presidential explor tory committee, speaking to downtown des moines live saturday 6 p.m. eastern on cspan. >> sunday on q&a, author and journalist patricia miller and "bringing down the colonel," on sex scandal involving a kentucky congressman sued by his former mistress. preston campbell breckenridge. in the southern elite, calva en a colonel, a ry, his fifthcalva term in congress. by contrast, she was nobody, she poor girl from kentucky hungry y aspirations, for education. she was a hungry young woman who ran into

breckenridge when she was desperate to make herself get an education. >> sunday night on cspan's q&a. >> next, book t.v. exclusive, tour visits lawrence, kansas to learn more about its unique history and literary life. for eight years now we've traveled u.s. cities bringing viewers. scene to our watch more of our visits at cspan.org,/citiestour. > lawrence was founded on a principle and it was founded in conflict. there's kind of characterized -- >> while in lawrence, we took a riving tour of the city with historian john brown interpreter altenburg.z e >> john brown, thank you for joining us today, interpreter in lawrence, kansas. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. i appreciate it. who don't know, who

was john brown? >> john brown was an abolitionist. kansas in 1855. left for the last time in early 1859. and had a major impact on the state. >> how long have you been portraying him? i started portraying john brown in 2006. meaningou're giving new to the term riding shotgun. what do you have? copy, which period means it was done about the time the original were done of flat 1853 slant breach sharp, something john brown would need to carry. are the three of us going today? >> well, we're going around then we'llwrence and be taking a few excursion trips o other important sites in lawrence history. >> okay. let's hit the road. >> all right. good.s >> starting at the watkins museum, tell me about the building. came to lawrence

in the 1800, very wealthy, land railroad, banking and he built this building here. 1975, i think it is, it's been the headquarters of the historical ty society and county history museum. to come in and earn about the history of kansas. >> it was the beginning of the thel war, it started before civil war and in the 1850s and of people in on both sides of the slavery issue, kansas would her be pro-slavery or not. kansas was born in 1856, free state of the movement. and then after the civil war 1863, ally began, in quantril, ark confederate leader led men into the 21st of on

august of 1863, and massacred at 200 men and boys and burned a significant part of the town. civilian worst massacre in the civil war and it downtown ight here on lawrence, where we are. because etts streets lawrence was founded by the new england immigrant aid company, boston, that is where they organized it. after upplies to kansas the kansas-nebraska act was signed in 1854, it opens the kansas up to white settlement. the problem that became bleeding kansas. that, the decision on whether a state would be slave was up to congress. kansas-nebraska, move today to a the people with what people in from both sides and is where the violence came

from. >> today what is massachusetts street? main street of town, down the middle of downtown lawrence. shops and restaurants and independent business, is that the spirit of spirit?e, independent >> yes there has been a lot of effort to keep the downtown the way it is. where are we headed now? >> oak hill cemetery. cemetery was founded in quantril's raid, oldest cemetery didn't have the people.or all the that many people dying at once, you have to really look for to have a they wanted nice, beautiful cemetery. who out how many people passed quantril's raid are buried here? most of them are buried in the cemetery here. two that masquerade, couldn't be identified, up here n the right was the grave of

judge louis carpenter, probably of d have been governor kansas, maybe president of the united states, if he hadn't been murdered in the raid. abolist, he wife of james lane, the first senator the state and probably the person that perhaps caused by ence to be massacred quantril, he aided a town in missouri. in 1861. could be heard alling out, remember osceola, during the raid. he escaped. he jumped, he heard the noise his window in of his night shirt and hid in a raiders cameen the by and hopped on a horse and pursued the raiders back to missouri. the grover barn, it was and emily 58 by joel

grover, who homesteaded on this land. were both abolitionists, station masters on the railroad.d this was a station on the underground railroad and escaped barn. stayed in this john brown's most famous raid in the vernon county raid december of 1858. ecause of slave who was in kansas, legally he was selling brooms, came to brown and asked if he could come help liberate his family, they were be split up and sent south. he said yes, he and his men went vernon county, liberated 11 slaves, brought them to kansas, kansas them up through in winter and late january, they came here and stayed in the barn at least one night, maybe several nights, accounts vary. living there was working

with them and he wrote letters documented truth written at the time of what was happening of them coming through here. this.tions this may be the most well-documented underground rail site in the country. >> you are devoting your life to telling stories of lawrence, of of bleeding kansas. why do you think it is so important for people here in history to know their and have a reference for that? was a seminole event in american history. it changed america. have been told before the civil war, before lawrence, said, my country, they were talking about their state. uh-huh. >> or actually the united states it was the united states, they were a number of states, states, united states as term was plural noun and after was singular.

is as -- the united states that is d to are and what the civil war did and player in that. this is a special place. history and it needs to be honored and recognized. and the more that can be done, the better. > thank you for showing us around lawrence today. >> thank you, it's a privilege. >> we're in lawrence, kansas, the literary scene. up next we speak with author eisenburg, which looks at conservative stance on the nixon to trump. >> i think when people think of the republican party and the today, they think whether the republican party is doing anything

about problems with the climate favor y're generally in of rolling back regulations for clean air and clean water. that is not always been the 1970s, the n the republican party was joining with n democrats to create the environmental laws that we have, air act, clean water act, endangered species act. cases, ans were in many unanimously in favor of creating these laws. ronald reagan and other conservatives, a lot of them oming out of the west, there was a lot of opposition to government control of public the , those people in 1970s, together with rise of the voters, and evangelical they engineered a rise of onservative republicanism that changed the republican position most environment and so next decade, 1980s and beginning

and forth ad a back between moderate republicans in support of environmental laws conservative republicans who thought first of all this was inhibiting business and that was and secondly any kind of government regulation as inherently bad thing and should be rolled back simply on principle. he republican party has a long tradition of supporting the environment that goes back to the 19th century. it was republican president braham lincoln, who created yosemite as national preserve another grant republican, yellowstone park was created. strong hand in creating the national forests, what became the national forests roosevelt, yet another republican, did a lot in terms of creating national parks, monuments, setting aside land for national forests, party really can at the beginning of the

1960s, mental age in the if you look back over the century, the republican party had a stronger claim to environmental stewardship than the democrats at that time. only administration of nixon most environmental laws came was a ing and nixon republican, was very much in laws n. these kinds of one of his early annual 1970s as he pronounced environmental decade and he created the environmental rotection agency by executive order and signed the national the onmental policy act, clean air act, the endanger species act. reason he did this was not necessarily that he had a strong to environmental policy. like everyone else at the time, about concerned pollution, but the environmental movement was extraordinarily in the 1970s. first earth day in april 190

20 million people to meetings at cities and other and s across the country that got the attention of a lot of politicians, whether they democrats.icans or the republican party of the 1970s was arly dominated by moderate republicans and these are republicans who were pro business and wanted limited same time, but the the republican party in the 1960s was as strongly in support rights legislation, particularly northern republicans than was the case for democrats. was a party that was for ested in doing things the public through government actiona and so that predisposed favorable to environmental protection laws. see the e started to shift away from republican support for environmental laws in the middle of the 1970s.

a lot of factors are involved here, but the one i would envirl protection laws. i think we started to see the shift away from republican support for environmental protection laws in the 1970's. there are a lot of factors involved. the one i would pick out as one that did not have enough attention is the oil crisis. restrain that use come all of a sudden with the first oil crisis, the price of oil went through the roof, there were lines at the pump and rationing, so people had to all of a sudden do the things they had been saying without planning. they had to do it immediately, in a way that people were not prepared for, so that really sapped enthusiasm for this environmental protection had of a lot of people. -- out of a lot of people.

that rising opposition to environment of protection did not immediately manifest itself in legislation, what happened first is you saw some republicans just away from that bipartisan consensus on the environment. the best example is ronald reagan, who would he was governor of california, between 1967-1975, he had a pretty good record on the environment. signed air-quality legislation that was tougher than national legislation. he set aside land for public parks, he opposed the building of dams. his record was very good on the environment and it is not surprising because he was in california at a time when this was at its hike, so he had to trim his sales to what people wanted. then he started campaigning for the presidency. and he started inserting some

opposition to environmental l aws, into his campaign, which was at odds with his governorship. so he censored -- he sensed this opposition to the laws in 1970's. and one of the first things his registration -- his administration did is they ramped up the production of oil and coal and natural gas from american federal lands and offshore, which is the federal government controlled. policys continued as a since ronald reagan took office in 1981, even during the first part of the obama administration , high levels of american fossil fuel production has been the rule, because we didn't want to run into another oil crisis like we did in the 1970's. high levels of fossil field production and doing something about climate change, they do not work well together, so an

important reason the republicans are opposed to doing something serious about climate is that it means completely rethinking our energy sources. if you look at the republican party today and the way that they deal with environment the legislation, you can break it down into two broad areas. one area is the enforcement of clean air and clean water legislation, generally speaking. and republicans have said they are enforcing -- and they are in favor of enforcing those laws. they have described their legislation as a back to basics approach in which they will collect clean air and water. one of the reasons they do that is there is strong support for those laws, but the problem with that in my mind is republican do not on these things align with their rhetoric about clean air and water. that is one area. the other is about climate. and concerns about climate change emerged largely since the

passage of those environmental laws in the early 1970's. one of the things that happened during the obama administration, is the administration pushed to have the emission of carbon dioxide regulated under the clean air act, a pollutant that was affecting people's lives. the courts agreed this was a something they could do and it is something the republicans have opposed. republicans generally have opposed doing things about climate, they have said climate change is either not happening or we need to study it more, or it is happening but it would be too expensive to fix or it is too late to fix it and they have mixed and matched these ways of opposing doing something about climate change. the current administration has both departed from previous republican stances on the environment, and also just

doubled it down on some earlier republican stances on the environment. in the sense that they are continuing what they have done before, the things donald trump said on the campaign trail, that climate change is a hoax, that the environmental agencies have been done away with, he was repeating things conservatives had been saying, those elected officials in congress, for a decade or more. nothing new about that opposition to environmental regulation. what is new is that donald trump soft-pedal hiso opposition to doing things in favor of the environment, particularly with climate change. even the george w. bush administration, which was extremely pro-fossil fuel, nonetheless would rhetorically at least try to offer support to doing something about climate, even though in actuality they did not do much. and the bush administration's

approach was because they recognized american voters were concerned about this. donald trump has made his opposition to international climate agreement a positive thing. instead of it being things that he thinks conservative republicans should try to obscure, he has made his opposition to those things kind of a calling card for what he does. so he has merged his opposition to international agreements on climate change to his america first populism. i have not given up hope on the republican party and the environment. i think that in the first case, something is going to have to be done about the environment. it can either happen with some forethought and planning and some compromise, while there is a lot of environmental quality left to save, or it can happen in a hurry, desperately when we need to do something and we have fewer choices. but something will happen one way or another. what gives me hope is if you

look at what republican voters want, they are actually in favor of a lot of the environmental protection that is being proposed by members of the democratic party. but the republican voters oppose that because it is democrats who are saying it. i think what most voters really want is they want a bipartisan consensus on the environment like the bipartisan consensus that was the case in the early 1970's when these laws were first past. but there is such tribalism in american politics that republican voters are in support of republicans who are advocating things for the environment that they are actually not in favor of, and they oppose democrats advocating for the environmental things that they are in favor of, and i think that situation will reach a point of cognitive dissonance that it will break. if you can read republican reversal, there are some things i want them to take away.

one of them is, we should be concerned that there was once a consensus on the environment, and now it has broken down at precisely the time when we are facing an extraordinary threat with climate change. and uh, we need to return to a bipartisan consensus on doing something about these environmental problems, and the sooner we do that the better it will be for everyone. we are in lawrence, kansas. up next, we speak with the author of "no place like home." when people think about the lgbtq movement, some of the first cities that come to mind are san francisco, new york city, los angeles, washington, lgbtqd you know, people are everywhere.

there are the same percentage of people in kansas as everywhere else in the country and what is interesting about kansas is that it is -- that topeka is the home of the westborough baptist church, so they think about their tiny group of protesters that started about 20 years ago protesting funerals with signs and said, "god hates fags" other unpleasant things. that is a group of people in topeka, kansas. kansas is a complicated place that has a reputation of being a red state in the heartland. but its history really goes back to the pre-civil war days, where it was established to be a free state. so then there is this bloody border between missouri, which was a slave state, kansas a free state. kansas is proud of its free

state history. what is interesting about the lgbtq movement in kansas is that back in 1978, wichita was one of the first cities that passed or tried to pass an ordinance protecting lgbtq people from discrimination. it did not go well, there was a huge controversy. and when that did not work, people retreated and went about their daily lives. id i do not think that, um, do not think that there was necessarily anything special or unique about wichita. it is the biggest city in the state. it is a pretty big city, as cities in kansas go, so you had an urban population there, you had a gay community of folks who had left small towns and gone to the big city. was sort ofovement started by a small group of people there, like i think

happens in all small towns and states, it is a few people who decide to do something. but then through the 1980's, i think much of the gay community's efforts were focused on fighting aids. and so that took the focus and in the efforts certainly for a lot of people. and, um, i do not know if a lot happened then until the mid-2000, when kansas, like many states around the countryd, , decided to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. kansas did that in 2005 and a lot of other states did that in the 2000. 70% of the voters in kansas passed the constitutional amendment saying marriage was between one man and one woman. so, this was a big movement in those days. the people who tried to fight that in kansas, this tiny little

organized group of people who had never gotten together to do any kind of political campaign on behalf of a cause -- they are also, they were also on the books, there is the sodomy laws that have been traditionally used to claim that gay people having sex is a moral and illegal. the supreme court said that the laws were unconstitutional back in the 1980's or 90's, quite a while ago. so the kansas sodomy law is still on the books, the legislature has refused to take off the books. it cannot be enforced, but it is still there. and in this past legislative session, they passed a law saying that adoption agencies could refuse to place children

with same-sex families if it went against the religious beliefs. and another issue that comes up a lot is what is called a religious freedom amendment, or religious freedom bill, which you have seen a lot of these and other states also. and up to the supreme court, sayingaying if i -- that businesses and public agencies should not have to violate their religious beliefs in order to serve the gay community . and so kansas has considered those laws pretty much every year in recent memory. but they have not passed, because enough kansas legislators have seen the discrimination there, so we have been able -- we have had

discriminatory laws passed, but we have also been able to stop some of them from passing also, so it is complicated. we may seesans, these laws passing or not passing, i think, you know, lgbtq people think they live in a conservative state and know they are not the only one facing discrimination or facing these issues that are painful. and they do what they can to educate their neighbors and their family members and their elected officials, their bosses, whoever is part of their immediate surroundings, you know, about with a real-life effects are. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. as public opinion has changed over the years, lgbt people feel more a part of the community, of

the overall larger community. they are not scared. they feel more accepted. but they also know that all of this could change at any time. it is a scary time to be any marginalized group in the united right now.h and we know that everything people have worked for could be reversed at any time. i am on the campus of the university of kansas, were up next we will speak with a professor on his book "taken hostage." 1979, 1980the hostage crisis between the u.s. and iran really set the tone probably for our relationship all the way through today. it was a significant juncture point in how the u.s.'s people thought about political islam, the nation of iran, and how they

think about us. so there were two powerful movements that worried the united states. there was a communist insurgency within iran. the soviet union was trying to foster that insurgency. we worried a lot about that. and we decided with the -- because he crushed the communist dissent in iran. and i do not think most americans politically thought much about the islamic dissidents in that state, it was off our radar. part of the reason i wrote the book, is because i was trying to get across how reasonably so, ordinarily so, americans look at our alliances in that world. -- in that part of the world. we didn't think of it islam as a political force, we feared communism, we cheered on capitalist development and we hoped for democratic development. we did not see the islamic, the green evolution, that was

coming. hasunited states and iran had a fraught relationship for a long time, really since. the 1950's up until the 1950's, iran was a client state of great, but when world war ii ended and britain moved back from that perforate, the u.s. stepped forward. and one thing we did is we became very involved, the iranians would say too much involved, in their affairs. and in 1953, the united states, using its brand-new cia, helped that puta coup, and into power that shot of iran who was a dear friend of the united states. and after that coup, the u.s. helped support iran. the iranian people were of two more secularo were oriented people, they looked favorably upon the united states. it is fair to say that a fair

number of iranians did not look so favorably on the united states, from 1953 until the islamic revolution of 1979. there were a lot of people who looked at the u.s., and i guess the phrase became the great thing, without we did not have the right to interfere in their affairs. it is interesting when the u.s. relies they do not have a good handle on iran. there were signs of it in the 1960's. so, again, it was interesting we had a great relationship with iran in terms of training their new elite. if you are a bright, iranian man or woman, man or woman, mostly men, you probably came to the u.s. universities. and think about that, thick about what is happening in the 1960's. exposed notns are just to the wonders of the american university, but to the dissidents of the student movements. and this radicalized some

iranians and made them think about their own voices, and their own set of concerns. this was a complication for america's relationship with iran. h did not expect his young people to come home with a political consciousness, he wanted them to come home with a technocratic consciousness, the oil engineers, doctors, not threats to his regime. , or anyian revolution revolution, is a messy affair. it is not clear to those who are revolting what is going to happen. they are living to chaos and turmoil. and they are all vying for legitimacy. so the revolution starts to break out. it is clear who will take control. there are all kinds of factions. there is a communist faction, a democratic faction, a parliamentary republic faction, and infection that wants it the accuracy.

it is not clear who is going to win. so they are all trying to find tools for legitimacy. when ayatollah returns from his exile in france to come back to iran, he is treated i think broadly as a kind of liberatory figure. it is not clear he will become the leader of the country. i think that he wanted to be the leader of the country, and there are people who were cheering that on. so, by the summer of 1979, his faction, the more islamist faction, it is gaining power and prominent. but young people in particular were trying to figure out what kind of government do they want to live within and who do they want as their leader. how do they stand up for ian autonomous iran. and you start to see a decision by some to unify the country. they hoped, by creating an

external enemy, by unifying the iranian people who are factionalized at this time, around one big enemy. we in the united states really almost none of us knew about the 1953 coup. we thought of ourselves as a good, progressive force for the iranian people. many of them did not see us that way. they had the memory of the coup in their minds, this was part of their historical memory. so we are a potential enemy. we are the ones that cap the shah in power, kept the military in power. we gave them their authority. so these students begin to plan, let's protest against the u.s. embassy. there was fear that they might against a counter coup the growing economy of the iranian people. so the protests begin at the u.s. embassy, keep your hands

off our new government. it is not clear who that government is. and one group of students, in the midst of many protesters, decided that they are going to make a powerful protest against the u.s. embassy. and again, we are still, even all these decades later, not 100% sure what happened. there is a strong argument to be made that a group of these students from toronto -- tehran decided to emulate the african immigrants of our rights struggle. they are going to have a sit in --demonstrate the legitimacy illegitimacy of the u.s. presence in their country. studentss iranian decided to make their protest, to witness against power and hold a sit in, i think all along some knew they were going to go further. and what happens is really a kind of catastrophic affair from so many angles

. there were thousands outside of the u.s. embassy protesting. one group decides, this group of students, to climb the fence and come into the embassy. maybe to hold a sit in, maybe to do more. and for the american government it was not clear what to do, even at that moment of crisis. what is the job of the u.s. marine corps who are supposed to secure the embassy, if not to fight off mobs of people? we know this through subsequent tragedies, you have to count on local government to protect the immunity of the embassy personnel. but the iranian government did not do that. and the students that jumped the barricades, climbed into the u.s. embassy, suddenly realized that kind of had korb launch to do what they wanted. and instead of a peaceful sit in, very quickly it devolved into a hostage taking situation,

in which the americans did not fight back with weapons. they ceded to the takeover, assuming it would be short-lived. dayst wasn't, it was 444 under seizure at the u.s. embassy. people understood that trouble was brewing in iran, there was a revolution going on, so there had been attempts to fortify the embassy, but you can only do so much. because there was a sense there was trouble in iran, the u.s. embassy, which had been a massive affair with huge numbers of personnel, had cut back to only the necessary folks. iranian takeover, i think there were only 66 people. this embassy could have had hundreds of people in it. so those people knew that they were in a risky position, they knew that this was dangerous posting, but i do not think any of them expected what would happen to them. this is november 1979, almost

exactly one year before the presidential election. jimmy carter is in what we now know is his final year of his presidency. and he was going to run for reelection, so this was a difficult, arguably catastrophic event for his presidential administration. i think when it first happened, when he was first alerted, he was alerted quickly, he probably saw it as an opportunity. so carter was being criticized from several directions, for economic reasons, political reasons, cultural reasons, for policy reasons, as a weak leader. he was going to have to convince people that he was strong and could take care of america's business. at the very beginning with this took off, he thought perhaps this was a chance to show leadership. here are the thugs trying to take over the u.s. embassy and

he would negotiate his way out of this and there would be a happy ending. ok, it could not have gone worse. that iner did something retrospect probably was not wise. he took it upon himself, the leadership for solving what he thought was probably a talkederm crisis and he to the american people about it. he instructed his staff he wanted hands-on response ability. he was always a man that managed situations before him, he was not a delegator like ronald reagan would be down the road, sir carter hoped by taking care of this trouble, the american people would see him as a strong leader. he basically did everything right, that is the irony of this situation. he quickly got a hold of the iranians, talked with people he

thought were responsible figures in the everything government. remember the government is factionalized and it is not clear who is in charge of what could the ayatollah was seen as a figurehead. so who exactly to talk to was a riddle for the american government. he got a hold of our allies. carter kind of, he had that mind to step-by-step moved to the process to resolve this issue. what he didn't realize was that there were factions that did not want to resolve the issue. at this crisis -- that this crisis was good for the factions wanting to create an islamic state. they wanted to maintain a crisis with the united states. so you have the american government trying to rationally resolved a diplomatic problem, and you have factions within iran that want to foster this crisis to gain legitimacy for the islamic factions that are trying to really sees total

control of -- seize total control of the iranian government. so two negotiating partners with very different interests. in terms of the takeover of the u.s. embassy, religion had always been a factor. there was a strong sense many of those protesting outside of the embassy, remember it does not happen in one day, it takes place over time, that there was strong islamic presence in this process. so big factions are islamic students and older folks as well . states government is conscious of that. but they do not really see them as a primary threat. we are still thinking soviet union, we are still thinking communists, we are thinking the communist party of iran -- that is the real fear. that it could become a proxy state of the soviet union. all that oil under the soviets' control. the gulf under the control of

the soviet union. so we never take it as seriously as we need to, the islamic presence. thats there, the cia knew, it was not foremost in their minds. so what happens when those students come in and despite the fact they claim it was peaceful, a few of them at least had weapons. so something was off at the beginning about their peaceful intentions. and they do, at first, sees the hostages in a sense that maybe it will only be a few days, it is not exactly clear what will happen. and as time goes on and things do not get resolved, decisions are being made in all parts of the iranian government. one decision that is made, which is kind of fascinating, is the iranians decided that because they our good islam and people, it is not right to keep women as hostages. so to give the women members of

the delegation the right to leave. and almost all of them do, there are a couple left. so who are these revolutionaries? they say that we are the people all over the place. so all of the black members of the delegation, they are not our enemies. wereal of them regards african-american and they are allowed to leave. they do not all take up this allowance. so he suddenly go from 66 down to 53 at this point. politicalre playing a game and this is done in full view of the cameras. meanwhile, the arena and government is trying to decide what the heck is going on. is this good, bad, the factions of the government are trying to resolve this, but the idiot told action -- but the ayatollah's faction committee see this is useful. so for students, these are the ones in line with ayatollah. they are his people.

and the iranian people are responding positively. not everyone, but a lot of them are like, we are showing those americans what for. we are the victims of america and now we are in control of america. and this gave the ayatollah's faction a lot of credibility, is a lot of legitimacy. and so, maybe we shouldn't let them go. so suddenly you get a stalemate. fairly quickly, black americans are given permission to leave if they chose, women are given permission to leave if they choose, but the others -- no. there is a side story, which is at the moment of takeover a few personnel escape. that great movie that was made by ben affleck and others, six americans escape and they run through the streets. that is a whole other story. some ofare escaping, them get to the canadian embassy and they are released, but the others are blindfolded in

squalor, at this point not being tortured, but by no means being housed comfortably as the days start to tick onward. for in the american government, it was a really hard set of decisions as to what is the leverage point, how do you fix this situation. jimmy carter is a very methodical thinker and he goes through every possible avenue of consideration to release these hostages peacefully. so we go from diplomatic talks to sanctions. economic sanctions, those will play a role in donald trump's considerations many years later, we use the u.n. and every possible ally we have. and they are all on board. nato allies are aboard and regional allies are on board, but none of it works. so, all along the military has been planning for alternative scenarios, but what is it --

five months go on. five months go on before carter says, we have ticked through every possible point of pressure and none of them are working. gentlemen, anything else we can do? and the pentagon says, yes, we have been practicing and we have a plan. and the plan is to take helicopters, fly them in, having already placed personnel secretly -- they do not know every detail, but people have been placed near the embassy grounds to facilitate their release. the idea was helicopters would apply in, go to the embassy grounds, these are special operators who would free the hostages. tremendouslitary has capacity. we didn't necessarily have tremendous capacity in 1980, remember this is 1980, to

engineer this kind of -- uh, clandestine line special operator driven rescue attempt. the israelis had done something like it not far before in the early 1970's. we trained and we learned from the israelis, but we had never really done anything like this before, so it was really hard operating in these desert conditions. enemies everywhere, no clear support system. there where a lot of reasons this was not going to go well. from the iranian perspective, it did not go well by the will of allah. so to helicopters begin flying in, they have to fly over the desert, they have to fly low to escape any supervision or surveillance. and just terrible luck, a just storm does a number on the helicopters, and all hell

breaks loose. the helicopters are grounded, they crash into each other, the operation does not even get to tehran. it sales and men die. so the one military operation that has been tried is a disaster and boy, does that hurt jimmy carter's chances for reelection. so the crisis arguably never really happily resolves itself in any way. it goes on for months. so, after a year things are still terrible, but a new attempt had been made to bring in a third-party mediator, the algerian government. so the algerian government was not friendly to the united states, a revolutionary government in its own right, but international players, legitimate players say we think we can help in this situation. and they are right, the iranians

look at them as fellow revolutionaries, it is a predominantly islamic government, and they go in like they goke switzerland, in and they do a good job. t problems,hrough the the point by point issues, and the algerians get credit for finally solving the issue. the iranians play one last hard joke on president carter. they were furious about the military rescue attempt. they refused to allow the to rescue-- algerians the hostages. it is not until the inauguration of ronald reagan that finally those americans are let go and they can come home. it is 1981. and ronald reagan is the

president. and it is an interesting moment in world affairs. on one side you might think that the new administration could look toward this new islamic presents in iran and in the region and say, we have a new threat. we have a new challenge. how i we going to resolve this issue? but that is not where his head was at. he his an old cold war warrior. he is focused on the soviet union. thehe islamist presence, challenge it presents is basically put way deep in the background. we have a terrible relationship with iran, we do not organize their government, we -- recognize their government, we keep a huge hunk of their money hostage in our banks, we do not give it back to them. and we have a deteriorating back story relationship with iran.

and the irony is, of course, this is during the same time that ronald reagan sees opportunity with a different islamist group, a group that would be called al qaeda in afghanistan. so because he is such a anti-communist warrior, he chooses to side with the islamic revolutionaries in afghanistan, provide them weapons, training and money. rather than say that islamists present an interesting challenge, we embrace it and afghanistan because they are anti-soviet and anti-communist. that did not turn out well. i think that the u.s. began to take more seriously the changing temperament of the middle east, you can make a case certainly by the new 10 80's -- by the 1980's. we had farsi speakers, but we

did not treat it as a central problem in u.s. foreign relations. 2001, i9/11 occurs in think overwhelmingly for americans, and even for government elites, it was a shock. why has this happened to us? the kind of anger and disrespect that many people in the middle east had for the united states was still a mystery to us. so while we had increased our capacities, we never took it as seriously as we might have, that growing crisis. so even now 17 years later, i think we are still trying to figure out who our friends and enemies are in the middle east, and how do we keep the islamist challenge manageable. and as recent events in saudi arabia have shown, we are still struggling to find the right answer in that part of the world. it is a real challenge. way back inarter 1979.

kansas isversity of located on mount oriented, the highest elevation point in lawrence. has ad in 1865, it student body of just under 30,000, making it the largest university in kansas. it was here that we spoke with ranfessor geoffrey moor about his book on the scopes monkey trial. the scope trial is significant because in part it was the most famous trial of the 20th century, and the only major trial that was this famous that did not have a dead body. important because of the questions raised -- what the educational system was for. they raised the question of what do you do with religion in public schools, how do you

pass morality down to the next generation? and how do you interpret the bible? what role does it have in american public life. the scripts -- the scope trial is a good example of that. it took place in dayton, tennessee, a small town that is still pretty hard to reach. but what dayton had that a lot of other schools did not have at this time, that a lot of other towns did not have, was a small group of people who thought once the state legislature passed the butler law, basically it was illegal for any teacher in the public schools, publicly funded schools in tennessee, to teach any theory that man is this ended -- man is descendents from animals or contradicts the story of

creation in the bible. once legislature passed and the governor signed it, expressing the understanding that nobody would be foolish enough to enforce a law like this. it was really to prove that the legislature believed in the bible. the national civil liberties union at the time felt the butler law was a terrible law. it conflicted with freedom of speech, and also conflicted with the rights of teachers. that was one of the reasons why that union had been created, to defend the rights of teachers. and so they needed a test case, because they thought the only way to get rid of this is to take the law to the supreme court. now, some people may have argued and did argue, and we might argue, the best place to get rid of a law light that is to get tennessee to repeal the law, but the civil liberties union hung

its hat on the supreme court. it never actually got there. one of these problems with getting a case before the supreme court is you need a case. you run a test case and you have to find somebody willing to break the law. from local courts to appeals courts -- the thought they should get this casey taken all the way to the supreme court. and the only place where they found a willing defendant was this sleepy little village of dayton, tennessee. the civil liberties union came across john scopes as a possible defendant for the test case, kind of by accident. it was advertised throughout the south, especially in tennessee. boosters, theyal gathered in a drugstore in dayton and john scopes was a

science teacher and football coach, 26 years old. he thought that it was a bad law, too. so they asked, how would you feel about being a defendant? he said, sounds like a good idea. he was young, he did not have real ties to the area, so i was penalize for breaking the law, it was no big deal because he could move somewhere else. and he did move away from tennessee after the trial. but he was the perfect defendant and his friends asked him to be a defendant in order to create publicity for dayton. so that is how he got pulled in. held at the county courthouse in dayton, tennessee and it was a small little courthouse. attentionild gained -- trial gained attention immediately.

and the trial in particular craze, youtional could call it, because william jennings bryan, one of the most famous men in the country had a joint the prosecution and that brought forth clarence and arrow, -- darrow, a notorious agnostic, which the prosecution brought up repeatedly, to offer his services. and the union kind of spend the early part of the trial trying to get him off the team, but he stuck around and john's bookspos wanted darrow as his attorney. that is how it became a national cause. imagine the most well-known attorneys in the country deciding to fight over a controversial law in a court of law, so it got packed.

people came in droves. so they were kind of elbowing each other around. and for the day tony and, they also -- and for those in dayton, they also wanted to go to the trial. not much happens in rural towns. what do you do for entertainment? go to the courthouse and see what is going on. and they wanted to see these great orders. -- orators. it was a problem, because the temperatures were in the neighborhood of 100 degrees fahrenheit. it was sweltering in the courthouse. and eventually, the judge moved the trial outside because of the heat and he worried the courthouse floors could not hold the weight of all of these people. so for the rest of the trial after day 6, when we get into day 7, the rest of the trial takes place outdoors. and this made for a better color

for the cameras, and the trial was broadcast nationally on the first national radio hookup. it was wgn in chicago, and they broadcast the trial in chicago and points beyond. so everybody wanted to hear about this trial of the century, and they were able to. a lot of people described the trial as a circus. that seems about right. the prosecution and defense made noises about wanting to keep the trial focused on issues of law, but from the beginning with william jennings bryant coming down and darrow coming down, it was clear that this would be a circus. and that is what the town boosters wanted, they wanted the publicity. it is funny what happens to john

scopes. he never got to speak in court. end he got to very say, i believe it is a bad law. but day after day we never heard from him, he was stuck listening to the attorneys arguing back and forth and never got to say his piece. the trial lasted appropriately enough, if we go back to genesis, it lasted for seven days. essentially as long as it took to create the world forgot. and one of the great things about the trial, is on the seventh day of the trial william jennings bryant, the most famous religious man in the country, actually agreed to be cross-examined by the defense. and so clarence darrow had the opportunity to grill bryant for hours, outdoors under this

n.rciless, tennessee su again, 100 degrees. and he asked all the questions atheists had been putting to believers. where did cain get his wife? did jonah really get swallowed by the whale? was there really a worldwide deluge and noah was able to get all of the animals onto the ark? on theant fell back bible and said, i believe it as it is written in the bible. could god make the world stand still while joshua was holding up his hand? these are questions that are hard to answer if you look to a literal interposition of the bible, but on the seventh day of

the trial darrow was forcing briant to answer these questions. until the last part of the day, he got him to day, he gott that the seven days of creation might not have been seven days, 24 hours apiece, but each day might have been thousands of years or millions of years of peace. -- a piece. the defense took it to mean, in other words we cannot take the bible literally, so how could scopes have broken the law, what was the divine creation of man if we cannot talk about the bible as being a factly as it is written? the trial was paradoxically a loss and a victory for the defense. clarence darrow wanted to be able to appeal a loss in the scopes trial.

one thing about making appeals is you have to lose the case. so he went before the jury and said, i do not particularly care what you think. do but her up -- butter up the jury -- i do not care what you think, but we would like you to find the defendant guilty. i suspect you will find him guilty anyway. in fact, the jury agreed. it took them nine minutes to reach a guilty verdict for darrow. so that was a success and a failure. and so darrow was able to appeal the decision to the state supreme court. which made a very clever maneuver. the state supreme court agreed with darrow that scopes was not guilty, so he no longer had a

losing case to appeal, but the state supreme court also got an agreement from the state that it would no longer in force the -- enforce the butler law. so this was the most baffling legal wet blanket, one paper called it, that had ever been thrown on an appeal. so the union won the case and lost the case, but could not take the butler law beyond the tennessee state supreme court. that point that was the end. there were some attempts in other states to pass similar laws, but they petered out because no other states wanted to be ridiculed the way that tennessee had been. and eventually, there was not much call for this outside of

the south. islandislature in rhode responded to something like the butler law by referring it to the committee of gaming fish, for example. at thatevolution laws time did not get a lot of traction after the scopes trial ended on july 10, 1925. so the scopes trial -- it stopped laws from being passed, laws against evolution from being passed, because of the reticle it had brought upon -- radical it had brought upon the south. nevertheless, there is a movement that still exists in the u.s. it had run underground for much of the 20th century, but around 1960 or so it exploded into public view once again. and the united states, actually, a majority of the population

believes that the earth is actually about 10,000 years old. and slightly over the majority believes that god created humanity in more or less present form, as it is, and evolution did not play a role in this. which is a problem if you are a biology teacher, but it works well for certain religions and in certain interpretations of the bible. the scopes trial gave us an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and how much we are still enthralled with a much older way of thinking about, the bible and of public schools for .hat matter >> i think, historically, there have been misconceptions about their role of african-american fathers in the home or as part of the families. and i think that primarily there is a misconception that they are completely absent, or they are

useless, and women are dominant in thefamily sphere and household and men are simply present, if they are there. but i would say that by far it is the absence of fathers, that they are just not relevant to family life or the african-american community. so when you take a look at literature in the 1970's through the 1990's, on black families and prior to that, a lot of that work accepted the notion that black fathers were absent from the home. it was certainly true that increasingly african-american children were being raised in a one parent home, and that was typically by the mother, but that did not mean that the black men were absent. that is how i got to my work. out of the expertise i needed was, how do i ask this community

that i want to study? and i was fortunate enough to have somebody in social welfare i could talk through, talk through that challenge. and i knew that for the question i had, that the experience of african-american fathers, i needed to actually interview them. i could not interview mothers or children, because that was not my question. and so i set off to interview african-american fathers. and i ended up interviewing about 88 from texas, but also i took interview material wherever i went. and one of the things i learned quickly is that african-american men are open to having a conversation about themselves, but especially about being a father, because it was not a question they were being asked. they were not a population that they were being read about in the news, except in negative ways, that they were absent or deadbeat, the men i was

fortunate to meet told a different story. i mean, i think that there is probably nobody harder on african-american men and fathers than african american men i and fathers. it is difficult to say yes, i am a dad, but i am not enough often. or i do not make enough money to see them, and i think that is what i should be doing, so i do not see the metal. so -- see them at all. so, one of the hardest things fathers had to do, i learned, was to see their child and say goodbye. it was the hardest thing in the world for many of these fathers to do. if you think about this notion of father, or put that word aside and talk about dad, or daddy -- if you are describing

yourself as a daddy, then in some ways that means you have a closer relationship with your child, or at least you want to, than if you just conceive of yourself as a father. one of the most difficult things that they expressed was going to see their child and at the end of that visit, because oftentimes it was a visit. it may not have been court ordered, because a lot of them did not have these kinds of formal relationships, they had to say goodbye. and it is very difficult to not believe what they are saying ofn they describe that level emotion. of emotion. and sometimes it was really hard to go see their child, because they knew they would have to say goodbye.

how do you do that with a daddy? that is are supposed to live with their children, pay for their school clothes, they are supposed to be able to take them to school and protect them. they are supposed to be there at night to kiss them good night. and when a daddy cannot do that, then what does it mean to be a daddy? that is how i came to the title of my book. and some of them did not feel good about themselves. but they also believed others -- for those that were better fathers, others i should say, i'm not sure how to say that -- they believed that there were a lot of black men who were deadbeat fathers. and they were the exception to the stereotype. but for others they believed, yeah, that stereotype is describing me. the problem with the stereotype is it is an exaggeration and it does not describe everyone and it may not describe anyone at all. so even these fathers who

thought, this stereotype describes me, when you talk with them you see the other story is much more complex than a stereotype could ever offer. and even today, if you ask black families about black fathers, you would find that stereotype of a blackmail being absent or did beat, it is pervasive. pervasive among black communities, as well as outside. stereotypes about african-american men has not really changed over time, they are still negative. and so maybe the question of what what the future holds for i, youamilies, um, it -- know, i do not know. i think i've always thought about black families as being more than what we see on television. always thought about families as being more complex than a simple, nuclear family.

and so for me, but families will continue to be what black families are, the question is are we providing the support and resources to all families, regardless of form, so that they can be healthy. seen families in the black experience and other families that tend to be at the bottom and the most vulnerable anbeing like, as being example of where we all will be, if we do not do better by the most vulnerable. toouncer: our visit precedence is a book tv exclusive and we showed it today to introduce you to c-span cities tour. for eight years, we have traveled to u.s. cities bring in the book seem to our viewers. you can watch more of our visits at