so hilda hoover, who was? herbert hoover. his mother was a mean thorne and the mentors ended up raising herbert hoover in oregon so the hoover is the family. i mean, this is the thing about family. it's like there are a lot of descendants, but some of us have the bug, like some of us are just so interested in the legacy and the history and, the mentor and have it. and leslie has it. a few of us cousins have it. so yeah, it's wonderful to have george and cam here too. so at this one quick comment, i mean, it's like parallel i have is my grandmother grew up with herbert hoover here we can go the microphone to. yeah i was saying the slide parallel i have is i grew up with the hoover story too because my grandmother grew up with herbert hoover in newburgh and my great grandfather raised herbert hoover from age 11 to 18. and so that stigma was always, wow, you know, i have this close connection to a president, but it's herbert hoover. you know who was in the depression and, you know, in and what's interesting for me and i want to

but hoover demurred. how did fdr, in his 1932 campaign approach to economic matters if he didn't really have a plan from the early going, his his whole strategy was that the country was in complete shambles. the economy was in the tank. the republicans were responsible for. so he had his brains trust, which being sort of brain trust over the course of the campaign. and they were charged with coming up with policies and proposals, but there weren't a whole lot of detailed suggestions that he was making on the campaign trail. in fact, he got a lot of flak from journalists and from republicans for essentially just, you know, promising clouds. you know, he had nothing specific he was going to do just, you know, a good feeling vote for me, you know, i'll i'll make things better. but more broadly, his approach was, you know, try anything you can think of and see what works. and then pursue that, which is a whole different approach from hoover, who was very much, you know, very analytical, very sure of his own e

but hoover demurred. how did fdr, in his 1932 campaign approach to economic matters if he didn't really have a plan from the early going, his his whole strategy was that the country was in complete shambles. the economy was in the tank. the republicans were responsible for. so he had his brains trust, which being sort of brain trust over the course of the campaign. and they were charged with coming up with policies and proposals, but there weren't a whole lot of detailed suggestions that he was making on the campaign trail. in fact, he got a lot of flak from journalists and from republicans for essentially just, you know, promising clouds. you know, he had nothing specific he was going to do just, you know, a good feeling vote for me, you know, i'll i'll make things better. but more broadly, his approach was, you know, try anything you can think of and see what works. and then pursue that, which is a whole different approach from hoover, who was very much, you know, very analytical, very sure of his own e

this is hoover centric. there was another perspective on him, that i invite you to consider as i close. between 1929 and 1933, the supply of money in the united dates, contracted by nearly one third. a staggering, almost thundering decline. why did this happen? in their monumental monetary history of the united dates, published in 1963, anna schwartz, placed the blame squarely on the policies, passivity, and an aptitude of the federal reserve board. the legal guardian of the nation's monetary system. it is a complicated story. in the judgment of freedom, it was the failure that was remaining responsible for confirming what they call a garden-variety recession. this is into a major catastrophe. since 1963, freedom and indictment of the fed, has won considerable acceptance among the economists. reinforcement from the feds principal stories, if friedman, schwartz, and the fellow monitors, are substantially correct, what should we now say about herbert hoover? all of american history, no president has been more

>> hoover, i take hoover first. he had one guy, the governor of maryland whose name is escaping me at the moment. and france, he was a former governor, i believe, or senator from maryland and he thought that hoover was botching up the whole approach to the depression. so he sort of ran as an alternative candidate hoover faced really, he won a few states, got some votes in a few states. he ran in the maryland primary and that was the first one that hoover really paid attention to came in late and just, you know, steamrolled the guy, his intent being at that point to le embarrass france in his own state. so that, that would sort of knock him out of the running for the nomination. and after that, it was smooth sailing and even that wasn't, it was just a little pothole, it was nothing, not a serious challenge. hy >> was it that herbert hoover did not face a serious challenge in the primaries given the uacondition of the country at the time. >> well, we kind of saw that play out recently with the efforts to persuade pres

well, we're in the hoover building in downtown d.c. on pennsylvania avenue, pretty locked down building. who's allowed in here to see this fbi experience in museum? well, obviously, access to fbi headquarters, given the sensitivity of a lot of the information and matters that we deal with is very strong. the tour was originally made so that the public could actually come in and the sections of the building were physically, in many ways separated from the rest of fbi headquarters, post-9-11, when we had to shut it down, that changed. then when we rebuilt it as the experience, we decided to go on the model that the white house does and people are able to make reservations through their congressional representatives office to come and visit us. takes a little more pre thought and you can't just walk off the street anymore, but it does allow people to come in and get to know us and for us to show off a little bit. well, the fbi, of course, has been interest started in leveraging the latest scientific and technological changes for the inves

i usually talk about the way hoover used the investigation to try to destroy the public role, tried to basically damage the character. that is something we should never do. it takes us out of our role as protecting rights and liberties and we have put this into an adversarial role of our very old -- very own people. it has actually become part of the way we have to look at ourselves. we are given a lot of trust but we can also abuse it very badly if we don't pay attention to what we are doing. so often, hoover's case, personal prejudices and fears and hatred and abuse our authority. >> there is an fbi museum. is it open to the public? >> we don't call it a museum and we have kind of evolved up the fbi tour which i'm sure you know became the white house level, close enough but we do have the fbi experience which is an introduction to the public. you can make arrangements to come and visit us through your congressional representatives s office, to see what the fbi is about, to see what we do and to share some of our high points in history. a little bit of everything. we have exhibits ran

and i usually talk about the way hoover used the investigation of dr. king to try and destroy his public role, try to to basically damage his character. and and that is something that we we can never we should never do. it takes us out of our role as protecting rights and liberties, enforcing our laws, and puts us into an adversarial role against our very own people. and that's we can't do that. so it's really become part of the way we have to look at ourselves. we are given a lot of trust by, but we can also abuse it very badly if we don't pay attention to what we're doing and go off and hoover's case, because of combination of personal prejudices and fears and hatreds and abuse, our authority there is an fbi museum. is it open to the public? well, we don't call it a museum. and we've kind of evolved from the idea of the fbi tour, which as i'm sure you know, became one of the most popular in d.c., not quite the white house level, but close enough. but we do have the fbi experience, which is then introduced for the public. you can make arrangements to c

on the one hand, hoover took the bureau from an organization that was really mired in scandal in the day and very quickly made it into the premier law enforcement organization of the united states. they had a huge impact on american law enforcement, trying to professionalize it. trying to raise expectations and training and providing service through the lab and through its fingerprint identifications. he created an incredibly important organization for america which has been involved in every major historical incident in our country's history now since we were created. on the other hand, he also shows that we can make some very big mistakes and i usually talk about the way hoover used the investigation of dr. king to try to destroy his public role, try to basically damage his character and that is something that we can never, should never do. it takes us out of our role as protecting rights and liberties, enforcing our laws, and puts us into an adversarial role against her very own people and we can't do that. it's really become part of the way that we have to look at ourselves. we a

what does that mean when king criticized edgar hoover j edgar hoover then began this investigation, wiretapsking's home phone, his office phone, the phones of stanley levison, bayard rustin, clarence jones, all wiretapped, fbi listening, endless, you know, most of his conversations and at one point, hoover tells some reporters that king is the most dangerous man in america, that king is shocked by this and he doesn't know what to do. should he go to j edgar hoover and again, he doesn't really like conflict. he suggests that we just maybe he should go and have a session with him and try to talk things through, make peace and bayard rustin recommends the opposite. he says, let's build a cat. let's just go after it. let's make him an enemy. make him a foe. let's so knows where, where, where we're coming from and he knows what and we know what he's up to. let's, you know, let's let's attack. and king won't do it. king just, you know. go ahead. oh, no, no. i'm sorry. i didn't mean to cut you off, but i. but i have a bone to with the kennedys, not but robert f kennedy approved the tapping the why

- [hoover] how will officials prevent the chaos of 2020? and what does it take to restore trust in our elections? what do these election experts say w? - [announcer] "firing line" with margaret hoover is made possible in part by robert granieri, vanessa add henry cornell, the fairweather foundation, and by the following. corporate funding is provided by stephens inc. (audience applauding) - michigan secretary of state, jocelyn benson, maricopa county recorder, stephen richer, ben ginsberg. welcome back to "firing line." secretary benson, i have to ask you about what has happened today, because this is about the real consequences of people who are on the front lines of the election. the republican national committee and elon musk have seized on this idea that michigan currently has 500,000 more people on the voter rolls than its eligible voting age population. you and elon have been tweeting at each other today. you say that this is a misleading number. and so can you, please clear up what the controversy is about? and then i want to talk ab

and hoover. what a pleasure it is to be with everybody, but especially be in conversation with peter, somebody whom i admire tremendously and who i learn from every day. one of the great things about being part of the hoover institution. so i've colleagues like you, i've learned so in the area of political philosophy, if any of you haven't seen the work that peter your own our founding and, our principles and where he's the state department policy planning, it's a fantastic piece of work to our country but important communicate to the world what our what our nation is all about. so it's wonderful to be with you. well, you're very kind. thank you, h.r., but we've come here to talk about you and your book and it struck me that it would be before we. before we discuss the itself, ask you a general question, about the trajectory of your your remarkable career which includes, as i mentioned, uh, three and a half decades in the united states military. and as your book says, tour of duty in the white ho

so use the communications director for jay hoover at that time. when is assigned to the los angeles bureau and he was assigned to hollywood. dealing with the whole anti-communist movement that time. also organized crime, and some incredible stories here about him with nikki cohen and siegel and people like that printed and so it is quite an interesting book i think for my perspective but it is also basically, in the story, this is all in his words and my wife and i joanne, his english professor, we took all of his private journals we compiled open can compile the reduced to five and pages of his own story inn his own words yeta lot of photographs and some like that is really cool us that you can see that if you take my hat off, i put my glasses on, there's quite a a resemblance. >> let's see if we can get closer that 20s right the book about drupal is a tribute. >> twenty could call it a labor of love right. to put it a general audience get out of it. >> there's a lot of well it is a great story about motivational story, to minimize because cleon

that is one of the great things about being part of the hoover institution. i have learned so much in the area of political philosophy. the work that peter did on our founding and principles, it's a fantastic piece of work and important to our country, important to communicate to our world when our nation is all about. >> thank you. we have come here to talk about you and your book. before we discuss the book itself, a general question about the trajectory of your remarkable career. which includes as i mentioned, 3.5 decades in the united states military. and as your book says, a tour of duty in the white house. wondering if you could talk to us a bit about what launched you into public service. and what you learned from the different kinds of public service you have engaged in. >> thanks, peter. my west point classmates, many of them are here so they know the real story. i was often misunderstood and a victim of circumstance. but i always wanted to be in the army. my father served, he was a reserve officer, first sergeant of a local army reserve infantry uni

mcmaster is the senior fellow at the hoover institution. also institute for international studies at stanford. and a lecturer at the graduate school of business at stanford. he graduated in 1984 from the united states military academy. >> [ applause ] >> i will not ask undergraduates to raise their hands. but some will. thank you all for your service. he spent 34 years as a commissioned officer in the united states army. somehow, amid all that, he also earned a phd in history from the university of north carolina. i feel compelled to add he spent a year as a midcareer officer is a fellow at the hoover institution. he retired in june 2018 as a lieutenant general, having served as the 25th assistant to the president for national security affairs. he is the author of two bestsellers. in the meantime, only two, but for another week or two. those two bestsellers are, "first battlegrounds, the fight to defend the free world." and a book called, "dereliction of duty." in addition, he is an accomplished podcaster, he host a podcast called battlegro

told you edgar hoover. thank you, but i'm going to stay with it and who and so clinton says but before we leave have a tape recording here we have been secretly taping the meetings of the communist central party and your name comes up and i have this recording here. why don't you listen to it? i'll step out and i'll come back. and if you feel the same way. i'll take the tape recording. you never hear from us again. she listens to the recording. she comes outside swearing like a mule skinner and. she said, i can't believe these people are calling me money back and stooge and we're taking we can know how to take advantage of olivia de havilland. she said, i'll have nothing to do with them ever again. it's quite story. so it's stories like that. by the way, clients said, do not publish this story until after olivia de havilland dies. i'm not sure why, but in any case, she lived to be like 103. so. but fortunately she has passed away in the end. so the story is there. there's a chapter in here called my friends

but it became an obsession for j edgar hoover.of the reasons became obsessed with destroying king. itin came with the communism and can't dare to criticize the fbi. king said the fbi had a problem because i'd note black agents. no black fbi agent to the south. they're supposing to be helping to protect the civil rights marchersac proved the activist t how could they when they were all white and all were in bed basically with the white police and sheriffsut department to the southern towns theyy were working. >> and most were kkk members. >> many were kkk members. when they said this, j edgar hoover was famously sensitive how dirt this birkhead when she liked to call king, how dare he criticize me? that's exactly why the entire weight of the law enforcement bureau claimed on a white moral leader. whatsapp some of the strongmen that surrounded doctor king. tell me about the strong women who worked to their skin off the bones, don't let me get personal here. often times are subjugated to lesser rules. talk about that environment. >>

hoover's m.o., there would be a flurry of telegrams from hoover to the los angeles fbi office, please check out charlie chaplin. the l.a. office would do what he asked them to do. as time went on, it would be all quiet on the western front for nine months or a year, and hoover would start all over and the l.a. office would turn themselves into the charlie chaplin business. after world war ii, the l.a. office got a little foot draggy, because they had been here before. by 1946, 1947, the entire security apparatus of united states of america had at one time or another got into the charlie chaplin business, his mail was opened, his house was surveilled, his employees interviewed, his taxes, corporate and personal, gone over with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything they could get him on. and they didn't find anything. he paid more than his fair share. never had any flaming radicals to the house. or very few flaming radicals to the house. they have come up with nothing. the l.a. office dragged their heels because, here we go again, the l.a. office, and hoover would stop alicia l.a. off

edgar hoover. he was here on december 7th, 1941 when japan attacked pearl harbor so he was the communications director for j. edgar hoover at that time. then he was assigned to the los angeles bureau and assigned to hollywood dealing with the whole anti-communist movement at that period and organized crime. there's some incredible stories here about him with mickey cowan and bugsy segal and things like that. and it's quite an interesting book from my perspective. basically in the story, excuse me, this is all in his words. what we did, my wife and i, jo ann, who is an english professor, we took all of his private journals and we compiled and edited, reduced it to 500 pages, to tell his own story in his own words, and we got lots of photographs and stuff like that. and what's really cool, as you can see, if you take my hat off and i put my glasses on, there's quite a resemblance. >> let's see if we can get a little closer on that and we'll let that happen. why did you write a book about your uncle?

- [narrator] "firing line" with margaret hoover is made possible in part by robert granieri, vanessa and henry cornell, the fairweather foundation, and by the following. corporate funding is provided by stephens inc. - secretary condoleezza rice, welcome back to "firing line." - thank you, it's great to be back with you, margaret. - you are at the director of the hoover institution at stanford university, where i serve on the board of overseers and where the archive for "firing line" resides. so i'm internally grateful to welcome you back to this program. - well, it's a real pleasure to be back with you and it's such an honor to be able, at the hoover archive, to do things like keep these marvelous documents and marvelous tapes so that future generations can know about it. so we're just honored to be a part of that. - you wrote a recent essay for foreign affairs warning about the perils of isolationism. you say that we are in a moment that in some ways is more dangerous than the cold war. and i wonder why this moment prompted you to warn the american plic about the perils of isolatio

and then hoover would snap the leash. richard hood ran the office and was very good and well connected with the movie industry. his main source was settled be demille, one of hood's special informants within hollywood. and he had been quizzed about chaplin and the interesting thing about demille's comments about chaplin's he said chaplin is an artist, regarded as cheap, he is not part of the hollywood community, he is off by himself all the time. but he and chaplin were not friends, they did not go to parties together or anything like that, but demille had lent to chaplin his weekend getaway place, outside of l.a. on a couple of occasions. so they clearly knew each other and were friendly and demille did not tell hood this. interesting. but hood basically began paying less and less attention to charlie chaplin because there were all of these other authentic communists in california they could easily get goods on. chaplin essentially was not a communist, which at that point was the focus of hoover's investigation. peter: s

hoover, i'm delighted to have you here with us to discuss some these great problems you face. i'm very happy to be with you, mr. congressman. the fbi, as juries charged with investigating and sabotage and other subversive activities, and it's in this area of your work where you have come under such relentless attack by communists and their dupes and sympathizers. i'm interested to know how you react to that attack. well, congressman keating, the communists and their followers who are dedicated to fascism continue to live big lie. they may change their propaganda from time to time for expediency, but their goal always been and always will continue be the overthrow of the government of the united states by force and violence. i become accustomed to the. of the communists and the smears of the fellow. the fbi. constructive criticism. but i think we ought to always consider the source in which criticism comes. and many times it's a backhanded compliment. i can you that the fbi will continue be alert to the subversive activities in this country despite the copying of the profession

hoover pushed it. he had had retreats. were fbi agents would be bused off a government expense to hear from religious leaders and this sort of thing. it's in the 1950s, of course, that we had the words under god in the pledge allegiance or we had in god we trust to the money. i think this is understanding, annabelle, from the historical context. i don't think any of it is particularly laudable from a christian perspective, nor do i think most of it was harmful. to this day, we include the words under god in pledge we have in god we trust on our money. let me ask who is harmed by that? now, i know some people annoyed and some people have brought lawsuits saying this violates the establishment clause. but again, i want to continue and argue for this at great depth in a number of works. did america have a christian founding included? the establishment clause does not build a wall of separation between church and state? if it did maybe a god we trust should come off the money. what the establishment clause says is that we are

i might write in margaret hoover, i'm not sure. - please don't. (margaret laughs) seriously though, if you were in pennsylvania or a swing state where it mattered, would you feel sort of morally obligated to actually make a more difficult choice? - it's a very difficult choice for, not just for me, but for nearly everyone. it's not, you know, look, you know, the vice president, up until recently, was the least popular vice president in american history and was far less popular than joe biden. and i think it's an amazing turnaround that she's changed positions and changed her campaign and enthusiasm. and, you know, i'm not a supporter of donald trump, but i think it's just not a great choice for people to make. and i think the people of america are- - but some people have to make that choice. people in seven states are going to have to make that choice. - yes, that's very true. - but if you were in one of those states? - well, i don't like to deal in speculati. i'm not moving out of maryland. - that's true. even though you say you would have convic

hoover's m.o.regards to chaplin, there would be a flurry of telegrams to los angeles with the fbi office. please check out charlie chaplin . please check about this thing on charlie chaplin. in the l.a. office and basically do what they asked him to do. as time went on, it would be all quiet on the western front from nine months of the year. then huber would get a bug again and it would start all over. they would once again hurl themselves into the charlie chaplin business. after world war ii, the l.a. office got a little foot dragging because they've been here before. by 1946, 1947, basically the entire security apparatus of the entire united states of america -- his mail was opened, his house was searched. his taxes, both corporate and personal have been gone over the fine tooth comb. basically, anything they could get on him. and they couldn't find it. they never added any flaming radicals to the house, or very few radicals to the house. they basically come up with nothing. here we go again. the

i also wanted to get your guest's opinion on the j edgar hoover institution as a proponent or defend or of white christian nationalism. your book says we don't have to be afraid of white christian nationalism but when you look at this institution and how it has aided in the rise of christian nationalism across the country i wanted to know if you had an opinion on how this organization conducted itself in support of, quote, patriotism and white christian nationalism. i will listen. thank you. >> thank you. just had a chance to read the gospel of jr go over a month ago after the spoken gone to press or eye center to the printers anyway. it is fascinating and there are ways in which during the cold war especially american corporations and government entities understood us in excess to -- exit essential battle of the united states of america, the united states of america is facing godless communism so this included some folks who might not have had christianity's best interests at heart to emphasize the extent to which we are americans and part of what it means to be american is to be ch

so and the gospel j edgar hoover came out in february. mark david hall's book who's afraid of nationals and came out earlier this month and is taking your calls or about the next 15 minutes on the "washington journal" onnd the sunday mornin. this is jon and shiner, texas. republican good morning. >> good morning c-span. i appreciate the person with the conversation about this mate of crisis. i was watching joe scarborough this morning they had someone come i'm not going to mention their nameg basically maga peoe comparing trump to jesus. and the hysteria is beyond the pale. what this is really about and you mentioned earlier about ther government -- mike there are two sources of power. we believe in god and inalienable rights which is independence or the government. and i want the democrats and liberals are trying to do any form of other religion. if you go to china or any economy of nations you see pictures of their leaders here in the united states wehw have crosses on highways. control the power is for the government to remove, disrupt

by the time you get into the 1940s, hoover is very fast in kind of almost infatuated with countering intelligence issues, questions about alleged communist subversion and in american politics and culture. and he doesn't take much time to to dedicate bureau resources to organized crime. and this is one of the reasons why the there's kind of a bit of a grass roots ground swell for there to be some kind of action and action by the legislative branch because there's frustration that hoover has not spent enough time giving attention organized crime and understanding its operations and its connections and what could be done to to deal with it. so by the time senator stepped down from the committee in may 1951, did they make any recommendation in that report, in that interim report, they did. and so, as i mentioned, they're one of the first ones was to encourage greater enforcement at the local level. they encouraged the proliferation of those local crime commissions. and that did happen that i think of about 70 new crime commissions were created around the country afterwards when it came t

this year, just in 2024, we will add 30 hoover dams' worth of clean power to our electric grid. 30 hooverwill tell you what, she came with numbers. she came with numbers. this is something i'm afraid to ask. but if administrations change -- and when they do change -- does everything you've been working on go bye-bye too? is it like the energy in my electronic toothbrush, it just doesn't seem to make it, it can't stick around? >> the administration will change so it will depend on who is elected, right? >> michael: right. >> but let me just say this, the incentives that were embedded in biden-harris industrial strategy, i will just say, those incentives are working all across america, in every pocket. in red communities, in blue communities. honestly, 60% of the funding, all those factories i talked about in the clean energy space, there's been 900 factories, that includes wind and solar as well as batteries, et cetera. 900 factories. but 60 or even more percent of the investments have gone to red states and red districts. it would be political malpractice, really, to undo that when your c