host: that is the end of our washington journal program today pretty will be back tomorrow morning. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> coming up in 15 minutes, president obama is expected to come down to the rose garden to announce his nominee for commerce secretary and u.s. trade representative kirk in the president -- economic advisor michael froman as the trade representative.

if confirmed by the senate, michael froman would replace ron kirk. that announcement set for 10:15 eastern this morning. we will be live here on c-span. after that, the president will leave for a four-day trip to mexico and costa rica. he will meet today with the president in the country's capital. they will discuss immigration, trade and the drug war. they are said to hold a joint news conference and we hope to bring that to you live, here on c-span. while we wait for the announcement, a preview of his trip from this morning's washington journal. we will return to the president's trip to mexico today. the president talked about his trip on tuesday from the white house. here is what he had to say. >> a lot of the focus is going

to be on economics. we spent so much time on security issues between the united states and mexico that sometimes i think we forget this is a massive trading partner responsible for huge and hugef commerce numbers of jobs on both sides of the border. we want to see how we can improve that, and maintain the economic dialogue over a long. of time. -- along timeframe. in my first conversation with the president, he indicated he very much continues to be concerned about how we can work together to deal with the national drug cartels. we have made great strides in the coordination and cooperation between our two governments over the last several years. my submission is -- my suspicion is things can be improved. host: joining us from new york

is carl meacham. how would you describe the current state of u.s. mexican relations? all theood morning to viewers. i am happy to be on today. your show is one of my favorites. as far as your question is concerned, i would say the relationship is at a very, very good place. we have a level of quite boyish and that we have not had in the past -- we have had a level of cooperation we have had -- not had in the past. we are getting the same that they want to continue having a close relationship with the united states. i think the segment you showed earlier with the president, he hit the nail on the head in that he is saying that they want to broaden this relationship, even though we still have challenges with regards to security in

mexico and it is a shared problem. we have an initiative that provides a framework for us to work on these issues. we want to broaden this relationship and include new areas, energy being one of them, deepen commercial relationships as well. let's not forget that this trip is occurring with immigration reform as a backdrop to the president to visit. there is a lot to talk about here, a lot going on in this relationship. i do it is a vibrant relationship, right now we are at one of the best places we have been regarding this relationship. describe theyou current relationship of the mexican economy? there are challenges, but they demonstrated to be a little more resilient than what we're seeing in the past. and a lot of this has to do with

the fact that they have diverse sets of products that they produce. they are stuck to the nine, but i would say compared to what mexico was like in the early 90s, compared to what mexico was like in the late 1980 plus trieste, they have come a long way. should immigration be considered an internal issue in your view or as an issue to be discussed with mexico as well? this country, we have dealt with immigration as a domestic issue. the whole structure that we have in the united states congress, the committee that has jurisdiction for immigration reform is judiciary. this is the way we deal with it here. it is clear the immigration debate and the issue has international implications.

andixes international domestic issues. for the mexicans, this is a big issue because of the large flood that you have of mexicans coming to the united states. it is a big issue because of the labor demands that we have in this country. so many mexicans, in this country to work. it has international affairs implications. we want to know who is coming into our country and what kind of relationship we have with mexico to make sure the right folks are coming into the united states, not folks who are a threat to the united states. there are international implications and domestic ones. we are seeing that play itself out with immigration reform. we are seeing it played out with demographics. let's not forget that folks of

spanish descent and the biggest number of people of spanish descent in this country are coming from mexico and central america. this is the fastest-growing demographic in this country. these are folks who, if they do not vote now, will be voting. it hits all of these issues and should be relevant internationally and domestically. host: we started this program talking about the war on drugs. do you see president nieto changing policy on how to combat the drug cartels? guest: that is one of the biggest questions out there right now. the president of mexico demonstrated he has a willingness to continue working with the united states on these issues. he believes it is a share threat

that we have and it is something we should work on together. it would not be as successful if there were not willing partners on both sides of the border working on the drug trade. that is clear. the question out there is if the level of intensity will continue. mexicans are tired of the violence. they are tired of the insecurity. during the last of administration, the mexican we saw an unprecedented level of violence. some of it had to do with confrontations that have to happen between the government and the cartel's to neutralize them. -- cartels to neutralize them. the question is, will mr. enrique pena nieto tutor out new ways to deal with the heads of the cartels. there are ways to strengthen institutions of government to

deal with this threat. there are ways to deal with the presence of the government in areas that did not have a presence of the mexican government. one of the issues that is important for president president nieto is what new policing structure can be created to deal with trafficking. in mexico, you have a federal police, a state police and municipal police. you have thousands of police forces. some of them are good. some of them are not. some of them are corrupt. how are you want to make these police forces working in a more efficient and constructive way to go after the bad guys? the mexicans have come up with the idea of a gendarmery, like a

national guard to deal with these issues. it has not been implemented. there are questions on how can they be more effective if they want to get the military out of it. the mexican public favors the military more than they favor of the police because of issues of corruption. there are a lot of questions with regards to how to continue this fight. is there a willingness on the part of mexicans? yes. do we need details on what president pena nieto was to do? that has yet to be decided. president obama will try to get more substance from president pena nieto. host: we are talking about the president's trip to mexico and costa rica. 202-585-3880 for democrats. 202-585-3881 for republicans.

you can send an e-mail. our guest is carl meachem, from americas program director. he worked on the senate floor foreign relations committee with senator richard lugar and he worked on the staff of two democratic senators. he was the cuban affairs bureau official at the department of state. he received his master's degree from american university and columbia university. the first call for him comes from dale in st. charles, missouri on the democrats' line. caller: we have been vacationing >> mexico for over 20 years.

live to the white house for announcements from president obama. [applause] >> thank you. good morning, everybody. please have a seat. my top priority as president is to grow the economy, create good, middle-class jobs, make sure the next generation prospers. in a few minutes, i will be departing the white house that will promote that priority. one of our largest economic partners, then i will be visiting coastal rita where i will send a summit with central american leaders. in both in the dutch instances, i will work to deepen trade relationships across latin america. a relationship that creates jobs, growth here at home and

growing markets where they can sell more american-made goods and services abroad. before i go, i have some business to do. i am proud to announce that i will be nominating to outstanding individuals to my cabinet, who will focus on these issues. ier the past four years, have tasked the secretary of commerce and the trade representative with opening new markets for goods and services, doubling our expert -- exports. over those four years, ron kirk, along with its outstanding teen -- team has stood up for free trade and for american workers and businesses around the world. he finalized trade deals in south korea, and columbia, panama. he has cracked down on unfair trading practices to give american workers a fair shot in the global economy and i could

not be prouder of the work that he has done. at the department of commerce, mickey blank has led our efforts to promote tourism, it is a big portfolio. she has worked closely with the private sector to make sure that america remains the best place in the world to do business. i could not be more thankful to ron and to becky for their outstanding service. [applause] >> toronto not be here today, but many members of the team are here and we are so thankful to them. takingshe is going to be on a very big job, making sure the badgers behave in wisconsin. we know she is going to be extraordinary leading the institution. today, i will nominate two

individuals to continue the work as key members of my economic team. when it comes to growing our economy and our middle class, we should focus on three things, number one, making sure america has good jobs, number two, helping workers earn the skills they need to get those jobs, number three, making sure their hard work leads to a decent living. both of these individuals share that focus. first, i am nominating penny pritzker to serve as my secretary of commerce. 'se is one of our country most distinguished business leaders. she has more than 25 years of management experience and industry, including real estate, finance and hospitality. she has built companies from the ground up. she knows from x ray and that no government program alone place of a great aunt pursuer. she knows from experience -- she knows from experience no

government program can replace a great entrepreneur. strongerstands communities also help companies. she has been an extraordinary civic leader in our shared hometown of chicago. she served as a member of my jobs council. behind the driving force skills and for america's future, which is a program that together companies and community colleges to shape and prepare skills-based training programs for workers that are tied into the businesses that will hire them. she has extraordinary experience. in case i have not embarrass turned off, she has a wonderful family. -- today is her birthday. happy birthday. [applause]

you get to go through confirmation. [laughter] going to be great. [laughter] , over two decades in the public and private sectors, michael froman, who i am nominating to service my u.s. trade representative has established himself as one of the world's foremost experts on our global economy. i am not surprised because we went to together. he was much smarter than me then. he continues to be smarter than me now. over the past four years, he is in point person and -- at global forums. he has been the driving force often times in organizing these incredible international

summits in which huge amounts of business gets done. he has been a key negotiator alongside ron kirk on this trade agreements for south korea, colombia and panama with support tens of thousands of american jobs. he is one respect of our trading partners around the world. he has a reputation of being a tough negotiator, while doing it, he is not rest until his delivers the best possible deal for american businesses and american workers. he fought to make sure countries that break the world -- words -- rules are held accountable. theelieves our workers are most competitive in the world. they deserve a level playing field. he will continue to fight for that level playing field in his new role as he helps to move forward trade negotiations with the asia-pacific regions and europe and will also continue to advise me on a broad range of economic issues.

as i think some of you have gathered, i have had a chance to get to know them not just as leaders and professionals but also as a friend. one of the reasons i am proud to nominate them, they don't forget what matters. they know this is not about growing balance sheets, it about growing opportunity for people, a sense of security for the middle class. most of all, they operate with integrity. they understand that public service is a privilege. you have to do it right when you get involved on behalf of the american people. i want to thank penny and mike for agreeing to serve in these roles. they have got a lot of work to do. i intend to work and to the bone as it is they are official. [laughter] thank you bro much, everybody, and thanks to their families for putting up with what will be

challenging but with only the strawberry reward of working -- extraordinary rapport -- reward on working on behalf of the american people. [applause] >> today's announcement of penny pritzker is the final cabinet post to be filled. she the fourth woman holding the position in this term. the president also named michael froman replacing ron kirk who resigned in february. this starts his four-day trip to costa rica which starts

today, he will be meeting with the mexican president in the country's capital for immigration and trade talks. afterwards, he will talk to the media. we are planning live coverage of that on c-span. tomorrow, the president meets with central american leaders in san jose, costa rica, and will attend a business conference back your washington on sunday. live today at 12:30 eastern, the aodrow wilson center hosts state department official for afghanistan and pakistan. we will have that for you live starting at 12:30 eastern. defense secretary chuck hagel will host his counterpart from the united kingdom at the pentagon week. they will hold a joint news conference the -- this afternoon. they will be asked about reports that u.s. is is considering providing arms to rebel forces. you can to that live at 2 p.m. eastern right here on c-span. coming up tonight, an event

hosted by columbia university journalism school, looking at media coverage of mass casualty events, like the recent bombings in boston. reporters discuss lessons learned from covering events like columbine and virginia tech school shootings. here is a quick preview. >> here we are, we felt this was in our backyard. it was a little bit better than what you all experienced because i understand it was really just one or two roads and everybody was really close together. virginia tech is a big campus. also, the families were all over virginia and elsewhere. there were lots of locales to go out to. other than that, the experience seems very similar. a little bit about me, another news reporter i have always been a feature writer.

i never had to call a family grieving on the phone. the day after, they gave me two names and i had to do this the next day. they had just released the names. i actually thought if i quit, i will have to do that. [laughter] i said to my friend who was done a lot of these -- i said, -- see if they want to talk. at that point, everybody was calling. the families like that most attached to was a family is community that we cover. small town.e -- the press came in and they found the house and were parked in front of her house. that community just embraced her and they told reporters to

go away. -- iember one of them found out later one of the men in our church said to the chicago tribune reporter, i know you think you were from a tough town. if you mess with tracey lane, you will see what a tough town it is. >> you can to the entire discussion tonight starting at eight eastern here on c-span. ronald ragan, i think, massively made mistakes on defense. the budget was not just a waste of money in those eight years, it is what created the war machine that we have used to create so much havoc in the world and create so much anger and problems throughout the world that were totally unnecessary that made this an imperial power. that was a real negative. on

the other hand, he did for the first time since eisenhower stand up for the state. big government, the state, is not the solution to every problem. in fact, it can weigh down the private economy. ,he idea of entrepreneurs technological change, the idea that people should make their own decisions without some big entity in washington. he stood for all those things. that puts the plus in his column and, of course, fiscally, he lost. he needed to stand up for closing the deficit. ronald reagan spent a lifetime before 1980 as the greatest of deficitonent spending there ever was. he left a legacy of massive

deficit which permitted his followers to say reagan -- that was a historical and were of enormous proportion. >> more with former reagan budget director, david stockton -- stockman, sunday at eight on c-span's q and a. dallas yesterday morning, the george w. bush president center officially opened to the public. the facility is on the campus of southern methodist university, includes the presidential library, museum and the bush institute. speaksfirst lady bush about the tour of the museum. >> what we really wanted, when we picked our architect, is a modern building that would fit in the collegiate georgian campus of southern methodist university.

they have a very strict code. they want their buildings to look georgian. that is how the campus was designed, 100 years ago. one of the great things about having bob stern as the architect is, i knew he could make a forward-looking building. we wanted it to be modern, since george was president during the first decade of the new century, but also traditional, in the sense that it would fit with the georgian campus. that was embraced, with the sides of the building that come forward, the fountain in front. then, you can go straight into the museum at that point, into the big hall, and stand under the tower, the lantern, freedom hall. bob stearns saw that design when he did that, with the lighted tower, as a blend of freedom,

and a nod to dallas hall, the first building built on the campus. it is a presidential library, but also very welcoming. there is something stately and dignified about it, which i appreciate. >> there are almost two different views, when you enter the front of the museum, and on the side, you see the institute and adjoining park. >> you can look straight to the front windows, in the center courtyard, all the way through the building, into the center courtyard. the center courtyard defines the museum, and the national archives and storage space. it was signed over to the united states government the day before the dedication of the building. the center courtyard remains with the institute.

that is where we are now. we are in the building that will belong to the bush foundation, that the bush institute will be run from. we are in the library right now, one of the presidential reception rooms, on the top floor of the institute building. these are rooms we can use to entertain speakers before they speak right below us in the auditorium as part of the institute. this is where we can have the egyptian fellows who are here right now in the united states as part of our women's initiative -- we can entertain them here, in future years, when the women's fellowship initiative -- when they are in the united states. we have two buildings, the one that will belong to the united states government as of april 24 people may not know it, but the papers and all the artifacts from every one of our presidents belong to the people of the united states.

they are kept and conserved by the national archives. that building will become one of the national archives buildings, staffed by archivists. >> this is a room the public will not visit? >> this is a room that will be used for entertaining. of course, the public will see it, is in the sense that we will have tours. people will be invited, along with programming. >> in terms of putting this together, explain your role. you are a librarian. your dad was a builder. how did that come together? >> i am very interested in architecture. have always been. i grew up with house plants. my dad was a builder in midlands. build houses for all those people who moved out to work in the oil business in the 1950's through 1970's. i also trained and worked as a

school librarian, and am aware of the roles archivists play in the preservation of artifacts and papers, and why it is important to preserve that history, to have the papers preserved of all of our presidents. things are pretty finished in the building. most of the furniture has been delivered. the institute staff, the fellows working in the bush institute, are almost into their offices. they have moved everything from the warehouse, where things were stored, in lewisville, texas, to the terrific storage that is part of the library and museum. now, at the end, the museum is being installed. every day that i walk through it, more things are there.

more videos are up and running. more of the displays have been installed. that has been thrilling, to be able to see it. we worked month after month and year after year since we started working on this building. we have been working on what the museum would consist of, and what it would look like. >> is there a little bit of lady bird johnson in you, in developing this park? >> lady bird johnson is one of my favorite first lady's. i was always very proud of her, the idea of being able to use our native plants, recognizing beauty in our native plants, to use them in the landscape. she was one of the very first conservationists. and i knew her, because she built the lady bird johnson wildflower center while george was governor. we had a luncheon for the center opening.

and then george and i went to the opening that night. i got to show her the white house one time. she had had a stroke already, but her daughter, linda, brought her to the white house. i got to show her around her old home. we worked with the lady bird johnson wildflower center. our landscape architects are not from texas. they worked with the wildflower center to develop this landscaping, which is native prairie and native wildflowers. we worked with the lady bird johnson wildflower center even to develop the grass we are growing everywhere, which is a mixture of four texas native grasses. it will be a turfgrass. it should stand up to a crowd standing on it. and it needs less irrigation and needs less mowing because it is a mixture of native grasses. so i was highly influenced by the other texas first lady,

besides my mother-in-law, barbara bush. that is lady bird johnson. >> very different roles, first lady lady and librarian/designer. what is challenging? >> it is always challenging, i think. there is an emotional challenge to serving the country that is difficult. that is both seeing your husband criticized in a lot of ways, but also just -- i think great first ladies do this. really understanding the pressures that are on the people of the united states. but at the same time, realizing what it privilege it is to have a chance to serve our country like that. and to serve the people of our country in that way. >> let me conclude with a process question. you touched on this already. what has this process been like? what have you learned about you, your husband, putting this together, and how do you make this project live on in

perpetuity? >> this has been interesting and fun. i loved every minute of it. great landscape architect. great architect. they are both very established firms, with a lot of people. they are very good at what they do. neither have done a presidential library before, but bob stearns has done other libraries and university buildings. and there was another campus. that was one of the reasons i wanted to pick him. he had done native landscaping on the wellesley campus that i knew about. i had also worked with him on the redesign of pennsylvania avenue after september 11, when we knew pennsylvania avenue was going to stay closed. both of them are funny. they are smart. they are fun to work with. it was intellectually interesting to work with them.

also willing to try to figure out and forecast what it is we would want. what did we want for the museum that would be interesting to people, but that would also be really be able to transmit what it was like to live in the white house during those first eight years of the new century? and in some way to give people an understanding of the presidency itself, which is what i think presidential libraries should do. what the job of the president is. and the very idea in our country that the president comes from all the people, is chosen from all the people in our country, that we are not a country that had -- even though, in our case, we did have a father and son. i think trying to figure those things out, and make those sort of forecasts, was also an intellectual part of it.

how successful we are at being able to do that, we will see when the library and museum open.♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ we are here at the very opening of the library. we just walked through this entry hall, the biographical part about george and me. it includes huge, wall-sized photos of our ranch, taken by a very famous texas landscape

photographer. then we come up to the campaign, and the recount. even some hanging chads are in their in a jar for people to see. 36 days, obviously, before we knew whether or not george had been elected. finally, we see these videos that show that he won. >> as you look back during that time, was there ever a doubt in your mind that he was going to be elected president? >> at every recount, he won again. each recount in florida, george stayed ahead. but we did not know. we went to our ranch. it was very odd for us. we had been on the road, traveling around the united states for months, campaigning. we went to the ranch and waited to hear. we got a slow start. we did not have the day's other presidents had to get ready, to

think about actually living there and getting your administration set up. >> but the display behind you recounts everything that happened, including that night. take us back to the evening where al gore was about to concede. he did not concede. >> he conceded, and then he called and took it back. we were there with jeb bush, governor of florida. the stations had called the race before the panhandle had voted. florida is in two time zones. i know the stations did not realize, or the networks would not have called the race that early. we were with our whole family. we just went into limbo, i guess, sort of a zen mode, especially when we went back to the ranch and waited for those 36 days before we knew.

>> that picture became a theme of the library. >> "a charge to keep" is a hymn sung at the first prayer service. someone called and said, i have a painting, which was a wedding gift, a turner painting, called "a charge to keep." it is a painting of a cowboy, riding very hard. you can tell there are people folllowing behind. he loaned it to the governor's office. and we took it to the white house as well. it was in the oval office. now, joey has it again. >> there is a statue of president bush and his father.

what was the genesis behind that, and who designed the statue? >> one of our very good friends commissioned it. he wanted a statue of george and his dad, which we really wanted, because his dad is such a huge influence on our life, on all of the children's lives, but especially ours, because of this bond from being president. the artist is a portrait painter, and he painted the portrait of my mother-in-law, barbara bush, that is in the white house collection. you would see it if you toward the white house and walked by all of the first lady paintings. >> as you walk over here, no child behind. >> this part of the museum is what we thought we would be working on all eight years we were there. the first big display is on the way to get out of the recession we were in when george was elected. no child left behind was really

what george had campaigned on, both when he ran for governor and when he ran for president. that is education reform to make sure that children do not just get shuffled through school, but that they do get a good education, and that we know it, because schools are held accountable, schools, teachers, and administrators, who do what they can to make sure they are using the right strategy and curriculum, to make sure every single child learns. t-ball in the white house started that first summer, 2001. it was the perfect place to talk about that. but also to include the big race ball collection. these are only a few of his baseballs. the national book festival, which i founded, was on september 8, 2001. we have a reading book with all the posters.

george established the community and faith-based initiative as soon as he was elected. that is over here in the display. our first state dinner was for mexico, on september 6, 2001. we really thought that we would be spending most of our time with international neighbors with our southern neighbors, mexico, central and south america. that is what we knew best. having been the governor of a state with such a long border with mexico. >> let me ask about the cost of the museum and the endowment you have to give the national archive. >> we raised the money for the museum. we will sign it over to the national government, the national archives and records administration. the people of the united states own the presidential papers and all of the artifacts, including

all of the gifts that were given to us by heads of state from other countries. they are seen as gifts to the people of the united states. those are all held here, in a huge warehouse that is below us. of course, there are no windows or any way that light might affect the documents and the archives. the united states government will own this part of our presidential center -- the museum, the library, the warehouse. it will be administered by the national archive. obviously, we raised the money privately to build the building, before we give it to the u.s. government. then, we give a certain percentage of the money raised to the u.s. government as an endowment for this part of the building. the bush institute, which is the policy arm of the bush center, where george and i will spend the rest of our lives working on the policies that were most important to us, is separated

from this building by a courtyard. the bush foundation owns that building, and will obviously do all of the uptake on that building, for the rest of time. >> was raising the money difficult? >> amazingly, it was not difficult. we ended up raising about $500 million. half of that will be an endowment for the bush foundation, and then to give to the national archives, as part of the endowment. amazingly enough, because the economy was in such bad shape when we moved here, at the end of the administration, we worried about being able to raise the money. but we have many supporters from around the country who were very generous. we had more than 350,000 donors, from every state in the united states, and obviously from other countries as well. george and i are very, very grateful. the building was paid for, and

we are proud of that. it is on time, below budget, and paid for. we turned the corner from the issues i talked about, and this is what happened. the things we thought we would be working on the whole time, which we did continue to work on this changed everything for us. behind us is the large piece from the world trade center, from the 82nd floor, where the plane hit, at the point of impact. it is here as a sculptural memorial to the people who died on september 11. their names are in the wall we are looking at. i think people will be very, very moved by this, just seeing, in person, what it looks like, what the building -- the impact of the flight, how horrific it was. the videos around that side our minute by minute, from the first

light to shanksville. we had day by day, september 11 through september 20, when george spoke to the joint session of congress. each of those days. i know, because every time september 11 comes up, friends or acquaintances, or even strangers that i am talking to, want to tell me where they were on september 11, and how they heard about september 11. we have installed a booth where people can type or talk into the microphone to record where they were on september 11, to leave their memories here, so they become part of the broader archive of everything about september 11 that is here at the bush center. >> you were in washington that morning. you greeted the president as he landed on the south lawn. do you remember the conversation?

>> i do not remember what we talked about. he came downstairs and spent the day with senator kennedy and senator gregg. i was at the capitol to brief the senate committee on early childhood education. after a while, i was taken to a secure location, and then came back to the white house right before he landed. i was down in the bunker with lynn and dick cheney. i remember that we hugged each other. what was there to say, really? we were safe, and our girls were safe. all we could think about were the thousands of americans who could not say the same about their own loved ones. and about how our lives had changed, and the duty that had fallen on george to lead our country now through the dark shadow that had fallen over it. >> a lot of interest in this exhibit as part of the museum.

what do you want people to walk away from? >> i want people to remember it. i want this to be a memorial to the people who died, and after that, the military who served for us, and many who lost their lives. and all the ways the united states came together. i think it is a very important lesson for us to remember. and as we get away from it -- it has been 12 years since september 11. fewer and fewer people will remember. george brought a group through recently, and the children were not alive on september 11. they did not have a personal memory of it, like people our age do. i think it is important for all of us to remember the ways that we can come together, and the reasons we should come together. >> one iconic moment -- the bullhorn from manhattan. >> that is right. a lot of the artifacts are here that came from september 11. a lot of letters george received.

the program from the memorial service at the national monument. the national cathedral, rather. the badge that arlene howard gave george, to remember her son. even now, when i see these, and when i see this video -- here is the pentagon in flames in the video. i am reminded again of what it was like. the crushing anxiety that came with it. the fear that many of us had. how vulnerable we felt as americans, really, for the first time. other than pearl harbor, we had never been attacked in our homeland. the unexpectedness of it, and the shock of attacking people who were going about their daily life.

>> did the events in boston serve as another reminder? >> they did. it is crushing, really, the idea of harming innocent people for some sort of theology, or some sort of ideology. it is very hard for us to imagine in the united states. >> let's head to the oval office. this is it. >> this is the oval office. it is full-scale, exactly like it was when george lived here. of course, these are reproductions. the real rug and the real furniture stay in the white house collection. they are all still in washington, in the facility where presidents' furniture is kept. several of the presidential libraries have oval office replicas for people to see, because most people will never have a chance to really go to the oval office. but this has the same aspect as the real oval office, with the

south sun pouring in the big window, and even a rose garden we can step out into. this is a replica of the desk that george used. and this is a gift from an american who called us, a supporter from ohio, who said he had the resolute reproduced, and used it in his own office for a while. he wondered if we wanted it. this is a gift, which is really great to have. it even has the little door with hinges, with the famous photograph of little john kennedy, looking out the door while his dad worked at the desk. >> what is the story behind this desk? >> the resolute was a gift from queen victoria to the united states, named for a ship that had gone adrift. an american navy ship had towed

it in, kept it, and returned it to great britain. when the ship was decommissioned, queen victoria used the timbers of the ship to build a desk for the president of the united states. many presidents have used it. i think president obama continues to use it. george's dad used another desk, but george wanted to use this one. there is a little platform. it is raised a couple of inches. ronald reagan raised it because the hole was too short for his long legs. it is a beautiful piece. and it speaks of the friendship between the united states and great britain. >> do you remember the very first time you went to the oval office, i assume during president bush's years? >> i think we went over there once or twice, when we would come visit them for christmas holiday, or another holiday.

the very first day that george moved into the office, after the inauguration, his dad was upstairs. they were staying with us for the inauguration. he called his dad over. there is a great picture of george and his dad together on the first day. this is the picture "a charge to keep." this is a reproduction of the painting that was in george's office when he was governor and then president. it shows a horseman leading a group behind him. it is named for the wesley hymn, "a charge to keep," which we sang at the inaugural prayer service when he became governor. >> the lighting is typical of the oval office. there is a different feel in

this room than other rooms of the white house. >> i think it is because of the big bay window. the other thing i like is that it is really human in scale. it is a lovely space. i think the oval shape makes it graceful. it is not like throne rooms in european countries we visited, or other very magnificent offices that other heads of state have. i like that, because we are a country who elect our president from the people. i like it that our president's office is human in scale. >> as we look outside, there is an exact replica of the rose garden. you are calling it a texas rose garden. >> this is something i think none of the other presidential libraries have. we planted a texas rose garden. it is part of the museum tour. people can come in here. you can get your picture made,

standing at the desk. this room will not be roped off, like it might be in other libraries. and you can go outside. i think, after you have been through the part about september 11, and then the war in iraq and afghanistan, that being able to step outside and sit on the benches will give people a chance to refresh and think about what they have just seen, and the loss that we incurred on september 11, the many, many people who died. >> was it your idea to have the break in the middle of the museum? >> it is a good idea. people get museum fatigue. museums are dark to protect the documents. there is not a lot of light. and there is a lot of information. halfway through, if you have a chance to walk outside, you have a chance to be refreshed. we are fortunate that we had the

sort of space where we could put the oval office here and have a rose garden. >> president bush required everyone to have a jacket when they came to the oval office. >> george respected the oval office, and he respects the presidency. he thinks it is very important that all of us should do that. that is one of the reasons he is not into politics now, and not talking about our current president, or any political issue he might agree or disagree on, because he thinks that just the respect for the president also means a respect for the office itself. that is why he wanted people to wear a coat in here. while they had a chance to serve the people, by working for the president or working in the administration, to show that kind of respect. >> what does the president of this replica?

>> i think he likes it. it we were able to have a full- scale replica, exactly like the real oval office, with the same fabrics, and reproductions of all the furniture and paintings we had -- the portrait of lincoln, the portrait of washington. we borrowed the rest of these paintings from texas museums. >> as they leave the texas rose garden, they enter "living in the white house." this is what many people want to see. they want to see what it is like to live in the white house, what the rooms are like, and what the family personal life is like. we have pictures of our dogs. spot died in the white house. she was born in the white house. we have a huge map of the white house, as you can see behind me, so people can see what the rooms

set up is. -- we have a huge map of the white house, as you can see behind me, so people can see what the rooms set up is. i read did the lincoln bedroom, restore the lincoln bedroom, while i was at the white house. there is a section on the lincoln bedroom, including what the wallpaper was like. we have other great parts that i think people will be interested in. the whole setup for the state dinner for queen elizabeth, including my down, and george's white tie, which he is hoping to never wear again, i am sure. that was our only white tie dinner, and condi and i had to persuade him that was perfect for a queen. he said ok and did it. we have a section on air force one and marine one. people are always really interested in that. a big sports section includes the baseballs and footballs, from all the championship teams that come to visit the president. we chose to put at the back of it the girls' basketball team from baylor university, when

they won the ncaa basketball and came to the white house. without people from around here would love to see them. they are still a great basketball team. they almost did. >> the south lawn view -- you of course have the truman balcony. how much time did you spend on the balcony? did you have a favorite part in the white house? >> one of our upstairs rooms opens directly on the balcony. every year, i hosted george's birthday party on july 4. his birthday is july 6. our friends from around the country came. we would stand on the balcony to watch the fireworks over the washington monument, all eight years. fromct, now i get e-mails all of our friends on george's birthday. they think they will never have as much fun at a birthday party again, because we will not be there, watching the fireworks

from the truman balcony. >> did it seem like home to you? >> it did. and i knew it would. we had been there with my in- laws. i knew my mother-in-law had made it into a home. it is a home. mean, it is a magnificent home. you live with the furniture and decorating of presidents before you, but it is a home, and a wonderful place to live. our girls came up, and our friends stayed with them. george's brother and sister -- one brother and sister lives in the washington area. they came over for family dinners with their children. of course, his parents stayed with us when they were in washington. it really is a home. >> as people come here and view the exhibits, what will they learn? what is their takeaway? >> they will see that it is a home. as magnificent as it is, and as historical, you really do live with the other presidents.

challengesbout the they face. certainly, lincoln is the one you think about the most. his son died while he was there. our country went into civil war. there is something very comforting about living with that history. you know that we can overcome challenges. in those days after september 11. you know it was comforting to be there, and to think about other families when they live there, and how our country was able to move through each of those times, through world war ii, and the civil war, and president lincoln, and the sadness he had when he lived there. i think there is something great about living in a house with such history, our presidents getting to live with the history of our country like that. >> finally, a look at the humor in the white house. >> we have a little video back here, and a little screening room, set up like the red

velvet screening room at the white house. it includes some of the funny things from all the dinners that i know you have been to, the white house correspondents, all the rest of them. >> this is our final stop for the tour. the policy and politics of the presidency -- where are we? >> we are here with my travels, with things i did. certainly, women's rights in afghanistan, and other parts in the world, in burma and others. different to 76 countries. foundedere when george the emergency plan for aids relief. five different trips to africa to talk about that.

people in the united states for full and productive lives by providing antiretrovirals to all the people who had been dying with aids. a shows right behind me decision points theater. this reminds me to say that the museum is very interactive. there are lots of videos for people to watch at every part of the museum. there are also tables of games for children to look at. there is a lot about iraq and afghanistan on one table, where boys and girls can learn about both of the countries behind us. the curved wall is the decision points theater. that is a place where a class or a group of friends who come together can go in and study decisions that george made, on the financial crisis, on the surge in iraq, hurricane katrina, afghanistan, and get the information he was given at the time, and he prodded by the

press. what are you going to decide? they can make their decisions on what they would have done if they had been president with any of those issues. behind us is a lie and that the lion that the-- a president of tanzania gave to george from me got there, in thanks for all the ways the people of tanzania benefited from the aids relief and aids initiative. >> let me go back to the decision points. does that reinforce the decisions the president had to make and the choices he was confronted with? >> that is what it does. decision,, but it shows people what he was faced with. the information he had at the time, why he chose what he did, and to see if that is what they would have done. it also gives people an idea of what it was like to be

president, and to have those serious decisions to make. all the decisions that come to not the desk of the president of the united states. in fact, nearly every big problem does come to the desk of the president of the united states. >> leading on the issues. what is the take away? >> this is a national archives site map, all of the documents from the bush presidency. this is just a chance for you to see different documents. some are just speeches. others are bills he signed with the pen he used to sign them. scholars and researchers will be able to come here. there is a beautiful reading room, and part of the national

archives space, where people can call up different documents or papers from years that george was president, to do the research that people will do. >> in the lobby, as people depart or arrive, a rotation of displays. >> this was our architect's idea, to build these big vitrines on the walls as you walk in, so that if you have to stand in line to get your ticket, you can start to look at things already. those cases are filled with gifts from foreign heads of state. they all have to be things that cannot be damaged with light, because of course the whole does have a lot of windows. they are things like the diamond and sapphire necklace that king abdullah from saudi arabia gave me. >> as you know, your husband a lot of critics.

will this change the way people view his presidency? change the way. it is not meant to do that. it is meant to explain what happened during those eight years of history, to talk about the different things we faced as a country, and his choices and decisions he made to respond to whatever the challenges were. i think people will learn a lot. i think there are things people did not know, for instance, about the aids relief from graham, about the generosity -- the aids relief program, that the american people funded. i think there are a lot of

things people will learn about. i think it will also give people an idea of what it is like to be president, the successes andit is just like in any life. we all have that. our presidents are human. we will have the same sort of records. >> has it met your expectations? >> i think people will find it very interesting. we have tried to include everything. you cannot include every single thing. andand i have not even talk the freedom movement, as part of this wall i am looking at behind you. thank you so much for being here. >> the george w. bush presidential center includes the library, museum, and the bush institute. the library houses material including 43,000 artifacts, 200 million e-mails, 4 million digital photographs, and 70 million pages of paper records. squareility is 226,000 feet, on 23 acres of land. it is part of the southern methodist university campus.

presidentialh library to be administered by the national archives and records administration, and the third presidential library in texas. the total cost -- $500 million, raised from more than 325,000 individual and corporate donors. in a recent interview, president bush discussed what researchers will have access to inside the library and museum. >> i think historians will see that i had a very deliberative process on making tough decisions. sadly, i was a wartime president. i took on the duties of commander in chief, the duties of honoring those who were in uniform. -- i was loath to commit them to contact. -- combat. when i did, i supported them to

the max. one of the things i am comfortable about saying is, for any administration to be properly analyzed -- in other words, history has a long reach to it. i used to equip to our staff,if aboutre still writing washington, we are not going to time. historians will be able to take a look at my administration. they will have a lot of material at his or her disposal, on which to make an analysis. >> for more information on the bush presidential center, log on to the website. c-span3 [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] of theif you missed any interview and tour with laboure bush, you can't go to c- span.org. c-span's next, coverage of presidential libraries over the years. >> i'm tom popham, director of the john f. kennedy library and museum. i am pleased to testify on behalf of my fellow directors. we are pleased that you're before you. be here those of us who work in the presidential library system are indebted to the vision that led to the creation of the first presidential library. we became the leader of the free world.

reflective of his infectious cell compass, he valued transparency as an essential element of democratic government. citizens must understand how the government works. the recent addition of the nixon and george w. bush libraries, our documentation of more recent president has become a model for the world. presidential libraries are unique repositories for researchers and visitors and allow an opportunity to review events that have shaped the people. we rest on four pillars, first, the private funds used to construct these buildings, second, but funds that operate and maintain and administer them. third, the support that we receive from our respective foundation, and finally, the funding from related enterprises.

each library is building a location determined by the president and his family. when visiting them, one is immersed in the cows like independents, abilene, and grand rapids, in which our presidents lives. but there also guided by the standard of the internet -- of the national archives. jfk presidential library director thomas putnam testifying on capitol hill on maintaining the presidential library system. we thought we would spend the next 40 minutes looking at the presidential libraries, and we will look back at a number of presidential libraries that we have covered over the years to my particular going back to our 2007 series. first, some background to start with. the first presidential library is the fdr library.

he donated his presidential papers and personal papers as well. congress passed its first law regarding presidential libraries in 1955. that established a system of privately built and federally maintained libraries and encourage other presidents to donate their historical materials to the government, but such donations were voluntary. in 1978, it made the president's official documents federal property by law and gave custody of those records to the national archives britain and in 1986 for the presidential libraries act required that foundations and says he did keep private endowments linked to the size of the facilities. they use this and, to offset the costs. library,george w. bush there are 13 presidential libraries from herbert hoover to george w. bush.

and in annual spending of the federal government, $75 million. the bush library is now the largest presidential library. we will spend some time looking at video from 2007 and other years. we will also give you a chance to participate on line. we posed a question earlier today about presidential libraries. have you been to one? library wouldtial like to see? here is a viewer that has been to all 12 and looking forward to the 13th. susan says, "my husband and i have for all 12 presidential libraries and their very unique. we plan to visit the george of the bush presidential library in just a few weeks." and there is an ongoing discussion not just on the library, but on the politics of the cut -- of the president. the usaomething from today, an editorial about

presidential libraries. they write that the required sums in order to build the library require a lot of groveling. we will talk a little bit more about that later in the program. let's get started with some of the video, going back to fdr. we'll show you some video looking at a letter written by fdr -- the first one i want to show you is an extraordinary letter that fdr wrote to adolf hitler in 1939. lady bird johnson. >> this covers the entire span of what was being talked about. want to assure you is an extraordinary letter that fdr road to e of hitler in 1939.

roosevelt was feeling impotent with regard to what he could do because of the isolationism in the country as well as the neutrality laws. as you can see on the second page of the letter, roosevelt is writing to adolf hitler. it seems inevitable that much of the world must become involved in common ruin. roosevelt then proposed to adolf hitler that he allowed fdr to facilitate discussions with over 30 threatened nations. and he asked heather not to promise not to invade those nations. famous speech,hitler

then ridiculed roosevelt for such a proposal. >> what other documents do you want to show us? >> one of the most important document in our collection is the extraordinary letter that albert einstein sent to fdr in august of 1939. because of the outbreak of the war, the letter was not delivered until october. it warned franklin roosevelt of the danger. i want to read a couple of sentences. some recent work leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. certain aspects of the situation which has arisen it seemed to call for watchfulness. he goes on to describe the possibilities of a massive weapon of destructive power. it then resulted in the manhattan project.

>> the next one will catch people's attention. moment is an incredible in history. by received a letter telephone in the invasion of poland by hitler. was september 1, 1939. he was awakened in bed by one of his ambassadors. the president pulled the sheet of paper and wrote this amazing note. referring to himself as the president. "the president received word at 2:50 a.m. by telephone from the ambassador that germany has invaded poland and that four cities are being bombed. the president directed that all navy ships and army command been notified by radio. 1,tten in bed, september 1939, fdr." a real snapshot in time.

>> how did such letters get passed between leaders? >> through diplomatic channels. there was the issue of ambassadors at the time. that would have passed the diplomatic channels. >> how long did it take to deliver such a letter? >> it would have been transmitted by cable and delivered to the chancellor. >> the last item is a photo from churchill? >> i believe that is what you guys have. showext thing i want to you relates to fdr's relationship with churchill. churchill wrote a very lengthy letter to roosevelt in 1940. talking about how britain would soon be out of cash, which was a requirement to purchase weapons at that time. fdr went on a fishing crews after the election, labored over this letter, and came up with the unique concept of land lease.

this next document is a document in russian written by joseph stalin. after it was initiated, fdr sent his aid to meet directly with joseph stalin. this is the actual shopping list. light anti-aircraft guns. aluminum, 50 caliber machine guns, 30 caliber rifles. >> this is the weekend of memorial day. my brother, tony, and his wife are with us. we are back. lyndon at the wheel. always in the bankers clothes.

tony was in the back seat without a shirt on. the house on the cliff belongs to mr. herschel. the most delightful cable car goes up to that house. many of our weekends are spent on the lake lyndon b. johnson. there is jake, there is jack. he is usually driving. >> it is home movie footage from 1955. -- 1965.

it would shot and narrated by lady bird johnson. we're beginning our second part of the program, a look back at the lbj's early political career. these are from the johnson library in austin, texas. what is this next hour like? >> we're going to see lyndon johnson that maybe the public did not see very often. in many ways, through the eyes of his wife and others as well. almost to his detriment. lady bird johnson's role is pivotal she has almost done as much for lbj as the tapes. >> when did she narrate these? inherited them were -- where narrated when she was in the white house. that is where she got that great background music. some of them are much earlier than that. he can see her commenting on some of that.

he was so slim. is having a good time with these. >> a sampling of the video from our series six years ago on presidential libraries. w. opening of the george bush presidential center last week, we are taking a look back at some of the other 12 presidential libraries for the next half an hour or so. a reminder that that video is available online. you can see it in our video library. one more tip, the presidential library series is available. all of that is there, an extra video online as well. the presidential libraries are all filled with private funds, -- are all built with private funds, built with private funds to begin with. foundation's gift donations, but they are maintained and operated by the national

archives and records administration. a mix of public and private money to operate. the average cost per year per library is at $75 million. haser of congress introduced a bill calling for more transparency in those donations to the foundations that creates presidential libraries is john duncan, a republican of tennessee. he introduced his legislation calling for transparency for all those donors to be listed. we caught up with him yesterday while congress was on break and asked him about the legislation. >> representative john duncan of tennessee has been pursuing transparency in the funding of presidential libraries. see would you like to happen? >> i would like to see the contributions to the presidential libraries to be --

-- to be reported. my bill does not limit contribution, but it calls for disclosure, more transparency about the process. i became interested in the several years ago when i read that president clinton had pardoned a man who had fled the country to avoid $40 million in income taxes. then he got a full pardon on president clinton's last day in office. a short time later, it was disclosed his ex-wife had given $400,000 contribution to president clinton's library. there was a sizable contribution from saudi arabia and others. i thought it was something that was open to abuse and i thought

something should be done about it. we passed that bill in the house three times. >> the bill that you have introduced, what is the level at which you have to report a contribution. you mentioned foreign countries. would the bill prohibit foreign countries? >> it would not prohibit any contribution of any time. -- of any kind. it would be to require disclosure. weyewhere d see were -- contributions are coming from. these committees are formed while presidents are still in office to raise funds. there is a real potential for abuse. i think it is something that needs to be more open. all contributions of $200 or

above to be reported on. >> what is the federal law now? >> there is no federal law. there is no law at all. those committees are unlimited and unrestricted. they can get huge contributions and it seems to me and to everybody who has looked into this that people can make big contributions to these libraries while a person is still in office in hopes of getting special treatment from that president or from his administration. this is something i am pleased to say has received total bipartisan support.

i started the bill, but it has been passed to a very few dissenting votes in the house. i sponsored the original version. control democrats took of the congress, the original sponsor became chairman waxman. it was co-sponsored by the ranking democrat on the committee. of committeeout unanimously. >> do you think you'll have any traction this time around? the you think you will see a floor date for this bill? >> there was a favorable

article about it in "usa today." yes, that has not been set yet, but it will be very soon. the article was justtwo or three weeks ago, it was brought up by someone at a presidential press conference. the press secretary did not know the details, but mentioned it in a favorable way. juan williams wrote a favorable article about it on his blog. i have not seen that article yet. i was told about it by my staff member. >> you mentioned the clinton library. >> senator stevens from alaska has some resistance to it.

this is not aimed at any particular president. this is a bill that would apply to both republican and democratic presidents. >> he represents the second district of tennessee. thank you for the update. >> thank you very much. i am a big fan of c-span. it is a privilege to be on. >> our conversation with congressman duncan from earlier this week. he mentioned some support from williams. presidentbout clinton's library in arkansas built with donations from several foreign governments and corporations, including the government of saudi arabia. some of those donations arrived while he was still in office. on his last day in office,

president minton issued a pardon johna commodities trader duncan was prompted by the pardon to propose legislation acquiring in the donation of more than $200 to a presidential library to be reported. he is not doing it to embarrass president clinton. the complete list of donors was made voluntarily. presidents start raising money for their library several years before leaving office. this from a semi foundation. the sunlight foundation. the practice has resulted in several scandals. as long as presidential library donations remained secretive -- actors will try to use them to exert their influence. and they write in support of john duncan's legislation.

we are taking a look back at some of the presidential libraries we have covered. our coverage of all 12 in 2007. with the george w. bush center in dallas, there are 13. we looked back then at the george h. w. bush library. we take a look at the berlin wall at the museum, which came down during the tenure of the first president bush. >> the library and museum has on display very large section of the berlin wall. you are looking at it now in a live picture. we talk to the former president about his library and his career and asked a question about his response to the wall coming down. >> why didn't you go to berlin and really after? -- immediately after? >> it would have been a stupid thing to do. how come you cannot express

emotion of the american people? go dance on the wall. this is going very well with the russians. for me to stick my finger gloating, it would have been a crazy thing to do. it would have been terrible. we did not know how the russian allegiance was going to react. had troops in the gdr, hungary. we did not know whether the military would say, enough is enough. we will show these americans. in any event, they could have stood up and used force. the cold war ended without a shot being fired and some of that is because we showed restraint. that was not even a close call. in this emotional climate, i

could just hear the voices saying this stuff to me. through the media. why don't you go do this? sometimes you have to do what you think is right. it was right not to go put my finger in gorbachev's eye. >> you see a big section of the berlin wall, which is on display. these pictures from inside the library are being taken by our colleague, part of the c-span crew helping to put together tonight's program. >> the situation is on the ground floor of the west wing of the white house. >> not below the oval office, but down below the chief of staff's office. >> when you were president -- >> bob gates. secretary of defense.

formerly the president of this great university. >> that was put in the coalition together. >> i am not sure what we were doing, but that is a secure telephone. must be some foreign leader. >> was this your chair? >> this looks very much like the situation room. it was very crowded. it will be great for people coming to see it. very much like it. >> did you come down here a lot? >> not a lot. we would have national security council meetings here. i would come down here for certain special briefings during the war. i would come down and ask them what the latest is. you can always call them up on the phone.

what is going on over there? they had a wonderful group of people manning it. newswould have the latest for the president. >> one of the interesting things, we put a dossier together. seven of the members of the famous gang of 8. you can punch on that and get their story. >> the thing that was good about it, that there were harmonious. they had big differences. once they would bring them to the oval office if they could not work out their differences, they would say,mr. president, you've got to make a decision. i would make the decision and whoever was in there, they would go forth and support the decision. we were very lucky to have the teams that did not go call behind-the-scenes to "the washington post" to get their side of it out.

a lot easier to make decisions when you have confidence in your top national security people. and of course, scowcroft was the very best. he was very -- he was very bright, he was the honest broker between strong secretary. secretary of defense and secretary of state, the vice president, the chairman of the joint chiefs. he would make the decision, he would try to get them to look at the decision, and when it did not work, he would go down to the oval office. here is the problem, you must make a decision. these people were disciplined and mature and stayed the course. that is the way it ought to work. >> our 2007 look at the george

bush library in college station, texas. the george w. bush opened last week. the presidential library system, the most expensive admission is in california at the reagan presidential library. the ticket to that is $21. the least expensive in iowa is the herbert hoover library. the most popular library -- 300,000 visitors in little rock to see the clinton presidential center. some taking a look that comments on facebook. presidential to a library? what did you learn? what did you want to see? here is one from mary lou. she has been to nine of the presidential libraries.

we would like to read some more -- we would love to read some more comments from you when we have time. we did our series not long after the presidential library bill clinton opened up in little rock. we will show you some video in just a moment. looking at the way that president clinton crafted his speech. from the carter center in atlanta, a look at the camp david. -- the camp david accords. >> even his adversaries could see that bill clinton has extraordinary political talents. his skills as a communicator. ronald reagan was known as the great communicator with a text. bill clinton was a great improviser. this clip was in november of

1993 before a group of african- american ministers. i believe, in memphis. hearstructs what you because it is how clinton tried to move beyond the conventional stereotypes. --takes control conservative cultural conservatives themes and wraps it in martin luther king. that is a skillful -- take a look for yourself. amking said, like moses, i on the mountain top and i can see the promised land, but i will not be able to get there with you. but we'll get there. if he were to reappear by my side today, and give us a report card on the last 25 years, what would he say?

you did a good job, he would say, voting, electing people. people who formerly were not electable because of the color of their skin. you have more political power and that is good. you did a good job, he would say, letting people who have the ability to do so live for ever -- wherever they want to live, go wherever they want to go in this great country. you did a good job, he would say, elevating people of color into the ranks of the united states armed forces to the very top. or into the very top of our government. you did a very good job, he would say. he would say, you did a good job creating a black middle- class. of people who are really doing well.

and the middle class is growing more among african americans than among non-african americans. you did a good job. you did a good job in the opening opportunity. but he would say, i did not live and die to see the american family destroyed. [applause] i did not live and die to see a 13-year-old boys get automatic weapons and gun down nine-year- olds. i did not live and die to see young people destroy their own lives with drugs. and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others. that is not what i came here to do. [applause] i fought for freedom, he would say. not for the freedom of people to kill each other come up with -- to kill each other with

reckless abandon. not for the freedom of children to love children and for the fathers of the children to walk away and abandon them as if they do not amount to anything. [applause] i fought for people to have the right to work, but not to of communities for people to abandon. this is not what i lived and died for. my fellow americans, he would say, i fought to stop white people from being so filled with hate that they would wreak violence on black people. i did not fight for their rights for black people to murder other black people with reckless abandon. [applause] >> he is an archivist at the william j. clinton presidential library. he has something to show us. >> we are opening up -- you just saw the video of that speech. we're opening up the note cards that he used for that speech.

this is the first note card that he used. what is interesting about this speech is backedthe white house speechwriter did not provide text for this speech. there was not a teleprompter. this was done by note cards. the white house speechwriter gave him talking points. this is a great example of president clinton speaking off the cuff and taking the speech into a different direction. examplet note card, an of making some major edits in this. the final note card is from part of the clip we just saw. president clinton spoke about martin luther king and he talked about if he were alive today what he would be proud of. and what he would not be proud of.

of the challenges for archivists, deciphering his handwriting. this is difficult for us to read. we can make up the word proud. proud of the political progress that african-americans have made. the black middle class -- middle class, open opportunities, but teens not proud of pregnancy, violence, abandonment by fathers, and the lack of job opportunities. >> what do you think they would think if there were still alive today with what has happened since 1979? anwar sadat or menachem begin. >> i suspect he would be disappointed. the next chapter in the story is the backsliding that took place as soon as both men left camp david. it is no secret that president carter found him the more difficult to negotiate with.

perhaps less chemistry there. the might both be disappointed with what began so promisingly at camp david seems to a ground to a halt. cases, reversed. >> the director of the library in atlanta at has been joining us all evening long. you have a carter camp david briefing book of there. can we see it? >> this is one of my favorite documents. it is a very detailed briefing book that was prepared for president carter before they went to camp david. as you can see, it was classified and only in the last two years has it been declassified. my favorite part of it is here. and the state department, it says, best from our viewpoint would be both sides ready to sign a document like the joint statement at tab three, but that seems an unlikely outcome. therites his own view in

margin. he says, this will be our firm goal. thans pushing much harder his advisers to try to get a big agreement. i have another document, and this is president carter's handwriting on the sinai agreement. the reason i think it is important is that we have 100 pages of yellow pad of carter's personal journals and write-ins from the time at camp david. he kept very detailed notes because he wanted to hold all the parties accountable. if they agree to something and then decided to renegotiate, he would say, here in my notes is such and such. the most important page was the framework for the sinai agreement, which shows carter's detailed knowledge of the area. what it was was swapping land for peace. the israelis returned the sinai

peninsula to the egyptians. and the egyptians agreed to recognize israel and have trade with israel. that basic agreement has existed up to the current time. >> some of our series from 2007 on c-span. with the opening of the george w. bush presidential library presidential center in dallas,we are looking back to that serious. looking ahead to the barack obama presidential library, at the mentioned earlier and their support of legislation for transparency. bee's a report on what may ahead. the sunlight foundation saysas president obama faces choosing between hawaii and chicago, a house committee reminded a bill that would make donors to the institution public. the bill would require future presidential library foundation to report donors to the national archives on a quarterly basis. it would post them on online into database.

they're trying to prevent donors from asking for favor in exchange for writing a large check. the obama library could cost $500 million. that is from the sun might foundation. foundation.t you see the number of the exhibits at libraries that we have shown this evening and a number of gifts that presidents have received. this is a 20-page document. the gifts received. this one is from the president of the republic of panama. this is the gift listing. cufflinks presented in a blue jury box with a value of -- jewelry box with a value of

$705,000. it was presented again by the president of republic of panama. on the far right, the reason they accepted the gift. and it says this with practically every gift on here. not acceptance would cause embarrassment to donor and u.s. government. that becomes property of the government and is kept in a presidential center, perhaps in the archives. it is under the control of the national archives, as are all of the 13 presidential libraries. one last look at facebook. we have been asking folks about their visits to presidential libraries. have you been, would you like to go? here is one from christine. i have been to the fdr, truman, kennedy libraries. i think that is in ohio. i do not believe the mckinley library is part of the 13

presidential libraries under the jurisdiction of the national archives. let's get some last video. we will go to the lbj library. a letter from a tv news anchor. some film from the first presidential news conference. >> what you see behind me are boxes containing correspondence during the johnson years. many of these boxes contained letters from the general public. ist i have here to show you an example of them. very a letter from the young brian williams. he is now the anchor of the nbc

nightly news. it is written on lined notebook paper. it is pretty typical of some of the letters we have from schoolchildren. "dear mr. president, i hope that the men in vietnam are doing well. do they do this each day? he included a newspaper clipping. how are you feeling? i hope you are feeling good. i am 7.5 years old and i like you. not been in the white house before, but i will some time. i live in new york state. i want to meet you." he decorated with a nice little american flag. >> how old was brian williams when he wrote that? >> he said he was 7.5 years old. >> we have been listening to these tapes, the telephone conversations. does that dictaphone machine

play well? >> yes. it is very similar to the one that was used in the white house. we do not know what happened to the machines in the white house. this is the wind we used. .- the one that we use this contains the richard russell conversation that we saw earlier. it is flexible material, plastic-like. a needle created grooves. it is phonograph record technology. it held about 15 minutes of sound. if the conversation lasted more than that, it would be picked up on the second. ther it was recorded, secretary would prepare a slip

to go along with the recording. it would list the conversations on that belt. sometimes it included three or four conversations. the conversation is the second conversation on this belt. the secretary would file -- they came with a restriction, were to be restricted for 50 years. our director consulted with mrs. johnson and she agreed that we should process the conversations and make them available to the public. there are about 643 hours of conversation. we have processed about -- 552 hours. >> this is from the first ever press conference.

-- first ever televised press conference. >> he was a former "the new york times" reporter. he is regarded as the finest press secretary in the history of the job. eisenhower was not the political innocent that he portrayed himself to be. he is trying to walk him through this to make sure he does not make any slips. eisenhower was very self assured. he says, don't worry, if the question comes up, i will just confuse them. that is exactly what he did. about confusing syntax. people debated, how much of it was scrambled syntax. >> if they can find a copy to

read, they cannot understand it. they cannot find how the money is to be spent. [indiscernible] is there anything you can do to tell these people where the money is to be spent? isthe understanding is that what the committees of congress are for. and that's what the people that appear before those committees are for. the national defense officials from the secretary on down will appear before them and they will explain every single item. i can't be expected to take the details of something like that -- i forget the number of pages.

[indiscernible] >> would you comment -- [indiscernible] that there be an exchange of mutual security? >> i do not think i will comment on it. appearing would make it that my convictions -- it is one of the possibilities. both sides might be very reluctant to have that proposal seriously considered. >> the rise of the television age in america. if you visit the eisenhower library, you will see an exhibit about television.

>> with the opening of the george w. bush presidential center last week, we have been bringing you a small sample of some of the presidential programs we did back in 2007, libraries. you can see all of them, 24 hours of presidential libraries, on our website in the video library. span.org. you're looking at video from a short time ago, president obama departing the white house for a three-day trip to mexico and costa rica. he will meet with president -- enrique pena nieto. tomorrow, the president will meet with central american aaders and will attend

business conference on saturday. he is back in washington on sunday. before leaving the white house this morning he made two personnel announcements tonouncing penny pritzker head the commerce department. he also tapped michael from and to be an extra representative, replacing ron kirk, retired in february. reaction from the nominations of the chair of the senate finance committee, max baucus. and about the pritzker nomination -- up live in about 20

minutes or so, the woodrow wilson center here in washington, u.s. special forces operator will be in the craven. the event will also include a state department official for afghanistan and pakistan. we will have that for you live starting at 12:30 eastern. ,efense secretary chuck hagel you will notice is -- he will meet with his counterparts this weekend in england. reports that the united states is considering providing arms to syria rebel forces. you can see that live beginning at 2:00 eastern. 8:00, an event hosted by columbia university's journalism school looking at social media coverage of mass casualty events like the bombing in boston and the sandy hook shootings. here is a preview. >> i draw the distinction

between fact and conclusions. facts have less staying power than conclusions. if by as to how many people think it was widely reported that 25 people had been killed in columbine? who thinks that? there were 15 killed. one day after, everyone thought it was 25 because everyone ran with that had nine because the goofball sheriff got it wrong. that did not have staying power. we have an educated audience here, so it might be different, but how many pit people think columbine was largely about thes, loners, outcasts from trench coat mafia going on a spree to get revenge on jocks? how many people believe that? when i do this at high schools and all sorts of different audiences, 90% of hand go up.

most people think that is true. that has staying power because narratives and explanations have staying power. once we figure out, i get what is going on here, we remember that forever. we remember 9/11 happen because of osama bin laden. oklahoma city happened because of tim mcveigh. those kinds of things stay in our mind. serious facts and details, no. >> you can see that discussion tonight starting at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. we will be live at 12:34 a discussion on the future of the military, coming up from the woodrow wilson center here in washington. right now, a conversation with john negroponte from this morning's "washington journal." host: joining us is the former director of national intelligence, john negroponte.

he served from 2005 to 2007. prior to that he was ambassador to several countries including the un, iraq, the philippines, and doris, lots of different position within the government. suresador, is the dni effective, and is it working in your view? >> i think so. i think the intelligence community needs a manager, somebody that does not have the day-to-day operational responsibilities to help deal with issues like the budget, programs, priorities, and also serve as the president's chief intelligence adviser. host: did you do the daily intelligence briefing with the president's? >> it was done by two briefers but i oversaw and accompany them into the briefing. i did it six days a week.

. i thought it was an important process. i very much thought of myself, in addition to being dni, being the president's chief intelligence adviser, also saw myself as the person responsible for the analytic product of the intelligence community. being preparedal for him or others that i thought needed to be looked at again or modified, changed in some way, studied, remember, it was faulty analysis at goddess into trouble in iraq in the first place. believedthat we intelligence that was not correct about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in iraq. that was one of the main mistakes we were trying to refute -- avoid. did the so-called

star of piping of intelligence gathering, and did it and with the position, did it get mitigated? >> things do not change from one night to the next morning. i would say it was getting waser even before dni treated and continue to improve after. what happened is, 9/11 was a real wake-up call and there was a realization that there had to be more integration of our intelligence product and more sharing horizontally across the community and more effort to bring timely integrated intelligence to our policy leaders. i think that began right away after 9/11. prior to that, to take the example of the fbi and cia, they had to behave in a somewhat

stovepipe away. there was a particular problem in the law enforcement problem. a lot of their investigations and records were being kept at the field office level, yellow legal pads, notes stashed away in saves in some field officer run the country and not enough effort to centralize some of that information, analyze it for its intelligence value. the importance of intelligence and intelligence analysis was elevated. there began a process of much greater cooperation across the board. principally between the five or six key intelligence agencies. host: when you look at boston, there has been criticism about information sharing, information gathering. what is your observation about what happened in boston and the

intel? guest: first of all, let's go back to pearl harbor. just to take an historic example of a classic case of surprised. in retrospect, what you see was a lot of noise happening before pearl harbor. everybody felt there was something afoot. people could not pick out which of those noises represented real signals, real signals of threat. this is really the challenge in intelligence analysis, particularly talking about assessments. how do you discern the real signals from the tremendous amount of background noise that is going on? that is part of the problem with respect to what happened in boston. the other point to remember is, hindsight is. you can take any historical

event, any crime, anything that happens in intelligence, and then look at it retrospectively and you are going to see, you are going to connect the dots. you will see what appears to be signals that are simply not obvious when you are living through those events. one last point, people have to make decisions based on imperfect knowledge, when you live in the present. that is different when you have the luxury of someone looking backwards at what has happened. host: current bid in the country and congress about cyber security, privacy online. what are your thoughts as a former intelligence official? is it helpful to have access to people's e-mail, phone records, is there a sense of overreach? >> first of all, we do face a tremendous problem when it comes to the issue of cybersecurity.

we should not be naive about this. there are people who are exploiting the weaknesses in the system, stealing intellectual property. that issere problems we face. people that steal industrial millions inby value. itnthat weake appropriate defensive measures. i do not mean the government but industry, private-sector, and everyone else. we have to take the kinds of precautions that will lessen the chance that you are going to be acted to or have your materials stolen. there are some dirt -- certain things that the government can do. i do think we need some legislation. there have been efforts to legislate about internet security in the past couple of years that have floundered on the issue of privacy, so there is always this tension between

how you protect the security of your communications system and internet, and at the same time protect the privacy of our citizenry. both of those goals can be accomplished but it has to be talked through in society as a whole and congress needs to reach a consensus on that. host: did you find it helpful to have access to e-mail, phone records, etc.? certainly not myself. i was not operationally involved. as a matter of policy, the answer to your question is yes. this had to be done in a legal fashion and it had to be limited to cases where we suspected some kind of foreign intelligence activity in connection with people in the united states, so a lot of these activities had to do with intercepting phone

calls from abroad from suspicious areas from suspicious people, to people in the united states. i believe as a result of a revelation of this program in the middle of the last decade, and then some of the subsequent legislation that we have had, procedures put in place, there are ample legal safeguards with respect to the conduct of the program. the classic statement that president bush made in regards to when he defended the program, he said, when al qaeda is calling the united states, i want to know who they are calling. i do not think that was a bad summary statement at all. host: ambassador negroponte, what are you doing these days? private consultant with a company.

with the former chief of staff to bill clinton. we help american companies and [no audio] i teach a couple of courses at my alma mater on diplomacy and national security. this coming fall i am probably going to be offering in conjunction with a colleague on intelligence as well. host: what is the reaction of students to you teaching a course? guest: i am encouraged by the students that want to enter into public-service. last monday was my last class for the semester and i asked at expected toow many be working in washington next

year. perhaps half the class raised their hand. these are people who are going to go into the foreign service or into the intelligence community. host: before we go to the calls, ambassador, your time in iraq, when was that, how would you .ssess iraq today guest: in the occupation ended at the end of june in 2004 and then i was assigned to iraq as the first ambassador. i was there from the 30th of june until the middle of march the following year. the naming that was accomplished during my time.

you remember everybody with an ink stain. over a critical time in that country. assess iraq? guest: it is a work in progress. impressive dangerous. he has been in office seven years now. the political process continues. few is one of the democratic countries, or only democratic country, in the middle east besides israel.

i suppose you could argue lebanon. here is still a lot of violence. there are issues of sectarianism. they have not fully worked that issue out, the issue of tension between the shia majority and the minority sunni. you have to hope after what happened in 2006 and 2007 when they were effectively in a civil war that they do not want to go back to that kind of life and existence. toefully, things are going get better. the other point about iraq is that the economic situation in the country continues to improve year on year. you would be surprised with the violence that goes on, in parallel with that, the economy is growing more than 10% per year. their oil production and

exports is 3 million barrels a day. they are on track to become the second-largest oil exporting country in the world one of these days. this country has plenty of promise. they still have serious political challenge. host: do you see a direct connection between the war in iraq and the toppling of who down -- dom hussain and the arab spring? guest: that case is made. my tendency is to try to think of each of these countries on their own merit. it seems that each one thing to develop in the unique and slightly different ways. lde that the toppling of sit down hussain was a hussain was a contributing factor. ever since the -- sit down

hussain -- saddam hussain was a contributing factor. host: intelligence gathering is one topic. there are different topics on the table. the lines are up on the screen. we will begin with a call from kate in california. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: good morning. my comment is, the whole system of our intelligence gathering community is what five or six different sections? combine they could those sections and the information coming in was available to all sections of the same time, a lot more could be accomplished rather than waiting for somebody to run a note across town.

i am not sure how that information is passed on. somewhere along the line there are definite break down as the need to be addressed. backher comment is to go to the drove war. the drug war was lost the day is started. you are not going to control people to that point. marijuana is not any more dangerous than alcohol. in fact, it is less so. it also has amazing medicinal qualities. i am is 70 year-old woman and i suffer from arthritis. using a marijuana salve that i make myself, i am able to get off of the pain pills,

prescription pain pills. i use them carry occasionally as opposed to every single day. host: let's hear from ambassador john negroponte. your: the stock about question about the different intelligence collection organizations and running the piece of paper across town. i think that maybe a caricature of what intelligence collection and analysis was like in earlier times. i mentioned pearl harbor earlier. that is kind of how it happened harbor. they were intercepting japanese communications in the navy department and somebody was running across town to give summaries to the president and other people. they were not getting it out to high -- hawaii. this was one of the places that was attacked. we are far more advanced than

that now. the cia, the nsa, the national reconnaissance office -- the reason they are different agencies is because they represent different methods of intelligence collection, whether it is geode- -- geospatial. nowadays, technologies is our friend. -- technology is our friend. in the interest of terrorism, whatever is collected by the differing methodologies is integrated into centralized databases and can be analyzed in real time. foruld take one example

you. it is a good example. in iraq, when the head of al qaeda and iraq was finally killed, there were all sorts of intelligence methodologies involved. it was through human intelligence, principally the responsibility of the cia although the pentagon does some of that. it was through him intelligence that we learned his telephone number and then it was his cell phone number and it was through signals intelligence and we intercepted. it was through geospatial intelligence that we were able to track the man and he was killed. that is a good example of floor-deployed forces benefiting from -- forward-deployed forces benefiting to target a specific person.

ournology is definitely friend and helps us integrate this information effectively and to produce an intelligence product rapidly. i am positive and upbeat about that. in your question about the war on drugs, this is a matter of national policy. it is a question that is in the purview of the congress and the president. i know there have been issues raised in the past about changing the objective award on drums. people who were in the executive branch carrying out government policy, we had no choice but to carry out the policy as it existed, which was to try to intercept and prevent

the flow of illegal narcotics into the united states. the president is going to mexico today. that will not be the top subject of the agenda. they cannot avoid discussing it. when i was ambassador to mexico 20 years ago, the war on drugs was one important element of that multi-faceted relationship. host: mr. ambassador, what are your personal opinions? george schulz against it. william f. buckley against the war on drugs. what are your personal opinions? guest: with respect to people have expressed those kind of opinions, what really matters the opinion you have you are in office and carrying out the policy. it is like the nuclear issue. as a whole, there are people

going to zero nuclear weapons who were involved in defending our nuclear policies and negotiating arms control agreements. what is important is what your position is when you are in office. i do not want to second-guess the president. my job as an ambassador or an executive branch official was to carry out the policies set by the president and the congress. i do not think you are going to see a significant change in the national drug policy of our federal government. we have no choice but to keep on carrying that policy out. host: bob is in missouri on our republican line. go on with your question or comment for john negroponte. caller: the u.s. is building a $2 billion computer center in

utah. are you collecting e-mail, faxes, and phone calls on american citizens without a warrant and archiving them double under what constitutional authority are you doing that? -- an archiving them? under what constitutional authority are you doing that? guest: i do not know what facility you are talking about out west. the kind of activity you just described is not happening. there is no. interest on the parts of the u.s. government -- there is no interest on the part of the u.s. government in prying into the lives of american citizens. these things have to be done with a warrant and without permission. there is significant congressional oversight. the members of the intelligence

committees of the house and the senate take their responsibilities seriously. host: sam is in dearborn, michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: i want to thank you, mr. john negroponte, for helping us to get rid of saddam hussein. i am originally from iraq. it was wrong information about mass destruction in iraq. today, like any policy based on wrong intelligence gathering, the policy will be wrong, too. do you carry any responsibility for what is the one on in iraq? iraq is really disunited today more than any time before.

in baghdad, i think we are in a similar war. do you think the policy that you imposed based on wrong information makes you carry responsibility for iraq? host: when did you live in iraq? theer: i left iraq in 1980's. my friends were killed and my family was wanted. i used to work at the baghdad airport. i was wanted. iran away. i graduated in tulsa, oklahoma. i worked for the faa for 8 years. i have five children.

i am in touch with iraq andi was one of the 75 people representing the iraqi opposition. host: thank you for calling this morning. ambassador? guest: thank you for calling this morning, sam. obviously, the united states bears some responsibility for what has happened in iraq. we went in. we overthrew the government of saddam. we occupied the country for a year and wrote the basic laws for the country, many of which are being followed in spirit if not to the letter since then. >> see the rest of this discussion on our website, c- span.org. now to the woodrow wilson center in washington for remarks from

admiral william mcraven for his vision on the military. >> good afternoon. it is everyone seated? i am jane harmon, president and ceo of the wilson center. it has occurred to our speaker and me and some of you that today is the second anniversary thirty."dark left had a lot to do with that. more on that later. a special welcome to the chairman of our board and his wife, a member of our counsel, and our panelists, william forcen, and an air

fellow who is where? you can sit down. working on a project of the growing relevance of high-end capabilities of special ops and is educating our board, scholars, and staff. sues also a pleasure to see ikenberry and her public policy class from georgetown day school. 20 something years ago, sue taught my oldest son brian, coached him in debate, and wrote his college recommendation. he got in. i just want you to know, sue, although he now handles a large investment fund in new york, he loves public policy and was a close adviser to my years in congress. today's event is part of a

series at the wilson center with and he are called the national conversation. our hope is these forms will give the public new opportunities to engage in much needed civil discourse free from spin. i will repeat that, free from spin. we have tried to raise difficult questions about our post-9/11 world. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, for instance, we asked the question, 9/11, the next 10 years, to a group including stanley mcchrystal, mike rogers, chairman of the house intelligence committee, a former colleague of mine, and the former director of the national counter-terrorism center. on another occasion, john brennan, when he was president obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, spoke about the need of rolls around our use of drones,

an issue that is not yet fully resolved. and general keith alexander, the head of cyber command at the national security agency, came here to discuss how the public can get into the debate about cyber. another tough issue. as the towers were falling and the pentagon fire was burning on 9/11, i was a senior member of the house intelligence committee and headed to the capitol dome. that is where the intelligence committee rooms were then located. it was the intended target of the for their plan that went down in pennsylvania, is believed. looking back at my own role, i give myself mixed remarks but am proud of the intelligence reform law in 2004. in my travels to all of the garden spots, i saw the courage and selflessness of our military and intelligence personnel. i saw, a close, the

extraordinary things that special ops teams are capable of, and i believe they are heroes. but as seductive and effective as the tactics are, there is a question of whether we have a strategy, a narrative that explains our action properly and convince me to the rest of the world. recentlyrystal was interviewed in "form of air bags in." the question became, who is the enemy? and then, what is the enemy doing, trying to do? finally, why are they the enemy? questionk on this last and i am sure it will receive focus in today's discussion. the format is, william mcraven will deliver key remarks followed by a panel moderated by

npr's todd bowman. reporter,t pentagon tom has travel to iraq and afghanistan and has been embed with u.s. marines and soldiers. he previously spent nine years as a reporter at "the baltimore sun." it is now my pleasure to introduce william mcraven, a u.s. navy admiral that has served on the u.s. operations command since august 2011 and previously on the joint special operations command and special operations command europe. a mastermind with an excellent them of the bin laden raid, admiral briefed the president during the operation in real afghanistan.

he was portrayed in the movie thirty."k he is portrayed by the actor christopher stanley. there is an uncanny resemblance. he does not speak publicly that often which is probably a corporate given his role, but i was there when he was interviewed last summer in aspen from wolf blood search and spoke last november. we are fortunate he is making an appearance here and addressing special ops. please join me in welcoming him now. [applause] >> thank you. i want to thank the wilson center and npr for giving me the opportunity to talk about special operations today. i do not really have any prepared remarks, so i guess

they call this a keynote address, but i wanted to talk about special operations, giving you the sense of who we are, where we are going, and some of the challenges i think we will face. let me start off with who we are. first, this is a force of about 66,000 folks, of which half of that force are what we would seals, ged operators, rangers, special operators, green berets, and the rest are support personnel who are absolutely essential to our mission. special forces have been around as long as there has been military. operations. special command came into existence in 1987 as a result of the failed raid rescue our hostages out of tehran. the congress enacted law to bring u.s. special operations command into play. we are very unique, the u.s.

special operations command. we have service-like responsibilities. i have the requirement to man, trained, and equipped a force. i also have combat commander responsibilities, meaning i have a responsibility to build strategies and employ those forces with the support and approval of the commanders. these are very unique qualities for a command. i have an acquisition executive. at length today, i was asked about how i deal with all the money given to the services. the fact is, congress will start -- smart when they stood up and they give us a budget to make sure that our forces have the best equipment out there. with this force of 66,000, recognizing about half of those we deployed folks, about 11,000 folks around the world at any point in time, in about 78 countries. now let's talk about the average operator.

there is this belief that sop operators are young, steely eyed killer is that have no respect. the reality is, the average officer out there is about 34 years old, the average enlisted man is 28. they are married with two kids on average. that is important because you have a sense of your responsibility by the time you are 28, you have some life responsibility. if you have kids, you know how to run an organization, have to deal with tough problems. that is not a small point when you compare us to some of the other forces. also, what we found, we took a survey of about 900 special operations folks. not surprisingly, just about all of them played some sort of sport. what was surprising was the intersection of a sport and the game of chess. the preponderant of the folks that we interviewed played chess, and this is exactly the

kind of guy or gal we are looking for, somebody who is the athlete and a thinker. that has been consistent as we have built our soft -- sop community . one of the things that people think about with special operations, "zero dark thirty,"or the have seen another movie, the reality is, the counter-terrorism peace, the action piece of what we do, is a small part of our portfolio. what is the more important part of what we do is building partner capacity, our day-to-day interaction with our allies or partners around the globe. thatmovie, the reality is, the counter-terrorism kind of leadse we are going. i talked about the fact that the law, in 1987, enacted u.s. socom, and told me and my predecessors to build a strategy to put that strategy in place, but you have to have a foundation from which to develop that foundation. for us that was the secretary of

defense's strategic guidance that was given out by leon panetta in january 2012. that became the foundation for which i am trying to develop the special operations vision. in that strategy the secretary said, in addition to the pivot to asia, he talked about the fact family with the forces that are light, agile, responsive, that our network and partnered. these are core competencies of our u.s. special operations command. in that light, what i'm trying inenhance thets global operation that work. we have had operatives around the world for decades. ability through be able to knit

this capability together. i am going to walk you through how this enhancement is going to work. within the military construct, the way we command and control forces is through the geographic combat commanders. all of you know we take central command has a point of departure. central demand currently commanded by lloyd austin, one of the great commanders in the military, has a responsibility iraq, afghanistan, those areas in central command. every commander has a geographic responsibility. you have central command, pacific command, european, african, etc. each of those geographic commanders have theater special operations command. each has a subordinate command that is responsible for the special operations peace. specialally, the u.s. operations command has had no institutional relationship with those peter special operations command. while they were sop folks, we did not provide them much money, did not provide much

guidance, did not equip them. at the end of the day, they were kind of on their own to be able to support the geographical commander. my predecessor twice removed, and general brown, began to put some money into the theater operations command. of thewas the commander special operations forces in europe, i was a beneficiary of that money. it was great to have some money coming into the sop. this really becomes a natural extension, which is now, as of several months ago, secretary panetta, before he departed, signed a document that puts those operation commands under my combat command, still reporting to the geographic combat commander. the reason i am giving you military 101 is because this framework is important to understand. i do not command and control from u.s. special

operations command. my mission is to provide the right talent, the right capability to those dear special operation commands so that they, in fact, can support the geographic combat commanders. as special operations command, i have a functional responsibility that is global. intoving that, i can look what has happened in central command and see the relationships between central command and african command, african command and southern command, southern command, pacific command. i can begin to put these pieces together because now i have an institutional relationship with those beer special operations command. each one of those works for the geographic combat commander. they also have subordinate command. as you are thinking through this, you have to think of a network. you can think of it just like any other network. you have notes, and from that you have branches. the geographic and then

commander has some support command. tsoc also has special liaison officers. case in point, special operations europe has a special forces army green beret colonel who is in turkey. he is married to a turkish woman, speaks the language fluently, and his ability to get our message across to the turks and vice versa, for them to engage with us, have built that trust factor, and that is crucial. we were talking about the value of trust. what i'm trying to do as part of this vision is to change the vision about who we are as special operations forces. everybody has seen the movie -- and that is important -- but at the end of the day, it is about building capacity so that nations can do with their own problems so that we can help them deal with their own problems, but you cannot get there unless you begin to build the trust factor. as we put people out in his

various countries, and we are in 78 countries around the world, we have people that speak the language, that are culturally attuned. it is a small footprint so you do not have a large force and forcing itself upon the country. we work hand in hand with the u.s. mission, embassy there. i will state this for the record as much as i can. we do nothing that does not have the approval of the chief of mission, the ambassador there. are two important concepts. as we go forward to build partner capacity, to build the trust and that work, it is all done in concert with the country team and embassy. you begin to see how the number of bills. peter special operations command, they have subordinate command, liaison officers that come out from that in various places. we also have a great relationship with our partners. i would like to give you one

vignette.- sop coordination center was built in 1996. we built on this early in 2007. at the time, there were 18 people in the nato sop coordination center. obviously, not very effective. operators in00 sof afghanistan at the time. today, there are 220 folks in a nato sof headquarters, 2200 nato sof operator downrange conducting one of the most important operations in afghanistan. it was a way of looking into our allies. we had a common standard for planning, training, operations. those allies went forward to

afghanistan and did a mission, that we'd then did not have to do. part of our vision is helping them build the capabilities. it is about smart power, as president clinton once said. the ability to have smart power down range is the ability to leverage the work of your partners. as you begin to look at this, the allies and our partners for us are the injured agencies. as u.s. special operations command, i have every agency from the cia, fbi, nsa, defense intelligence agency -- if there are three letters, i have a person there. they have had a reciprocal agreement with us. i have somebody in my headquarters at tampa. you have to be able to

translate the language of a particular culture within the agency. you have to be able to have those liaison be representative of you and of the head of those organizations. when i have read issue, i am able to reach over to my liaison officer and they can help work out problems that might have occurred as a result of something we are trying to do around the world. that is incredibly important to us. that network is vital to your success. but we also have liaison officers with industry, academia, colonel davidson was mentioned earlier. he is here at the wilson center. we put some of our brightest epidemic -- academic institutions so we know what the best and brightest are thinking about. we recognize not all the best ideas about the military come from within the military. we are trying to see what it undermines think about what you're doing and how we can

incorporate that back into our business. to put all this together, we have a robust communications architecture. many years ago we recognized that, for us to do business, we have to be able to video teleconference. that sounds pretty routine today but i can tell you, -- jane was referring to stanley mcchrystal. when he came to joint special operations forces command, we would conduct teleconferences, and maybe 50% of them would work. frankly, most people did not want to do video teleconferences. they did not want to be bothered by having to do face-to-face discussions. stan quickly said,, you are either going to be a zealot for a murder, but we are going to do video teleconferences -- or a martyr, but we are going to do video teleconferences. but that allow us to do was

then, from general mcchrystal down to the youngest operator, he could pass commanders in 10, and he could hear without operator was doing and thinking. and then we pass across the entire network. understanding that network, having communications across the network, having business rules in place so that everyone knew what their roles and responsibilities were, that was crucial. that is how that organization that stan mcchrystal build was so effective. now what we're trying to do was enhance the special operation that provide you the same thing. how do i push communication's debt to every liaison officer i have at every embassy, every operator i have in the field. we are doing that. let me talk now about our challenges. probably the biggest challenge i have are supporting our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and their families. these servicemen and women have been in this fight for 12 years.

in my organization, everybody who wears a special forces bad for a sealed bag, some sort of operator, has been in hard combat some time in the last 12 years. most of those young men and women will full-time ton range. that has taken a toll on them, it has taken a toll on their families. i came in right after the vietnam war. candidly, as a nation we did not do a good job of taking care of our vietnam vets and their families. we are not going to make the mistake this time around. i will make sure that we take care of the mind, body, and spirit of the soldiers and their families. my predecessor put together what he called the pressure on the force task force. he sent chaplains and subject matter experts out, for 10 months, and interviewed about 7000 service members, 1000

lives, and 10 months later, they came back and that report landed on my desk the day i took command. he had appropriately characterized the force at the time and said the force is afraid. we were not falling apart at the seams, but we were frayed. since i've had command, the fray has accelerated. we are working to get ahead of that. some of this is building up physical fitness capabilities so that the guys, before they go overseas, while they are there, and when they come back, are prepared to do the job for them and their families. thesecond challenge is fiscal environment we are in. i can tell you, no one in my organization believes, as we go forward, the u.s. special operations command will not have to participate and potentially be taxed as a result of the sequestration and need to move

forward on the budget. we are working with the secretary of defense and joint chiefs of staff what their return on investment is, and we can make a good argument, but make no mistake, the budget will affect us directly or as it affects the services, it will affect us. we do not do anything that does not have a service component to it. this is something that is frequently misunderstood. principlesprincipal within special operation is we do not do anything without service support. i will have an air force platform, or maybe it is a navy submarine watching the seals, or an army brigade providing route clearance packages. we do not do anything where we do not get support from the services and injured agencies. finally, let me address what i

think are some misperceptions out there. what makes special operations forces could? you tend to read the books and see the movies, and i think there is a belief out there sometimes that we, as sof operators, are cavalier about the way we operate, that there is a certain swagger, and that extends into how we do business. that is about as far from the truth as it comes. we follow rules. the reason we do is because those rules have been written in blood. if you want to be good, you better be disciplined. you better follow the rules and be trustworthy. the first time you violate that trust with one of your counterparts, whether an ally for partner or general-purpose force, the first time you violate that trust is the last time they will work with you. trust is vitally important to us. we are held to a high standard.

we make mistakes. like anyone else we are human but we are trying to establish as high a standard for us as sof operators. if any of you things that you can be cavalier and unprofessional and get the job done, you are wrong. we are supporting the policy of the united states. with that, i will stop and turn it back over to you, jane. [applause] >> introductions of our friends

here? we will introduce linda robinson, an old friend. linda robinson is a senior policy analyst at rand, senior adjunct fellow, council of foreign relations, public policy scholar here at the wilton center. council of foreign relations just published a report, the future a special operations forces, which is something we have heard about today. her part of special operations forces "100 victories, special operations forces" be published in the fall. formally of the print press, like me. one of have dan feldman, two deputies to be commander in afghanistan and pakistan, served

as a partner at a law firm. previous government experience includes serving on the national security council with the clinton administration. also served on the u.s. senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. and governmental affairs committee. so, now we start the panel discussion. i cannot tell you how happy i am that i did not to raise my hand and have someone call on me. admiral, word is you want to , and you wantre to do more with training with liaison work. thewant to get around normal deployment cycles, which has led to complaints from congress from fellow military services and state department. offou are going to start with an easy one, aren't you? [laughter] >>