david eisenhower is the grandson of president dwight eisenhower, and his father, john eisenhower, is a prominent military historian. david is the author of "the new york times" best seller "eisenhower at war," which was a finalist for the pulitzer prize in history in 1986. he currently serves as the director of the institute for public service at the annenberg public policy center at the university of pennsylvania, and he is a senior researcher fellow at the annenberg school for communication. david eisenhower has served on numerous not-for-profit boards and committees, including the advisory committee on presidential libraries. a graduate of amherst college, david eisenhower earned his law degree from the george washington university law school in 1976. our other special guest is david eisenhower's co-author, julie nixon eisenhower, who just happens to be david eisenhower's wife. she's also the second daughter of president richard nixon. julie is also a best-selling author, editor, and a recognized public speaker on such subjects as the presidency, women in polit politics, and life

as president eisenhower but as general eisenhower. why was that? >> he made it be known mea immediately that he would take his title general of the army and that's because -- although the presidency was a great honor, the highest honor that america can bestow on an individual and he honored the presidency, the defining time of his life, as dave said earlier, was world war ii. the bond that i think he felt with the men that he led. so when you would go to the eisenhower farm and look out over those beautiful green rolling hills, there on the putting green was a little five-star flag. he took -- his stationery had five stars in gold iea

eisenhower. his long career of noble service to our country is and should be a sense of inspiration to the american people. the commission was tasked with creating an appropriate permanent memorial to perpetrator wait his memory and his contributions to the united states. gsa has assisted the commission with issues related to the acquisition of office space, human resource support, financial and accounting services, legal and contracting support, and our role expanded as the commission's vision became clear. given our experience and expertise, the commission asked gsa to help select both a design firm and a construction contractor for the memorial. at the request of the commission, we used our proven design excellence process to select the design firm. this competitive and streamlined process seeks to select the most qualified designers to support federal design commissions. we seek to contract with the nation's most talented architects, landscape architects, and engineers to design projects with

but the size and location of eisenhower square which was attractive to us because it -- fit eisenhower in a particular and powerful personal way presented a wide range of design challenges. >> i'm running out of time. let me make these quick. does the process favor large established firms? >> i can't speak to the process. i don't know the history of gsa's experience with that. >> i am assuming that, that obviously an unknown designer could have been selected, but does that process that we use basically make that an unfair reality? >> i find that correct. yes, sir. >> i do want to say one other thing. we have repeatedly said on this panel that we are not experts in this area. unfortunately, eight of the 12 members of the committee, i do hope congress has some expertise in this area. other wise we are all screwed. do you have any other questions? mr. kildee, any other questions you have? let me conclude this by thanking all of you for being here. i appreciate the family for being here. i certainly hope as we go forward with this, that there will be a broad consensus of what is going forw

is miss susan eisenhower who will be representing the eisenhower family. miss eisenhower, if we can have you come up to the microphone. and then we'll have enough room for everyone else that happens to be there at the time. once again, any written testimony that you may have to present or wish to present will be included in the record as will be the letters that the ranking member mentioned earlier will be added without objection to the record. we appreciate it. the timing device in front of you for you and everyone else who will be speaking is obviously the green light signifies that we have it started. the yellow light signifies you have one minute left and the red is when the time is expired. we're ready to hear your oral comments. we hope you can limit them to the five minutes if possible. miss eisenhower, thank you very much for joining us. the time is yours. >> thank you very much, chairman bishop, ranking member grijalva, distinguished members of the committee. i'd like to first acknowledge my sister anne eisenhower who is with me here today. let me

and certainly in eisenhower's years, how did eisenhower feel about everything that had immediately preceded him and was he interested in dismantling? >> the moment is fair and he clearly came as a republican and the new deal and that campaign of a pamphlet the government publish in the 40s the top people have washed the dishes and he just thought this was the apex of silliness that the government entering people's lives. he believed in a natural goodness of the american people and thought the american people would be better off left to their own devices and not manipulated by pushy government. that said, he came to office leader of the party that had very much advocated dismantling the new deal and never lifted a finger to dismantle it. and so social security obviously not only survived but was expanded under the u.s. and our administration federal income taxes. we argue now in washington about whether it will revert to the pre-bush cut tax cuts and top tracks has had the whole tie yourself into knots about 4.5% higher. the top bracket was 91% and was in 1953 and was in 1961 when he left. s

was nixon devoted to eisenhower, and did eisenhower value nixon's service as subordinant? finally the general's come up with an assignment. it's been a year or so forth. he's writing in his diary and so forth. and when he returns to manila. literally his key would not fit in the lock. his successor has been appointed. eisenhower confides in his diary saying, i will not give the general the satisfaction knowing i'm being fired. what general macarthur is telling the war department is that this is the finest oftser i've encountered in the united states army and the moment war breaks out in europe he should be detailed to high command immediately. mcarthur is firing him and recommending him for high command. i think what that means is macarthur understood he did not have a staff officer on his hands. eisenhower, as much as he wanted to, he will never be a staff officer. so this thing generates into a series of misunderstandings. macarthur is driven to call eisenhower the best clerk i ever had. eisenhower is driven to call him the greatest instructor of dramatics i ever studied

eisenhower. at the end of 1950 he answered his country's call once more and once more he was on european soil to assume supreme command of the land, the sea, and the air forces of a grand, defensive alliance. against the new threat rising from the soviets who had once been his nation's ally he had to create the will to defend itself so that freedom so dearly bought would not be lost. for more than a year he labored diligently at his task of coalition. when he turned over the reins of command to general matthew ridgeway the structure of military unity among free nations on which rested the hope for continued peace was established. once again with the accomplishment of substantial victory behind him, this might well have been the end of his public career and in a sense it was. the closing chapter in the story of eisenhower the soldier. history is recording today the story of eisenhower the statesman. the stories may be separate but soldier and statesman they are the same man, dwight d. eisenhower,

he represented a specific outlook and eisenhower -- >> eisenhower had his own clash with mcarthur. same thing. you can draw an analogy. when you see pictures of douglas mcarthur and dwight eisenhower bent over a desk going over some document relating to the filipino first division in 1938, you were looking at the man who commanded u.s. forces in the pacific and the man who commanded u.s. forces in europe. right there. this is a colonel or a major and a general who is, in effect, retired. you had no idea that these people are the the figures that they are. and about then mcarthur began to get an idea working with eisenhower that he wasn't going to get along with him. my grandfather was sent on a trip to the united states in 1938 to try to equip the first division and returned to manila believing that he had served his boss well. i think this is, when we're talking eisenhower and nixon. people said, was nixon devoted to eisenhower as a subordinant and did nixon value as a subordinant. i ran off to the united states to do work, finally, you know, the general has come up with an assign

. >> julie, president eisenhower goes back to gettysburg not as president eisenhower but general eisenhower. why was that? >> he made it be known immediately he would take his title, general of the army, and because although the presidency was a great honor of the highest honor that america can bestow on an individual, and he honored the presidency, the defining time of his life as dave said earlier was world war ii, and the bond that he led. so when you would go up to the eisenhower farm and look out over the beautiful green rolling hill hills there was a little five star flag. it had five stars in gold. instead of the steel. >> what that gesture did and as early as 1961, in fact, his request to be restored puzzled president kennedy. it's consistent with everything happening. you have a generational shift. there's no doubt about it in 1961. richard nixon was younger than obama was in 2008. this was a generational shift, and the wartime generation is making way for a new group in america. and so what eisenhower is saying by restoration of rights is that to understand his presidency and why

we had eisenhower in the cabinet. we had eisenhower fixing a fence post, and we had talked about making reliefs -- stone reliefs. i was hoping they would get as good as the greek sculptures. so that's the dream. and then we had this grove with the tree for a quiet place for eisenhower. as we proceeded, we pulled in the tapestry quite a bit on each corner so that -- and you could see the education building from independence avenue so it wasn't blocked out. and instead of these being parallel to independence, they kind of created the territory. and they sort of create the space because these buildings are very different designs. i mean, i don't know. some people don't like them. but i think we're trying to create a terrain, and when bob came in with the abilene picture and said, we realize this is incredible fortuitous image to pick for this from a functional standpoint, because it allowed the most open space in the sky, so we could make it transparent, so the guys could look out and that it wasn't bombastic. it wasn't

as president eisenhower but as general eisenhower. why was that? >> he made it be known immediately that he would take his title general of the army and that's because -- although the presidency was a great honor, the highest honor that america can bestow on an individual and he honored the presidency, the defining time of his life, as dave said earlier, was world war ii. the bond that i think he felt with the men that he led. so when you would go to the eisenhower farm and look out over those beautiful green rolling hills, there on the putting green was a little five-star flag. he took -- his stationery had five stars in gold instead of the presidential seal which he could have done. >> actually what that gesture did, and it was early in 1961. in fact, his request to be restored the rank puzzled president kennedy. he is making a statement here and it is consistent with everything that was happening. you have a generational shift and there is no doubt about it. is that to understand his presidency, and why he was there and what he acc

though eisenhower belongs to all of us, he truly belongs to the eisenhower family. and their opposition must be onored. family have continued to serve our country. and we owe them respect, as much for that service, as we do for their heritage. i end with a paraphrase of the general's letter operation overlord was unsuccessful. our landings have failed. the troops, the air, and the navy, did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. if any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone. this is the character of the man we are attempting to honor. we must get this right. the current design is magnificent anti-heroism. please call for a new and open competition. >> thank you, mr. cook. our final testimony will be given my the past chairman of the neh. if you can pull the microphone right to you. and make it easier to hear. >> thank you very much, chairman bishop, ranking member, members of the committee thank you for asking me to testify today. i am a senior fellow at the hudson institute and on the board of advisers of the national civic arts society. b

>> right here. [ applause ] >> and rocco himself, he was eisenhower's chief of staff when eisenhower was president. at least he has a sense of washington and what's going on. i think mostly we've had good vibes from people, from the senators that we've met with. but the idea seems to resonate. i mean, we're not trying to jam something down people's throats. we're trying to make something that is lasting, that's in essence that represents this man's character. i think we're honing in on it. we're getting there, and that's a lot of pleasure in that. now we're just fitting in the rest of the pieces. we will tell those two stories. we will. we're not going to ignore them. >> but i think to me the strength is that it's -- there's nothing more beautiful than an empty room or an empty space. i would say the best architecture, forgive me, frank, is no architecture. [ laughter ] >> i knew you. >> it's just space, and i think that that's the beauty of this idea is that it's space. and in our cities and whatever, so much is needed and not another blockbuster building, you know, but just space.

you know, you can put eisenhower the general on one side and eisenhower the president. we tried it. i've got pictures of all this. when you do these things, the first thing you do is figure out the ten most obvious things to do, and then you do them and look at them and then reject them. but it's -- that's the normal process for guys like us. >> does that include -- you talked earlier about other memorials. is there a particular memorial that you think is good? >> lincoln. >> absolutely. lincoln, washington. >> and mia lin. >> oh, beautiful. that's great. >> she was my student, so i'm proud. >> she was a good one. >> is that the end of the slides? >> i don't know. that's the dure. so you can see where tomas got it. he was very clever to do that. there's the more intense part at the bottom, which is still transparent. you can still see through it. and this is the conundrum representative, the man as president ran -- >> here's the homecoming speech. >> yeah. >> so it's here. >> can you all read it? >> because no man is really a man who has left out of himself all of the boy. i wanted

he's very different from eisenhower. eisenhower was much older, different generation. eisenhower had been, you know, a five general in world war ii, born in the 19th century. kennedy much younger, by about three decades. and a different perspective, different level of energy, different political views, and so that pose a challenge. kennedy was different from eisenhower in some of his actions. eisenhower was generally -- i knew that would be a challenge. >> how do you address the? >> i want students and the general public to understand that he was slaughtered like anybody else. -- he was a lot like anybody else. unfortunately, did engage in the fairs throughout his presidency. and those did undermine some of his policies to a degree. but i don't want to give too much attention to it because that was his private life. but it's also something that shouldn't be ignored. but i did want to focus most of the book on what were his decisions and why did he make the decisions you make. >> what is one decision to talk about that you think was consequential to his presidency? >> w

it's sitting in the eisenhower library now. it never will be. it's well over 1,000 pages. >> and he let you have it. >> he let me have it. >> did you read the whole thing? >> i read the whole thing. and also i read all of schreiver's papers which were vast as well. >> on the same page there's a quote i wanted to ask you about this because you say he wrote this in his diary that night the night before, termite in the woodworks. >> yes, that was his term because he sensed the hostility and they got this briefing from the head of the nfc who told him now you were restricted to half an hour, you're not to refer to this letter from jackson to the president in order to pressuring him in to do anything you want him to do. schreiver realized this man was not in favor of the program. and his term for that was termites in the woodwork. he had wonderful phrases. >> how much of the diary did he keep? >> he kept -- his diary was very sporadic. he kept it -- it was a daily diary. but it was a working diary. he'd write down appointments and remarks. they tende

one reason that dwight eisenhower and lyndon johnson and richard nixon and john kennedy and dwight eisenhower and all of these people were able to collaborate in a way is because you had an undisputed majority party in the 1950s and 1960s. undisputed majority party and, therefore, there's an incentive for the minority party to find common ground and the majority was so unwielding that the leader of the majority party had to reach out in passing the civil rights act of 1964, i think he got three-quarters. the republican house supported the bill divided the democratic caucus 50/50. because of the unwieldy size of the national majority. i think the incentives right now in our national politics, we're going through a phase here where the incentives are not to reach across the aisle, but mobilize your own people. bring your own people to the polls. we don't have an answer for that except that i think the american people over the last number of elections have really not rendered a clear-cut decision in the way so many of our elections were decided back then. if you look at eisenhower in '52. this w

the eisenhower speech tells a very interesting story about the genesis of that idea. that's a speech that underwent about 40 drafts. this is one of the most intricate planned speeches by a president and one of the greatest. i think one of the first 13 or 14 drafts, and i saw these drafts in the eisenhower library reflect the disappointment that the eisenhower white house felt about losing the narrow election of 1960. and so it's sort of kind of criticism of the incoming administration or staking out positions that will give the republicans hope and keep them alive as an opposition force. soon he gets to the president and more or less says you can't do that. your job is to make your successor's job easier. not harder. so the effort becomes something else. people begin to take back and qualify this paragraph and that paragraph. then finally the entire focus of the eisenhower farewell shifts, no longer looking forward but now reflecting back on 50 years of service. the united states addressing the great riddle that faced the leadership of that time. and that is how can t

and -- you know, eisenhower, yes, he was a very reticent man. but he knew how to project an image and manipulate. similarly with washington, not an eloquent man. but he used his appearance. he played to his strength which was his figure, his form. the fact he looked good on horseback. he made sure to visit every state during his presidency. so he was getting himself out there using the means that he had available. so we don't want to make, i think, a -- a cult or a requirement for reticence. sometimes it is good. but the media is out there in a -- a good president, cunning president, has to understand that and has to figure out how he can use it. what his strengths are and put them to work. >> steve? >> i agree -- i don't disagree with any of that analysis. what i didn't say or maybe in light is -- i think a really clever president would be well served to try to acquire a greater degree of self restraint because i think almost all modern presidents reached the point of diminishing returns. that's the part they don't appreciate. you are right rig

at 8:00 p.m., frank garro the eisenhower memorial.

dwight eisenhower. a lot of his political analysts thought he should take advantage of this new medium, tv. it's notable that his public approval rating never dropped below 50%. people have chalked it up to his being a war hero. i wonder if his reticence about not over exposing himself to the public is not part of his story. often when his advisors would try to persuade him to go on tv or make a high profile speech, eisenhower would say, quote, i keep telling you fellows i don't like to do this sort of thing. i can think of nothing more boring for the american public to sit in their living rooms looking at my face on their television screens. i don't think the people want to listen to a roosevelt or the partisan yipping of a trueman. another occasion he pushed back by saying, what is it that needs to be said? i'm not going to go out there just to listen to my tongue clatter. then finally on one occasion when he did yield he did say, all right, but i'm not going to talk more than 20 minutes. the author a

chris: and turns out the former president who helped the others the most, president eisenhower. listen to him talking to jack kennedy. >> what about the soviet union, khrushchev announces tomorrow that if we attack cuba it will be nuclear war and what's your judgment as to the chances they'll fire these things off if we invade cuba? >> i don't believe so. chris: what a conversation. you and i grew up with this. chance going to nuclear war and getting advice from the guy who accepted the nazi surrender in world war ii. >> only a week earlier, kennedy blasted eisenhower and his legacy in a campaign election speech and it infuriated eisenhower and he came back and blasted kennedy on foreign policy. yet when the crisis broke, kennedy used the c.i.a. director. and they were suspicious and political ruse. chris: he taped the conversation. >> the advice was bad advice. chris: and khrushchev's memoirs as we now know, if he hit new york, was going to hit new york. >> when you are president of the united states and you don't fully trust your advisers, you trust someone who sat in that cha

good follow-up to eisenhower. it was a challenge. he is very different. eisenhower was older older, different generation five-star general world war ii, kennedy was much and your common three decades different perspective, level of energy, political views. with some of the actions, eisenhower was faithful to his wife but kennedy had not. that was a challenge. >>host: how did you? >> he was flawed like anybody else but he did in engage in a paris the did undermine the some of his policies to a degree but not too much attention to it because that was his private life. but also not to be ignored. but what were his decisions. >>host: what is one decision you think was consequential? >> one of my criticisms leading to a new policy, talking about civil-rights as if he would be the representative who are black america. but he did not do much. he you was a bystander. he made that commitment but then did not. but that does change 1963 when he witnessed through papers and television the birmingham riots, protest riots, protest, the fire hoses, the dogs disrupting t

i saw the drafts in the eisenhower library reflect the disappointment that the eisenhower white house felt about losing the narrow election in 1960. and so it's sort of kind of criticism of the incoming administration or staking out positions that will give the republicans hope and keep them alive as an opposition force. soon he gets to the president and more or less says you can't do that. your job is to make your successor's job easier. not harder. so the effort becomes something else. they become something to take back and qualify the. then finally the entire focus of the farewell shifts to no longer looking forward but now reflecting back on 50 years of service. the united states addressing the riddle that they faced the leadership of that time. that su how can we develop as rapidly economically as we have? how can we reconcile this matchless technological progress that we have made with the horrors of the 20th century? with the depression, with world war i, with world war ii. is there something in contemporary life that places our processes beyond our control? are we losing the a

>> he's very different from eisenhower. eisenhower was much older, different generation.eisenhower had been a five star general in world war ii, born in the 19th century. kennedy much younger by about three decades. and ivy league different perspective, different level of inches, different political views. and so that pose a challenge. and kennedy was different from eisenhower in some of his actions. eisenhower was generally faithful to his wife. i think of a challenge and try to address it in the book spent how did you address a? >> i want the students and the general public to understand he was flawed like everybody else. he unfortunately did engage in the affairs throughout his presidency. and those did undermine some of his policies to a degree. but i don't want to give too much attention to it because that was his private life. but it's also something that shouldn't be an award, but i did want to focus most of the book on what were his decisions, why did he make decisions he made. >> what was one decision he made that you think is consequential to his presidency? >>

eisenhower did not think jfk was ready to be president.ig, who did he call. >> the first time kennedy goes to camp david to be taken to the wood shed by ike who basically said everything i warned you would hoappen has happened and let's go back to running the white house like i did and dozendy changdoze kennedy changed the way he organized the white house. and so you had the senior mantling the new guy how to do things. >> and one of the other surprising things we learned is howng the new guy how to do things. >> and one of the other surprising things we learned is how lbj reached out to eisenhower after the assassination. >> the very nice of kennedy and he murder that he called eisenhower and said i need you more than ever now. and eisenhower got in his car the next day, drove to washington, came to see johnson at the white house, and literally sat down and wrote out in longhand what he thought johnson needed to say to a joint session of congress, say to calm the nation, help will the country move forward after this terrible trauma. again

and in 1952, eisenhower wanted some help from hollywood. or should i say the gop got isenhour.pays the media strategy montgomery and murphy. eisenhower liked the two of them so much that he basically told his madison avenue firm that had been hired to do the tv, you can keep her in the, of the potion he had to appear on tv. afterwards i than asked both men to come to washington with them. murphy kindly deferred and montgomery still kept his career, but he actually had an office in washington to help eisenhower for eight years was sorted media appearances and helping them stages presents because remember, this is a period when tv is just really emerging as a national phenomenon politicians don't want to deal with television. they're teaching things like how to use makeup, what color that is to use, how to face the camera, how to use soundbites and hold your body, everything that is biscuit actor with her attack to eisenhower. >> some people are critical of celebrities for mixing their celebrity with politics and believe the world should be separate. that you are viewing your vie

designed eisenhower memorial. at 10:30 p.m., an archival film about president eisenhower produced by the u.s. army. >>> good evening, and welcome to the 2012 c-span tour, central arkansas, kickoff event. how are you doing this evening, central arkansas? >> with the help of our comcast cable partners we bring you little rock weekend on american history tv. spending a week in both the capital city and its sister city of north little rock just across the arkansas river, our team of local content vehicles producers visited historic sites, museums and other archives to talk with ex-per pe ex-pert experts on the history of the area. the nation watched the story of the historic integration of little rock's central high school unfold, on the other side of the river at north little rock high the fight was as fierce but the outcome much dig different. >> as we walked, the crowd got more intensified. they kept on telling us and calling the same thing over and over and over and over, you're not supposed to be here, go home, g

general eisenhower then chief of staff visited his former boss during a negotiations. this was the first time marshall officially functioned as a diplomat, but the role was not unfamiliar. although the army had been his profession, his interest had been his career. marshall received the oath of office as secretary of state from chief justice vincent early in 1947. the president enthusiastically endorsed the former chief of staff at a critical time in history. it was fairly said that mr. truman selected him, not because of his experience, but because he was marshall. >> there is nothing that i can say at this time regarding matters that per tan tain to my position in the state department. but i assume the do theiuties w great feeling of responsibility and ape very earnest desire to carry out the foreign policy of this government in the manner that has been so splendidly exemplified by my predecessor, mr. burns. my old friend. >> the new secretary brought imagination and a dignified intensity to his job which was equal to the world challenge. in march, 1947, marshall hea

it's a new biography called "eisenhower in war and peace." it covers his life, and what i come away with from that is a much higher regard for president eisenhower than sort of the conventional wisdom in the academic community. you may see from time to time, they will list presidents and the historians will rank order them in terms of who was the best and so forth. i would have to say those rankings bear almost no resemblance at all to my experience in terms of how i look on those individuals, but the chief of staff's job, it's very different from being the vice president. it's focused very much on what the president needs to have done. he needs someone around him to be there from very early in the morning and late at night to do what needs to be done, speak with authority to the president, never abuse it and never mistake his own position as chief of staff for what the president's doing. you only have one president. he's the guy who runs for office. he puts your name on the ballot. you're totally expendable as chief of staff, and it's very,

after that, president eisenhower's granddaughter susan eisenhower talks about her opposition to the memorial design. that's followed later by an archival film produced by the u.s. army. >> c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first weekend of each month. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas, with book tv at the collection at the university of arkansas. >> the high school collected photographs and he was particularly, again, interested in the 19th century, the civil war in particular, these are two friends, union and confederate who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other at the battle of p. ridge. survived the war, came out alive and remained friends after the war and here they are at age 100 sitting on the porch talking about the old days. >> american history tv looked at the life in a world war ii japanese internment camp. >> a lady here wrote a wonderful book called the art of

architect gang fehry on his design of the eisenhower memorial then susan eisenhower expressing her opposition to that design. at 10:30 p.m., an archival film about president eisenhower produced by the u.s. army. >>> between 1861 and 1868, clara barton, known as the angel of the battlefield and founder of the american red cross lived in this washington, d.c. building. she employed 12 clerks on the third floor in her missing soldiers office where they received over 60,000 letters from families searching for lost sons and husbands. in 1996 richard lyons, a carpenter for the general services administration, was helping to prepare the building for demolition when he discovered this office sign in the attic. american history tv visited the building on seventh street to learn about the missing soldier's office and to hear the story of richard lyons, who worked alone for months to save the building from demolition. >> this is the original staircase that clara used that has never been renovated or changed at all. just a few repairs done it. so when you walk up the staircase and put your hand on the ba

tonight the life of president dwight eisenhower. you'll hear from the architect of the memorial honoring the nation's 34th president, and from eisenhower's granddaughter. then an archival film about general eisenhower, made by the u.s. army. >> when we're warned in the next 12 to 18 months america will suffer a catastrophic cyberattack, they don't choose those words indiscriminately. we're already four or five months into that warning period, it tells me we have to move rapidly, but not in a way that either violates privacy or the basic tenets of privacy, and that encourages quick reaction, not sort of regulatory environment. >> tonight the chairman of the house subcommittee on communications and technology. congressman greg walden on cybersecurity and privacy at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span 2. >>> the u.s. house passed its 2013 budget last week, written by republicans and passed without a democratic vote. the republican plan for international spending is a 7% cut in current funding, and would consolidate usaid's deve

and eisenhower proposed to cover lies between those two extremes. [laughter] so that's my view on eisenhower. >> very good. >> i wrote this book really because obama was a man who blazed across the national scene in the 2004. i had heard of him before 2004 because my son was a student at the university of chicago and he called me up once, night, after a speech in 2002 when obama was still a state senator, and he said there was this guy who sounds just like a psychoanalyst, and he talks about putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing things from their point of view, and he said i don't know his name but he was pretty cool. well, in 2004 he gave a speech, which everybody knows, which is when he talked about, that he doesn't see red states and blue states, he sees the united states, he sees one country. and it really struck a chord with a lot of people who have been dealing one way or another, george bush, feeling very bad about elections and the supreme court, and it was a lot of division in this country. and so people really rallied to him

eisenhower and nixon had a strained relationship. they didn't really know each other before nixon was picked. it was never a close relationship. a lot of that had to do with nixon's own background. he was a supreme ally and commander in europe, throughout world war ii. he ran a military style operation. and there really isn't any place in that, you can have a deputy commander. you can have a chief of staff who runs things on behalf of supreme allied commander. his whole style of operation was very much to delegate a lot of authority down, especially to the cabinet. in other cases president bush would spend a lot of time thinking about it. and when he asked him to help him find somebody i had the opportunity over several months to hear him talk about what kind of individual he was looking for. and what he really wanted was somebody who could be part of the team. and heavily involved in policymaking. that's, in effect, what he offered me what he said to me after we finished the search, he turned and said, dick, you're the solution to m

to the eisenhower memorial. at 10:30 p.m. an archival film about president eisenhower produced by the u.s. army. lectures in history airs each saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern. and sundays at 1:00 p.m. we feature classroom lectures from across the country on different topics and eras of american history. to keep up with american history tv during the week or send us questions and comments follow us on twitter. we're at twitter.com/cspanhistory. >> in may of 2011, historian richard norton smith led a 10-day bus tour from asheville, north carolina to austin, texas, the group stopped at several presidential and historic sites along the route. one of the stops was the andrew johnson homestead in greenville, tennessee. a site owned and operated by the national park service. johnson served as vice president under president lincoln. and succeeded him when lincoln was assassinated. here's park guide daniel luther portraying president johnson and telling the story how andrew johnson met abraham lincoln. >> in 1

i just finished a book on dwight eisenhower, a new biography called "eisenhower: war and peace." it covers his life. what i come away with is a much higher regard for president eisenhower then the sort of conventional wisdom that the academic community may see. from time to time, they will list presidents and the historians will rank them in terms of who was the best and so forth. i would have to say that those rankings, there is almost no resemblance at all to my experience in terms of how i look at those individuals. the chief of staff's job, it is very different from being vice president. it is focused very much on what the president needs to have done. he needs to have somebody around him who is going to be there from early in the morning until late at night and do whatever he needs to have done and you can speak with the authority of the president, never to use it, -- never a abuse it, never mistake his own position as chief of staff for what the president is doing. you only have one president. he is the guy that runs for office and put his name on the ballot. you're totally

dwight eisenhower was only in the 60 campaign, but ike was no fan of jfk.n kennedy won, eisenhower was so concerned that the young president was in over his head, they melt on mul multiple-i have needed you for a long time, but i needed you more than ever now. eisenhower replied any time you need me, mr. president, aisle be there. lbj showed nixon where he

what did eisenhower do he ended the war with korea he paid down the budget deficit but how. well he had a ninety one percent tax rate on billionaires and today's dollars billionaires have a thirty five percent tax rate and corporations and corporations actually paid over thirty percent of all the revenue for the operated better government now it's about eleven percent he borrowed and spent billions on infrastructure he built an interstate highway system schools and hospitals across this nation that investment generated so many good jobs and so much growth so many people making a good wage that the tax revenues flowing into our government pay down the debt so where are the real conservatives who want to conserve what works today republican olympia snowe she's decided not to run for reelection chuck hagel similarly decided to leave the son senator jim jeffords arlen specter left the republican party and the standard bearer of the radical republicans george w. bush nearly destroyed the entire world's economic system with his radical deregulation agenda that turned the banks tou