several recent crashes and a possible congressional response. that is followed by presidential historian who will talk about the significance of the so- called pentagon papers on the 40th anniversary of their first being leaked to " the new york times" as well as the more recent wikileaks document releases. ♪ host: congress is back in session this week. in the newspapers, "the financial times" shows that 20% of non-mortgage backed loans are in foreclosure. "the new york times" reports this morning that fed collectors will be lobbying this morning.

several of the papers are also reporting this morning that mitt romney has an edge going into tonight's cnn debate. you can listen to it on c-span radio. the president is in raleigh, n.c., to meet with his jobs counsel for proposals on job creation. the chairman of the jobs council has that op-ed today. co-written by him and the american express ceo. "how we are meeting the job creation challenge" is the headline.

host: every city in america has a commercial building that can be made more efficient, both private and public sectors. on the screen as you just saw,

highlights from the job council as the talk about ideas in job creation being discussed in raleigh, north carolina. for the next 40 minutes or so we wanted to take a look at the ideas they have come up with and we want your thoughts on them maybe it is boosting travel and tourism. tell us what you would add to the list or things that you disagree with. here is how you can do so as to comment on these proposals. republicans, 202-624-1115. democrats, 202-624-1111. independents, 202-624-0760.

they have called for training workers for today's open jobs, a streamlining of the permitting process. the of called for assistance and help with small business loans and are looking to put construction workers back to work. some of the ideas they have laid out this morning. even comment on that be a phone line for comment online, using twitter, twitter.com/c-spanwj, or you can send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. "over the next 90 days we will turn to the actions that need to be made with a long term impact."

host: tonight's debate is 10:00 on c-span radio if you want to listen to it, sponsored by cnn. highland park, ill., democratic line. you are up first. what do you think of this plan? caller: i have been thinking about this for some time. the first thing that i would do is sweden applied for businesses that actually manufacture in america and make it more difficult for companies that do not. that ample, let's say

company wants to manufacture of televisions in america. if they employed 80% of all employees as american, by would give them tremendous benefits. tax cuts, long-term assistance with their health care, things of that nature. i would try to make it so attractive that that company would love to manufacture in america. on the other hand, if a company only employs foreign workers, i would make it more difficult on them. i would tax them more definitely. so that they would have to pay more to bring their goods back to america. host: jacksonville, florida. bruce, independent line.

go ahead. caller: just listening to the gentleman that was on the phone before me, i just, you know, the infrastructure thing that they keep bringing up, my question has been since they started this infrastructure stuff, the 18 cents per gallon in federal gas tax that we paid is supposed to go to the national highway trust fund. what have we done with that money? they think that we are going to increase tourism with these people unemployed? where are we going to get the tourists from? i will leave it at that. host: boosting jobs and travel, tourism, was one of the recommendations, as was putting construction workers back to work. as you look at that list this

morning, frederick, md., good morning. caller: thank you. i have thought about this for a long time. i have felt that they do not go far enough. they need to tighten up the trade treaties. i liked what the caller said about higher taxes for companies that go outside of our country. for the longest time they have had benefits to go outside of the country. we have actually paid for people to go outside the country. i would like to see a level playing field. trade trees tighten up so that they are fair across countries. host: anything else that you would add, these ideas that have been lifted this morning? caller: we need jobs. we need to look at how it can realistically occur.

for me it is looking at those trade trees and making them fair. host: what about the ideas that they put on their face? caller: i came from the midwest and i watched one hard to to the city build a science museum they really tried to create attractions in that particular city. but people were broke and they went into debt, you know? because the average citizen could not pay for those attractions. what i am saying is jobs, jobs, jobs. and they need to be real, substantive. host: eagle river, wisconsin, democratic line.

good morning. caller: by have a suggestion on how to improve this very easily. put a surtax on every [unintelligible] that comes into this country. our trade laws are just skewed against us. as long as this happens we will not have manufacturing jobs come into this country. i feel that trade is hurting us more than anything. and it is not a balanced field. as long as we keep importing these cheaper goods from manufacturers, hiring people for $1 per day to $2 per day, we cannot compete with that the world market every cargo container that comes into the country, put a tax on it.

host: what do you think of the current proposals laid out by the job council? caller: very mushy. republicans are blocking every single attempts to get this infrastructure bowling yen. we need to make repairs. we are looking for bridges. our roads are terrible. this all slows down our economics. without a modern infrastructure, boy, you can believe that we will go second world year. host: one of the proposals is streamlining permitting. cutting red tape. just one of the plans to stop issuing new regulations and canceling many of last year's.

gary, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. the government needs to get out of the way and quit creating oppressive regulations, up crescive taxes, and everything where businesses would not want to create jobs. people do nothing to get it. the democrats really do not get it. the only thing, the best thing the government can do is to get out of the way. government needs to get out of the way and let the private sector do what it you hear people say that corporations are sitting on a lot of money right now. yes, they are, because they do not like the oppressive atmosphere of the obama regime.

you want to create jobs? do not create a presidential council or get government in the way. get them out of the way, lower taxes, this makes easy to let business to their thing. that is what they are good that. host: the president will be meeting with his team in raleigh, n.c., as well as using his weekly address. >> government should not be the main engine of job creation in this country. that is the role of the private sector. but the government can work with the private sector to make sure each worker has the skills needed for the jobs they are applying for. host: we are talking about your thoughts on the job council

ideas coming from the president's job council. it comes from this piece -- "how are we meeting the job creation challenge"? you can look at the ideas and comment on what to think about them. if you wish to add your own ideas, feel free to do so. the grim crawl in, send us and menial or a twitter message. independent line, khalil. caller: good morning. how're you doing? our work brings hands-on entrepreneurial family development. job development for college graduates, drug clinics, rehab

clinics. as you know, every person desires to have their own business one day. providing us with resources from the other half, as well as the opportunities to be a part of a free society. host: looking at all of that, what do you think of these ideas for improving the job market here in the u.s. steps -- u.s.? caller: first of all, we have to take advantage of the people who are unemployed. skilled college graduates. but to get the economy up we have to put the people who are on the lower class, unite them and one focus. every person desires one day to

have their own money to run a business. we are starting with the entrepreneur program. host: we will leave it there. linda, orlando. good morning. caller: good morning. i had such a hard time getting through. i have two requests for c-span. when people call in, please have them turn off their televisions. a lot of times you will still let people continue to talk and it makes it very hard for people like me that are listening to be able to hear. secondly, i think that the most important thing for callers is to please, please have them stay on top. you have done a fantastic job.

those are two things as a viewer that i would like to request. host: what do you think about the ideas laid out by the job council? caller: i am interested in getting more information about this. in glad that you are doing this topic. i do not know if you will have a guest on or a newspaper that you can look at this morning, but i read something yesterday that said that since president obama has taken office we have lost over 2 million jobs. i wanted to find out how that compares to the previous administration. have things gotten better? or are they not better than previously? can you do some research? do you know? coast of the president did say this. "one of upon goals is to

streamline, boost travel, tourism, putting construction workers back to work." of that list, does any of it appealed to you as a means of job creation? caller: i am pretty much a free market degal. i like the states and local businesses to do things and less intervention that the federal level. but sometimes we all need some help from the government. thank you so much for c-span. but -- host: mount pleasant, texas. caller: talking about construction jobs, i do not know the to have never worked in construction but most people that have to understand that when they hire people for

infrastructure jobs, highways and bridges, most of them go to the lowest paid people they can find, which are illegal aliens. not talking about spanish people. there are all sorts of illegal aliens in this country and they tend to get those jobs. the other thing i would like to know, on the health care, they call about all of these people that are uninsured and going into the emergency rooms and using up the health care money. i would like to know the percentage of those people that are illegal aliens. host: redding, pa. of. -- pennsylvania. caller: thank you for taking my call. obama seems to forget that the role of small businesses is not

to create jobs. a businesses job is to create value for their stockholders. that is what they exist for. if they can accomplish this job within the country, that is what they are going to do. you create high taxes? everything here that is hostile the big business? hostile to making money in the upper tax brackets? you wonder why all of these companies leave the country. host: we will leave it there. tonight there are seven contenders in the republican field and the president of the united states will meet them for a debate. here to talk about it is james of "politico." you may have seen the papers already, but "usa today" says that mitt romney has the edge.

would you conclude the same? caller: absolutely. great to be with you. mitt romney is the front runner. he might be nominally strong, but this is the opportunity for him tonight to cement its status as the gop front runner. there are three big headlines that can come out of the debate. the people on stage dog pile on him, steer clear from attacking camper, -- from attacking him, and everyone will be watching how he behaves. for him in 2007, during the last campaign, he was really a big punching bag.

this will confirm his status as a front runner and test his skills as a communicator read if he is attacked tonight, we are watching carefully to see how he responds. we wrote a piece today looking at that run the specifically saying that there is a fine line between being confident or arrogant and disengage. d. disengage host: who is the candidate that is likely to taken to task? caller: yesterday to tim pawlenty linked the mitt romney health care law with the obama health care law. tim pawlenty needs a breakthrough moment and it is likely he built it from me on the health care -- he will hit

mitt romney on the health-care issue. having just announced his it is with -- it is possible that but santorum will be willing to throw punches. e could bean throwing some punches. newt gingrich needs to get attention, but his challenge is that he wants to look serious and not make it look like he is desperate to survive. this might give him cause to pull back a little bit. host: as far as mr. romney is concerned, you talked about the status of his campaign going in. what does he have to solidify the night?

caller: that he is not just a well-funded juggernaut. the message is the economy. he is rolling out an advertisement today criticizing the president for calling the economic recovery setbacks, high employment, a speed bump. he needs to identify himself as closely as possible with that message. that he is the candidate to fix the weak economy and continued to come back to that. host: what is his ground game in new hampshire compared to the other candidates? caller: he invested heavily in 2008 -- they have been living there for a couple of years now.

leading have a leak in the polls in new hampshire compared to the early primary states. he sought to have the favor of john sununu, chairman of the state gop and campaign leadership. this is a state that fits him pretty well politically and he has been signing a lot of the big names. host: before we leave you, having laid out some teams, what is the other story that you are looking for that would not be as obvious to the people watching? caller: absolutely. can michele bachman look presidential? many people say that she could win the iowa caucuses. she is popular with the tea

party and very good at serving red meat to the tea party -- to the republican base. the one thing we do not know is how she comes off to the general public. remember her awkward state of the union response? she will have to prove that she is substantive. not just running to win a popularity contest. we will watch how she handles that balance. host: james, thank you for your time. caller: sake you. host: politico.com is the website where you confine his story. the debate takes place tonight and you can listen for it on c- span radio at 10:00 this evening. gene, democratic line, we were talking about your ideas laid out by the president's job

council. what do you make of them? what do you read to the list? caller: unique to have the corporation of everything in america's. is trillions of dollars out there that is tough racing. the problem is that as long as we are divided the way that we are, the by did you fall, together use stand. america has got to start worrying about america. not republicans, democrats, or independents. yet what ever is best for america needs to be voted on by

and not happy with what president obama is doing. i hate war. stead of getting rid of them, he adds 1. but i will not be stupid ebb of vote for him just because of him not doing what i want when i know that other parties want to change many laws. host: in case you're just joining us, we have highlighted the jobs council job creation ideas. here are some of them as lifted from the age of "the wall street journal." -- from the page of " wall street journal." -- of "the wall street journal." the president will be meeting with his job as counsel in raleigh, north carolina today to discuss these ideas.

this e-mail message -- green bay, republican line. caller: we have to put america back to work with solar panels on all of our expressways'. we need to change the rest areas into battery stations. electric cars will be coming in from around the world and the united states. we divert the power from those panels into the cities to help to implement the lights and whenever that has to do. putting thousands of millions of people back to work. host: you are typing that to green jobs, as they are called? caller: correct. host: oklahoma city.

belmont. democratic line. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead. caller: unlike the list. personally, i think it is very -- i like bill list. personally, i think it is very important. i think that facilitating small business is good. i have a little problem with small businesses that are not regulated because it costs the consumer to pay over and over again for corrections and streamlining our budgets on a local level. i do not have much of a problem with travel, but if there is an industry for that that is open for business and open to

progress, i really do believe that there should be jobs training. i appreciate it and i think that the president is starting at a light level to work with graduates of the neighborhood and the people involved in the neighborhood. host: this message from twitter -- host: michigan, good morning. caller: hello. i am concerned with one comment that president obama made about cooperating, from voting -- that is not the word that he used, but he wanted to cut businesses in. i do not see why he should be getting more government into any

of the businesses. there is too much government in the businesses now. please do not let him partner with anything else. let him get the heck out of and give us back our partnership. host: why give them aid rather than partnership? caller: they have their fingers in too many partnerships in this country. give them assistance with texas. give them ways to hire people that would be beneficial. perhaps giving them better insurance rates. whatever it takes to get people into those businesses rather than have the government as a partner. pretty soon be government will

be a partner with everybody and we do not need that much government. host: a couple of stories from "the wall street journal" this morning. host: a similar story from "the new york times" this morning.

host: west virginia, go ahead, republican line. caller: it seems to me that cutting taxes would give companies a better advantage to hire more people and give them more incentive to make some money. less government. i was retired from government. i know that too much government is too good for the country.

less regulation, keeping government out of business. i hardly think that we need to partner with people. they made a statement about those taxes and they gave people an incentive to hire. host: a couple of more stories -- this one is from "the financial times." hopes

host: windsor locks, conn.. republican line. caller: a couple of points i would like to make. what was said before a few years ago, and what really bothered me during the bush administration about all of our deficits -- i was making the point that if we ever ran into serious recession, we never went into one where the government was starving -- starting with $5 trillion in debt. that is exactly what we have today. we are in serious trouble and it is the first time that the

government is so bankrupt that they are not in any position to help us get back on our feet. host: what about the ideas for job creation, then? caller: the reason i am an independent, we have tried eight years of tax cuts and deregulation. what did it get us? people talk about deregulation. do they really love and run, madoff, do they want more bear stearns? the democratic ideas of bigger government, funding things to get us back on our feet, we are out of money. we just do not have the money to do it. we have these huge deficits and do not have the money to do it.

host: he puts job training and construction workers on that list. caller: job training? where are the jobs? what are people training for? if people will not buy them, what is the point of job training? caller: minneapolis, minnesota. jackie, good morning. caller: i do agree with job creation suggestions. i am thankful that they are finally doing these things because a lot of other countries have been doing this for years. america is behind. host: does something stand out to you? caller: training is something that other countries have been doing for years. germany, when they are worked out of a certain business, the

government pays for it. something completely different from what america does. if we do not touch half of them by doing retraining, we are falling further behind. host: could fail, tenn.. good morning. caller: i have said this before on your show. the big problem that we have now, 2008, 2009, we saw the largest cases where small businesses pretty much went out of business because they could not kill loans. the reason why is there is too much regulation. i would like to see money lent to small business people.

credit is in the toilet. i would ignore that. if you put these people back to work, the base will be flush with cash. we have 3 million small business people going back to work. you have got to find some way to get the loans that you want and you cannot do it through the bank. host: this e-mail saying -- host: las vegas, charles, independent line. good morning. caller: first of all, governments do not create jobs. needed to businesses. consumers create jobs. by look at the facts. from 1945 to ronald reagan, but

country grew as a whole. when america got better, so did everyone else. what happened? let's look at what happened. in 1945, mothers were still in the homes teaching the children. 38% of the private sector was unionized. we grew as americans. what happened? ronald reagan came to office and everything went out the window. mothers not teaching their kids because they had to go to work to pay the bills. and only 7% of the population is unionized. host: "the new york times" talk about debt collectors on the front page.

host: atlanta, georgia,

democratic line. caller: yes. first, you have a model. we are not talking about manufacture. most of all the problem is greatly carried on local level by not being involved. everyone is looking at president obama, where generally the problem is in the local area where they seldom have policy leadership connects with delegations. taking these issues to president obama. when it hits their desk, then they can say something. but he is not the last word. these policies have a tendency to be high level. again, if they were to award more manufacturer, job creation, yes, that is the function of creating more businesses.

small businesses should stop catering to be too big to fail wall street combination. big money going toward that loop level and distribution of a larger pool of people that will do what that council said, which is growth. it is the key and it will not come until the local area is empowered. host: pictures of gabrielle giffords, posted by and facebook and in other prominent places. caller: i can see from with that you have put together the micromanaging of the private sector and you realize that it is needed in order to create ordinances', realizing that.

you want state governments to create -- to take the credit for the work being done. rick perry, texas, there was a "the wall street journal" article saying they created 38% of the new jobs since the recession. pointing out that high taxes and unions have been the greatest obstacles in overcoming job creation. host: one more call from cedar park, texas, independent line. go ahead. are you there? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: i agree with paul hewitt, who said that if we did not restructure our economy -- this was in 2001 -- that if we did not restructure for the aging economy, by 2010 we would be in a permanent recession. host: what you think about the

highlights from the jobs council this morning? caller: by do not think that they really exist, those problems, and i think it was a mistake jeffrey m. melts -- jeffrey m. l. in there for job creation. host: in a moment we will look at highway safety in light of recent crashes, but next we will be talking to dr. anthony fauci of the office of infectious diseases. 30 years after the announcement of the hiv aids, we will talk about where we are and its future after this. ♪

>> connect with c-span on line with the latest schedule updates on quitter, facebook, political places, washington and beyond, as well as programming highlights with you to. c-span, social media, connect today. >> linda hogan, focusing on native american in women's issues, including "the woman who watches over the world" and her latest, "rounding the human corners." sunday, july 3, noon, eastern, on c-span 2. the c-span networks provide

coverage of politics, nonfiction books, and american history. it is all available to you on radio, online, and social media sites. we take c-span on the road with our digital local content vehicles, bringing our resources to your community. c-span, now available in more than 100 million homes. created by cable. provided as a public service. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us is a anthony fauci dr. of the national institute of infectious disease. 30 years since the first reported case of hiv aids. where are we today? guest: we have made progress, but historically the profile has been devastating. just short of 70 million people infected. about 30 million people have

died. 34 million people are living with hiv throughout the world. 2.6 -- 2.6 million infections each year. it is still a very important public gold -- public global healthcare problem. when i was taking care of hiv patients in the early 1980's, if someone came into a hospital people had median survival rate -- people had median survival rates that were measured in months. you could predict that they would live an additional 50 years. the problem is that in many parts of the world, it is still out of control. host: that is worldwide? caller: in the united states we have 56,000 new cases each year.

1.1 million americans are infected. one of the real issues is that about 20% do not know it. those are the ones who are disproportionately infecting other people. they do not even realize it. currently one of the real pushes is to be very aggressive in seeking out and voluntarily testing people. host: why are more people not getting tested? caller: -- guest: people feel they are essentially not at risk. that they have other problems in the life. they are part of the disenfranchised group of individuals. it is the reason we need to keep pushing to get people tested. host: how does the number track over the last 30 years? caller: in europe -- guest: in the early days we were having a

very concentrated and uncontrolled outbreaks. we are down to 56,000 per year, but it is still a high number. very bad. we have got to get that curve back down. host: where is the government's role in the research and treatment? guest: huge. if you look at the fundamental research that has been done but has been primarily funded by the national institute of health, over the last 30 years they have spent cumulatively about a co love $5 billion in research on hiv. host: our guest with us this morning, if you want to ask him questions, for republicans, 202- 624-1115. for democrats, 202-624-1111.

for independents, 202-624-0760. journal@c-span.org is the e- mail. you can send us a twitter twitter.com/c-spanwj. what are the cities with the highest rates? guest: we are sitting right in the middle of the city with the highest rate. washington, d.c. it is extraordinary. about 6% of african-american males are infected. it really varies greatly. the bigger cities have more. particularly cities that have higher concentrations of men that have sex with men. host: yuri, pa., go ahead.

caller: good morning, gentlemen. i am a nurse practitioner. i am glad you have said would to have said. the majority of the people in -- of the people infected in 2009 were male to male. very few from drug use. the second category, heterosexual, there were more women than men. if you look at the race, sadly, half were african-american. until you start addressing the fact that this is a preventable disease that is largely fit -- due to uncommitted heterosexual and homosexual relationships, we will not have any progress. can you address how much we pay for each person per year on these drugs?

it is devastating that we are not getting to the point where we need to encourage people to engage in committed sexual relationships and get back to funding education. guest: the caller makes a great point. there is a great disparity in this country. 12% of the u.s. population is african-american and close to 50% of the new infections are in the community. there are a variety of reasons. economic conditions. the real lack of acceptance, or stigma, against men that have sex with men in the african- american community. much more generally a accepted by caucasians. there is a great deal less stigma and they do none allow

themselves to have the same discussions that go on in other sections of the community. i was just in new york last week. commemorating the anniversary of the first anniversary of aids, it became clear that we could not treat our way out of the epidemic. treatment had to be a major modality. strikingly, it was shown about one month ago that if you treat an individual who is infected early in the course of their disease, not only is it beneficial for the individual but it remarkably decreases the likelihood that that person will transmit the infection to their uninfected sexual partner in a heterosexual setting.

treatment becomes a part of upper setting. fundamental modalities to get people under treatment who are infected. host: then how do you deliver that message? guest: you get out in the community with targeted messages. we know the higher risk categories. you have got to target your message to those individuals to make it seem homogeneous. it helps it to look politically correct, but it is not really the case. you have got to get community workers out in the community and get them tested in council. that is what we are doing in washington, d.c. we are working with a study that is linked to the south bronx, which has a similar demographic

profile. close call -- host: manhattan, damien, independent mind. caller: but the last caller said it is not realistic. i have been diagnosed since 1993. i have been self-destructive. my count went down the 160. my doctor -- new medication -- healthy as i can be. i agree that the infection rate -- chances -- host: color, you are breaking up. anything you can take from that? guest: that treating -- preaching abstinence only has been proven to be ineffective.

if you just teach abstinence without teaching the other way is to avoid infection, that is when you get a serious issue. host: talking about those that were affected, what are the symptoms? what should they look for democrats call lurk -- guest: you should not worry about symptoms -- what should they look for? guest: you should not worry about symptoms, because if you wait for them, it is too late. many people need therapy even if they feel well. the earlier the to get the therapy, the better. the other advantage is if they are not infected you get them into this system on counseling them about what they need to do to continue to prevent themselves from being infected.

host: as far as symptoms? guest: it really varies. advanced disease, pneumonia, very unusual types of pneumonia. people generally feel very sick and if there is a risk category -- that is the reason you go into a doctor's office and give them symptoms. we have people in an hour of hospitals that are doing perfectly well, feeling a bit tired, all of a sudden presenting with what we would call an aids defining illness. when you examine the profile and you find out that they were likely infected for least 10 years or more. which is unacceptable. if someone is practicing risky behavior, they should be tested right away. so that they can get appropriate

therapy earlier rather than later. host: what do you mean by central nervous system? guest: you can get strange infections in the brain. things that well people would never get. another problem that we have seen, certain types of tumors, lymphoma in the central nervous system. the brain can be a target for a secondary from hiv. caller: hello. my question for you is sort of a multifaceted. i sit on the prevention group in massachusetts. i have been hiv-positive for over 20 years. i was diagnosed with an aids diagnosis in 1995. -- 1985.

i want to ask you about your cr5 work andhe c any talk on that. host: we want to know what ccr5. caller: it is a kinetic mutation. they say people with two of these do not get hiv. they have done studies where they were able to wipe out his hiv. host: thank you. guest: what the calller is referring to is the issue of possibly sharing a person with hiv. if you do -- if you get on the drugs find, you will do fine. there are millions of people walking around well because the drugs are so affected. this issue of the chair comes up, and this means you can take

someone off the drug and it does not bounce back. currently as good as the drugs are, as soon as to stop them, the virus comes back here yet there was a very unusual case that people are making a lot out of in this sense of saying it is a proof of concept for a cure. you have to be careful about that. it was someone who had hiv infection and developed a complication of a certain type of leukemia and required a some spell transplant. they got this themself from someone who had a genetic defect that would prevent that person cell from getting infected with hiv. they did that in the person who was hiv infected, and they gave him all the eminent suppression that you need, and it turns out the person which the transplant helped or cured their leukemia, but now the person is no longer requiring the anti-hiv drugs

because the cells and their body are not susceptible to hiv. that is an interesting phenomenon, but it is not practical on a wide scale. it is completely impractical to be thinking of that, because you have to suppress the persons marrow, which can kill you. you need a transplant, which is extremely expensive, and then you have to be immunosuppressed and drugs for the rest of your life. even though the idea of a cure is alive and well, and we are striving very aggressively to find a cure, the idea of giving someone else and still transplant and all that goes with it is frankly not feasible. caller: i wanted to ask the doctor the same thing he just discussed. i wanted to know if there was any potential learning that could be utilized? even though you could not stem cells, is there

another potential lesson that could be derived? i know you have to spend huge amounts of man hours on this, but is that giving another perspective, or was that something that was considered even before it was actually found to be true? >> the thing about this themself transplant and what we call it a truth -- approve of transplant. that is somehow by mechanism you can block the virus on an individual. in this case it was done by transplanting cells that did not have the expression of the receptive. if you can do it some way or another with gene therapy or another approach, which has a high likelihood of failure but not impossible, and we're trying very hard to do that that we can

consider the individual patient, though and practical from the widespread standpoint, it does actually represents what we called a proof of concept, and that is what people are working on right now. various molecular ideas to tone down the expression of this receptor which allows someone to get infected. >> what is the difference in the course of treatment today versus 30 years ago? guest: huge. 30 years ago we did not know what the virus was. when it was isolated in 1983 in 1984, the first drug was a blip of hope because people did well for awhile, and in the virus became resistant to the drug. it was not until the mid-1990s when the triple combination of what we call a cocktail of drugs was available that we began to be able to effectively bring down the level of virus to below detectable levels. if you look at what we have now,

a person can come in with one killed that has three drugs in it and take it once a day, that person can successfully suppressed the fire risk. even when we have multiple drugs, people were taking 15 or 20 bills per day, and it was very difficult for a person to keep up with a regimen. -- 15 or 20 pills per day. host: what is the cost? guest: it varies. the cost of the types of drugs sold in the non-generic way, mainly just over the counter from the manufacturer, they range anywhere from 12,000 to $14,000 per year. right now in the developing world using generics are much less expensive. in fact, they can be measured in a few hundred dollars per year. host: what about insurance?

guest: most of the inferences cover the therapy for hiv infected. host: 33 million people living with hiv, 20% higher than 2000. 3 million infected with hiv. 30% less than the peak of the epidemic. 90% of the people are low and middle income countries. 56,000 new infections each year in the united states. what are survival rates looking like? guest: if you do not have treatment, it is like it was in the 1980's. some people die within a few years, but the median survival from the time you get infected is somewhere around 10 or 11 years. you for start getting to -- the serious disease. if someone comes in to my clinic or any clinic for the hacker facilities in this newly diagnosed, and let's say the person is 20 years old, newly

infected and you put them on appropriate therapy, you could predict they could live another 15 years -- 50 years. the life span is approaching if someone gets under appropriate therapy. host: our republican line. brandon from pennsylvania. i was wondering about the status of an aids vaccine. guest: a year-and-a-half ago there was a trial that we conducted with the united states government and they country of thailand with a vaccine that was found to be moderately effective. it is of being deployed, but it was the proof of concept that a vaccine actually can work. there is a lot of work going on for hour -- for the development of the vaccine, but it is not a year away.

it will likely be several years. host: what is the scope of the current research being done? guest: incentives. we spend about $650 million per year for an aids vaccine. a number of candidates, which we're turning our the write components to inject into an individual to reduce response that you hope will be protected. there is a lot of work going on throughout the country and the world, supported by a number of groups, but particularly the nih. host: this letter as how we're doing on keeping out of 84 -- blood out of transfusions and therapy? >> that is prettguest: that is h settled. the blood supply is really quite safe. the chances of getting an infection from a blood transfusion is vanishingly

small. host: harlem, new york. steve on the democrat line. caller: i do research also. i am going to be in dc next week because of the aids clinical trial. my question is you said something about the ccr5. the researchers looking at that is not to the bone marrow but the procedure to try to eradicate it. they're also looking at the sleeping cells. i guess they're trying to stir the sleeping sells better in the body, to wake them up so that and try-retro by rolls -- so retro viralsti-

will eliminate them. guest: what the calller is referring to is the lately- infected pool. he is using the terminology sleeping cells. it is where the cells are infected but they are not actively making virus, so they are late and. it is very difficult to eradicate that pool of cells. as part of the push to develop a cure, there are proposals and experiments going on to activate the pool and hopefully not have the virus spread to other cells, but to kill the cells once they start spitting out the virus. thus far that approach has been unsuccessful, but that is ok. people are continuing to try to find new ways of doing that he is talking about a leighton reservoir of hiv. atent reservoir of hiv.

caller: thank you for everything you have done. my partner and i are both hiv- positive. i was bearing this in the military back in 1987. i received great benefit from the va system. my partner received social security, the upper end of social security which is around $1,500. due to the fact that he received the upper end, his cost of his medication are almost like 1000 to $1,200, which is practically impossible for him to pay. is there any political thing where they're trying to cover this up for people? he is not eligible for medicare advantage. unfortunately it has forced him and me both to come up with a

solution ourselves. one calller earlier started -- stated about starting and stopping medication. two years ago we stopped and started medications. i take a very extreme regiment, and i would take it for four months in stop and give it to my partner. i know this is practicing medicine without a license, but we do what we do to survive. we have both stayed undetectable for over two years by the grace of god. we do not want to do this. we are not active physically in the gay community. we are in texas basically to other people. -- we are basically infectious to other people. the doctor tot respond. guest: it is really unfortunate that the availability of health

care is not able to get the resources to treat their infection, which is the drug he is getting is life-saving. the calller is really lucky that by stopping the medication not coming back. s that is not recommended. very dangerous to do that for a number of reasons, one of which is then you could reduce insistence of your virus to the drug you are using. when you start and stop you give the virus the opportunity to generate resistance to the drugs that are being used. although he says when he goes off is by role load, which means the level of virus in his blood remains undetectable, he is very lucky and unusual that is the case, so although it may work for him, that is not something you at all recommend for people to go on their drug performance

and off for four months. it is really unfortunate that the resources are not made available to him to be able to stay on these life-saving drugs continually. host: what is the recommended as far as how often you should test? guest: you mean an uninfected person? if an uninfected -- an infected person is having risky behavior, at least once a pair year. those with the virus, you do not need to test them. you want to test the viral load a couple of times per year, but you do not need to retest them for the virus. host: hartford, conn. david on the democrat line. foraller: things you giving your professional life to this kind of research. i am wondering if you can tell me. a friend of mine i played cards

with tested positive in 1988. he is been on nearly every drug they have. he is healthy. he showed me a receipt for a year's worth of medications from his insurance companies with over $36,000. he makes copays, he works and is perfectly healthy, but he is getting near to retirement in scared to death what will happen. how is it that foreign countries can have generics that do not exist in this country and our drug costs are so high? is there anything that can be done about this? guest: that is an excellent question, and something of this country is struggling with. it is not in my area of influence to have anything to do with that, but i can certainly emphasis -- empathize with the concerns being expressed. other countries not only have the ability to use generics, but those countries also, many of them have universal health care,

which means that individuals are infected and had total accessibility to drugs. if you look in south america, brazil is a classic example that if you are infected, you will get treatment from the health plans free as part of the health care delivery system. there are people who are not only not able to get drugs because of the lack of health care system that fits them, but it is true the drugs are very expensive. host: republican line. good morning. caller: thank you. thank you for c-span. i want to say that i believe in celibacy for all people, and i have been completely celibate for nine years. i believe that is the way to go.

guest: for the individual call, that is the way to go. in the real world of what goes on out there, celibacy, though it works for those were celibate, it does not work when you're talking about those with hiv, because most people are not celibate. so we have to have prevention measures for hiv that are risk reduction, because people are going to have sexual relationships the matter what we say, so although celibacy and very unusual circumstances, people like to be celibate, but in the broad global situation of hiv, that just does not happen. host: are there strains of the virus? guest: there are. they do not vary with respect to drug treatment.

c and a.a it is see and the treatment is not different. they are just a little bit different molecular weight. host: cincinnati, ohio. democrat line. caller: doctor, thank you again for your help with the virus. and my question is i was diagnosed in 1980 s6. my question is does your body goes through a noticeable change when you are infected? in 1984 i had a bout with flu- like symptoms over the weekend in happened, and two days later i was fine. i was never found anybody that

can answer my question. does your body goes through a noticeable change when you are infected at the initial infection of the virus? guest: there is no doubt your body goes under a notable change, mostly for the worst in the sense that when the virus replicates, it destroys components of your immune system, and we know now after many years of experience that the replicating virus, hiv as it reproduces itself, creates a degree of what we call very abnormal activation of the body system, which has a number of effects. the answer to your question, the short answer is certainly the virus does have an effect on your body, and quite about effect actually appear yet ho. host: san francisco next on the independent line. caller: thank you, a doctor, and

for c-span. my question is i was married for quite a long time. i am now divorced. i have cancer now, and so far i have tested negative for aids, but my x, i am not sure at the time when we parted whether his sexual activity could have exposed me. i have had real current lymphoma, which means i have had to first stage battles, which they say i am currently in remission. the diagnosis was found, the pass a law which said it is remarkable -- the pathologist said it is remarkable to have this stage of cancer with the white count. the way they found it was biopsy. i was wondering the relationship

between the two, and also the post-treatment side effects, and do i have the sleeping sell or could i have the sleeping sell ♪ cell? guest: the college is mentioned she is not hiv-positive. if that is the case, the diagnostic tests for hiv positivity are very sensitive. so i am sure her physician no doubt has of her for hiv, particularly if she said she had an arrest with her sexual partner. if she is negative, which it sounds like she is, this far after having exposure to a person who would be infected, and she clearly is negative, and the lymphoma as something that is unrelated to hiv. she is asking could she have

these reservoir, but hebert in tried the test is positive -- excuse me,-, she does not have this. if she did, her agency would be clearly positive, and it is not. host: there are stories about this e. coli break out, especially in germany. what is the message for those in the united states? guest: it is not here in the united states. ot worryage is, do not rea about it. practice good hygiene no matter the situation. the situation in germany was quite tragic. there was contamination now out sprouts that got

contaminated with a very common bacteria called the coli. the reason this particular bacteria is so dangerous is that it produces a toxin, which happens to be called sugar toxin. they named the bacteria stec. it has been extremely dangerous and sickened a few thousand people in germany and the european union. they have a secondary complications, which means the red cells get destroyed by this toxin, and they then go into kidney failure. there have been 23 deaths associated with that particular syndrome, and another 12 or 13 deaths associated with this typical type of an e coli abdominal issues. it is a serious situation there.

there have been a couple of cases who people of in germany and came back to the united states. one clearly diagnosed and a possible diagnoses. the issue is not in the united states right now. host: how open are we to a break out of that kind of magnitude? guest: there is always the possibility of food outbreaks. that is why we have to be very careful with the inspection of food. we occasionally get outbreaks of e. coli, a different type. the one that is in germany is a different type. they are different categories of the different type of bacteria. we have not seen this here in the united states. host: ron, republican line. caller: i was encouraged earlier in your discussion appear did you talk about the prevalence of aids in the black

community and your desire to target high-risk groups. i worked for a number of year in corrections, and it seems to me if you dig deeper into the numbers, you will find the prevalence in the black community, you could extend that to the inmate population and the people who are infected when they get out of corrections. given that, inmates lose a number of their rights on going into corrections. if you do periodic testing, mandatory testing of the inmate population, you should be able to segregate them, and as a condition of parole, have them talk to their loved one when

they get out of prison. guest: i cannot be making policy with regard to the correction system, but the calller does make a very good point. one of the thing that happens is when people are in the system and hiv positive, if they are recognized to be hiv-positive, if the system is working right, they should be getting therapy when they get out. as often happens, when they get out they may not tell their sexual partner they are infected and wind up infecting their underwear sexual partner. that does not happen frequently in the sense of people deliberately trying to infect people, but when you go into one system and out of the general society, there is often the lack of continuity of medicare or the kind of counseling that the calller is talking about. that is a problem, because there is a reasonably high percentage of people, particularly to have

been injection drug users will get into the system who are positive. host: dallas, texas. david on the democrat line. and caller: thank you for all you have done for humanity. wasow thseveral years there an attempt of heating the blood to kill the virus. i know it was not successful. do you know if research has been done in the other direction, lowering the body temperature? i know we have been able to work the body temperature significantly without harming the person. guest: the answer is not formally when you're talking about cooling the body, because it is very clear from what we know about the virus that environmental changes will kill the cells in the person long before the kill the virus.

the idea of heating or chilling the virus, we have such a effective anti-viral drugs right now, it does not make sense to do the dramatic manipulations to suppress the virus when you can do it easily with a single pill that contains three drugs. host: san diego, california. you are last call. norris on the independent line. caller: i like the question about the medicines that is generated to bite this hiv. what kind of raw material -- where does this medicine come from? what kind of plant? why do -- why can't americans grow that plant? guest: most of the medicines do

not come from a plant. they are synthesized and created in a way many medicines are by synthetic processes, and that is the reason why pharmaceutical companies, when they make them coming you see the pictures of how it is done. the make asepsis and put it in a tablet or capsule. host: looking at the future, what is ahead? guest: 1 we are relatively optimistic at the 30th anniversary, because a lot of scientific validated tools to prevent hiv infection. we still have some scientific doubts. we need a safe and effective vaccine we do not have yet.

even absence of a vaccine, if we implement properly the prevention things we have had available, there is a strong feeling we could turn this pandemic around. we have more of an implementation gap then we'd have a scientific out, and that is what a lot of the discussion last week was in new york city when iraq a special session on hiv/aids. time thank you for your here again later on in the program, we will look at the papers be released today from the pentagon. of next, a discussion about highway bus safety in the united states. first, c-span radio. to go republican presidential candidates face off in new hampshire. the event hosted by cnn is the first debate that includes mitt romney. if readers here on c-span radio.

meanwhile, former presidential press secretary robert gibbs is also traveling to new hampshire today. he will be in manchester tonight giving network interviews on the president's agenda. today marks 40 years since the leak of the pentagon papers that was just mentioned. a secret government study and conduct in vietnam war. that report set to be released in its entirety today. we will talk about it coming up on "washington journal." an international update this hour. jordanian security official says the motorcade of king of the law has been attacked with empty bottles and stones during a visit to a southern town. the king escaped unharmed. the attack earlier today comes hours after he agreed to popular demands for electing a prime minister from our parliamentary majority. those are some of the latest

headlines on c-span radio. host: connect with c-span on line. the continuing conversations on facebook, political places in washington and beyond with four square. c-span and social media, connect today. innext month, dr. anall other activists, linda hogan. her latest, rounding the human corners. join our three-hour conversation for linda hogan sunday july 3 at noon eastern on c-span to. cspan2. our guest is

president ceo of the international bus system. what is the message as far as safety is concerned? guest: the good message is weaver more -- remains the safest form of transportation. we always have been, and continue that good record. unfortunately we have seen in the past few months could be described as a failure of the system. we have seen too many illegal companies operating well beyond the safety margins and need to be put out of business and taken off the road. when you look at some of the records of companies that have had accidents in the past couple of months and you see the number of violations they have had, in some cases hundreds of violations. that is certainly a company that operates illegally by definition. they have had find in the enforcement actions against them and will be on the safety margins as measured by the department of transportation.

host: when you say there is a failure of the system, who is to blame? guest: a couple of things. you have seen companies that have been put on notice before violations before. we saw a company taken out of service this weekend as a specific company that had problems. they were trying to carry people and a cargo hold. what kind of business model is that? why were they allowed to continue operating? is to blame as far as operations on the road? guest: when you see companies with the history of violations and still on the road, i think it is a combination of state and federal government not doing the job they should be doing. having said that, i would say there have been a lot of steps taken to correct that action, and i am very confident that the u.s. department of transportation is moving in the right direction, and certainly we have seen a lot of

information out of secretary low office implementing a lot of laws against that appeared in going into companies that have been targeted because they have got a significant number of violations, and really focusing on the worst of the worst. we saw hundreds of drivers and buses who were out of service being taken off the road back in the last couple of months. that continues to happen. we are pleased with that effort. host: is more regulation needed in making sure buses are safe? guest: we can have all the regulation in the world and companies do not want to follow the regulations, it is really in the enforcement issue at that point. we need better enforcement mechanism. the need to make sure it is uniform across states.

to many times we've seen not all the states in forcing the rules the same way. maybe not all of them focus on bus the same way they might be on track. then you create safe havens for unscrupulous companies. host: as far as those who you would do more unscrupulous and those that you represent, what is the difference as far as what defines one or the other? guest: the companies that we represent we look at at least once per year to make sure their breeding is the top safety rating. that is called satisfactory. any company that has a conditional rating or unconditional rating or has an unsafe reading we take out of the membership. we do not have any companies that fall into that category. host: you testified before congress on this issue. what is it that lawmakers are looking for? guest: 30 to be more enforcement

and more enforcement dollars going to the department of transportation and the federal motor carrier safety administration. in addition to that, there needs to be a bigger back. they need more authority to be able to take companies off the road as soon as they are identified as being a hazard. they do not have that in some cases. we saw a couple companies that were taken out of service over the weekend, but they do not have the ability to go into a state to make sure that this allays are locked down and the buses are accounted for and looted or in some fashion not running. that is the kind of authority they really need to have. is thejournal@cspan.org e-mail address. most people remember the video

they have seen over the past couple of weeks. what was the cause? was this operator error? guest: the accident in virginia we saw a couple of weeks ago, this was a company that had hundreds of violations. we no action was being taken against that company from the last 45 days, but my question is why were they taken off the road? host: there is a story about a million bus services. bus services that it taken down one week and repaint the buses and get back in operation next week. guest: that is exactly what this company was trying to do. there were tried to come back out in a different company. i think the department of transportation has done a great job in trying to get out million carriers. out chameleon

carriers. they are doing a great job in that arena. host: what is the impact as far as federal government is concerned? guest: they have a big task. not only do they look of buses, but they also look at trucks. there are 3200 bus companies and 32,000 buses on the road. the task certainly is daunting. it is a very tough task, but you need to put the emphasis where people are in my opinion. it is much more important to focus on vehicles that are carrying people than potatoes. host: our first call is from indianapolis, indiana. thomas on the democrat line. caller: do you think howard stern = = -- host: jersey on the independent

line. caller: as we saw with the airlines, there was big talk about pilots not getting enough sleep, and they were forced to work 18 hour days, flying when they were not sufficiently slept. are you would advocate, and do you foresee any rules or laws coming into play regarding drivers who drive a bus full of people or individuals into a casino, wait there for six to eight hours, drive home in the middle of the knights, and not he ly rested-- od -- in te middle of the night and not fully rested. what is your issue on this? when you take a trip on

the airline, you anticipate the faa has done their job to make sure the airline and plane is safe to be on. that is the same sort of action we need. there are very specific rules for bus drivers. the hours of service rules require dugan only drive 10 hours and there has to be rest time between your duty status. it is very difficult to know what a driver might be doing in his or her free time. all companies are required to maintain those drivers requirements and give them plenty of rest in between jobs. time synonymoussynonymou with sleep time? guest: thing about washington, d.c. where we are in the number of tour buses and a pattern of the drivers. they may be dropping of group off at the washington monument.

then they are going to the capitol and the group is thing there for a couple of hours. so he is waiting. those are on-duty non-driving time spirited beyond that, when the group is done they are going to a hotel and the driver is going to his hotel to sleep for his required eight hours. then he is coming out in the morning refreshed and ready to go. that is the typical bus operation. host: london, ky. frank, go ahead. caller: thank you for c-span. i totally agree with the guests. there really needs to be more control over that, but i live in southeastern kentucky working the cold winds all my life. without regulations, you might as well just hang it up, because the companies have to be regulated or they will go the cheaper route. another thing i wanted to

mention is down here in the state of kentucky, they took the dot and changed it over to vehicle enforcement. that is great, but instead of them concentrating on bigger rigs and buses and stuff, 95 percent of them of the uc pulled over, they have passenger vehicles pulled over. i think they used to have the skills to weigh the coal trucks and stuff. they have done away with that. in now they concentrate on a motor vehicles,, passenger cars and set up the buses and so forth and so on. guest: great points. in most states there are specific units that focus on bus and state inspections. most of the work will be focused on automobile and automobile

travelers by the state patrol. there are automobile inspectors and virtually every state. those are the individuals that are focused on trucks and buses. know that they are focused on the commercial vehicle side of the industry. host: scales, when you see those, buses are not required to go through those? guest: in some cases they are, in some cases they are not. buses are much lighter vehicles. obviously if you see a bus that has lights out or some concern for that driving ability of the vehicle or the driver, then you can pull the bus over. host: phoenix, ariz., go ahead, please. caller: i frequently take the new york city bus to chinatown. and i really -- the bus cost $20

to get from washington, d.c. to the inner city. [inaudible] the buses are not air conditioning. the drivers speed through. guest: there are a couple of points that you bring up that a great point. first, we have seen a growth in the amount of travel between washington, new york, boston and point to point service across america is becoming a very strong part of the market. that is where we're seeing some of our best growth. we have seen in the washington/new york market some of the operations that run from chinatown to chinatown has not been the best operations. we have seen many stories reported on national media and individuals problem with the

equipment. but the same token, there are great bus operations that run in that same area. there is a company there runs from washington, d.c., to new york city. those companies offer a quality experience of good value and put emphasis on safety as opposed to forgetting about safety. host: so low rates serve not a " delay the -- should not equal los ap. guest: for example, megabus and bolt us are operated in scotland. there are some of the best companies in the world. they operate safely and still offer a discount. host: up next is a johnson city,

tennessee. william on the independent line. caller: i am a little bit concerned, because we usually take money into concern went there is a tragic incident. here we are discussing about highway safety now after the bus incident. our daughter is 15. we should be more concerned about highway safety instead of just waiting for another tragedy before we start out this discussion. guest: any time there is an accident, it is obviously a tragedy. hopefully we learn from each one of these accidents for how to make it better. i think the department of transportation and state enforcement officials in the past couple months when you look of accidents that have taken place, the companies involved have moved learned a lot. now they're looking up bus

safety to make sure it is better in the future. ihost: are their seat belts on buses? guest: some companies have them and some do not. there is rulemaking in place. my guess is by the end of the year there will be a requirement for seat belts on all new buses. i can tell you from talking to manufacturers that approximately 80% of every bus being ordered, motor coach bus being ordered with seat belts on them. the industry is certainly moving that way. host: good idea in your opinion? guest: we have supported the seat belt rulemaking. they finally did that over the past few years and now have the rule making in place. host: bethlehem, pennsylvania. democrat line.

caller: in an earlier segments of the show we talked about how republicans are anti-regulation on just about everything. i was doing some research one time where a truck driver, i believe in kansas, was fired for reporting poor conditions of the truck he was required to cry. he was concerned about his own safety and the safety of other people. the judge in that case was the famous mr. bork. maybe you remember that case. he should have been shafted out of the ruling. thank you very much. guest: the question of reporting on unsafe equipment or companies i think is the case, and whenever an individual knows of a company that is not safe, they are asked to reported to the department of transportation. the secretary came out with the

consumer-focused peace. the consumer piece also has an 800 number where consumers can call the department of transportation if they have any concerns or questions about companies they travel with, and certainly with whistle-blower laws anyone who would turn in their employer or refuse to drive a piece of equipment because it is unsafe would be protected under the law in most cases. host: pasadena, md.. sander on the republican line. on the republican line. caller: i think a lot of the problems with the buses are a moral and ethical standard. morally you want to keep people say. you want to make a profit, but if you do it immorally and unethically you put profit before people. how do you address that? guest: great question.

when you look at the industry, and there are 3200 companies across the country. virtually every company is a mom and pop business. when you think about these companies, they are carrying their neighbors, friends, employees, the family, safety is first and foremost for these companies. it is those that really do not care about safety that are illegal and immoral. those are the companies we need to target make sure they get off the nation's highways. host: 3000 or more surprise inspections when it comes to passenger buses. over 1000 compliance reviews in 2010. that is from the federal motor carrier safety administration. talk about the ratio 2500 inspections. guest: the compliance reviews over the coming into the company

and take a close look of the company and go through the record and in some cases the equipment and identify the company. the inspections are typically done along the road, done a destinations. sometimes of the company facility. that is really with the difference in number is. there is only 3200 companies. the most you could do in a year's time would probably be 3200. a compliance review is something that takes place on a regular basis i would say, but in some cases it is your regular. when i go back 10 years ago or 20 years ago, we had company said that had not been reviewed for a dozen years, sometimes two dozen years. it is not until the past few years we've seen the department of transportation put more focus on bus safety. what also might entail a compliance review is a company shows up because their records have a lot of violations on them and because they're out of the

mainstream and well beyond the margins of safety, well beyond averages, that might trigger a compliance review, or if someone has called in. an individual or another company saying we know they're operating without insurance or proper duty identification on the bus. -- or without proper identification on the bus. caller: i have a lot of experience in the bus industry. i am 30 years retired from greyhound. i am currently working as a bus driver. the biggest problem i can see with this is you have a cut throat approach with these bus companies. this is all as a result of deregulation in the 1980's. everyone is scrambling. they are buying any kind of jobs they can drive in their running all over each other to try to raise for the bottom line.

the whole idea of placing a vehicle inspection right on to was ariver soldiehoulder's travesty. they took it out of the responsibility of the companies and put it on the responsibility of the drivers. you cannot complain about conditions. he will not work for these people appeared i. guest: first of all, i say thank you for being a bus driver. you have a lot of responsibility come and we appreciate the effort and dhabi do every day. when you look at the history of the industry, and whether it is airlines or other segments of the transportation industry, deregulation obviously has some pluses and minuses. the plus is we have expanded the industry and created new opportunities for people to come into the viscithe business.

we now transport on average 750 million passengers every single year. i am not sure that would have happened without deregulation. host: as far as getting a ceo license, what is the minimum requirement? -- cdl license, what is the minimum requirements? guest: you also have to show you are at a level of proficiency of driving a bus if you have a passenger enforcements. that is where we think there should be more enforcement. not only more enforcement, but maybe more strategic in terms of how we look at the passenger endorsement. nothing wrong with requiring the states have a background search for anyone who has a passenger endorsement. you are moving the most precious cargo, and we've seen too many incidents where the driver was was. ho we thought he

accident in march, the driver had multiple violations in arrested with a felony at some point. we need to know who the drivers are and require the state to do more. host: does one accident prohibit someone from getting a passenger endorsement? guest: it does not mean you are a bad driver if you're one accident, but certainly if someone is operating their vehicle on a regular basis outside of the safety margins, then that person should be taken off the road. host: tallahassee, florida. you are next. caller: one of the biggest problems i am looking at here is the airline industry, buses, is the fact that no one is monitoring the fatigue level. these buses are driving all day long. they say to go to the truck

stops and be checked out. this is not happening from what i can see. they are being given a free pass. this is the problem besides deregulation. it is terrible. it has to be addressed. besides one else is being addressed besides compliance. guest: certainly fatigue is a question. there is research that is ongoing now looking at drivers, driver sleep patterns, but he grates and how that impacts the driver's ability to operate equipment. -- fatigue rates and how that impacts the driver's ability to operate equipment. and making sure they are aware of what they're doing in their off time in making sure they have well, refresh drivers behind the wheel. companies that are operating illegally or immorally is not concerned about that.

those are the kinds of companies that passengers need to be aware of. passengers also need to do a little bit of due diligence. we expect airlines be safe in the faa to monitor that. we would also encourage passengers to make sure they know who they are traveling with and only travel with good bus companies. host: indiana. bill on the independent line. caller: i just wanted to put some and put out there. two areas i think someone who is recently retired that is qualified and maybe another group that might be under partial disability is qualified with knowledge of the bus industry or any other industry for that matter could use their time, talent, effort to help with those inspections, and it would not require a lot of insurance or training and that

type of stuff and might save some money for the government and save up licensing time. guest: the question on inspectors of the great one, and we have long advocated the government look at the concept of third-party inspectors. the department of defense when they inspect use an outside firm. the use third-party inspectors. we have long-- if we find that e not doing an effective job of inspections on a state-by-state basis, those are the segments where we should bring in third- party inspectors. he tried to a great job for the department of transportation and the department -- they do a great job for the department of transportation and the department of defense right now. host: from california. caller: my question is threefold. what is the difference between icc, fcc, and d.o.t.?

who controls what buses? controls greyhound versus a commercial -- who controls greyhound versus a commercial bus line? guest: the letters can be daunting. the interstate commerce commission does not really exist anymore. the fomc -- fmc is a division of the dot. their agencies at the federal level that are responsible for bus -- they are agencies at the federal level that are responsible for bus safety. buses like greyhound are all monitored and adhering to the same rules and regulations, or they are supposed to. transit funds in the under --

comes in under fta. host: jan? caller: i would like to see regulations on commercial buses being carried over to the school buses that carry our children around. guest: again, department of transportation has authority over school buses as well. department of transportation -- we were talking about seat belts earlier -- did put out a standard for school buses, but they were not mandatory on either new or used buses. this up to the jurisdiction and the state -- that is up to the jurisdiction and the state. host: what do they look at in judging safety? guest: they look at safety, lights, access and egress, making sure you can get out. looking at the windows, making sure you can get out in the case of fire or if the bus should tip over.

they're looking at the braking system, the tires, making sure there is to read, no -- is tread, no retread on the front tires. they are looking at the company, insurance, drug and alcohol testing, whether or not a company has good safety practices in place. when it comes to the driver, they look at the medical qualifications and whether or not the driver is fit to drive, whether he has had enough rest, and they're looking at the log books. host: are there rules that dictate how many years that a bus should be put on the road? guest: there is not a maximum number of years that you can operate a piece of equipment. the average age is about 10 years, when you look across the 32,000 buses that are on the road. the way it is made, constructed -- it is almost like a skeleton, welded together, typically of

stainless steel. it will last a long, long time, if well cared for. host: what are the insurance requirements for the companies? guest: if you're going to operate with interstate authority, you have to have a million -- a minimum of $5 million in liability insurance. insurance is something that, when the individual is calling, whether to the charter or individual company, that is a question to ask -- what is your safety rating? is it satisfactory? do you have insurance? what is your maintenance prevention plan? those are the kinds of things consumers need to ask. host: those things being regulated by the government? guest: your maintenance program -- a good bus company will be able to tell you these things right away. they want to protect their

passenger and take care of their equipment. it is a $500,000-piece of equipment. you want to make sure it runs safely and without problems. host: memphis, tennessee, carmen -- you're next. caller: the rule was passed years ago for cars to have seat belts. you click it or ticket. my children do not even have the option on the school bus. there has to be some kind of push to have seat belts installed. follow the money. how many children have to die before that law is put into practice? what is the number? guest: again, i do not know what the history is with school buses, but there are standards, if states and local jurisdictions decide they want to put seat belts in local school buses, the standard was

set a few years ago. you have to do the science and research. you have to know what the center can be, what the bus is capable of, what the seat design is. the 20g -- can the frame withstand that force? those of the kind of research that went into testing motor coaches over the last few years, which led them to develop the rule that is about to be finalized. host: on twitter -- guest: some bus companies do have that. they have sophisticated systems. they can monitor the engine, the speed of the driver, the breaking patterns. in some cases, they have cameras facing inside and outside as well that will record, for

example, the last 10 seconds. if the driver hit the brakes too hard or too aggressively, that film is captured so you know what the patterns are. you can go back and correct the driver, make him a better driver, safer driver. guest: is this -- host: is this for the larger companies? guest: some of the smaller companies as well. even companies with as few as 5- 10 buses. the want to put safety force most -- they want to put safety first. caller: candy's driver support themselves with what the companies are paying them -- can these drivers support themselves with what the companies are paying them, or do they have to go out and get another job? that is a question that needs to be answered. guest: drivers make a good living, but wages differ from

location to location. in terms of taking another job, that time of working would be applied to their hours of service. for example, you cannot be working for eight hours and then take the bus out for eight hours. that 8 hours will count against your hours and prevent you from driving for the 10 hours you are allowed to under the law. host: what are the wages like? guest: wages will be higher in the northeast, a little bit lower in the midwest. you will see drivers that have been with companies for 20, 30, 40 years. you have to assume that they are happy with what they're doing. their wages are good. their benefits are good. host: wendell, independent line. caller: good morning. i am a retired truck driver, 74- years-old.

you have people out there driving trucks with no business getting into trucks. if the general public knew the equipment that was on the road today -- another thing, the lack of enforcement of just good, principled and driving -- principled driving. i do not see anybody enforcing that. it used to be that if you pulled over in front of somebody and the officers of that -- that was a traffic ticket for interfering with traffic. whole problem is the regulation. you used to work for a trucking company. they for responsible for you. you would not have a bunch of tickets and still work for those people. guest: good question. i think, again, that is where we differ between hauling potatoes and hauling people. on the bus, 50 people are watching new. -- you.

virtually everyone has a cell phone. if you are operating unsafely, someone will know. if there are enough people watching you, pretty soon, you will be off of the road. host: do a lot of these companies operate in the early morning and late hours? guest: interestingly enough, you'll find that on school contracts. the school does not want to pay for an overnight stay in a hotel room today are trying to save a few dollars. they use the bus -- in a hotel room. they are trying to save a few dollars. they use the bus as a kind of rolling hotel. you see this happen with school districts, which i think is sad. host: good morning. you're on. go ahead. caller: a lot of times, the

drivers will work eight hours and not report that on their log. how do you catch that? guest: with the logs and the changing jobs -- going from paper to electronic, -- changing logs, going from paper to electronic, there will not be any way to avoid it. we're very supportive of the electronic recorders for that data. host: the driver puts in his time, then puts it in again when he gets out? guest: that is basically the system. he may mark your time as on- duty, off-duty -- you may mark your time as on-duty, off-duty. there will be virtually no way around how you mark down your duty. host: go ahead.

caller: good morning, guys. i am talking about the tefatiguf the drivers. this recent crash -- god forbid, it killed a lot of people -- the driver was tired. why can they not have more refreshed drivers? they need to hire more drivers, so that you can have a nice -- you know, refreshed drivers on the road. you have the midnight shift. you are driving early in the morning. in this case, they should have refreshed drivers that can stay on the road and watch where they are going. thank you. guest: good companies are always concerned about the drivers and about their passengers. when you see a company that is driving for all long-distance, say, -- a long-distance, say, 9

hours, many times, they will put the relief driver on the trip. when you see a company that operates the way the company did that we saw that accident with in virginia a couple of weeks ago -- that company was not concerned about safety of the driver or the passengers. they seemed to be willing to work that driver as long and hard as they needed to to make that buck. that is not the norm. host: you are the last caller. caller: good morning. as i drive on state and federal highways, i do see a lot of places that trucks are pulled over -- way stations -- weigh stations. why can there not be something like that for the buses? the vehicle license and

insurance can be checked, the the log can be checked, can be checked. we have this system set up. why is it not being utilized? guest: one issue that we do have with pulling losses off -- buses off of the road is passengers. they can be quickly checked. if bus is put out of service, we need to be sure that passengers have somewhere safe to go. many passengers are seniors or students. they need a safe place to be. when you think about the heat that we had last year in the washington area -- in that bus cannot be running, the passengers can not be sitting out there in the 120 degrees, or walking around a weigh station with a constant flow of commercial vehicles.

host: thank you for your time. at noon today, the pentagon papers will be released. that is our next segment, looking at the history of the pentagon papers. join us for that discussion is robert dallek. >> it is 9:14. republican presidential candidate and former massachusetts governor mitt romney is responding to remarks by president obama on unemployment. the president said on june 3 that, there are always going to be bumps in the road to recovery. supporters say, "i am an american, not about in the road -- a bump in the road." the latest generation of cancer drugs may be out of reach for some seniors with medicare

prescription drug coverage because of steep co-pays. some of them are more than $500. about one in six people with medicare are not filing or filling their prescriptions. there is a new agreement today between the u.s. air force and poland, allowing troops to be stationed permanently in that country beginning in 2013. poland, a nato member since 1999, is a strong u.s. ally. those are some of the latest headlines. >> connect with c-span2 online -- c-span online. we have a programming highlights on our youtube channel. c-span and social media -- connect today. >> next month gone in that " -- next month on "indepth," linda

hogan, whose books include -- join our three-hour conversation sunday, july 3, noon eastern on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: robert dallek is joining us. the pentagon papers are supposed to be released today in full form. what is significant as far as that released? guest: it reminds people of the controversy and the struggle over the vietnam war. when the pentagon papers came out 40 years ago, it caused quite a hullabaloo in the sense that many people in the country felt that the president before nixon, kennedy, johnson, have been deceiving the country about

what was happening in southeast asia. that we had been taken, so to speak, in the vietnam war without full disclosure. it went very far to create the johnson credibility gap. it was real already, but it confirmed -- you know that old joke? how do you know when lbj is telling the truth? when he begins to move his lips, he is lying. it was devastating in the sense that, when you like to the country and you are called out, as the presidents were on the pentagon papers, it hurts the country, not just there and ministrations. nixon, of course, was very upset -- their administrations. nixon, of course, was very upset about it. the diplomacy he was engaged in -- be it on china, the soviet

union -- henry kissinger going to paris all the time to talk to the vietnamese about a peace settlement. it just raises the paranoia in the country, the sense that there is so much skullduggery going on. that is what it brings back into focus. host: what will be released in terms of content that people have not had access to before? guest: i do not think there will be revelations that will knock people back on their haunches. i think what you get is a little bit more detail as to the kind of deceptions that were going on. when kennedy first became involved in the vietnam war, he did not want the pentagon to give any of the military advisers there a purpleheart if they were wounded. what it would signal to people was that our troops were already involved in combat and that

lives could be lost. he wanted to keep the profile very, very low. i think kennedy was different than johnson. i do not know that kennedy would have ever escalated the war to the extent that johnson did. once johnson became president -- and he thought he was just continuing what john kennedy had done -- but it destroyed his presidency. in a sense, it destroyed his standing in the country. so amazing -- there was a public opinion poll last november asking americans to assess the last nine presidents from john kennedy through georgia be bush. kennedy has an 85% -- george w. bush. kennedy has an 85% approval rating. nixon came in at the bottom. ford, carter, the first bush -- they all came out ahead johnson.

it is all because of a vietnam and the things that johnson did, the great society, civil rights, voting rights, medicare -- it has all been eclipsed and still has been by this vietnam disaster. host: the author was on this program in 2009. he talked about that experience. let's listen. >> when i put out those documents, they were mainly pentagon papers president nixon tried to stop it are the first injunctions in our history. he was doing now because -- doing that now because he did not like it, but he was afraid that i had good information on his own nuclear threats, his threats of escalation, which he had yet to carry out. by revealing them, i would block him from doing that, because the

public might not thought it was a good idea -- think it was a good idea to start a nuclear war. he had to shut me up. i was dangerous to him not because of the pentagon papers, in fact, but because of these other documents that were related to him. he did not know what they were exactly. in order to stop me, he hired people to blackmail me by getting information from my former psychiatrist's office. host: mr. dallek. guest: it is such an interesting perspective that dan ellsberg has on what nixon was doing. i trust what he is saying. nixon was angry, even a little hysterical, about the revelation of the pentagon papers. it was a little difficult to understand. after all, it was not nixon that the papers were essentially. it was kennedy and johnson.

the skulduggery that lettuce into the vietnam war -- led us into the vietnam war. there were so many secret operations in that nixon presidency. of course, as we found out later with watergate, he is taping and hiding the cover-up of what they had done in watergate. i think ellsberg probably has a right. host: we're talking about the 40th anniversary of the release and publishing of the pentagon papers. the national archives and others are releasing those documents today around noon. if you want ask questions, the numbers are on the screen. journal@c-span.org is our e-mail

address. if you want to submit a comment or question on twitter, @cspanwj. why did they compile this history at the time? guest: they wanted a clear idea of what was going on. not tomorrow was a true believer in this operation -- we tamara -- mcnamara was a true believer in this operation. he thought it would serve historians. he wanted the truth to be there because he thought we would be vindicated -- the war would turn out to be just fine, that we would have done the right thing, then there would be this wonderful, documentary record that would support -- because there was already descent from the beginning of the escalation of the war, and he was -- dissent from the beginning of the escalation of the war, and he was sensitive to that.

i have done work on lyndon johnson and john kennedy. i asked about vietnam. within 15 minutes, he could not stop about it. it was the same impulse that led him to compile the pentagon papers. he wanted a record. he wanted to talk about it. he wanted this debate on -- this to be on the record. guest: it was a select -- host: it was a select few that led to the riding. -- writing. guest: this was not something that was widely known. when else burke -- ellsberg leaked the papers to the new york times, it became quite a big story -- a headline story. host: joseph on our democrats line for robert dallek. caller: it is similar to what

daniel ellsberg did, but this person is not under house arrest or anything. guest: it is difficult for me or for any historian to say in an authoritative way what to make of the wikileaks and the assange operation. if there is material there which demonstrates that the united states government or any government has done untoward things, has committed criminal acts, then one can look back and say, great that this was revealed. if, in fact, it is more benign and it is difficult to show anything that can be described as criminal, then i think you can have more ambivalent feelings about it.

host: floyd abrams didn't op-ed on the topic of wikileaks -- did an op-ed on the topic of wikileaks. here is what he says. guest: there has to be a certain amount of secrecy when you are conducting diplomatic relations. if everything worked out in the open -- it is a nice idea and pretty idealistic, but it is somewhat pie-in-the-sky. you do not have conversations in which participants feel they can speak frankly, and notthat can

make it more did little to conduct negotiations. things can be sensitive. there are difficulties -- and that can make it more difficult to conduct negotiations. things can be sensitive. host: julian assange -- valerie wilson. would you -- how would you rate that? guest: that was different. she was not leaking the material. she was the one put under the gun, so to speak. it seems there were reasons for them to have attacked joe wilson. he gave an accurate report as to raising questions about what was -- about weapons of mass destruction. the bush administration was going after him because they did not find support for their war

in iraq. wilson and plame proof to be on the right side of history, -- proved to be on the side of history -- right side of history. host: i apologize, i misspoke. it should have been valerie plame. caller:, as does the conflict, in terms of escalating -- how much does the conflict, in terms of escalating the war, have to do with it? the federal reserve and the fact that he wanted an israeli lobbying group to register as a foreign agent -- what do you think about those things coming out in the pentagon papers,

maybe? guest: i have never heard that kennedy was assassinated because of anything to do with israel or the federal reserve, so that is news to me. i do not know that the pentagon papers demonstrate anything there. as far as the military and vietnam goes, they were certainly advocates of the idea that johnson was continuing and expanding upon what kennedy wanted to do. kennedy did make a number of statements in which he said, in essence, we are not going to lose vietnam, but there is an awful lot of information in which he was talking about not getting too deep into vietnam, because he was very skeptical of this sort of war in the jungles of southeast asia. think kennedy would have acted differently -- i do not know what he would have done. nobody will ever know exactly what he would have done. i do not know that he knew exactly what he was going to do. he was sort of playing things by

year, but he was very skeptical of putting in the massive -- by ear, but he was very skeptical of putting in massive numbers of land troops. host: republican line, larry, good morning. caller: good morning. i heard one of these gentlemen mentioned richard nixon in the context of watergate. to me, that seems only to throw guilt on him. why not also mention that there are two largest studies of up andate, silent copu an secret agenda, that show that nixon had nothing to do with the break-in, only the cover-up? guest: it was the coverup that did get him. what was he so intent on having the cover-up -- why was he so intent on having the cover-up? why not letting it play out --

let it play out? that was the man. the ancient greeks used to say that fate is character. i am afraid that is what happened with richard nixon. there was such a history of machinations on his part, of secret operations, that he founded, i guess, is irresistible to cover-up the watergate operation. it was unnecessary. he was going to win that election not by a landslide, but by very substantial margin. it was utterly superfluous, but it destroyed him. host: our next caller is from illinois. john on our democrat line. caller: good morning. i am a marine corps veteran of vietnam and kind of a bathroom historian. after johnson made his speech about he did not want american boys fighting a war that

vietnamese boys should fight, he got a phone call from eisenhower who reminded him of the domino theory. could you expand on that idea? thank you very much. god bless c-span. guest: eisenhower very much preached this idea of the domino theory. if the vietnam fell, it would lead to the collapse of all these other countries to communism. johnson very much bought that. on the one hand, one can say, yes, johnson believed that american boys should not do the fighting that asian boys should do. saur remember, that was in the midst of the 1960 -- also remember, that was in the midst of the 1964 presidential campaign. the difference between what a candidate believes and what he will do when he is elected or reelected is another matter.

there was a credibility gap. when it came to vietnam, he was less than forthright with the country. at the end of the day, it destroyed his presidency. host: how would you analyze the relationship with the president and the presidency before and after the release of the papers? but -- the oppressed and the presidency before and after the release of the papers -- the president and the press before and after the release of the papers? guest: there was always tension. i think the pentagon papers just intensified, heightened it. of course, to this day, there is no presidential administration that does not have anger and an alliance with the press -- and annoyance with the press.

it is the job of the press to get at what is going on behind the scenes. the administration are intent on manipulating their images, winning reelection. i do not mean to just demean them. they often think, sometimes wrong headed the, that, to do good things for the country, they -- sometimes w rongheadedly, that, to do good things for the country, they have to act covertly. have to dig more aggressively to tell the public -- we have to dig more aggressively to tell the public the truth of what is going on. you have all of these cable networks. you have all this internet information. nothing can be hidden, so to speak. it is much more difficult for

politicians to be guarded and get away with it. herbert hoover once said franklin roosevelt was a chameleon on plaid. they were able to do that because they did not have television, this kind of exposure that the president now has. it is very different. host: factor in the supreme court case. guest: the new york times was vindicated in publishing the pentagon papers. host: lansing, kansas, you are next. wayne, independent line. caller: it saddens me deeply that the american people have never learned lesson -- go to war, try to make peace -- this cycle is killing the american people. the only way to stop this is a volunteer basis for the country just says, "enough. -- where the country says, "enough.

we cannot take anymore." i am a retired officer. i saw my friends lose legs, lose families. it is up to the american people to say, we, the people, have had enough. it's time to quit. guest: i think you make a good point. one chairman philosopher said the only thing we learn from history is that -- german philosopher said the only thing we learn from history is that we never learn. there was a book published by a german historian at stanford university called "where have all the soldiers gone?" the theme is that europe has gone from mars to venus. they learned from the destruction of the two wars -- so much destruction.

sheehan says we have gone from venus to mars -- that we have taken on the role of being the military leader. it is difficult. the cost to us and the blood and treasure, and -- in blood and treasure, and psychologically -- that gentleman saw what the costs were. i could not be more sympathetic. host: frank on our democrat line is next. vernon, michigan. go ahead. caller: i would like to ask what influence the catholic church had on the decision to go into vietnam. they had a large catholic population. guest: the leader of vietnam at the time was also a catholic and had a terrible tensions with the

buddhists there. i do not think the catholic church shaped kennedy's behavior in deciding anything about vietnam. it might have had a certain degree of sympathy for the difficulties that catholics in vietnam were struggling with, but, by no means, was there evidence that this was a compelling force in deciding what to do about vietnam. he was sincere when he said that religion is one thing, he is an american first of all. he believed in the separation of church and state. i do not think he made decisions that were primarily driven by the catholic church. if anything, when it came to federal aid to education, he was extremely sensitive to questions about aid to parochial schools. he was more on this side of

resisting that than of acting as a catholic rather than the president would have been acting. host: there are stories leading up to the release about 11 words that were to be reacted -- redacted. any idea what they were? guest: not a clue. what 11 words could they have been holding back that they are now going to release? i will be very interested to see. host: joe, good morning. caller: good morning. i retired army, a vietnam vet, and i was in desert storm. when the pentagon papers were released, i was in germany. i read them in "the new york times." i was really caught by surprise.

it was eisenhower who first got involved in vietnam with air force mechanics. i was curious if you could expand on that, please. thank you. guest: sure. thank you for your question. when vietnam was split in half at the 17th parallel, 1954, the conference that, in essence, said that south and north viet nam, eisenhower -- set up south and north vietnam, eisenhower was determined to prevent a communist takeover of the south. he was thinking in terms of the domino theory. cambodia, the philippines, laos, australia, new zealand -- they would be in jeopardy. he began funneling money and expertise to the south vietnamese to help them, shore

them up. laos was a great concern. when john kennedy came to office, the first big problem he had to deal with was negotiating with the soviet union over a civil war in laos. this experience with vietnam very much began with eisenhower and was something that kennedy, ben johnson, inherited -- then johnson, inherited. host: good morning. janie? caller: good morning. my comments are concerning a journalist who does -- gets these kinds of things and releases them to the world. i do not feel smarter, safer, or more confident about what these things do to the world and to the country. we are now driven by constant political scandals.

nothing gets done in this country anymore. absolutely nothing. people do not have jobs. people's families are falling apart because of the degraded culture that we have developed. if journalism wants to run the world, as they seem to have been trying to do the past 45 years, it is not going well. so, i would suggest journalism around the world -- to journalism around the world that maybe, just maybe, they do not have the key to all of the solutions of the world and they need to back off and let the people of the world start trying to solve problems that need to be solved and stop trying to blow up the world, which they do with these so-called wonderful pentagon papers and that nonsense -- the wikileaks nonsense last year. they do no good. they destroy.

that is all i have to say. guest: you have your point of view. it is a mixed bag, i would say. journalists do some good things. there are revelations that they provide that keep the government on the straight and narrow, so to speak. i certainly agree with you that there is so much sensationalism -- things about this anthony weiner -- not that the press should protect the more that there should be any kind of coverup, but, on the other hand, the sort of media obsession is absurd. you're quite right. we have big problems in this country and around the world. there should be more focus on how to solve the problems of the unemployed. how're we going to expand the economy of the united states? how are we going to shore up the greek and the portuguese and

spanish economy's? i do not know that anybody has the answer, and maybe that is why there is so much preoccupation with these scandals. it is easier to talk about those than to try and address these deeper, more fundamental difficulties. host: do you have the same sense about journalists who are going through sarah palin's e-mails right now? guest: i think it is fine to go through them. what is there? if you're blind -- you are going that areout things ar revelatory, and that is to the good. she is not an announced candidate, but she is certainly a potential candidate. yeah, they should look at her as closely as possible. then give it a rest if there is nothing there that is going to

be a moment or concern to the public as to her qualities as a political leader. if there are, then fine, i think it should be revealed. host: joh, go a- - -- john, go ahed. cal-- ahead. caller: i started thinking about when i was in high school. i graduated in 1960. we had practice after school one day. shortly before graduation. my music teacher and a history teacher -- i cannot remember his name right now -- we spent the entire hour talking about vietnam. this was in 1960. these teachers were warning all of us who were getting ready to graduate to avoid military service, if possible. at that time, most of us could

not afford to go to college. we would go directly into the service. but this was in 1960. of course, they were both veterans of world war ii. how did they know that this was coming, when nobody in washington seemed to know what was going to happen? i've always been curious about that, after the both of them warned us about. guest: maybe they had the same sense of things that president eisenhower had when, in january, 1961, just as he was about to leave the presidency, he warned the country about what he called the military industrial complex. my guess is that your two teachers were sensitive to this and they saw vietnam as a potential battleground in which

the united states could become involved because the war -- because of all we have talked about -- falling dominoes, the communist threat, the failure to discriminate between the chinese and the soviet-russian communism. there was a sense that there was a phalanx there, a solid front, which, of course, there wasn't. you obviously had a two inside the teachers who could imagine what was coming. host: los angeles, california. go ahead. caller: having served, not like the army veteran who called, but i think people are getting tired of the war -- not just this war, but every war since world war

ii. the outcomes have been positive -- getting out of kuwait and stuff -- but we're deeper in things, not really solving problems. the budget at home, the economy, people who are not working -- is becoming more and more sensitive. people are starting to care that much more because it is starting to come home. what are your thoughts? guest: i think you make an excellent point. what particularly interesting is the fact htat h -- that here we have a volunteer military -- it is not as if we have a draft anymore. the wars in iraq and afghanistan would be much more -- there would be much more intense opposition to these operations. what is interesting about what you are saying is the sensitivity to and doubt and

skepticism about these wars has become more and more intense, despite the fact that you have no draft. a lot of it is still a hangover from vietnam and also from the stalemate we ran into in korea. to this day, there is almost uniform support for the idea that harry truman is -- was wise in opposing the north korean aggression against south korea, but that he should have stopped at the 30th parallel. once he crossed over into north korea, it drag us into a war that began a stalemate. we are locked -- they are locked in there to this day. we would not have suffered the kinds of losses in broalood and treasure that we did.

if you go back to korea and vietnam -- i think your point is a good one. or war ii was maybe the last good war -- world war ii was maybe the last good war. americans are skeptical about these military operations because they do not grasp or see what good they are doing the country. host: upland, california. independent line. caller: hello, mr. dallek. i find what you're saying very interesting. thank you, c-span. some political rhetoric talks about kennedy's starting vietnam, but from what i have read of the pentagon papers, eisenhower actually started the conflict when he started buying war munitions from korea to

vietnam to support the french in 1953. my sense is a question -- i think kennedy, with his national security action memo #263, where he actually drew out 1,000 advisers from vietnam, proved what he intended as to vietnam. what do you think about that? guest: i agree. in my book, "an unfinished life," about john kennedy, what i argued, essentially, is that -- you are quite right -- he issued the directive to mcnamara to withdraw the advisers by the end of 1963. he was very skeptical -- doubtful about having a sustained, american operation there.

he certainly did not think that putting in a large number of ground troops was going to be a good idea. in fact, he told schlessinger, that it would be like a man taking a drink, the effect would wear off, and taking another drink and another. he was absolutely right. by january, 1966, there were plans to put another 120,000 men. by the time johnson left the white house, there were 445,000 troops -- actually, 545,000 troops. it had gone wild. kennedy was very skeptical. i do not know what he would have done. nobody knows exactly what he would have done, but i think he certainly was much more

skeptical about expanding that more than johnson proved to be. host: his question about eisenhower? guest: eisenhower, without question, was very much determined to keep south vietnam art of the hands of the north vietnamese -- out of the hands of the north vietnamese and the communists. that was the starting point of our operations. host: golden, colorado, kathy. caller: i am interested in the historic view you are sharing. jobjust said the press' is to get us the truth. most of us are aware that -- we were glued to the media before the invasion of iraq. i can hear the four weapons inspector questioning the validity of the intelligence -- former weapons inspector

questioning the validity of the intelligence of the bush administration. i would, turn on the wouldlike m -- i would turn on the mainstream channels and not see any questioning. you could go out on the streets and the american public does not even know how many people in iraq have been dyed -- have been injured, died, or been displaced. i do think that has serious moral and spiritual implications. has the press become less about getting the truth bennett was decades ago -- than it was decades ago? guest: i think it is a mixed picture. i do not think they did a good job on the iraq. there were more dissenting voices -- no dissenting voices. the kind of stories that were

put forward a license to the bush administration to go forward with the iraq operation under the false assumption that they were -- there were weapons of mass destruction. is this -- it is a mixed picture about the press, and i think it always is. there are some people who are always skeptical, may be excessively so, and some who are always too knee-jerk, backing the government, ready to wave the flag, so to speak. it is the job of a first-rate journalist today and get out the truth -- to dig and get at the truth, whether they like or dislike the administration. there is a mixed record. is it better or worse than it used to be? all i can say is there is a heck of a lot more of it.

host: waynesboro, virginia. caller: good morning. i really enjoy your books. i have read everything you have written, particularly on lyndon johnson. my family are staunch and conservative republicans. i have really enjoyed you. this is my first time calling. that is all i wanted to say. have a nice day, a gentlem -- day, gentlemen. host: thank you. caller: good morning. you are a historian. why are we calling iraq a war -- if i lied to murder and kill somebody, that would be murder. why are you, a historian, calling iraq war when it seems

more like a war crime? i went to high school when they talk about the declaration of about four -- of balfour, benjamin freedman -- world war i, most americans were against that. we had what some people allege was a black male of woodrow wilson -- blackmail of woodrow wilson by louis brandeis. world war ii was the same. americans did not want to get into that war. host: we will let our guests respond. guest: i have questions about woodrow wilson's involvement in world war i, but i do not think

it had anything to do with the jewish lobby or louis brandeis. it had to do with nazi fascism. they were a major threat to the long run of well-being of this country and to any hopes of democracy around the globe. i think that franklin roosevelt was very wise in supporting britain -- france and but at first, then, of course, britain, and the soviet union when it was attacked by the nazis in june, 1941. that was unnecessary war. as i said, i thought harry truman -- that was a necessary war. as i said, i thought harry truman did the right thing, but i sure the skepticism of those who said it was a mistake to have crossed the 30th parallel