for curtis lemay, jack's hawkish air force chief of staff, this means war. >> curtis lemay was readyhe missiles that he controlled. he was willing to see millions of people killed in a nuclear exchange. >> curtis lemay thought that president kennedy was a playboy, a party boy, weak, not tough. >> lemay and the other joint chiefs meet with the president at the whiteouse. jack covertly records their changes. >> we don't have any choice except rapid and current action. >> there's this extraordinary scene in which curtis lemay is so disrespectful of the president. >> i think a blockade and political cause would be considered by a lot of our friends. >> the united states of america and the soviet union stand on the brink of nuclear war, and the world has no idea. jack keeps a campaign date in the midwest, keen to portray an image of business as usual. but information from cuba forces him back to the white house blaming a cold. the press is suspicious. >> rumors, but there were other reasons besides the cold that brought the president back. the president returned to washington because of t

for curtis lemay, jack's hawkish air force chief of staff, this means war. >> curtis he may was readythat is he controlled. he was willing to see millions of people killed in a nuclear exchange. >> curtis lemay thought that president kennedy was a playboy, a party boy. weak, not tough. >> lemay and the other joint chiefs meet with the president at the white house. jack covertly records their exchanges. >> i emphasize that we don't have any choice except for direct military action. >> there is this extraordinary scene in which curtis lemay is so disrespectful of the president. >> i think that a blockade and political calm would be considered by a lot of our and neutrals to be a pretty weak response. in other words, you're in a pretty bad fix, mr. president. >> what did you say? >> you're in a pretty bad fix. >> well, you' in there with me. >> the united states of america and the soviet union stand on the brink of nuclear war and the world has no idea. jack keeps a campaign date in the midwest, keen to portray an image of business as usual. but information from cuba forces him back to t

. >> there is this extraordinary scene in which curtis lemay is so disrespectful of the president. >>tical calm would be considered by a lot of our -- >> the united states of america and the soviet union stand on the brink of nuclear war and the world has no idea. jack keeps a campaign date in the midwest, keen to portray an image of business as usual. but information from cuba forces him back to the white house, blaming a cold. the press is suspicious. >> rumors that there were other reasons besides the cold that brought the president back. >> the president returned to washington because of his cold. thank you very much. >> surveillance images confirm increasing military action in cuba, and the cia believes nuclear weapons are now ready for launch. >> within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites sites is now in preparation on the island of cuba. >> it is looking more and more like we're going to have to bomb and invade cuba. >> as the united states is propelled towards war, the kennedy brothers stand between the world a

october, 1962 and with his cabinet and the generals are in there and curtis lemay and he turns to the kennedys. bob and john kennedy. he says we are going to hit them and drop a nuclear bomb on havana and decimate cuba and the fallout will probably irradiate most of southern florida. they will shoot missiles at us and we'll shoot missiles at them and we'll win the war. and kennedy says and you have to go back in history. curtis was fire bombing like tokyo. and if we lost the war, he would have been tried as a war criminal. that is the kind of guy he was. so he is sitting there in the cabinet room and turns to kennedy and says 60 million people are going to die but we are going to win the war. and he laughs because he knows sister. kennedy closes his book and turns to his brother and they call this the human race. how much did they get wrong? he says to his brother, i'm going to tell my successor don't trust the generals, because you know what? whether they are generals, people, entrepreneurs, professors, we are putting our pants on the same way. and so we have to dial into our common

curtis lemay called a hunk of iron and sherman i adams, eisenhower's chief of staff derided concerns about a space race, a basketball game where people tried to put things up in space but nonetheless there was a lot of pressure on eisenhower to do something. he authorized the creation of what was then known as arpa, advanced research projects agency. this was the first space agency before the creation of nasa. there was arpa that later became darpa the consolidated all the space programs into one agency, that included winner von braun as well as the air force and navy programs. this agency was going to get the united states into space as quickly as possible but when darpa was formed it had a big mandate. the agency mandate said it is authorized to direct research and development projects being performed in as a part of defense as the secretary of defense may designate which is anything, eisenhower's and others said they would develop the, quote, unimagined weapons of the future and what happened was it set up in the first days of darpa a tension eisenhower created, this agency going

to put on their oxygen masks to escape the stench of burning flesh that was making them sent so curtis lemaywho was in charge of that? in his book it was the greatest man-made death in the history of the world. >>host: this is an absolutely fabulousoo

and it wasn't until curtis lemay took the 21st bomb group to japan -- >> in the pacific. with that we should open to questions. larry, you've got some instructions. >> i'll give the general and the professor a moment to take a sip of water and catch their breath. i just wanted to offer a few instructions. a couple of our money graduate students will be roaming the room with microphones. if you'd like to ask a question get their attention, they will pass the microphone to you. please hold your question until you have the microphone. would love it if you stood and introduced yourself when you ask the question. i'd like to note that we are -- we do have c-span here, who is taping the event for broadcast at a later date. so if you are camera shy, we do have a reception following the event we would love you to attend, everybody to attend and there will be an opportunity to ask questions more personally at that time. so with that please raise your hand. >> one final caution. please form your question in the form of a question. >> go for it. right over here. why don't you go ahe