>> as for the most important issue i would say keeping our environment clean and safe for all kinds of organisms and species. >> a voices from the states. art of c-span's 50 capitals tour and our stop in carson city, nevada. >> this week on "q&a," university of virginia history professor william hitchcock. professor hitchcock discusses of eisenhower, america and the world in the 1950's. brian: william hitchcock, why did you call your new book the age of eisenhower, america and the world in the 1950's. of eisenhower? mr. hitchcock: i think the period from the death of franklin roosevelt to the death of john kennedy, 1945 to 1963, is a period in which

eisenhower's personality, his ideas, his values, and of course his presidency really dominate american public life. in that period i think it's safe to say that he was the most well-known, well liked, popular american because of his record in the war years. even as he was emerging as a presidential candidate and president, he was overwhelmingly america's favorite public figure. he gave his instincts, his values, his presence became part of american life in the 1940's and 1950's. brian: there have been a lot of books written on him. going to ask you more about that. first i want to show you some video of a man a you have a footnote on, steven ambrose, he was here in 1994 talking about eisenhower. watch this. >> what's tinch about this book you have done and all the rest nd what's new?

>> it's based on a much broader set of interviews than anybody lse. brian: in 1984 steven ambrose discovered the vast document sources available in the library in kansas. however in 2010 the library reported that ambrose had apparently fabricate add number of interviews with the former president and inserted unsubstaniated quotations in his text.

>> so much of his work is based in the printed record and i have looked at those documents and many more that have been declassified. it does appear that there are some questions about the interviews. and it's a puzzle. because of course he didn't make up any quotations because he had abundant records. t is an issue. steven ambrose did a great deal good for not just eisenhower studies but world war ii. his role in helping to stand up the world war ii museum is a huge contribution to american public life. i don't want to overstate the importance of this, but for eisenhower scholars the question has been raised. brian: what was available to you that wasn't available to any other scholar so far? mr. hitchcock: well, the most

material that i saw that was new has been recently declassified, especially by the c.i.a. the c.i.a. has been unlocking its vaults now, quite openly, on the 1950's. they should never have been closed for this period for so long. but at long last they are getting around to releasing a great deal of material. i read thousands and thousands of pages of documents that other scholars had looked at, many of them weren't working on a whole book about eisenhower's presidency. but the things i saw that were new related to the u-2 spy plane, intelligence gathering around the missile question, what do the soviet -- what soviet capabilities were. and they related in particular to some of the covert operation planning that happened very late in the eisenhower years. scholars are still trying to get to the bottom of. although these may seem like small findings, to scholars it opens up the window on just what eisenhower knew about

covert operations late in his residency. i have been at the university of virginia now almost eight years. i thought at a number of universities before that. temple university, wellesley college, and i taught at yale for six years after i got my ph.d. brian: what's your broad interest in history? mr. hitchcock: i work on the also entury internews figures like eisenhower to tried to bring piece to a difficult century. brian: early in the book in the prologue, you write this eisenhower establish a distinctive model of

presidential leadership that americans now more than ever ought to soddy. -- study, why? mr. hitchcock: i call it the disciplined presidency. eisenhower in the way he carried himself and the man he was was a disciplined man, great athlete. when he was young. an organized man in ever respect. methodical. a lot of people, especially the young senator, future president, john kennedy, criticized identifieden hour's dodgy necessary for being so disciplined and organized and for eisenhower it pent he had a plan, he knew where to turn to. plans were worthless but planning suffering. you are always thinking what's over the hill? what crisis might erupt? we should think about it. he was very distell matic in the way he governed.

he had his thumb on the gotcht. he trusted the process. he believed the federal government could work well if it was well led. that's something he still standards as a real model to earn from. he smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. which means he was basically smoking every day he was awake. he quit in 1949 but i suspect it took a toll on his health. he had quite a significant eart attack in 1955.

with a chronic problem his intestines that always gave him stomach pain throughout his life. it was final diagnosed and they operated on that. that was in 1956. with is in the summer, he was running for reelection. he had a significant abdominal operation there. he had a minor stroke later in his second term. it did not harm him much, but it slowed him down for a couple days and was a scare. these things, the mounting strain and toll of having been the allied commander and then the president, started to show on him. he lived for 10 years after he left the white house. but these were signs of his constitution, which was trong. i think it was starting to break down a little bit. host: 1955 was his heart attack. here is video at the 1956 when he talked to the public and the press right after he came back. [video clip]>> it is a very critical thing to change governments in this

country at a time where it is nexpected. we have accustomed ourselves to changing our government every four years. but always something happens that is on forward when the government has changed at other times. it is a stifling thing. they tell me that some disturbing's in the stock market the day i got sick. i didn't know it for six weeks later. we have accustomed ourselves to [laughter] host: how did he govern when he was sick? he was out of pocket for six months? william: he was. he had a heart attack in denver. he spent time at the army hospital there recovering. he came back briefly to washington in the winter. he chaired a couple meetings, went to florida, basically he was out of washington, he was out of the white house for six months. he governed. this is a topic that leads into the question of his relationship with richard nixon. he did not turn over much leadership to his vice

president. it was his chief of staff who it a great deal of the day-to-day management of the presidency. i think it is odd he did that. i don't think he fully was confident that nixon could manage the government in his absence. it's an interesting fact that he did not turn things over to him to we didn't have in the succession plan. host: tell the story about president eisenhower offering richard nixon a cabinet position. william: in 1956, nixon -- eisenhower wanted nixon to step off the ticket. and he didn't like to confront people in this way. he didn't like to fire eople. he didn't want to say, you're off the ticket. what he wanted to do was offer nixon a cabinet he didn't want to say, you're off the ticket. position, maybe in defense, maybe commerce, and make him feel as if he was getting some experience so he could be more of a national figure. he said, i think it's time for

you to get real experience running a big executive department. in 1960, then you will be a better candidate to be president because he will have done something instead of being vice president. nixon thought about this and said, well mr. president, are you asking me to get off the icket? he said, no, i want you to be president one day. so, he could not fire nixon. he couldn't direct him to do it. he just offered him the opportunity. host: how many times? william: it went on for months. they did it for two months, back and forth on this. nixon did not want to leave the ice presidency because he knew it would be perceived as a it would be perceived as a demotion, as having been dumped. he was very sensitive about not being taken seriously by eisenhower. he refused to accept the cabinet position. he said, mr. president, will i not go to the cabinet. cabinet. if you want me to be off the ticket, tell me and i will step down. they went back and forth in this curious way.

finally, eisenhower gave up and said, all right, you tell me your decision and nixon said, i would like to stay on the icket. eisenhower said ok. [video clip] eisenhower said ok. host: there is video of president eisenhower talking about richard nixon march 7, >> i have not presumed to tell the vice president what he should do with his own future. i have told him this. i believe he should be one of the commerce in the republican party. he is young, ambitious, healthy, and certainly deeply informed on the processes of our government. as far as i know, he is deeply dedicated to the same principles of government that i am. host: why do you think he didn't want him on the ticket for the second go around? william: it is hard to say. i think he genuinely believed nixon needed real leadership experience. he thought managing the defense department would give him practical experience. nixon was very young.

he had only been in the senate for a couple years. he has been in the house for a couple terms. he didn't have a great deal of experience. nothing like what eisenhower had running the military. i think he thought it would help him. i also think he thought of the vice presidency as a meaningless job. and it's true, in the 1950's, it wasn't common for the vice president to do much. vice president harry vice presidency as a meaningless job. truman had e, in the 1950's, been kept at arm's length by franklin roosevelt. it was not a tradition of the vice president doing much. he chaired cabinet meetings when eisenhower was away. that was it. he didn't have a big portfolio. i think you generally wanted him to be more seasoned. eisenhower was concerned the republican party -- that a republican succeed him. truman been he believed nixon would be a stronger candidate in 1960. there is no doubt there was a distance between these two men. distance of age, experience, generational difference. they were not friends. eisenhower never opened his

personal family life to nixon, didn't bring him to gettysburg, didn't treat him as an intimate. not one of his closest advisers. you can see on the video that that is not exactly a ringing endorsement of your number two man. he was cool about it and nixon took it personally. host: you talk about polling in the book, and we have done several polls on the president. i want to put on the screen the two different polls. one of them is 1962, where lincoln was number one, washington number two, fdr number three, jefferson number four, and dwight eisenhower -- this was in 1962 -- he was 21st in the poll of the most ffective presidents. our recent poll in 2017 has lincoln number one, washington number two, fdr number three, theodore roosevelt number four, and dwight eisenhower number five. what is happening here? william: it's a fascinating outcome.

that 1962 poll is worse than it looks. because there were only 34 presidents -- i think they picked only from 34. 21 is a low number. i think what is happening in the 1960's is the difference between john kennedy's immense popularity, his youth and charm, and eisenhower's age and his sense that he was a man from an earlier generation. there is a huge gap. although, what is puzzling about the poll is while he was in office, eisenhower's poll numbers were through the roof. his average popularity rating was 65% over eight years. no president comes close to that in the modern era. while he was in office, he was popular. the fact that he sank low reflects who was being polled. this is arthur schlesinger harvard historian, who is putting that poll together. he polled a great deal of other historians like him, harvard professors, people of whom

leaned democratic. harvard hist, i think it might reflect of the bias of the historians that were polled in that poll. eisenhower was still a popular man in the early 1960's. clearly, the younger candidate -- kennedy also had an effect. the later poll, the way the later poll is very interesting because on all the categories historians were asked to evaluate the president, eisenhower did well in all of them. some of the other presidents, like john kennedy, he started to sink on questions of moral integrity. because of his affairs in the white house. woodrow wilson has begun to decline because of his views on ace. andrew jackson had become to decline again because of his views on race and indian removal. that opened the field for eisenhower to rise into the top five. that is a remarkable achievement. it reflects eisenhower's ability to govern from the center, which is an admirable quality. host: anybody who wants to get online and look at our poll, we went out of our way to balance

it politically, not just have one side as this was back in 1962. here is a footnote from your book. on the golf course, two days after he was nominated, he told jim haggerty, his press secretary to be, that he would "go to korea" but to "just keep that quiet." you found that in an oral history. before he became president. why did he want to keep it quiet and did he promise that during the election? william: he did, but he wanted to do drop it at the right moment. he said he would go to korea during the campaign. he wanted that to have the effect that he knew it would have when the former ally commander of world war ii says i'm going to go to korea and see what is going on there, as a candidate, he knew it would be a provocation. it would suggest that harry truman was not running the korean war terribly well. he wanted to have that as a bombshell to drop in the campaign.

and he did drop it quite late in the campaign, in october. he knew truman would be offended. truman was offended. he called it a piece of demagoguery. after the fact, many people debated whose idea it was. and haggerty says at one point that maybe other members of the team had suggested it. what that showed is it was eisenhower's idea. he said, keep it quiet, we will use this when we need to. then he did say it in the campaign. what that showed is it was eisenhower's idea. americans responded by saying, the most successful soldier in american history is going to go to korea, figure out why we are not winning this thing, and maybe put an end to it. everybody knew at that moment he had won the election. host: here is 17 seconds of his trip to korea. he is dressed in his old army uniform. [video clip]>> it was bitterly cold when the president-elect arrived in korea to keep his campaign promise.

it was the beginning of a three day whirlwind tour going into its third year. it was part of the general's mission to see and appraise for himself the problem on which his dministration must decide. host: he dew point become president yet. that was december, 1952. guest: you can imagine how cold it was. he hadn't become president. host: he dew point become you after a member civil military relations were tense. truman had to fire general macarthur in korea in 1951 because macarthur had said truman was not handling the war while. here goes president-elect eisenhower to korea saying the same thing. that something is wrong in korea. i'm going to find out what is the matter. he did go, and it did help his choice of policy in korea. he came back, having seen the battlefield, how difficult it was to fight, how mountainous and hilly it was. he came back determined, one way or the other, he was going to to end the war. not necessarily through an

armistice. he thought he would increase the pace of operations in korea. until there was an opportunity to reach out for the armistice which he was happy to get. he knew the war was not popular. it needed to be brought to an end. host: he says positive things about the united nations and his first inaugural in his farewell address to the nation. why did he think the united nations was a positive place? william: it was a great internationalist. he believed in the so-called free world, the free nations of the west, working together and working out their problems. in a way, displaying at the united nations to the nonaligned movement, the newly independent nations of the world, all of the states that were getting their independence in the 1950's, but this is how democracy works. great states can work out their problems together. he had been the great coalition builder in world war ii. i think he was enormously effective at listening, hearing other people, working out problems. it showed in the coalition in

the world war ii. he loved the u.n. for that reason. it was a projection of american democracy on the world stage. host: a non-war issue, but before i do this, let me add a follow-up. how much did he have to do with ending the korean war? i know we are in the middle of a continuing discussion 50 years later. but how much did he have to do with it? william: well, he believed he had a great deal to do with it because he believed he had rattled the nuclear saber thing. if we don't get the settlement, we might have to go nuclear. he believed that frightened the chinese into putting pressure rattled the nuclear saber hing. on the north koreans to agree. we now know a great deal about what was going on on the other side. we know the death of joseph stalin in march of 1953 had a big impact on both china and north korea.

at that time, stalin was all in favor of the war. at that time, stalin was all in favor of the war. when he died in march of 1953, the new leadership in the soviet union said, we would love to bring the korean war to an end. it's dangerous. it might get worse. it might lead to a nuclear exchange. we do not want that. they urged the chinese and north koreans to agree to an armistice. it was the pressure from the communist side that led to the breakthrough. they came and said, let's have an armistice. eisenhower accepted the armistice. which he could do because he was a general. he was a republican. who had great credential of being a military man. if he had been a peacenick before that, it might have been more politically awkward for him to embrace the armistice. it's like nixon going to china. eisenhower could agree to peace. and those who could accuse him of appeasement would be kept at arms length. host: if you could sit down with him what would you ask them? william: i would ask him what did you learn from world war ii that shaped your

residency? i have tried to answer that question by extrapolating from his world war ii experience. i would like to hear him talk about that. how did it affect his judgment in crises of the presidency? what did he learn from managing the world's most complicated war on such a huge scale? i have tried to answer that how did it shape who he was? host: for those frustrated by the way i'm going on this interview, and that happens, i'm not trying to go from start to finish. this is a 600 page biography of dwight eisenhower. we have talked about him many times in the past. i'm trying to find the things in here that were unique to you. this is a footnote you wrote. this is about the bay of pigs. eisenhower later insisted that the cuba plan was still in its infancy when kennedy took office and that kennedy could have canceled it if he wanted. nother footnote you wrote, the attempts of settling ike with the failed plan rankled and it seemed to suggest kennedy was

imprisoned by eisenhower's lan. william: very interesting. it gets to the heart of first, who is responsible for the bay of pigs plan that failed in april of 1961? but also, who writes the history of the presidency? kennedy came along and kennedy supporter said, no it is not hat way. eisenhower did plan. and allen dulles did plan. william: very interesting. what became the bay of pigs operation. there is no doubt about it that we have a great deal of evidence showing it was a year-long process, thinking about how to invade cuba with a group of exiles from guatemala to overthrow castro. but eisenhower did not pull the trigger on the operation. the reason is it was not ready. it was not ready to go. it was not big enough. it wasn't strong enough. eisenhower hadn't done the careful planning. that i think would have made it potentially successful. when kennedy gets into office, he launches it right away.

it fails. he invites eisenhower to camp david the next day. eisenhower says, did you do these things, did you ask the ough questions, did you go through the logistics and planning? kennedy says, i just took the advice of the generals. eisenhower says, that was your first mistake. kennedy always resented that eisenhower gave him this plan through the logistics and planning? but then didn't take responsibility for it. which perhaps he should have done. eisenhower's view was you are the commander-in-chief, it's your job to ask the tough questions. if it fails on your watch, it is your responsibility. publicly, kennedy took responsibility. ost: for those that don't know the bay of pigs story, briefly, what happened? what was the point? william: the hope was to overthrow fidel castro in 961. the idea had been hatched in march 1960. a whole year earlier. eisenhower did not want to invade cuba with american soldiers. that would have been an outrageous act that everyone would have condemned.

the cia trained about 1000 or 2000 cubans in doing amphibious warfare, landing on ships on the beach of what was called the bay of pigs. the idea was they were going to fight their way into cuba and they were going to set off a rebellion because everyone, they thought, hated castro. it was kind of a cockamamie scheme to begin with. they were trained in guatemala, they were given arms. americans helped them get them on ships and got them to cuba. the thing went wrong from the beginning. the cubans saw what was happening, responded quickly. they sank a number of their ships. it was a mess. it was a terrible embarrassment to president kennedy. it was obvious the americans have supported this thing from the beginning. host: what would president eisenhower have done about the vietnam situation and would he have gotten us in as far as the 50,000 troops? william: we know what he did do, he kept the united states

out of vietnam in 1954 as the french were collapsing in northern vietnam. their colonial war was going badly. the french begged the united states to get in. eisenhower said no. we know he stayed out. we know what he said at the time, the wrong war in the wrong place for the wrong purposes. we are not going to go to war to help prop up french colonialism. he then invested a great deal of prestige and money and -- in building south vietnam into a democratic asian country. he believed south vietnam could be a model to the rest of asia. by 1961, the commitment america had made to south vietnam was a significant one. by 1965 when lyndon johnson decides to send in hundreds of thousands of troops, the commitment was greater. it's difficult to know if eisenhower would have done the ame thing. i think there is a chance he might have.

i think he believed when what america was doing in south vietnam was the right thing. host: so, you talk about the cia information that was released later on. what did you learn about the cia's involvement during the eisenhower years with the new information? william: the big picture what i will say, and i don't say this exactly in these words on the book, but i have concluded that llen dulles, the cia a director the entire time eisenhower was president, was a pretty dangerous man. he kept promoting covert operations and sabotage and operations of that kind to eisenhower. very enthusiastically. early on, overthrowing government in iran. doing other kind of operations around the world as well. eisenhower came -- he was wary about allen dulles. i don't think he controlled allen dulles efficiently. he gave him too much free reign. the cia became reckless.

we would learn later when some of their secret records became vailable in the late 1970's, just how far they had gone to overthrow governments, plan assassinations, sabotage, and the like. much of that was known because the congress started investigating the cia in the 1970's. there are concrete specific things about how the cia gathered intelligence, what they knew, especially through intercepts about the soviet missile program that we are only now beginning to understand. host: what countries did the cia go in and assassinate a leader? william: well, they tried to assassinate patrice lumumba of the congo. he was a radical. no doubt about it. the cia did come up with an extraordinary scheme to try to urder him. they secreted a bilogical agent

in a tooth pace tube and gave it to a station in combo and hoped to get the tooth past into his batroom kit. and that he would brush his teeth and drop dead. the cia man in the congo said "that is the worst thing i've ever heard." i'm never going to do that. so he put it away and locked it up. it didn't happen. it was on the planning 30 was supposed to be trying to kill him. it turned out, he had plenty of enemies in the congo. he was arrested and eventually killed by his internal enemies. they also came up with dozens of goofy schemes to kill fidel castro. some of them were so ridiculous ou had to laugh. one involved making an exploding seashell, because they knew he liked to go snorkeling and pick up interesting shells. they figured they have a really interesting seashell, he might pick it up and it would blow up. just goofy stuff. much more concrete, they did

try to get some cubans who were in the underworld to assassinate him. host: did president eisenhower know this? william: that is a great ebate. eisenhower's advisors and one of his closest advisors always insisted that eisenhower did not know about it and he would not have approved it. i am not quite so sure. i think eisenhower did know. i think his national security advisor late in his presidency kept him informed. i think they had an understanding to not talk about it. i think it was a wink and a nod sort of thing. eisenhower was unsentimental about those things. lifelong military man. he felt these were bad, bad people, and if national interests required it, he would let it go. host: 1952, during the campaign, october 11, here is president truman talking about general eisenhower.

>> the republican candidate for president who has much to learn about these things has begun to catch on to this business. he has been against education, social security. no better than prison, he called it. he is against federal action. but in a speech in a los angeles the other day, he said he was for extending social security a little bit. he said he is for federal aid in education, just a little bit. he said he is for medical care, just a little bit. i can give him a piece of advice. he need not be so timid. the special interest lobbies will abide him. william: he offered to step down as president if eisenhower would run. he loved eisenhower. even up to 1948, he thought eisenhower would be a good president. he thought he might be a democrat, that's why. nobody knew what party

eisenhower was in when he was in the military. truman thought he could get ike to run, and truman said, i will e your vice president. in 1945 he really did say to eisenhower when they were touring berlin, he said, general, i'll get you -- i will do anything i can possibly do to help your career. and that includes your being president. because he admired him so much. that was the time truman just became president. he was still in awe of eisenhower. you can tell there is a frosty relationship, because truman had been speaking politically, criticizing the new deal, criticizing truman himself. criticizing the big federal programs of the new deal. he ran as a conservative in 952, eisenhower did. and there's truman saying well one day he's a conservative, one day he's a liberal. you can't trust him. that's what he's trying to say in that campaign dinner speech.

like a lot of people who run for president. they tend to say something different to different audiences. the relationship between these two men soured, and it was too bad. host: what was the difference between the day that general eisenhower came to the white house to ride with truman to the capital and the day john f. kennedy came to the white house to ride up? william: fortunately, it got better. it could have been worse with the truman relationship, and it cot getter, the relationship with kennedy was better. the relationship was poisoned by the campaign between ike and truman. when eisenhower came to the white house to ride together to the capital, he was very frosty. eisenhower almost didn't want to ride in the car together. they didn't have the traditional meeting with coffee and chatter and so on. it was very icy. truman had said some very critical things about

eisenhower during the campaign which i think were unnecessary. and eisenhower took it personally, he vunt --shouldn't have, but he did. so he was pretty bitter. kennedy had criticized eisenhower in the campaign. kennedy said terrible things about eisenhower. by 1960, eisenhower was a much more seasoned politician. he knew it wasn't personal. what he wanted was a good hand off to the new president. they more seasoned politician.met tw inauguration, and each time they met for a long time, they talked through world problems, they discussed what was going on. eisenhower said, it is a tough job, i want to help you anyway i can. here is what i learned on the job, a few pointers, so to speak. kennedy came away very impressed with eisenhower. he realized this man is a serious figure, which is not what he had said on the campaign trail.

he said he is such a dunce, he is asleep at the wheel. but when he met him in person, he realized what a significant figure ike was. host: there was a meeting before the inauguration where you had kennedy and president eisenhower. that is just 20 seconds. > i spoke with the president about problems for the united states and our relations abroad. and they brought us up to date on their tacking -- taking on those problems. >> how was the atmosphere? > cordial. host: the famous correspondent from nbc standing right next to him there. you report in your book two different things. one, he attended 300 national security council meetings. out of 300-some. and you also say he had a lot of news conferences on a regularly scheduled basis and

in 1955, he started television. what does this say about him as far as you are concerned? william: it shows he was deeply engaged in running the government. he chaired 90%, the figure is 90% of the meetings with the national security council. almost every week he sat down with his top national security team. secretary of state, c.i.a. head, various military figures, and they talked through the world problems. he was deeply engaged in every detail of running the government. the reason that was important was because the press did not see that. hey saw ike golfing a lot. on vacation a lot. they did not know just how deeply involved he was in policy-making, and the detailed nitty-gritty of running the government. we know that now. it is easy for us to say he was deeply engaged, but it was not always seeming that way. i think it shows how disciplined he was. in the press conferences, i think it was remarkable. we have forgotten the president

used to be much more aa vailable to the press than they are today. a press conference today with the president is a highly scripted thing. it is very formal. you are not going to get a lot of mistakes or goofs for real news out of a press conference these days. the press secretary does it all. throughout eisenhower's presidency, he gave a weekly, weekly press conference for about 30 minutes. he stood there and took questions. sometimes he did not know the names and would say, i will look into it. his press secretary was right ext to him, occasionally passing him a note. but ike was available to the press. he did not tell them a lot, but he was there. passing him a note. i think he felt that is what the president should do. host: you pointed out it was radio until 1955, and then it was television. this is a fun clip, because when we first saw it, the radio until 1955, and then it question is asked by someone who is no longer alive but worked here at the end of his

career, a fellow named bob clark. he was with abc for years, at the time he was with international news service. watch this first question on television with eisenhower. >> i think we are trying a new experiment this morning. i hope it doesn't prove to be a disturbing influence. i have no announcements. could you discuss the seriousness of the latest communist attack -- inaudible] resident eisenhower: the in military authority has tried to raid these small islands under attack as part of the defense. to the offense of which we are committed. host: what was his relationship with the media? william: can i say one thing about what he was actually saying? did you see how good he was?

he thought for a split second, he got thrown a very hard question. the first question on tv. he got thrown a really delicate question on defending taiwan from communist china, who were threatening to invade taiwan. he did not want to pour oil on the flames, but he also had to say, there is a thing going on that we are sort of in control of and here is the big picture. he gave a very diplomatic answer. to those who are experts on it, vest very impressive how good he was on his feet. his relationship with the press, it was quite good. the press, though, they admired him privately, but often in writing in their reports tended to condescend a little bit to president eisenhower. i think this is part of the origins of the idea he was not in charge, that he was a light weight. i think they knew better, but it was a good joke.

it became almost a punchline to say, here is old eisenhower trying his best. but look how he stumbles over his syntax and so on. they could be kind of mean. host: these are your words from a footnote in the back of your book. this comes from -- it says here, i think the dallas papers. this is you saying -- ike liked deception, and wanted to keep his enemies guessing about just how far he might go to protect non-communist states from asia. his close advisor admitted to the senate foreign relations committee in february 1954 that the administration had no intent of putting ground soldiers into indochina. he hated having to say so in public. he would rather keep the chinese guessing. william: it sounds like a cliché, but it is really true that eisenhower was actually a -- it is a personal

characteristic, but it does influence this. he was a world-class cardplayer. not just a poker player, bridge player, he loved to keep his enemies guessing. his adversaries guessing. especially the chinese, the cold war, the russians as well. he did not want to go into public and say this is what our policy is. unless it was serving his interests. sometimes it served his interests to say, as in taiwan, if there is an invasion to taiwan that will lead to war. he was happy to say those things because it was a signal to the chinese. in general, he wanted to keep his enemies guessing. but that also reflects his leadership in the war years. he didn't want to tell the germans what he was doing, ither. host: why did you say in a footnote that eisenhower biographers tend to muddle the u-2 story. eisenhower remained calm and

unperturbed of ironclad evidence provided by extensive surveillance flights by r over the soon soon by the c.i.a. william: eisenhower did not worry about the missile gap, he did not worry about sputnik. because he knew because of the u-2 spy plane, the soviets did not have any big missile program at all. footnote that eisenhower biographers tend to muddle the u-2 story. eisenhower remained calm and that is actually not true. the spy plane started in 1955. they started running it over the soviet union. eisenhower was very cautious about using it. he was afraid one might get shot down and it would lead to an international accident, which it did. eisenhower 58, 1959 almost shuts down the program. tried to put the brakes on the program.eisenhower almost shuts down the program. there are very few u-2 overflights in 1957 and into 1959. that is because eisenhower has

what they know about the soviet missile program is on -- incomplete. it is unclear what they have. what they know about the soviet missile program is on -- incomplete. it is unclear what they have. it is not clear. to say he kicked back and said, don't worry, there is no soviet missile program, they did not have the evidence to prove that. they were quite anxious that they were building icbm's that could reach america. what they know about the soviet it was not until quite a bit later that they got the intelligence to prove the russians were way behind the americans. host: i want to ask you about he bias of historians. you write, again in a footnote, lanche wieson, a biographer, analysis of eisenhower's presidency that she confessed was so cloudy by the evidence she discovered of covert operations, secrecy, and counterinsurgency that she had trouble seeing any other dimension of his leadership.

she also finished your quote, saying eisenhower's legacy is counterinsurgency and political warfare. william: i think that is a wonderful question. i will say that i tried my arndest to write my history in a way that no one knew about me. about me as an author, about my politics. there is no purpose here to try to shape that. that is not the purpose for me about writing history. it is to try to figure out, why did powerful people make the choices they did? host: what is your take on others? as you went through your research. and you have done several other books. william: we always evaluate other historians' research. the goal is not to be a smarty pants and say you got that wrong.

but rather i have some new material and i am taking a slightly different approach. every generation takes another crack at presidents. host: are we being treated well as a populace by historians? william: i think we are being treated very well. i hope the public is consuming the wonderful history that is coming out. but readers have to be skeptical, because historians have biases that are built in. not just political ones and often not overt. but every historian has a different view, a different way of writing about a powerful figure like the president. my advice is read three books on any given elected president or official and make your own judgment. host: when did you start this book? william: i started it in 2009, 2010. i finished the book on the liberation of europe that focused on 1944-1945. it was a military and social history of europe at the end of

world war ii. eisenhower was a bit player in that book. it was a difficult book to write because it was depressing about the war. i wanted to try a biography. i had never tried a biography before. came across eisenhower in thought what an interesting man. a lot has been written about the war leadership. i thought the books of his presidency were not quite as strong. so there was an opportunity there. host: where did you go in order to research? william: i spent the bulk of the time in abilene, kansas. at the presidential library. i also did research here in washington dc, and at the thoug interesting man. -- and a number of national archives and library of congress as well. abilene is where you have to go because that is his hometown. not just because that's where his papers are located but because that's his hometown. the more time i spent in kansas, the closer i felt i was getting to this man.

he was a very famous, very successful worldly cosmopolitan figure. but he really was from kansas, and he never forgot it and talked about it a lot. seeing his house so many times, walking around the town, feeling the landscape, which is so different from the east coast, i just started to feel like i could o get a read on this man. host: you write, the assertion made by todd wicker of the new york times that earl warren, the former chief justice, had received no help at all from the eisenhower administration in helping prepare the brown opinion is demonstrably false. william: oh, yeah. no, the brown versus board opinion of may, 1954, huge, huge milestone civil rights. it argued, it told us that segregation by race in public schools was unconstitutional. some people thought maybe this was a bombshell that the eisenhower administration knew

nothing about and was maybe hostile to. but there is ample evidence that the attorney general was working closely with the plaintiffs in the case, shaping the arguments in the court, and that they knew and favored. filed an amicus brief in favor of desegregation. they felt it was unconstitutional. this was a product of the administration's policies as much as warren. warren shaped the opinion, and it was a unanimous opinion. this was a case where eisenhower's reputation has been done wrong. he was often depicted as a person against the civil rights movement or in some ways a day late and a dollar short. but in that early period of his first term, they really helped the cause. they did significant work. host: however, you write this. some scholars have tried to make eisenhower into a hero of the civil rights movement, an argument that surely overstates the case. william: what is interesting

about eisenhower is he is hot and cold. you see the periods where he is really pushing. then he pulls back and is saying, i have a lot of friends in the south. and he did. he spent a lot of time in augusta. they should be heard from, too. their views should be taken into consideration. they don't want to go too fast. he would try to cool things down, and he would pick up again, and there would be a sudden period of activity. we see 1957 was a period of activity. the intervention at little rock. in 1958, 1959, he is loathed to do anything on civil rights. so it is a picture of a pendulum swinging ack-and-forth. host: i went back and did this myself. i got his inaugural address and his farewell speech.

i wanted to get the flavor of it. the thing that was interesting about it was how much he mentioned god and faith in the first inaugural address. and freedom. but he starts off by saying, et's pray. his inaugural address, he opens up with a brief prayer that he himself wrote. he said, i am going to write something myself. deeply spiritual man. his inaug raised in a family of deeply spiritual parents who were members of the river brethren church, an offshoot of the ennonites. his forbearers came from pennsylvania. they were what we think of as amish. his father read a piece of scripture every night in the family living room. the boys had to sit around and listen. he knew his bible backwards and forwards. he did not enjoy attending

church, and when he went into the army, he steered clear of organized religion. this is so interesting and surprising and important for eisenhower. when he became president, he said, i have to be seen as a public man of faith. i need to go to church. mamie was a presbyterian, so he and maime was a presbyterian. went to the reverend of the national presbyterian church here in washington, d.c. and he was baptized. a sitting president was baptized february, 1953, and he then used religion as a very important part of his public personality as president. host: his first inaugural was 2,159 words long and his second was 1,658. but right there in the third paragraph or fourth paragraph, he says, before all else, we but right there in the third paragraph or fourth paragraph, he says, before all else, we seek upon our common labor as a

nation the blessings of almighty god. william: yeah. host: what would a president get if he spends so much time today on religion in an inaugural address? what would happen do you think? william: well, i don't know. i think there would be a lot of eyeball rolling and some criticism. but eisenhower was an unashamed fervent believer in god and in a higher power. very much who he was. what makes him interesting is that he was not from a high church, you know background. he had this nonconformist background as a very humble close to the earth river brethren upbringing. so he didn't wear it on his sleeve, so to speak. but as president, he felt it was really important to be seen as a prayerful man. and it wasn't an act for him. definitely was not an act for him. you know, he was thrilled and, of course, church leaders -- membership was going up a lot in the 1950s. americans were in a bit of a spiritual awakening in that ecade.

remember, they put in god we trust on our currency in that period and under god in the allegiance was added during his years. host: there's another paragraph in here that i need your help in understanding. talked about disarmament and he said together we must learn how to compose difference. not with arms. but with intellect and decent purpose because this need is so sharp and apparent i confess that i lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. as one who has witnessed -- this is his last speech to the nation as president. as one who has witnessed the horror and lingering sadness of war, of one that knows it, another war could destroy this civilization that's been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, i wish i could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight. william: yes, isn't that interesting

that a man stepping down wouldn't crow about all of his achievements? but instead, say there's still work to be done. i've left one big thing undone. and the tone of that speech is a warning which is we've had to build the military industrial complex in order to protect our freedoms and he said i -- he basically said i regret we had to do that but we have done t. we've created this enormous military power based on nuclear arms. and he said we now have to control it. we would love to get rid of it completely but, unfortunately, the russians won't let us. they're just as aggressive and dangerous as ever. he was saying essentially his preference would be total global disarmament. his preference would be peace. but he hadn't achieved that. what he had achieved was creating a defense system that would protect america, but it didn't -- wasn't the same thing s world peace. host: when he was president, there were 2 1/2 billion people in the united states. there are now 7.6 billion people in the world. absolutely.

in the world. 160 million americans and now there are 325 million. what is that -- you know, what impact has that had alone on the way we are today in our society? william: well, certainly, i think one thing i can say about eisenhower, the scale and scope of the u.s. government and indeed of the united states was a bit more manageable in the mid 1950s than it is today. while i think eisenhower can teach us basic things about governance and about humility and generosity, kindness, moderation, the u.s. government has just become so ig and it's so difficult for any one president, no matter how gifted to be in complete command of. so i think that it's dangerous to say, well, this president is exactly what we should do today. i think we can be inspired by a character.

character of experience. character of knowing where you come from. character of generosity and humility are things that eisenhower had. >> we talked about you being at the university of virginia teaching. where is your hometown originally? >> my hometown is chevy chase, maryland. but i was born in japan and i lived a number of years in japan and also in tel aviv israel because my dad worked for the u.s. state department. >> what did he do? >> he was a foreign service officer and head of the u.s. information agency branches in the u.s. embassy and japan and in tel aviv. >> how about your mom? >> my brother was his loyal and incredibly hard working helper as a diplomatic couple. >> you have a family? you have children? >> i have two children. benjamin and emma. benjamin is a junior at the university of virginia and my daughter emma is going to join him next year. >> our guest has been william hitchcock and the name of the book is "the age of eisenhower, america and the world in the 1950s. thank you very much. > thank you.

>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. programs are also available as c-span podcasts. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2018] >> when the house returns at 2:00 p.m. eastern, on the agenda today, 14 bills dealing with veterans' issues like health care, employment and education programs. later this week, the house will take up legislation to overhaul the dodd-frank financial regulation law that was approved in 2010. and this year's defense programs and policy bill. when the house returns to session at 278 p.m. eastern, we'll have live -- -- 2:00 p.m. eastern, we'll have live coverage here on c-span. on c-span3 tomorrow, treasury secretary steve mnuchin and acting i.r.s. commissioner testifying on the trump administration's proposed