was eisenhower for it in the beginning? michael: eisenhower is a very politic character.the time, he didn't express himself. he later made it abundantly clear he was totally in agreement with marshall, as was the entire u.s. foreign-policy elite. they regarded truman's recognition of israel and support for israel is one of the greatest strategic blunders in american history. brian: somebody listening to this, what impact happened back then has had on our relationship today with the middle east? michael: on many different levels, this is the moment when the united states takes over the region. we ousted the british and french basically. helped nasser. this was the moment when we take over the region and become the dominant power in the region. as a result of that dynamic, eisenhower changes his understanding completely of what is happening in the region. the theory of his actions, both in the earlier when he first came in and helped oust the british and helped nasser in the suez crisis, the theory was he was creating a space where the arabs and united states could cooperat

nd generally, eisenhower, the historians who likes eisenhower, every historian who writes about him.e he's a very likable hour and see him in his finest hour and way it's remembered. came across the evidence regretted what he d i found it interesting. people didn't pay attention to it, partly because steven ambrose, just after nixon died, it up e that nixon made it was steven ambrose made it up. a lot of archival indeed, that suggested, eisenhower really regretted. great passage in the inutes of the meeting of 1958 where dulles is being told by the cia and state department, what theytill believe is ys believe, that nasser the way of the future and arguments again nd kind of loses it and says nasser is frankenstein's monster. every success he's had is it. se he's taken dulles couldn't say he was a really f israel and he antizionist trongly feelings and i would go so far antisemitic are attitudes. >> this is a sidebar question. this g as i've been in town, forever, there has been a monument to john foster dulles, state, er secretary of called the dulles international airport. dwight no

dwight eisenhower did it. i ache and trusted aides clandestine in the operation designed to wrap the scandal around the neck of a prestigious united states senator in the president's own party. that is about as big of political stuff that ever happens. a word about the lovers of scandal. in 1950 was a horrendously homophobic period. just the rumor, not the fact that someone was gay could cost them their job and was widely believed that they were a security risk because people thought communists could blackmail them. let's consider for a moment the traditional exploration for joe mccarthy's political demise. mccarthy and alcoholic did himself in. he was damaged by the legendary c. it's now on television program. during the hearings they showed him as a lying demagogue that he was ending his conviction will version it was the vote by the united states senate. those are all legitimate factors, but until now, we have not known that dwight eisenhower masterminded a c. or a campaign to discredit mccarthy. we have wr

there is no eisenhower warned policy -- eisenhower foreign-policy bump in the polls. allen dulles has been able to come up with a cold war strategy using the cia and -- i and covert ways and pushing things on the home front like the eisenhower interstate highway system. the point being that it is not just the president as an isolated person we are ranking, we are looking at the whole administration and how they did. one of the cree -- key criterion that you surround yourself with great people. in my mind, franklin roosevelt did that with -- more than anybody. frances perkins and this group of new dealers that he surrounded himself with. it was a dream team to get america through the depression. during world war ii it wasn't just about the cabinet but fdr had to pick amro king and douglas macarthur and the george marshall and general patton to lead us through those dark days. a good leader picks great people. host: it must be tough to pick people that are not just yes men but also will give you a good argument back. that must be a hard thing for a president to do. it i

that exhibit at the eisenhower library is called, simply, the other america. display on thee 1950's, all of the new inventions and cultural joys of the 1950's. in the next room, there is a large panel titled the other america, which begins with a -- something like, not all american shared in the boom times. it talks about three or four specific communities that really struggled during his presidency. i want to talk next about two into differents presidential libraries, which i think contribute to this sense participation. the first one is in the george bush -- first george bush library, and it is called the goal for theater. far, the only example, so in the presidential libraries what people call an immersive exhibit. the visitor walks into the one of thesen crates that you see in the foreground of the graph -- foreground of the photograph, and mrs. dash listens to the voices of soldiers who fought in .he war being played sort of like a collage of these voices talking about their experiences. when you cannot see in the photograph is that the lights shift while

he had been eisenhower's vice president, and hence even eisenhower and truman make the vast claims ofxecutive privilege. he thought he would be up to safeguard his tapes and papers forever, nobody else would ever hear about them. the bad part about the tapes is that they are ramblings. they are spewing's. and talking off the top of the nixon talking of the top of the head. they don't show any of the nice things about nixon. anytime anyone tries to say he was a decent president, he did things for the environment, presented a health care plan, one of these tapes is going to drop them back down on the list of presidents. is very revealing. it is fantastic for a historian. we have two or three presidencies in a row where we have kennedy, johnson, and nixon caught on tape talking to their aides. we never had anything like this. but they will forever be a hinge or the rehabilitation of richard nixon. brian: how long did you work on this book? john: six years from start to publication. brian: why do you do it? john: because i had a very smart editor at doubleday who looked five years into th

and that exhibit the eisenhower library is called simply "the other america." so, there is a largest lay on the 1950's, and all of the new joys ofns and cultural the 1950's. but in the next room, there is this large panel titled "the other america." which begins with the sentence that is something like -- not all americans shared in the boom times. it talks about three or four specific communities that really struggled during his presidency. i want to talk next about two in two live experiences different presidential libraries, which i think contribute to this sense of civic participation. in the first is george bush library, and it is theater." gulf war and it is the only examples of four in the presidential libraries of an immersive exhibit. walks into this space, sits on one of these crates that you see in the foreground of the photograph, and listens to the voices of soldiers who fought in the war, being played very short snippets, sort of like a collage of these voices, talking about their food experiences. and what you cannot see in the photograph is that

was talking with eisenhower before they went to the inauguration, eisenhower only raised one issue with the incoming president. and that was laos. he said the key to southeast asia was laos. in earlyhen meets 1961, my dad was involved in all this, to figure out what to do about laos. the joint chiefs say we cannot go into laos. there were two u.s. divisions. and there, nooads airports. you cannot supply two u.s. divisions three meals a day and weapons. kennedy said we cannot go in, we have to cut a deal. we have to cut a deal, neutralize laos. the north vietnamese do not honor. they start moving into laos to do their infiltration into the south. and we need a counter to the north vietnamese communist presence in laos. what do we do? we ask a general to recruit the hmong. in 1975, actually we only took start to, they did not leave until 1978. but because of that connection we have several hundred thousand hmongh inm the united states, many here in minnesota. ong you are talking about march of 1960 7, 19 68, johnson's abdication, that 31, he hasing march gone to mass with his son and daug

our 2012 interview with evan looks at the tactics and dent eisenhower used also corda, discussing military and political career. also, simon win chester talks bout an experience from eisenhower's young adult life that led him to propose the interstate highway system as president. you can find those interviews online at c-span.org. >> all month, we're featuring student cam in c-span's documentary. year, students told us the most urgent issue for the new president and congress. prize high school winner is a 12th grader from royal oaks, michigan. mary is a student at royal oak high school. he believes criminal yesterday and mandatory minimum sentencing is an urgent issue in her "incarceration nation." take a look. >> we have the highest in the world.rate and above russia and cuba kazakhstan, and our prison ballooned seven fold over the past 30, 40 years only gonepulation has up 30%. why is that? an ex-offender. incarcerated.ears >> i spent 10 years for stealing a pair of tennis shoes. fraud is what they called it. >> it's kind of like a haul. go back to ant to prison again in my life. time ve

in the 50's he was treated rather badly by eisenhower. he was always worried. his rise was so quick. he went from nobody to a vice presidency in six years and he was overwhelmed by and run into this huge battle between eisenhower and joe mccarthy. it is not a surprise is that he took to self-medicating himself or going to the doctors when he had the symptoms of tension and being prescribed these medicines. on the other hand, if you are remembering the famous jacqueline suzanne novel "valley of the dolls," this is what americans did. they popped a lot of pills and they drank a lot. all the presidents before nixon were proud of their ability to drink or makes a cocktail. drinking as the use of tranquilizers and sleeping pills is much more, as, now as the anti-anxiety drug are today. brian: at what point in the process it did you write all the source notes? john: i keep making the same mistake that i don't write them as i am writing the book, and i have to go back finally i didn't get the exact date right and have to go back and do it again. each time i get a litt

he criticized eisenhower for being asleep at the wheel.e said invading cuba, that sounds like a bold plan. it was a fiasco. it was a disaster. anyone looking at plans could have predicted it. kennedy learned from that mistake. he ratcheted back his activism. he became significantly more restraint. he became much more wary of pre-existing plans. >> a had such a disaster in his first year with the bay of pigs that he decided in the midst of the cuban missile crisis, i need >> he had such a disaster in his first year with the bay of pigs that he decided in the midst of the cuban missile crisis, i need to make a record of this. i need to have what i said to my advisors. he reported himself in his telephone conversations and meetings. the secret kind close doors -- behind closed doors meetings he had in the midst of the cuban missile crisis, you get here. one of my favorites is a phone conversation he had with former president eisenhower. he calls him in the midst of the cuban missile crisis to say, what should i do? am i doing the right thing?

he had been eisenhower's vice president, and he had seen eisenhower and truman make the vast claims ofxecutive privilege. able toht he would be safeguard his tapes and papers forever. nobody else would ever hear about them. the bad part about [please stand by] they are spewings. they are next in talking off the top of his head. anytime someone tries to write something off of him, saying he was a decent president he did , things for the environment, presented a health care plan, he created the environmental protection agency. then somebody is going to pull one of these tapes, and it will drop him back down on the list of presidents. it is fantastic for a historian. we have two or three presidencies in a row where we have kennedy, johnson, and nixon caught on tape talking to their aides. we never had anything like this. can you imagine if you had washington, hamilton and jefferson talking on tape in the cabinet? that they will forever be a hindrance to the the rehabilitation of richard nixon. brian: how long did you work on this book? john: six years from start to publication. brian: why

it was thought up by the eisenhower administration. it was dumped on the kennedy administration because kennedy was a lieutenant during world war ii and eisenhower was a five-star general. eisenhower said this was a good plan and kennedy did not put a lot of thought into it. that is the nicest thing we can say about kennedy. the cubans in miami don't have nice things to say about kennedy when it comes to the bay of pigs. many of them to this day refuse to vote for a democrat because of what kennedy did many -- years ago. 50 every one of their statements usually has four letter words that i won't say because c-span is covering this. they are not fans. the most charitable thing we can say is, kennedy did not know what he was getting himself into. the bay of pigs operation was a failure, as we know. it is not oust castro. many of the members of the brigade were rounded up and captured. in many respects, according to che guevara, the bay of pigs helps castro to consolidate his power inside cuba. prior to the bay of pigs, people could speak

republicans." >> eisenhower republicans -- james eisenhower. >> is that why you're a democrat?laughter ] >> what you see is that over the last two or three weeks, as this poll was probably conducted, trump has come more to the centrist, traditional republican -- foreign policy, healthcare's complicated. there's just a lot of change from that rhetorical bombast and outrageousness. we've seen less tweets, so that may be alluring to chester county republicans. >> the press likes the 100-day benchmark. people this weekend are hearing about it over and over again. is it a fair benchmark? >> no. >> it's three months. >> i don't think it's really difficult to sort of say, whether it's 100 days or 120 days, but i think people believe that you have a lot of political capital the first couple months that you're in. this is the opportunity for you to really bring big ideas to the fore and be able to get some action on those ideas. and unfortunately, i think this administration has started slow. we continue to hear about all the positions that haven't been filled, and so i don't think that

eisenhower did not go into vietnam. of history was profound. he wrote three good books about american history. harry truman never went to college at probably read as much history as anybody we've ever had in the white house. he loved it. truman had a great life of the leading new this world was the history you have not read yet. he understood the lessons. david: the other thing he said that's important is to try to never forget who i was, where i came from, and where i would go back to. he never wanted to go to his head. that's an important quality. -- one of my most favorite scenes was when he was about to appoint george marshall secretary of state. one of his young white house staff people, clark clifford, said mr. president, you might want to think twice about that. in appointing general marshall. truman said why is that? because if you appoint him secretary of state, in about two or three months people will service saying general marshall with a better president than you are. he said general marshall would make a better president than i am,

eisenhower was a republican. he wanted to build the interstate highways and decide and saidahn in germany if we had these in large cities we have to have the same system. you are not going to get it by cutting from the poor and meals on wheels and stuff. toward veryt's go independent. morning.ood thank you for c-span. i am glad you have the topic on it. i want to say that gentleman from pennsylvania was absolutely right. the economy is going to be terrible as long as we keep giving tax cuts to the people on top. they are the ones who have the money and the businesses that profits from our taxes paying for schools and roads so they can make more and more money and that politicians who give the more tax cuts and that is why our economy is terrible since the 1980's for anybody except the top 1% of which our president is one of them. he does not understand what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. trickle down is a complete lie and they still talk about it like it is something that works and it will never work. the

the 60th anniversary of the founding of the school of international service inspired by president eisenhower. so, with that were threes check their bios and i'm going to just turn to ambassador brigady and then in turn they'll over some reflections, not necessarily on all of the questions, just kind of some things they want us to know about their schools and where they feel they're pushing the boundaries a bit. so ambassador brigady.

timeis happened since that , gas taxes at the time of eisenhower were pretty much like user fees. ford, about the same mileage as a four-door oldsmobile or a chevy. if you jewel a mile on the interstate you use about the same amount of fuel. everyone has heard of a double whammy. the gas taxes are facing a quadruple whammy. cars are not using gasoline in some cases. more people are driving tesla. the engines that do use gasoline are much more fuel-efficient. hybrids and gas engines are just more efficient. there are completely alternative fuels. also the gas taxes are not indexed to inflation. people are also driving less. vehicle miles traveled are declining. there are a lot of reasons why the revenue into the federal highway trust fund is declining. and that is defect oh without the political will to make that federal gas tax higher. defacto devolving it to the states. virginia has created its own public partnership office. my hat is off to the state dot for doing that. texas has been pretty good with innovating in terms of alternative delivery systems. those are financing mecha

they alived the presidentsive with civil right which is something that eisenhower had never done. truman and fdr had never done. they came out and said this is an american cause that the presidency is all about, and nixon backed off from that, and so all of a sudden the moral authority of the white house was no longer with the civil rights movement, and the started talking about civil rights extremists and who want instant integration and forced busing are just as bad as the klan which is a horrible comparison, but again he saw votes in the south and the first -- not the first but a major step of the way towards the total republican control of the south you have now. so many aspects of nixon's life you can rite a book about, from the mccarthy era to vietnam and watergate. obviously watergate is the defining issue of his political career, and how did you choose -- pick and choose what to write about to and a half fate through senate what--- -- navigate through that? what sources are did you go to and how much did you rely on carl bernstein woodward and their work. >> university of

eisenhower, who actually emphasized the problem in 1953 of the domino theory.e emphasized if laos happened to fall to vietnam, to the communist of the northern vietnamese the potentially this , could lead to the fall of myanmar, thailand, and eventually india. after this we start to see that eisenhower signs in 1954 the southeast asian treaty organization, and attempt to halt the communists expansion in the area of southeast asia. this is followed with john f. kennedy who signs in 1962 this foreign assistance act, which is a way to launch the deployment of u.s. troops to vietnam and to train allied forces. prior to this, with the french removal from laos and vietnam and laos becoming an independent country in 1954, this kind of gives the opportunity for the expanding viet cong communist forces to come in and expand even into laos. we start to see a very large communist group that starts to emerge in laos. an important thing to remember also is what were the hmong doing at this time. first, i mentioned they were supporting the royal government against the japane

and then, of course, there was the famous checker speech when he was picked by eisenhower as his vicedential candidate and accused of padding his own pockets with money from wealthy donors and went on television in what may be the most bravura television performance ever and talked about his income, his wife's -- [inaudible] and the family's little dog, checkers, which he actually reached out to the american people on television and said and no matter what they do to me, we're not going to give up the dog because the girls love it. and so it was a very maudlin performance. so this was all part of the nixon caricature, and what i -- as i began to look boo -- look into his childhood, i find out it was awful. his father was a very unpleasant, brutal man. his million was a very sort of cold and -- mom was a very sort of cold and reserved religious figure. she would retreat into her closet to pray when she wasn't working the long hours that her husband required at the family store. and as nixon once confessed, never in my life did my mother ever say that she loved me. and then he would imm

back, the declassified eisenhower, wrote any journal i have now spent most of my vital youth withun dead general. now i have spent most of my life with eleanor roosevelt. it's been a very long time and i'm so happy i did it because eleanor roosevelt never stopped growing and changing. and what made her so great is that her friend, lady stella redding, this wonderful woman who ran the wartime emergency help brigade in england during world war ii said eleanor roosevelt's first love was the people, and that really, i think, is the essence of eleanor roosevelt. she loved people and she wanted to make life better for everybody in want in need, in trouble. she went around the country and around the world, and she said, tell me, what do you want? what do you need? and everybody is always asking me, how did she get that way? and she answer seems to me at this point, very simple. her father, who she loved very much, was an alcoholic, who died the age of 34. so we need to pause and say, well, how much did he have to drink to die the age of 34. i mean, we're still here. and her mother died whe

we have developed each year more profoundly since eisenhower identified in his 1961 farewell address.he multitrillion dollars terrorism complex, that inflates the danger abroad, tries to suggest that we're involved in a clash of civilizations. that boko haram there are terrorists and wherever it, wherever there's violence it's a part of an international conspiracy that we need to fight, we need to spend trillions of dollars on them, more drones, more training, because they get the money and the stature. that is what the narrative is. you see today, and trump unfortunately is buying into the narrative. he wants to send more troops to syria, nor into afghanistan, and more syria, more libya, back a ha, bokoharam, and syria, and we crushed by islam and they get staggering amounts of money. that is why the distortions occur, is because, think of how unusual it is, that a country that is not directly afflicted by so-called terrorist group thinks it's more dangerous than the country tra purportedly being victimized by it. we go these countries, we go into pakistan, you should be terrified of

they continued to fight for single payer when eisenhower was president. eisenhower wanted to have what was going to be single payer, very simple, like the military, everybody covered. is that okay with you, he said to the first woman head of hew and a lot of people thought she was from texas and therefore a racist, but she was life long member of the naacp they brought in eleanor roosevelt and esther lape to fight for single payer, and eleanor roosevelt. >> she was a firebrand and loved young people, but when she came to visit the young people in the 1960's, go south for freedom, the students are sitting in and encouraged all of us who took bus us to north carolina, she never gave up, always fought and i think, you know. fdr was her barometer. she did compromise on some things. i'm not sure she compromised and lucy mercer, but she did on missy lahand she rather liked having in the white house, called her the second wife, and it freed her. >> i don't think that compromise is the right word to describe eleanor roosevelt. she actually never gave up on anythi

that will history includes the herder committee, missions abroad for president eisenhower, promotingdesegregation of schools in the south, title 9, bringing women into high positions of responsibility in government, a matter of simple justice, lowering the voting age to 18, ending the military draft, protecting the environment. restoring sacred land to native americans, orchestrating a bold journey of peace across 16,000 miles and two decades of noncommunication that became known as the week that changed the world. [ applause ] hard-headed detente with the soviet union, peace with honor in vietnam, the airlift that saved israel during the yom kippur war. [ applause ] the war on cancer and bridges to human dignity. my father's own words describe the philosophy by which he lived. he said, we must seize the moment, not just for ourselves but for others. only if this becomes a better world for others will it be a better world for us. and only when we participate in a cause greater than ourselves can we be fully true to ourselves. to me, my father will always be the idealistic leader clim

capital and make sure way here to the eisenhower executive office building.ow the administration has four officials that will be riefing the senate. secretary of state rex tillerson, james mattis, jose and the director of the national intelligence, dan coats. themeeting will lay out military's acts in north korea and also the pentagon's view on the situation. there insituation north korea and on the korean peninsula as a whole is changing rapidly. in the last 24 hours or so the korea installed a major missile defense controversial move in the eyes of china. they expect this system will be them.o spy on also we have a nuclear submarine off of the coast of south korea with tom hawk missiles and uss vincent is pulling into the waters. so a lot is changing and to be discussed in the meeting. they come out with a much clearer plan on where the northstration stands on korea. and the house, the four top senior administration officials will leave the building and go the u.s. capital around 5:00 and brief all members of the u.s. house of representatives. certainly a b

very excited about the upcoming anniversary, june 9, 1956, president eisenhower did the groundbreaking over what was then the new building for the school of international service and we have a newer building and we're looking forward to celebrating the 60th 60th anniversary this year and his call for the establishment of a school designed to wage peace. so we'll come back to that not a moment. i want to say i'm impressed. my colleagues are much more skilled than i am and i stay away from political issues. it's hard to talk about public diplomacy without noting the proposed cuts to state department and the importance of congress prevent these massive cuts from happening, because of course, the public diplomacy of the united states dep depends on having a fully functioning state department that engages in the world ask offers an alternative to other tools that the united states has. in terms of our -- a couple words, wearing my hat as president of the association of schools of international affairs. two things related to this topic. one is the roles that our schools play in creating cult

eisenhower uses that. that organizational capacity, according to greenstein, he thought worked well at times but could be chaotic. president roosevelt -- setting up the modern presidency -- political skill, it would be hard to find anybody who had more political skill than fdr. his first hundred days alone passed piece after piece of legislation. they were struck down by the supreme court. he also had great skill in working with the western countries in the alliance. it ultimately defeated taylor and the japanese. what about vision cognitive style? according to greenstein, he thought that fdr had a better vision in foreign affairs than domestic. i might take some issue with that. his domestic policies were buried powerful -- very powerful. he had a great memory. he had -- he was a great synthesizer. that was his cognitive style. he was less analytic. in terms of his emotional intelligence, according to love -- wendell holmes, he had a great temperament. everybody had a second rate intellect compared to him

eisenhower said there were four key qualities by which we should measure a leader.haracter, ability, responsibility and experience. donald trump fails to qualify on all four counts. eisenhower put character first. in the words of the ancient greeks, character is destiny. so much of what donald trump spouts is so far from the truth and so vulgar. he is unwise, plainly unprepared and he often seems unhinged. how can we possibly put our future in the hands of such a man? brian: i've interviewed you lots and lots of hours. it surprised me when i saw this and i thought why did this historian do this? david: because i felt that he was at the least qualified candidate for the presidency in our history and he not only has had no appropriate background or training and has never done anything for his country on his own or by volunteering and that he is one of those people who uses fear and smear and swagger as his weapons for succeeding. and i really was worried and i still am about what the consequences are going to be. brian: did you organize of the other historians? david:

as we all know eisenhower made a famous statement in his farewell address, warning against the excesses of the military and the industrial complex. i think he would be shocked how far we have gone down that road against which he warned us. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the hse hour of until the 12:00 today.ch one of the most thoughtful and brilliant judges to have served our nation over the last century. let me repeat. this is someone who served as solicitor general of the united states under president obama calling judge gorsuch one of the most thoughtful and brilliant judges to have served our nation over the last century.

the main instrument that divide eisenhower used was his vice president richard nixon who did the job with extreme finesse. nixon was a peacemaker even when he ran for president in 1960. there are many people historians way beyond my league, and mr. nixon won that election, and it was simply stolen from him in illinois and texas. he -- mr. nixon declined the amount of jobs at jfk election in order to avoid a conflict during the difficult cold war. it's hard to imagine a modern day candidate doing that. it happened because richard nixon, the peacemaker, refused to make his own ambition more important than his love of country and peace. learning about war and peace, much later, he said that he learned especially large amount from charles degaul who he loved, and he was a very impressive guy. he thought of degaul in some ways like him. he had come to office during greatly tumultouss times. sham bells. country in conflict in the streets. need for peacemaker. he learned how to make peace and pull the country together. thus, it was that one two one in 1968 against hubert humphrey, who was a

been talking about these buses with senators and he's headed over there to the meeting with the eisenhower executive building. so the president is going to drop back in. >>> and now back to taxes, dean is joining me. thank you for being with me. and let's talk, peter, first to you on the proposals from both mr. mnuchin and mr. cohn today. one republican aide on capitol hill called this plan like cuts only, it's all of the goodies and none of the pain. how do they pay for it? >> well, on the personal income tax side, they said they will eliminate a lot of deductions and exemptions. they are taking away, for example, the deduction for state and local government income taxes. so i think on the personal side they are in good shape. on the corporate side, a 15% tax rate, even if you eliminate everything in sight, it's hard to get down that low, especially without the border tax adjustments which seem to be out. they've got an economist over there. for the first time, they have an economist. kevin hassert. i'd like him to show me how they are going to justify a 15% growth. i'm sure dean will hav

what struck me as i'm reading about eisenhower and montgomery is that washington combined both in himself. he was a field commander. he was out there in the field often quite dangerously so. he put himself in positions he should never have done, but he was able to make decisions, command decisions, but at the same time he had this enormous political skill. he knew how to mend his political fences. he kept the congress on his side and even though there were plots, not amounting to much to kind of unseat him in favor of gates who was the victor at saratoga, nobody pressured him too much because he was such a superb politician. that is to say in a good sense. he knew how to keep diverse interests together, and i think he held that army together. there's no doubt of that, almost by sheer personality. >> in addition to all the accolades that professor wood has, when you talk to historians and talk about him, one of the things that always pops up is he's such a good guy, nice guy, and he's so humble. backstage earlier this morning when we were talking about this before we exchanged our analysis

>> exactly. >> apparently it's some auditorium in the eisenhower executive building that they are turningcif. i see the look on your face. >> i know the facility. listen, it comes down to technical security countermeasures. what they are looking to do is ensure conversations had within that location are not susceptible to eavesdropping, you know, electronic surveillance, et cetera. the secret service has a very, very comprehensive program on how to make locations secure. now, in this instance, i don't know how they are doing it, nor should we be talking about how they're going to do it. if you think about how the president travels around the world, these temporary locations are set up everywhere. >> uh-huh. >> so here we're -- we're at the white house. it's a secure complex. >> uh-huh. >> the secret service in conjunction with military partners are going to ensure that conversations or documents reviewed by the senators are not susceptible to foreign espionage. >> okay. chris cillizza, a couple of questions for you now. let me just begin with -- listen, i don't know how many cameras cnn h

fortunately, there was only one five days before president eisenhower's inauguration. about 400rrying people was coming in from the northeast. the operator of the train lost control. the brakes failed and the train came barreling into the station. fortunately, the weight of the locomotive when it reached the floor of the station, the floor gave way, forcing the train to stop. no one was killed. a few dozen people were taken to the hospital the magnificent thing about that event is 400 workers came in, worked around-the-clock, and 36 hours later, the station was functional in time for president eisenhower's inauguration. is a one story train concourse. those were work areas previously, but remember the station was busy and did serve as the gateway to the nations capital. this concourse served during the in 1910 andmovement in 1963 with the civil rights march. using the stations here, the beatles arrive here for their first american tour, and many diplomatic events took bit ofcreating quite a traffic through this portion of the station. we are back in the main hall and b

the gamble was a decision by eisenhower in the 1950's in dealing with the middle east to tilt away fromis traditional allies, britain and

in 2014, the obama administration, realized since the eisenhower era, the u.s.nse systems, and we continue to spend on systems that were compared to hitting a bullet with a bullet. but we had not really made great strides in protecting the u.s. from unstable and erratic north korea. the obama administration reportedly srted investing resources in stepping up the pentagon's cyber capabilities to invest in sabotaging their tests. this weekend in the middle of north korea's birthday celebrations, they attempted to launch a ballistic missile. the launch failed within seconds. even though all signs pointed to north korea taking a sixth stab at a nuclear test this weekend. they didn't do it? and why? we don't exactly know. but since president obama reportedly ordered this shift in strategy to begin investing in cyber and electronic strikes one particular north korean intermediate range missile has had a failure rate of 88% this past year. did the u.s. have anything to do with this weekend's failed missile launch? did the american cyber electronics program have anythin