence should have been ominous in and of itself.

down the road from where the nazi pavilion was meant to have been constructed was the pavilion of the independent nation of poland. except we now know when hindsight that just five months after the fair opened the nazis would invade and overtake poland. by the end of the world's fair which runs to the end of 1940. the polish pavilion was draped in black because the country technically no longer existed. it's exhibits were partly sold off by the exiled government to help pay the bills. the soviet union that other italian state also a relatively new country at the time. it was only officially recognized by the united states in 1933. just a handful of years earlier. but the soviets were granted a prime location at the fair and they built a massive pavilion.

the soviets 2. we're using the fair to project a positive image of communism. their official statement read quote the soviet union is a country which has ended the exploitation of men by men. eliminated racial and national animosities and in which 170 million people of different nationalities are united in an equal freedom. end quote if i had told you that was the soviet union you might think that's the united states using that kind of language. except five months later this soviets would join with the nazis to invade and destroy poland. italy had a major pavilion. italy also a fascist government at the time. in fact, it was italy that essentially invents modern fascism with the italian leader

mussolini predating hitler by about 10 years. and i think you might be getting the theme here. five months later mussolini sides with hitler japan japan's pavilion was modeled to look like a shinto shrine, which was a religious belief in japan that many americans thought encouraged an aggressive and militaristic culture. japan had already been at war with china for eight years and had just two years earlier in 1937 committed an atrocity in manking where japanese soldiers murdered 300,000 civilians. but in new york their dedication at the fair read quote. dedicated to eternal peace and friendship between america and japan. end quote except americans

should probably already have been suspicious about eternal peace and friendship between their nation and japan because on the grand opening day the us navy fleet was supposed to visit new york city as part of the ceremony. but because of aggressive moves being made by japan in the south china sea, the fleet visit was canceled and the us navy was instead deployed to the pacific as a show of force against japan. you get the point? one year later the japanese would launch a massive surprise attack against the united states at pearl harbor. eternal peace and friendship they said so my goodness if the 1939 world's fair was supposed to be this world of tomorrow this bright vision of the future. yikes, right we couldn't have

been more dead wrong. world war two would break out five months into the fair and americans would be dragged into the war just about a year after that in what became the most deadly war humanitarian humanity had ever seen. this moment of hope had turned into a moment of crisis. which was truly terrible because the world's fair was supposed to transcend that. and that's why april 1939 was so exciting. because the world's fair was designed to leave the current doldrums behind and look to an inspiring new future that the decade of the terrible 1930s the the dirty thirties as it were we're about to end and a better future in the decade of the 1940s would unfold. the idea that the 1940s would be a dawn of a new era of peace and

freedom. printed right there on the ticket stub and the designers of this 1939 world's fair truly tried to project a positive view of the future. a view of the future that was so far in the future that the westinghouse company even buried a time capsule. fact is it fun bar? trivia the very word time capsule was coined for this event. in fact, they buried two time capsules because they wanted some redundancy since these time capsules weren't set to be opened until the year 6,939. not to be opened for five thousand years. that's how long americans thought this nation would last. that's how far in the future they were looking which if you ask me is a severe case of

hubris because even the roman empire the most powerful and longest lasting empire in the history of the world lasted about a thousand years. and looking forward as a side note the area where this time capsule was buried is only about seven feet above sea level. so the projection is and then not too distant future. this will be underwater due to climate change. but they didn't know that back then and this time capsule was meant to preserve a record of life in 1938. so they put in it what they said were 124 commonly used items. items like tooth powder they had a mazda lamp basically a light bulb, although today. we kind of call these things edison lights the old timey time lights. they had copies of life magazine. they had a mickey mouse watch they had a gillette safety razor, which was a new

technology not having to use a straight razor and slit your neck with it. they had a kewpie doll. and i'll admit i had to look up what a qp doll was. it's this creepy thing, but it was the hottest children's story of the era. they had a dollar and spare change. they had an asbestos shingle because why not and of course they had the coolest thing of all. cigarettes give your throat a vacation says this doctor. but they also included a letter. from the famed scientist albert einstein who was appointed to be the science advisor for the ferry, he was alive at this time and he explained in the letter he put in his time capsule that in the time in which he lived his society had and i quote learned to fly and we are able

to send messages and news without any difficulty over the entire world through electronic waves and quote. what he's talking about? is the radio which was the technology that was relatively new at the time. in fact, one of the brand new technologies that was debuted at the fair was a facsimile machine that could use radio waves to transmit a newspaper to be printed out right in your home. it's kind of amazing. except the data transmission would take about 18 minutes per page to print. but back then you don't need a paper boy on a bicycle anymore. this is sort of today like a scrolling through our phones to read the news right in the comfort of your own home. but back to einstein because more ominously.

his letter also wrote some hard truths. where he said quote? people living in different countries kill each other at irregular intervals. so that also for this reason anyone who thinks of the future must live in fear and terror end quote. not exactly an inspiring message for the future. but einstein would be proven right and probably sooner than he would have thought because he more than most probably felt that fear for the future. einstein had already renounced his original german citizenship in protest of hitler and he had left germany where he was living after hitler took power effectively becoming a refugee and eventually landing in the united states. two days before the fair opened hitler would withdraw from the german polish non-aggression pact.

and the storm clouds would continue to gather over europe. but i want to step back again for a moment to fill in a bit of background here because what even is a world's fair anymore? well, these things were created first in the late 1700s in france where it was meant to be held every five years kind of like the olympics. in fact the world's fair predates the modern olympics, which only got started around the turn of the 1900s. the world's fair was created in this time where competition in europe was heating up. nations were battling each other for superiority. and so the french thought that it would be good to have some sort of exhibition where each country could gather and show off how amazing it was all of its culture and products and and everything. it's it excelled at but this could foster friendly competition instead of war. and that world's fair circuit

was just as competitive if not more competitive than the modern olympics are. the host nation would build huge in ornate buildings to host the fair. each country would put on elaborate exhibits. hundreds of thousands millions would attend and these fairs would be talked about the world over. they'd run for two years at a time and and ultimately in 1939 44 million people attended. these fairgrounds were so huge it would often take multiple days. in in fact, it was recommended that if you attend the new york world's fair that you spend two weeks to see it all multiple days. but really these used to be huge events and they sort of started to fizzle after the 1960s. although i myself will admit to being surprised to find out there's literally a world's fair

going on right now in dubai. the last one was in 2015 in italy, so they're still happening. they're just a shadow of their former glory. but back to 1939. it is the us's turn to host the fair again, and the genesis came back in 1936 when the site's location was selected in queens, new york. an area part of which at the time was a garbage dump 15 stories tall. and the fact that the fair was constructed on top of a notorious garbage heap. was maybe yet another unintended irony about what the future would bring. in order for the fair to be profitable they had to get major european nations to attend and in a major way and this started off poorly. both britain and france agreed

to construct very small pavilions and only on the condition that the united states paid for them. but then guy named grover whalen the president of the world's fair corporation. he decided he was gonna play a little dirty. he figured that the path to success the way to get the big important western european nations to come. was to get in bed with their top rivals. that if wayland could get nazi germany or the soviet union to attend in a big way then britain and france and the other western european nations would really have to step up their game in order to compete. so he promised the ussr a very large and very favorable location to show off the glories of the soviet union. without even haggling over the

price stalin agreed to pay four million dollars for the rights to build. which is about 75 million dollars today. and whelan's trick worked. the very next morning he got a call to come to paris to negotiate for a much bigger french presence the french were not going to elect the soviets. take all the glory. but cleverly whale and decided that before he stopped in paris. he was going to make a little detour to italy to sell mussolini on the idea that he couldn't possibly let those communists outshine the great fascist nation of italy. he arrives in rome. and waylon would later write quote. as i entered the dictator's office. i saw a highly polished floor at least 200 feet long.

often the distance mussolini stood with his back to me looking at the sunset through a massive window. end quote paints a lovely scene, but whelan continues to use flattery to sell the idea to mussolini saying that new york's world of tomorrow well, that was just like mussolini's vision for italy. muslimi was skeptical, but that that sort of sold him. he would claim to wayland that his vision for italy using the government to build the country back up was no different than roosevelt's new deal that did italy fascist, you know america democracy. it's the same thing. and when mussolini asked the price after having agreed well and being a gambler upped it from the four he charged the soviets. the great nation of italy a low low price of just five million

dollars. written in france quickly increase their partition participation as well and ultimately 62 nations would attend. and the fact that mainly juiced by the soviets and the italians this money flooded in and allowed the fair to expand and prosper at first. but it wasn't just countries attending the fair. partly, the fair was a means to help repair the image of capitalism and corporations, which had rightfully gotten a pretty bad rap during the great depression. a lot of people blamed big corporations for the economic doldrums in fact, there was one proposal that to get the economy juiced to get people back to work again. the government should pay companies to hire people to just build things.

let's say toasters to build toasters that the government would then take away and bury in the landfill. so that you just have this complete production line of construction and then garbage, but that would keep people employed building this stuff. that's just gonna end up getting thrown out that it was the government's responsibility to keep production production flowing no matter what all that waste doesn't matter as long as the company's profitable. one public relations firm said quote the lack of confidence in capitalist democracy itself must be overcome in the public eye. so major businesses were welcomed to open exhibits as well. in fact, this is one of the first times again with whale and being clever about how to make money. he licensed the logo of the world's fair to corporations to print on jackets and mugs and whatever they wanted. this was pretty atypical at the

time this sort of corporate branding wasn't really a thing until the world's fair willyn would brag about how much money was pouring in from these licensing deals that companies wanted to get in on the the excitement and sell their wares. and none more so none were more welcome. to open exhibits then general motors the general which spent seven million dollars today's equivalent of about a hundred and thirty two million dollars to build. and incredible pavilion a temporary one 132 million for just two years before they tore it down. but this was an astonishing sweeping building that rose ten stories tall. people waited for up to three hours to see the massive futuristic diorama that they had built inside where they would

fly over it in these chairs looking down at the world of 1960. this is what they were depicting the world of tomorrow. a world that might seem rather familiar to us today they had skyscrapers. they had 14 lane super highways that they called express motorways. where narrators explained that by using these curved ramps cars could take corners at 50 miles an hour. that was astonishing the top speed the top speed flat out pedal to the floor of most cars of the era was 45 miles an hour this you could go around a corner at 50. you don't need to stop at an intersection to turn. in fact that car of 1960 would

have a radioactivated beam projected from the front bumper to keep it following a safe distance behind the car ahead. it's what we've got today with those automated cruise controls. but but again keep in mind this was a time when most roads were dirt or gravel cars capped out at 45 miles an hour. most of the skyscrapers in that exhibit had landing pads on their roofs for flying cars. that too was a pretty shocking thing since not even helicopters existed yet. the first successful helicopter flight wouldn't come until six months after the fair opened. another similar exhibit inside that round parisphere that was the center piece of the fair. amen to project the future. inside there. they had an exhibit called

democracy. course trying to play against nazis in the communists. this is democracy where it depicted a future where people would live outside the city centers in these leafy rural-esque neighborhoods that they called pleasantville's where by using those new express motorways and private automobiles. it would allow a man quick and easy access to his job in the city, but the ability to live outside the city center in a private single-family home in quiet and comfort. they're describing an american suburb eight years before the first suburb appears in america. and the idea also that it would be normal for people to drive their own private cars to work. this was at a time when only one in five americans actually owned

a car. most walk to work or took public transit. across the fair there were displays of state-of-the-art high-speed railway trains, there were modern airplanes. there were new ocean liners. ford the ford motor company had brand new sedans which fair growers could drive themselves on the so-called road of tomorrow. for the exhibit you could get in a car and drive it around this little test track again. shocking the majority of people in 1939 had never driven a car before only one in five own. at the fair addition to cars you could drive and dioramas you could go through they had also what they called the world's longest electric stairway. which is just an escalator, but people lined up to ride this to the top and then ride it back

down again. i think the most hilarious thing of all was a giant robot they had on display that it's a key feature was that it could smoke cigarettes a robot. they called electro. pleasure i present to you electro the westinghouse moto man electro. come here and here he comes ladies and gentlemen walking up to greet you under his own power. all right, electro. well you tell your story, please. who me? yes you okay toots ladies and

gentlemen, i'll be very glad to tell my story. i am a smart fellow as i have a very fine brain. that's the most remarkable thing i've ever seen. that guide make on my football team. why not like joe. i know you enjoy these and are really going to try to give you a nice pleasure out of these so here you got that now on to it. you may now smoke. this cigarette go on. oh, yes electro. you do need a light too. don't you? all right. here you are. and folks he's only two years old too. just learning. pleasure that clip is from a

promotional film the westinghouse corporation, which built electro had put out. but people were mesmerized by the futuristic technologies that were on display here. but even the carrier corporation built and igloo to show off their brand new technology air conditioning. the idea that humans with the touch of a button could cool themselves down on a hot summer day was astonishing this was so ahead of its time that it wasn't until the 1970s when residential air conditioning started to become commonplace in american home. in fact in light of all of these new technologies the narrator at the general motors exhibit said quote. does it seem strange fantastic

unbelievable remember this is the year of the 1960s and quote. a fantastic future a world of tomorrow the at&t corporation the phone company had even built and put on display the first device that could synthesize the sound of the human voice the first computerized voice as it were. listen to it here. doesn't ellen well you had the voters say greetings everybody three every happy now. would you have him repeat that in a high void 3 and now in his best face in the new yorker magazine described that exhibit probably the best when they called it creepy, but it is and

and perhaps depending on how you see it. there was a whole section of the fair devoted kind of creepy things. because it wasn't just countries or corporations on display. there was also an adult entertainment section. adult in every sense of the word with nudie shows with an exhibit called and i quote oscar the obscene octopus. which was a rubber octopus that used its tentacles to slowly strip the bathing suits off of female swimmers. there was also an exhibit called little miracle town featuring the world's greatest little people 125 resident midgets who lived in this little mini town that you could walk through and see russia as part of their exhibit didn't do creepy americans were the kings of the

creepy here, but russia didn't do little either. they went grandiose. they sent a replica of a subway station in moscow. why a subway station because not only was this just built it was one of the most modern metro systems in the world. but it was also meant to highlight that their communist system of government was truly for the people. that instead of letting capitalist profits go to the wealthier, but creating frivolous things like a fake human speech generator. in communism all the excess money all the profits go back to the people in the form of public investments investments, like excellent and beautiful public transit systems. this picture here is a subway station in moscow.

it looks like a cathedral and it was meant to they thought the people in our society should be inspired by public works. you want to compare? there's new york's subway. built by the government by the lowest bidder and it looks like a dingy basement. but soviet communism showed off the fact that their system was better. that this is where society should put its excess wealth not so that some rich guy can buy himself another sports car gold-plated back scratcher. well new yorkers who often have no choice but to take public transit are in a rat infested dimly lit water leaking dingy basement for their subway. so this challenge to western democracy and capitalism was real and it was on display for everyone to see. and some of the people who saw

it were dignitaries from around the world who arrived in new york to participate. this picture is of the procession of the motorcade of england's king george who sailed over to attend the fair? on that day when the british king arrived one million of new york school children were given the day off to go watch the procession. but ultimately because we with the benefit of hindsight know how things turned out this fair. its vision for tomorrow was outdated before it even began. in september 1938 a year before the fair opened. british prime minister had gone before the world met with hitler and said this afterwards this morning i had another talk with

the german chancellor here hitler and here is the paper. which bears? his name upon it as well as mine. the settlement of the czechoslovakian problem which has now been the cheese. is in my view only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all europe? may find peace. it's peace for our time declares chamberlain. he's talked to hitler. we've saved the check checkoslovakia from nazi aggression by coming to this pact and we see peace and prosperity for europe ahead hitler is a man can work with

okay, except before the fair even opened one month later both or sorry one year later both czechoslovakia and austria were under nazi control. he violated his agreement lied to the british prime minister and the world. before the fairs end belgium denmark france the netherlands and others nearly half the european nations would be added to that list of having been crushed by nazi aggression. after the nazi takeover of czechoslovakia, mayor, laguardia, led the charge to raise $600,000 to help finish their pavilion. despite the fact that the germans demanded it be shut down because the country was under their control now. and ultimately the outbreak of war was a paul cast over the entire fair.

when the 1940 season rolled around so and runs for the spring and summer and fall of 1939. it shuts down for the winter and then it reopens for a second year and when that second year came around 10 european countries wouldn't return. those who had worked at the polish pavilion the first country to fall the nazi aggression didn't go back to europe at the end of 1939 why voluntarily return to a country under nazi occupation? instead a few of the staff opened up a polish restaurant in new york city. they had nowhere else to go and no no hope for the future. the most notable nation not to return was the soviet union. they ordered that their massive pavilion be torn down crated up and shipped back to russia leaving a gaping hole in the fairgrounds. in this place the americans opened up just a big open space

called the american commons dedicated to the perpetuation of an american ideal. but the american ideal might have been real for americans, but the fear was even more real. in boston the dome of the state house, which was this beautiful gilded gold color. when the war broke out they painted it gray to make it harder for nazi bombers to spot if they were ever to attack the united states. the fear was real. after 1940 as as the for 1940 season opened with the british being the last european country to bravely hold out against the nazis with london being bombed nightly during the blitz. that british pavilion in new york became a crowd favorite packed with people wanting to show support and learn about britain.

in their exhibit they had displayed an original magna carta from the year 12 15 the first time it had ever left, england. and with the outbreak of war the government decided that it was probably safer to leave the magna carta in the united states. should england fall to the nazis. and it would stay in the us secured away in fort knox until 1947. which was probably just as well because it was also in the british pavilion were a time bomb was discovered planted in a back room next to a nazi flag. and the police had managed to get this bomb out of the building that was still full of tourists they carried it outside and and started to to work on it before it exploded. killing two officers the case was never solved.

the only evidence was this swastika flag planted beside the bomb in the british pavilion. so maybe it's for the best. that is the fair wound down in 1940 despite the the concerns of the organizers and and the their you know idea that they didn't really want this to happen to the fair their glorious vision of the future. instead the buildings and exhibits were dismantled. it's 40 million tons of steel were sent to be melted down and made into tanks. sent to fuel the war effort this world of tomorrow literally ended up in the war. and that grand vision of the world of tomorrow seemed to collapse back into the ash heap that it was originally built on this garbage dump. but it will still remain. as we wrap up here, it'll still

remain this iconic moment this iconic year that stands out in world history, even if the memory of the fair itself and it's hope for the future as mostly receded into the background. for those of you who want to learn more about the 1939 worlds fair. this is a great book twilight at the world of tomorrow and and do credit. it's a book. i've drawn a lot of information from to help build out this talk. but all wrap up my portion. there are the floor is open for questions so we can continue the conversation we can pull out any things you want to expanded upon or any more fascinating things about this world of tomorrow or the world of 1939. so thanks for watching. i'll turn the mic back over to heather who's a moderate the q&a here. well, thank you alan and like alan said, please feel free to continue to put questions in the q&a box on your screen, but we

already have quite a few. so i will dive right in if you're all set. absolutely. let's go for it. okay, so someone i'm gonna go back to kind of the beginning-ish of your talk you and mentioned that there were a lot of americans who went to the soviet union in search of a better life. and someone's curious. do we know what became of those folks? did they have to come back? did they stay there? do we have any information about what happened with them? yeah. yeah, we do actually. yeah, so there were huge numbers who went over in the depths of the great depression the soviets specifically recruited people who worked in the automotive industry and the steel industry these industries. they wanted to build up really rapidly and and there were many books on this memoirs of people who went over and at first loved it were astonished mainly because like this is a country on the move. it's building rapidly. it's industrializing. there's work to be done the

soviet people that first generation seemed like happy and proud and patriotic that they were producing for the future. um, and it was good money compared to what they could make in the united states the living accommodations were great partly because the soviets wanted this partly as a propaganda effort they gave them great apartments and all these privileges, but probably what's most interesting is that there were thousands of african-americans who were recruited to go to the soviet union the soviets were pitching their idea not just as a political and economic project, but as a social project that the soviet union one of their things was to eliminate inequality. and so they welcomed african-americans these people who were heavily discriminated against back home. welcome them into the soviet union partly again for propaganda to show off that they're equal here that we're colorblind. we don't care about the color of your skin. we're not racist like those

americans and so the most fascinating memoirs are from african americans. there's a book called black on red who talks about how he was like he had a great life in the soviet union at first, i mean, in fact, there's one story he tells of their of the among the white americans who came over and worked in his factory one day they you know, because they brought their racism with them, they jumped him and they beat him up and he fought them off, but the police were called and the police came and interviewed him and he was cowering because like in america you fight a white man, you're going to prison like there's no justice for people of color in america in the 19. but he was shocked to see that these russian police officers white police officers treated him with respect questioned him arrested the americans who had committed this crime deported them back to america and made this guy like a national hero in a way.

so at first life was great. and then it wasn't so by the 19 late 1930s as a soviets get more repressive but specifically with the outbreak of world war two. there's a lot of suspicion cast on these people a lot by then have left, you know after that initial rose-colored glasses. they start to realize that life and italitarian dictatorship isn't what it looks like on the surface isn't all that great a lot of them were kicked out at the start of world war two, but there were many others like the author of black on red. i believe it's him who stays and meets a russian woman gets married has kids has a you know, wonderful life is wonderful as you can under stalinist russia. so yeah, it's quite fascinating because the story we don't often hear about that like and it shows the pull of communism in those early days before we learn about the atrocities and sort of see that actually this doesn't really work as a system. it was really alluring to a lot

of americans who were out of work and impoverished and desperate at that time to start a new life going to russia was a thing. great. thank you. okay, so you obviously mentioned that the fair was in queens on a dump site. but someone's curious was this the same location they used for the 1964. fair it was yeah. this is former dump site, which was cleaned up for the the 1939 fair all those buildings were torn down except for one my understandings. they made it into a park between the the years and then in 1964 when the fair came back to the united states, they held it in the same location. in fact, i mean, it's plagiarism they held in the same location. they had the same theme instead of the world of tomorrow. it was futurama again depicting this future world of tomorrow. you know general motors came and did this future exhibit, but the

the big thing of the 1964 fair is that everyone was obsessed about space travel, um, because that was the hot new technology. we hadn't yet gone to the moon. we'd only just gone to space, you know broken the bounds of the atmosphere. so that was a long-winded say way of saying yes, it's the same location. i'm in both of those fares and to be honest actually some of you who might live in work today. i don't know what became of it after that. i is it a park guy? i don't actually know. well, we'll come back to a couple of things that you touched on in that answer actually, but before i move on someone wanted to know if you're able to talk about the federal art projects involvement in the site. oh. not really in that like i can't really speak about their involvement in the site aside from so part of the new deal. the federal government is funding not just building roads and bridges and and setting up, you know, social security nets

and and trying to get people back to work. there's a civilian conservation corps. basically, i think it's a hundred thousand people. they send out building public works projects. so at least in on the east coast one of the big projects if any of you have been to the blue ridge parkway or the shenandoah national park, those are built under the new deal projects. there's a bunch of cabins up there that you can rent and they're built by roosevelt and and part of that, you know, we often focus on like the infrastructure building as a way to make work for people but to help out of work artists the government pays artists to go out do all kinds of things to do poetry to do to set up classes in communities and teach work to do big murals and paintings around the the country to go out and document stories and and musicians so they pay artists and so i that's leading up to the fair. there are a bunch of art

installations and others a building, you know dedicated to artistic pursuits, but i can't sorry. i can't speak specifically to their involvement, you know on a piece by piece in the world's fair. i that i don't know. that's great context though. thank you. okay, so a couple people are curious about the international exhibition of 1939 in san francisco. which do we know is there any connection between the two of them? there are competing world's fairs that year in fact in that opening clip of roosevelt giving his speech which is a guy hereby declare the world's fair and he pauses and says the new york world's fair open because there are concurrent fares and i again, i don't know the specifics but there are worlds fairs that are the big events every four to five years and then there are worlds expos that are on off years.

so the 1937 paris event that i depicted there was an expo the 1939 was a world's fair and so for whatever reason there's no connection in terms of it's not like the same organization that runs new york also runs san francisco, but they bid for and got an expo the same year the full world's fair was going on and so there was a sort of intercoastal competition, but from you know, what are the corporation that runs the new york is unconnected to the one that runs san francisco by what i understand. wonderful. thank you. okay, so other than the company exhibits so like general electric or any of the others did the us as a country have an exhibit or not because it was hosting so the us sets up their pavilion as the parisphere so the big round building there was an image of or they're putting the democracy in it with all the

basically depicting the suburb. that's meant to be sort of the centerpiece of the fair and the us contribution the us also exhibits a bunch of its technologies and a bunch of different expo buildings. so like the television the light bulbs these things are on display as the us has contribution because typically what the country's bring are cultural displays feats of science and technology and then products that their country excels at making so the soviets for example their feet of science and technology was they had just recently conquered the arctic they have been doing these expeditions up to the arctic circle with flights and people going up there so they had put a big arctic display up with like polar bears and these planes that would win in you know, this wild display of the arctic. are technological feats so yeah, the us does have a sort of a number of different exhibits, but they're centerpieces the parisphere and the trilon the big tower that they that they

put up as sort of a visual grandiose thing because like the olympics the host country is supposed to like show off and build these grandiose things and that's what they build in fact one other side note that parisphere was supposed to be engineers so that it looked like it was floating on this fountain that was blasting up underneath it, which would have been really cool, but they couldn't make the engineering work. i'm so it just sat there above above a pond. and speaking of you had mentioned that at the 64 they had rockets and space stuff. so someone was curious if there were any aeronautical exhibits of planes or rockets or anything like that at the 39 world's fair. yes, there were so air travel lots of exhibits about that showing off modern aircraft. so aluminum bodied aircraft rather than like wood and fabric biplanes, which is what we

really had in the 1920s, but the big like so the aircraft sure the big exhibits the things people were most interested in were trains. they showed how they had a whole show about afra. the name of it slipping my mind, but like showing the evolution of railway travel from the old wild west to these like modern sleek bullet trains. they even had a high speed steam powered train running between i think was baltimore and new york to bring people up to the fair. are so it's these modern trains which are still steam powered although general motors did have on display the newest technology in locomotive, which was a diesel electric train, which is what we used today. and if you i should have put a picture up but like it looks like a modern train what you would recognize as like a freight train engine. that's what it looks like. so trains are really big but it's the cars the automobiles and the highways that people are just fascinated.

little on space travel a little on rockets rocketry was sort of seen as being like amateur child's play through the 1920s it didn't it wasn't big yet until really after world war two when again hitler overshadows his whole fair when hitler proves in the war with their vengeance rockets that like rocketry can work and i can work as a weapon a really effective weapon. so where the us devotes enormous funding to developing the atomic bomb as our super weapon hitler defend devotes enormous funding to developing rocket engines to launch to cap a bomb with and launch at london. so yeah less about space travel that doesn't become a thing until the 1950s when people get fascinated really with it, even though like we know about space ht wells and more of the worlds and all of that but yeah less so about that. great. thank you. okay, so someone wants to know who are some of the maybe now

famous architects that were commissioned designed some of the pavilions. is there anyone that stands out or is more of a household name i guess. no idea that someone's clearly interested into architecture. so i yeah that i that that's beyond the realm of what i know, but i mean if we're looking at world's fairs in general in the 1800s, i think it was the 1893 chicago world's fair. there is a big amount of hoopla over the fact that a woman had designed one of the buildings that's in the 1800s. but yeah, i i don't know about architects specifically, but they did typically bring in, you know, these architects who built these big grandiose designs architecturally one of the problems was how do you build a building like that? you know gm building 10 stories tall. look, it's amazing the parisphere and trilon build it cheaply because you're gonna tear it down in just two years.

so again in earlier days, there was all kinds of problems of like buildings being built really flimsy because again, like i'm not gonna highly engineer this thing it's gonna be scrap in two years. buildings would blow over in the wind and all that. in fact the parisphere the round building in a heavy storm parts of the facade ripped off of it because they were just sort of like stuck on the outside again. you don't need this to last more than two years. so aside from how the buildings are built. i don't know who actually built them. not to worry. okay, so i know you mentioned attendance surging at for example the uk pavilion but someone is curious. what was the attendance in general like in 1940 versus 1939. it is many people come the second year. we're not so much. so the attendance of these things like everything that everything like this the projections were wild we're

gonna get 60 to 80 million people attending the fair and and they ended up getting i i don't recall how it broke down in each year like 25 million one year and around that or a little bit less the second year the numbers. so one of the things they tried is because they had projected, you know, 60 million people and that's kind of what they needed to make good on their financial promises there the attendance never hit anywhere near what they thought it would and so right at the end i think of season one and certainly in season 2 they lowered the price which did bring in some more people. but again, it kind of would have fizzled a little bit the problem with lowering the price was they had pre-sold a bunch of seasons passes at the higher price, and now people wanted refunds because they're think they're getting ripped off and so financially and attendance wise it's became a kind of calamity. they expected i think near a million people on opening day.

they got 200,000 and i think 44 million overall, which is nothing to sneeze at but is not the 60 million they needed so there were you know an overall attendance. it was a well. it's not a flop 44 million is certainly not a flop but it didn't reach the level that they had hoped in inside the fair. there was all kinds of competition over. yeah who's exhibits gonna be the best and in season two the british exhibit became really popular right after the invasion of poland the polish exhibit became really popular, which is swarmed with people, but overall the number one exhibit with with highest attendance was the general motors exhibit. you know people would wait three hours to get into it it our average about 30,000 people a day riding there. it was a ride you rode through the building to look at this, you know amazing. display of what the 1960s would look like.

so general motors takes the cake as being the best attended exhibit at the fair. great. thank you. so someone did ask if it was a financial success and from your answer. i'm assuming it wasn't it was not it wasn't a complete bust but it's very rare like the olympics. it's very rare that these things make money. the corporation had borrowed a bunch of money with the promise of paying it back at certain interest rates and then started trying to convince the people often. it was corporations who got the seed funding in there first and when it was clear that they weren't gonna get paid back but pennies on the dollars, they tried to use it as a pr thing like yes, i support the fair because it's a good civic, you know project but yeah financially financially it was not profitable. and what was the public reaction or opinion to the fair? that's a good question because it kind of ties in with the lack of profitability in that one of

the public's reactions was that it was too expensive. this is the midst of the great depression ticket prices. they thought were too high but the biggest complaints were that the food prices inside the fair. we're way too high. okay, it's always funny today. they were complaining that a hamburger cost of dime. that was too much money. and so while people were, you know, they were fascinated by this people, you know cried during the gm exhibit. they just it was really overwhelming in a way. people were attracted to the technologies and all of that but you know, it's still the midst of the great depression and people complained about the price and the food so much that yeah the the tickets sales the price was cut and then the fair had to promise that later that year. they would have cheaper food options available inside the fair that it wouldn't be such a you know, a money grab so people

were cheap. that seems to be like if you read the media accounts, they're complaining a lot about the price of the fair and partly not to say that it was underwhelming but partly the reason they never hit the attendance targets they had hoped is that it just didn't generate the buzz that people had hoped and will never know if that's because the war breaks out and people aren't willing, you know, people are pulling back on their spending aren't willing to go have this fun celebratory thing. it's hard to say. it's funny. it hasn't changed much right you go to you know, disney world and we're still talking all our beer at the stadium or something. yeah. we'll always complain about price of food any who so someone else want to know could new york or some other us metropolis make a latter day world fairer expo a financial success or has the magic of everyday electronic technologies and permanent exhibitions like disney world's epcot rendered world's fairs and

exposed passe. um no, and yes, i think is the answer there, but it's yeah the part of the reason these things fizzled is they are enormously expensive. they almost never turn a profit. they take it all these resources to build and what really it's become is that countries don't need this anymore. right? like we don't really do this. we don't need a huge exposition to show off how great we are and get all these countries together. i think partly it's become supplanted by the olympics which we have the same complaints about like it's too expensive countries lose a bunch of money on it. then you're left with all this infrastructure. you can't use afterwards if things just get torn down so i think that's a big part of it. i think also now in most major countries, there's just not these huge swaths of open land available in the cities anymore, which is where they used to build it, you know and

philadelphia they built it sort of in the middle of the city and new york. it's just on long island. um, but space in these places again. these are huge fairs huge unbelievably huge. so i think that's one of the things and i think that person who asked that question is right that like maybe we've gotten jaded or we're just like there's i can't even think of a technology now that excites me the way from what i've read. i wasn't around in the 1960s but like the way that like the space race excited people the way that electronics excited people robots excited people in that way now, it's what like the most exciting thing is virtual reality and the metaverse, which is entirely lame, you know, if you ask me i'm not gonna go to world's fair to see, you know, put on goggles and look around and see a fake world around me. i think that you know, and mainly the fact that we have less time life is more busy and there's just such a plethora of

entertainment options that i'm not gonna spend two weeks going to a world's fair. to walk around for the day to see things that i already see so that's on one hand that naturally as i'm talking this through. i think even now that it used to be exciting in an era before mass advertising and commercialization which comes up really after the 1950s. it was exciting to go to the fair and go to a corporate exhibit and see general motors cars. i mean, they're just giant advertising platforms. but like that was cool to see all the new things on offer. so yeah, i think it's we've lost our sense of childbike. hope for the future in that way and we just numb ourselves with the, you know endless entertainment available and the personal note here is i too when i started researching world's fairs number of years ago was kind of surprised to see that they're still going on the one in and even that like one of the things i study a lot and love the research of his food and the

2015 world's fair in italy. surrounded or revolved around food and as a researcher on this topic. i didn't even know that thing was going on. i might have gone to it, but just didn't know didn't know that right now. there's one going on. so yeah, it's lost. it's a lure and i'm not sure this thing will ever really come back in a big way that inspires people like it used to and speaking of food. we've actually got in a question or two surrounding food from the fairs. so first law how did food displays represent the future of food production preparation and consumption consumption if they did at all. oh, that's a good question. i don't know off the top of my head that i recall that they represented the future of food production and consumption. i don't. from what i've come across there is no like futuristic space foods available at the time, especially then it was essentially most of the

countries would in their pavilions have cafeterias that highlighted their own national dishes, you know, trying to think of an example. i wish i had sort of flipped through my notes to think of an example of a food that was on display that you could go to a cafeteria and eat the thing i do know is that the problem was often eating in like the national cafeterias was more expensive than eating at the fairgrounds outside the pavilions, and so people complained about that too, but it's more of we're coming to show you our quote unquote foreign foods, i guess. well if i'm finland and coming it's not a foreign food to me, but we're gonna put on our national dishes the fair did make a big show out of out of saying that they're gonna offer cheaper hot dogs and hamburgers to the masses, but i i can't think of any yeah food corporation that put on a new display. it was really the big corporate giants like general motors and goodyear tires that set up like

it was firestone tires that set up an actual factory to show you how a tire was made. of course, they called it the tire of tomorrow, but you had a working factory, which i guess is cool to look at but it'd be neat if they had food factories, but even then the mechanization of food really hits in the 1950s and after world war two, so, yeah, that's another thing. i i can't give specifics on. so someone excited excitedly put into the q&a the belgian waffle, so maybe that was one well, so that it like one of the technologies they displayed was an electric waffle iron. so yeah, you can use the iron to make waffles and that might have been exciting that you can do this in your own home. so yeah that that is a food product on display. um, and someone else said that you always hear about how the ice cream cone was invented for or at the chicago world's fair. are there any that were created?

at the 1939 new york world's fair like something that wasn't put on display necessarily but kind of came out of it anyway. um specifically in terms of food, not that i'm aware of it is often world's fairs that sort of launched new food innovations, you know the ice cream cone. the hamburger was launched at the allegedly one of the many origin stories was launched in the 1904 fair where they wanted to take a beef patty and put it between two pieces of bread so you could walk around while munching on it the hamburger before that wasn't really popular in the us i can tell you one of the things the organizers wanted to do, but didn't that they wanted to again as a marketing thing wanted to make hot dogs and hot dog buns in the shape of that trilon that that big tri-sided tower beside the round building. that's they were gonna do that as a marketing thing. maybe that would have been cool. maybe hot dogs would be these

like triangle shapes today if that had really taken off but you know what comes out of the fair on not on the food side certainly television skyrockets and really takes off after the 1850s the new modern automobiles definitely the highway system that they put on display there, you know takes 20 years, but but becomes now ubiquitous it's how we drive around today on these cloverleafed interchanges and these superhighways even if even with like radar-guided cars with collision avoidance and all of that. so yeah, there are some things that that have stuck around that come out of the 19 of the world's fair. all right, so i think we have time for maybe two more questions and then i'm gonna ask you one question after that. that's not necessarily content related, but someone noticed something in your background that they want me to touch on but she probably know what it is. like i can guess. yeah, so someone wanted to know

how many structures and buildings are built for the fair are still standing today, and i know you alluded to you weren't sure so if you don't know let me know because we've gotten a few people that wrote in about this. yeah one there's one building that may remained and it was constructed with the intention that it would remain after the fair. actually. i think it's a government building today, but they kept one it was maybe this relates back to the person who asked about architecture. so it's the infamous robert moses the highway builder of new york city who had a hand in designing this fair and he wanted after the fair was over to turn this into a big part much like central park which i understand parts of it were maybe even to this day. so yeah almost all of the buildings saved for that one central one were torn down and scrapped which was pretty common in the context of world's fairs. you'd keep like one little centerpiece and the rest gets thrown in the trash or in this

case melted down and and made into bullets and tanks some of the countries dismantle their their pavilions. they're made to be, you know easily to take apart and they ship them back home famously, you know, russia i mentioned ships there is back home and they used i'm gonna get this mixed up whether it's the 1937 or 1939, but they always tended to at the peak of the tower on their buildings put this huge bronze statue of a man and woman like charging into the future and communist glory that element is now in a park in moscow on actually on a fairgrounds in moscow. they kept so some countries keep pieces of them. i mean most famously the eiffel tower in paris was the centerpiece of their 1889 world's fair it too was meant to be torn down after the fair, but they left it up now. it's an icon of paris so like good for them, but there's nothing really iconic that

stayed behind about the world the fair in new york. great. thank you. and it looks like we have a couple new yorkers in the audience because they mentioned it's now flushing meadow park. so anyone who's in new york and wants to go and imagine what it might have looked like back then you should there we go. so, okay. so that's a new part of it at least was turned into a park. so there we go over dog. okay, so final content question. you showed a bunch of different technologies and you might have alluded to the answer to this a little bit but out of the technologies that were showed at the fair which was the most successful in which was the least successful now that have, you know, hindsight. yeah, i mean the television i think is the most successful. i mean that of course it dominates our life today and you know, it wasn't invented at the fair as i mentioned wasn't even debuted technically at the fair the nazi speedest to that but this ability to transmit, you know, images and news and

everything, uh stalls out because of world war two and then by the 1950s is just you know rocketing so certainly the television the least successful i think is that notion of like flying cars. it's something that they talked about in the 1930s. they certainly play up in the 1950s that this idea is just around the corner we talk about now or flying cars just around the corner or companies working to develop them and it's not gonna happen like so, you know starting in 1939 they were talking about building buildings with landing pads for everyone's private flying car. so the part of the car didn't work out the radar, you know the ability for car to track the car ahead of it and speed up and slow down cars have that now? still relatively recent so that took but 80 90 years to come to fruition, but certainly the highway system is as i mentioned

earlier the idea of the suburbs that you'd live outside the city and you'd commute in and your private car that vision. worked and part of me as always did this research i wished they kind of would have kept some of these exhibits. i really wish gm and the parisphere the democracy would still you know, they put it in a museum. so we today could go back and look at rather than just seeing it in pictures or reading about it what they thought the future would be because i think if you went through the gm exhibit today, it would look like a lot like today minus the flying cars, of course. fair enough. okay. so now the non-content question someone's just curious if you use the typewriter in the rotary phone behind you. the the typewriter. yes, it works. it's the 1926 the rotary phone. no, it works. i would assume i'm using years. but yeah the phone it was my father's the typewriter. i don't know where that one came from. i've got a number of

typewriters. so yeah the phone no, but the typewriter. yes, you know like i'm stuck in 1939 on the consummate historian. i use it to write letters to friends and family. so it's it's functional. awesome. well, thank you so much. that is all the time we have for today. so thank you to our audience for joining us and for your great questions and thank you alan for

are historian and joseph ellis as

well cnn. >> good evening everyone my name is kevin butterfield on behalf of george washington mount vernon and the ladies organization continues to protect and preserve it today, i want to welcome me too this conversation about george washington's farewell address. on september 19, 1796 george washington announced to the world he would not seek reelection to the presidency. his letter to friends and citizens offer some of the much thorough, thoughtful and inspiring advice has ever been given to the american people. in more than a few genuine warnings were included there as well. the hopes and fears remained with us as a nation are now discussing this now 225 year old document. much of what we debate and discuss in 21st century america politics is addressed here in one form or another. in recognition of this document we brought together an incredible lineup of talented scholars to reflect on the relevance of the

farewell address today. we were joined by jon avalon author, columnist, senior political analyst, is the author of books including the one we will discuss tonight washington's farewell a new book on abraham lincoln coming out next february. his work is going to be important to our conversation here tonight as were the work of lindsey stravinsky. she is presidential cabinet, history senior fellow at southern methodist university. in the lecture of media and public affairs at george washington university she's also a fellow at the international. she's the author of the award-winning book the cabinet george washington and the creation of an american institution. i was when the leading scholars of american history author of more than a dozen books else has been awarded

the pulitzer prize for founding brothers the revolutionary generation and the national book award for america stinks, his biography of thomas jefferson and most recent book, the cause, the american revolution that discontent comes out tomorrow. all of our guests are great friends of mount vernon. were so pleased to be able to offer signed copies of their books. look for links in the chat that can help you find those and of course please feel free to visit us anytime at mount vernon.org. welcome. >> hey. thanks for having us. >> are here to discuss a really important document in american history. i guess the farewell address. i give the tiny little preview of what it is just imagine someone coming into the conversation right now, what is the formal address john will turn to you first, what is the text? >> it is america's original >>

scripture. it is most widely printed completely declaration of independence. it was the sum total of wisdom that george washington accumulated and a life of war and peace as president that he put down first with james mattis and alexander hamilton as a warning to his friends and fellow citizens which is how he addressed it, about the forces he felt could derail the democratic experiment going forward. it's one of the most relevant document you can imagine. even though it fell out of favor for a time, i think when it is read today it is a stark warning about the dangers of what we call hyper- partisanship, excessive debt, foreign wars, foreign interference in our elections and also suggest some of the liberty some the things we can draw upon to avoid the straps.

that unity of morality and virtue. the importance of fiscal discipline and political moderation. >> they turn to you, lindsay, george washington create a text john mentioned there were other authors, can you tell us a little bit about the years leading up to this. this is a moment he decides not to be present any longer. as a great scholar of washington's presidency set the page of those last months or days in the washington presidency as he's thinking this address appeared cocksure. i did not want to stand for second term at all. he had wanted to be in office for a couple of years and hightail it as soon he could they did not really like being president he had to be away

from home has so much stress and pressure he knew every step to establish a precedent for this to come after him. he did not like criticism he was wearing his reputation met he would be damaged by a poor choice. we also had a real commitment to the importance of being an office. felt very strongly the american people the election of peaceful transfer of power had to be practiced and cultivated. he was determined to try to oversee that. early in 1796 they had a

conversation about the process rolling shared a series of drafts of the next two months until september washington then published his paper in september to reach the maximum number of people to make it clear he was speaking to the people not to congress or different branch of government too. >> will be spending most of that's our time talking about the text itself. what can you tell me, what would you add about the origins of what led up to the creation of this document you might want to share about washington before 1796? >> i would venture to guess john and the modern presidency no president in the american's who did not want to be

president more than george bush. not on a second term he did not want a first term. and when he was going up to that in york he said he felt like a prisoner going to jail. and he really meant it. almost half have to do with mount vernon. that was where he wanted to be. he really did. all of the views of the presidency are shaped by it 20th century significance. washington did not regard the presidency as the capstone of his career. when he was she did not have to do. the great thing he did was win the war. i think that is true of all four of the presidents, the

first floor. adam's great thing this before the revolution to bring it into meaning. jeffersons was the declaration. madisons was the constitution and the federalist papers. all of them did not think about the presidency is the great moment in their lives. washington was aficionado of residence. even before that and newburgh refusing to become dictator annapolis where the capitol was the surrender of his commission george the third is that it can't be if the depth does that he be the greatest man in the world. well he did and for that moment at least he was. jefferson writes about this right after. i think jefferson actually

wrote some of washington's speech i can't prove that. but jefferson says one man saved us from the fate that befalls most republics. there thinking cromwell, subsequently they can think of napoleon, we can think of now, we can think of castro a variety of who never run away from office. those that might still be alive in american politics. but the president is ratified as a constitutional amendment in 1951 i believe. the real president all

leaders, no matter how indispensable are disposable. you do not die in office like a monarch. the dominant thing we need to remember is this was not ever delivered as an address. now both of our commentators already know that but we have not mentioned it. it was not a speech was an open letter to the american people that first appeared in a philadelphia paper and then i think a new hampshire paper gives that the farewell address. but that initial reaction to the address is oh my god, he cannot leave us.

it was like the father saying to the children, you are on your own then. and that was a trauma. nobody thought he was ever going to retire. fate presumed he would win elections until he died. and again he could not wait to get back to the place where you are sitting, kevin. >> jim reference something you write about this in your book, this is not the first bit of advice washington shared a widely with the nation. could you tell us a little bit about washington back in 1783 in how we also his guidance of the nation. >> that was originally called his farewell address. >> i did not know that is that true? >> yes.

that is a true story. what is fascinating about that is first of all there's continuity. with the power of the gesture itself the simple act of voluntarily relinquishing power itself was they were referring to jefferson and an epilogue to my book i think it's perfectly crystallizes washington throughout his career. jefferson said the virtue of a single character probably prevented this regulation from enclosed azimuth other has been by a subversion it was intended to establish. and certainly there were some of the stakes in 1783 as well. the normal course of events was the military leader would displace the tyrant and then become a tyrant himself.

so, talk about the prevalence of ancient roman and greek precedent on this young republic, this was a real step he took. he was a voluntarily relinquishing power it was completely genuine. the advice he gives in 1783 is very similar albeit subsequently seek through the prism of fights he saw as president and the fights over the ratification of the treaty in america's foreign policy. basically says first of all this is not a time of celebration. now we need to establish the republican show the world we can establish republic on a scale never before seen, right? among other things it was wisdom a democracy could not exist. it would never work in a

country as big as the 13 colonies. one is about the need for national unity. in fighting with cottonelle congress all throughout the war. cannot find a sense of resolve her focus on the common good. did not want to levy to support the troops. with a sense of unity and think as citizens. i think one of the important points is independence and freedom can be sort of a state of nature. liberty requires responsibility. excuse me i'm just finishing at lincoln book right now. that is what washington said in the 1783 address. and again in 1796. >> one of the things i can do tonight and hopefully can start this now is bring up a few of the short quotations

people can pull out of the farewell address. >> this one i would like to bring up because as we were discussing if you read down to the bottom that refers to the method is given this kind of advice before. this interest in warning of a parting friend. possibly have no personal motive at this council. this was the way he begins his right after i can't read the exact phrase he has a few paragraphs and then he said here perhaps i should stop. but then he goes on many, many paragraphs longer to give some serious advice to the american people. when you see phrases like this, a disinterested morning how does it sit with washington as leader and

president of you as he really did see himself as president for all of the american people. at least for the american people really wanted to represent them regardless of their partisan identity was. that might be out little rose glassing the situation. there is bias he by the end of his presidency what she did not necessarily want to admit. he felt like certain sides of been more critical of him domestic rebellions things like about. but he wanted to see himself as above those things. he did with a political president we had for sure. and his leading office leaves and more creative to do that. had he still been in office there is no way people would have been disinterested they

would've been for a third term. but by leaving office he had put himself in that elevated position give out advice and claim to be disinterested even if some -- what is really fast and about the reception to this farewell address is people who are inclined to think well of him saw it as disinterested as he had intended. those were inclined to see him as a more political actor thought it was very political. >> disinterested warnings of a parting friend how do you read that guidance? >> i agree with what was just said print limiter try to on that a little bit. political parties the founders as a group including washington all regarded political parties as evil vultures that were floating to

the political atmosphere. jefferson even claimed if i have to go to heaven as a third-party i prefer not to go at all. washington believed and said i think john adams is the only other president. and so and washington's second term, now political scientists think the creation of political parties is one of the major contributions they made but because it disciplines dissent and the possibility of opposition which is a good thing. washington and adams let's stick with washington was incapable of thinking a political parties anything other than an evil intrusion. he could not see himself as the head of a party.

and so you might think he's in an actor is him he is a classical figure in that. i would build on something again. the aurora, you look up and textbooks they will say the opposing party that comes into existence is called the democratic republican party. wrong. it's not called the democratic republican party it is called the republican party buried the word democrat and democracy as an epitaph in the h century it means mob rules. democratic republican does not come until 1860 with monroe. it is tricky because that party morphs into the democratic party. it's even worse that the federals morphed and it's really tricky.

but the aurora is the 18th century, john, you might comment on this, fox news. and when they publish the forged documents, forged british documents claiming washington throughout the war was really a trader he was trying to be of benedict arnold but got feet to the punch by benedict arnold. this was just off the top stuff. and actually, among the people commenting on his farewell address was thomas paine he hated him because he didn't think washington got them out of france fast enough. he said we must all devoutly pray for his imminent death. and so the criticism he was a getting too. >> it's pretty funny by the way he was famously an atheist. >> that is true he was. you mean pain not washington.

the level of partisanship in the 1790s is comparable to what we are facing in washington now, okay? the press there were no rules for the press. all the news fit to print. now, washington stands firmly against that whole thing. he thanks of you have any problems you can vote me out of the next election. but the level of partisanship in the newspapers in the 1790s is scatological. in washington really cannot understand that. he does not understand it. only think he is hurt by it. i think he survives the french and indian war. he should have been killed when he was a young man.

he should've been killed several times. he was not even a wounded but they wounded him in his second term they really got him. he could not wait to get out of there. i know we want to move into the discussion of his attitude towards political partisanship in the context is what i described in the specific legislation it really explodes on with the jay treaty. and his defense of that. i will shut up on this after this i promise you. the word is republic and that means things of the public. the public is different from the people. the people are usually misinformed in their opinions that is the reason democracy is not a positive term.

the function of the reader is to act in the public interest even when it is unpopular. adams carries this to an extreme. he is the guy who defends the british troops in the boston massacre. he was thought of what eyes do is unpopular it must be right. could have won the election of 18 or by going to worth of france and he refused to do it in the alley said it was the proudest thing he ever did. but the public is a big word here. washington internalize that. one of the reasons the senate has a six-year term is supposedly to make them more likely to vote in the long term interest of the public it's the most partisan portion of the government now. i will shut up but public, public, public he represents them. >> he mentioned the aurora and

i know you wanted to say something very quick so one quick thing i want to sort of highlights when joe was talking about how personally wounded washington was that was really quite intentional on the part of the newspaper editors. the editor of the aurora would deliver three copies of his newspaper every day to the front steps of the president's house. even though washington is not a subscriber. he did so intentionally to get under washington skin. we know it works because he rants and raves about in cabinet and jefferson took careful notes. this political warfare in the partisan or wound they were trying to inflict was quite intentional. >> let's get a taste of washington on parties and we can further explore this. this is some of his own language and there's much more of it in the address space only to distract the public councils and the public administration agitates the community with ill-founded

jealousies and false alarms kindles the animosity of one party against another. occasionally write an insurrection pit opens the door to foreign influence and corruption which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channel of party passions. joy want to push back assembly language therapy. >> leave it up for a second period i think if you have to pick the nut craft that's ripped from the headlines today this to be particulate -- make it agitates the community with ill-founded falsities. occasionally write an insurrection opens the door of foreign influence. we just had a right and insurrection which was partisan in its nature this calendar year that resulted in the worst attack on the capitol since work 1812. it was fueled by misinformation and disinformation channeled through partisan media and exacerbated by party figures who put party over country.

they kindled the animosity of one party against another based on a light. perpetrated by the then president. but amplified through partisan media. and also amplified via social media by some foreign actors who sought interest in dividing america against itself. it is all there, folks, right there. george washington warned us, he predicted us. especially when another phrase from the farewell address act like a pretended patriots, really acted like they are more patriotic than anybody else which itself washington essays ascending its national unity or if they fed into that stuff that washington warned against, they are part of the problem. let's not pull any punches about that. washington made a very explicit warning we just live through evidence of. so we could not be more relevant and that is precisely why we need to be listening to

washington's farewell address now, today. we are falling into the traps he warned us about almost 250 years ago. >> john quickly and the most recently brought the farewell address, when did they stop making it mandatory to read the farewell address is the full congress, both houses are just the senate? >> the senate still reads it every year. yes it does. >> how ironic. [laughter] >> i would argue the house is more partisan than the senate although it is kind of a jump ball. what he thought you're going to say in the wake of the civil war, teaching the farewell address, memorizing it is part of the court public school curriculum. it is foremost in people's mind it's easier to memorize 270 towards gettysburg address and it's in the wake of world

war i for a lot of interesting reasons it sort of begins to fade. and then the original america first movement of the isolationist and the one run up to world war ii by adopting the farewell address i think fundamentally creates a misimpression it's an isolationist document and its read from an american nazi rally in madison square garden will get to that later. >> will get the foreign policy soon. lindsey can you take us back to the 18th century and some of this language. john gives us a great way it speaks the 21st century. how would this have been read in september 1796? as you said there's an election just around the corner. >> yes i think as john alluded to at the very beginning, this was an intensely partisan will meet think about the challenges we are facing today in terms of misinformation and disinformation. party structures, nativism,

fears about foreign interference all the things except they have not done it before. as joe talked about their students of history and knew it failed. let's not forget the constitution is actually the country's second chance. this government was already in the second chance at getting it right. such intense fear at this time that one misstep would lead to the nation's undoing. washington shared that fear, adams shared that fear during the debate joe mentioned, adams wrote in this letter back to abigail in the civil war was coming or maybe the constitution would last another ten years. that is really in the vibe of this moment. one of the things i think washington highlights in this party section of his farewell

address is that the party animosity and the intensity of that spirit can lead up to similarities. yes we might have differences. most regional differences in sectional differences we have much more in common as americans as we do as federalists or republicans. that is a lesson we really need to learn. >> just for second, i think we need to recover the historical context of the 18th century for listeners and viewers find she is doing right now, okay? i'm building on her book with this remark, if you read article two of the constitution of the united states, i will bet you cannot tell me what the president can do. the definition of the presidency is not shaped by the constitution.

it is shaped by washington's only administration. that's why always voted from his number one president. even ahead of lincoln he creates the republic that lincoln saves. but, the average american in the 1780 her own life without a three hour horse ride. the mentality was local not continental or national. this would underlay a perception that was strong. created a national government before our nation. and so that one historian called the consultation is a roof without walls. so washington is the embodiment of a nation that does not exist. it's one of the reasons that

he goes on a trip in this first two years to visit all of the states. and i believe somebody's got a book out on that right now. that's what we need to remember is the united states in the 1780s and 90 -- by the way jefferson would go to his grave believing we are still confederacy and not a nation. washington is an attempt to create it's one of the reasons why in the address itself he keeps trying to insert a paragraph on a national university in hamilton keeps think what in heavens name does does this have to do with the document? he keeps saying you've got to put it in and ends up like two

sentences. he wants to create an institution where americans from all kinds of different states and sections can come together and interact, intermarry, and i don't think george washington university makes that yet. the first institution that does that is a west point which comes to an existence in 1803. >> actually washington is proposing and helps purchase some land for which is where the vice president lives. that idea dies and you are right hamilton is back and forth on it. that is where most of it goes. if you look at the original farewell which they have the new york public library can literally cut-and-paste that section. >> john, if you look at that last address to congress it is

almost fdr. you do know what i mean? >> j edgar hoover's not a good thing. [laughter] >> i am sorry. [laughter] >> i'm sorry go on. >> you have to get beyond that. you know what i'm saying? it's a vision very close to what john quincy adams will have as president. and it is a vision of a nationstate that makes domestic and foreign policy in the robust way. and in that washington is a member of a very small minority in the nation. and anybody that opposes can lay onto his position because he is attempting to re-create the monarchy and of course jefferson is the main guy that is doing this behind the

scenes. malone has spent 50 years writing about jefferson and said jefferson the 17 '90s i don't really understand what he is doing. it's been 50 years we don't understand what is doing. what he's doing is lying it is a treasonable. he is stabbing washington in the back. i might be wrong, kevin tell me, i have often said to students and i hope i was right, jefferson wrote to martha when he became president he was close to mount vernon, can i come see you? she never answered i don't think. she said that washington said i never want that man on my property. >> is right after washington's death in particular martha has a very powerful statement for jefferson. let me bring up a little more at language here were going to talk about union quite a bit.

it is all through this address the word union appears so much he will think you are reading for abraham lincoln. it's all through this address unity and union which constitutes is also known due to the word now jumps out at me. it's the edifice for the real independence for your tranquility at home of peace abroad of safety, of prosperity and the very liberty you so highly prized. this statement of union is powerful. again is not the only chunk of address that touches on this. john what you think? >> this is a core it's little bit when joe is describing washington is a willing the creation of a nation. it's very conscious of the fact he is creating a national character to the example of his character, the decisions

he makes as a present which sets the precedence for the american government. but it is a hard sell because everybody thanks of themselves as a virginian first or a new yorker first or south carolinian first. washington is trying to say all the time that no, this works because of the federal government. it's the guarantor of your liberty you are not safe from strife. you do not do so they have property rights unless we have a strong central government. even the first constitutional convention does not mention political parties. does mention journals was like to point out but it is not mention political parties. so people show up to new york, they do the bill of rights they are representing their constituency not political parties that is a later invention that is discussed

and i'm sure will come up again. washington is constantly trying to say with all of our differences are nothing if we cannot focus on what unites us and what divides us. very early in the debate of the constitution you see so many we still see today it's a debate about largely urban folks thank you for the strong central government to unite the nation given certain powers and primarily rural folks saying that a threat to our way of life. that is a continuity in american debate because the constitutional convention through today. i think a washington clearly on the side of a strong central government and empathizing there's a balance to be struck this is not all on one side of the ledger. the primary mission the primary project is emphasizing the creation of a nation. >> your thoughts on

washington's union and unity in this address? >> elect to build off of what john said. the union and the constitution. what he's saying is we cannot have liberty without having strong central government. this is again an incredibly irrelevant subtext for the 24th century especially 2021. the goal was to have her roles and have the recognition of authority, have obedience to the rule of law. you do not just good to have a free-for-all of whatever it is you want to do. as a modern society you are supposed to stop for red lights. we except to preserve more of the liberties, the freedom of more american people. obviously they don't have cars in 1796 when he was writing this. the context is true is part of

a free society you have to accept certain limitations. this is sort of irrelevant coming on the fields of the risk of a rebellion which wraps up prior to this address. in which he says there is a constitutionally mandated way in which one can air your grievances. one can speak or redress for the things you don't like, the measures you think are inappropriate. but unless the constitution has changed obedience to the constitution is the true way to being an american. >> let me ask you to address one specific and washington spent quite a bit of time on his discussion of union and unity that's regional he talks about the north, he talks about the south, could you help people what is he saying when he looked at north, south and west?

what set original concern of his? >> the obvious issue is the threat of civil war in the underlying issue is slavery. later in the program you want to say wish there was one thing he did talk about at the farewell address that he didn't. but, he said to jefferson i think this was even before he was president, if ever is a war between the north and south the need to know i will be with the north. i think jefferson repeats it, he sends his kids they're not his kids to columbia rather than william and mary. he becomes a kind of trojan horse in the middle of virginia the other thing is

the west. the first farewell address the americas and future is not in europe but it is to the west. i don't think we will do london. we will do detroit will do new orleans will do savannah, that is the future. that is the future out there. he knows what that is out

there than other leaders of the time when you get to the louisiana purchase mammoths and all of that kind of thing we begin with the largest trust fund that any has ever enjoyed. mostly concerned with the atlantic. maybe john and lindsay can disagree with meat we can play this out as an argument, washington's definition of american exceptionalism is exactly the opposite of what most contemporary things think

american exceptionalism is. in the contemporary view we saw after he won the war us the russians are gone we can make the world a safer democracy because we have the model that works everywhere. washington said our motto was distinctive and unique and exceptional. that means and don't expect it to work in france. the french revolution is probably going to say it. when i was doing the book tour of my biography of washington for everyone wants to know washington will say about iraq. and i said he did not know where iraq was. later when they pressed me say how did we become written? [laughter] and explain that one to me. i am pressing for foreign

policy maybe you do not want to do that yet. >> he believes that's a future for the next 100 years. >> the great rule of conduct is extending our commercial relation we have formed an engagement with them be fulfilled with perfect good faith, this is washington at the end of his presidency. is this how foreign policy across the years? >> i think for the most part he did. he did not want to be beholding to any one nation. he recognized the line to the

country for support, for economic support especially at a time when france and great britain were essentially having a second 100 year, they are costly in each other's throat. their counseling throwing others into the mix. the best weight was not get too close to any one side. for example in 1793 when france declared war on great britain the united states and france did have treaties on the book. they had a treaty of commerce left over from the revolutionary war. and they decided that jefferson's encouragement to interpret the treaty of defense as a defensive treaty it says in france in the united states were bound to one another if they were attacked by their enemies meeting great britain of course. but, france was at the former they were not attacked and

there for the united states was not obligated to come to francis assistance bit which was convenient because the united states didn't have a way to lend it. the concept has bound these two global superpowers was i think his main goal for the majority of his presidency trying to not get too close or having too intense of a relationship with either. >> it's one of my favorite moments he praises washington to maine train net neutrality and insist no one else could have done it that always jumps out at me. , john this foreign relations statement washington has here can you talk about the legacy of that? take us in the past the 18th , 19th, 20th century. >> sure. first of all the statement of neutrality between france and britain is self revolutionary.

washington is really fixated on the fact we have a strategic asset that is in unlike any other. i joke in my book it's a version of what will rogers used to say is america got the two best presidents the atlantic and pacific ocean. we are insulated from the chaos of continental europe for them and killing each other for centuries. that is a strategic asset paper tickly at the time when distance really inoculates us. and so he says look, there's no way were going be a satellite of another nation we need to be an independent nation. he also says we need at least 20 years he says in the farewell address to build their own strength economic and then we can start making our own decisions rooted in our sense of interest and justice. we are not an isolationist estate we do not have criminal alliances with other nations were not going to be a satellite of anyone else are not going to