presidenlyndon johnson ew to independence, missouri and in the presence of harry s. trumanned the bills into law. medicaid covered the heal care costs of millions of low-income people. we asked henry aaron if that met our sponsibilities to tseho couldn't afford medicacare is wouldt be a problem if all states providedenefits as generous ashose in say the upper third or upper half of the distribution. sometates provide meager medicaid benefits-- fewer than 10 days a year ofospitalization severe limits on the number of doctor's visits one can receive-- so that even moderate illnesses may t be fully protected under the medicaid program. in addition, the population that may be served by the medicaid program in many states is quite narrowly defined. so notwithstandi e fact thamedicaid is the federal health program for the poor millions of poor americans are not cored by any benefits at all they don't have government protection or private insurance because they're unemployed or because they work in jobs that don't provide suchoverage. about 15% to 20% of the american population at

series co-presented by our partners a the trueman library institute the foundation arm of the harry s. truman library museum and independence. here at the library, we just love to do programs commemorating anniversaries. and such as the case tonight, 40 years ago. well technically, 39 years and 363 days ago. but work with me on this -- gerald ford became the first and to date the only unelected president of the united states. an outcome that would have been beyond conception just two years earlier when richard nixon was cruising to his landslide victory over george mcgovern. to tell us more about that in the administration that ensued we've brought back for the third time dr. john robert green. but you can call him bob. who among many claims to fame ranks as the first historian to perform a serious scholarly study on the administration. the first edition of his book was published some 19 years ago by the university press of kansas, it's still in print, i'm happy to report on its fourth printing. of course being a pioneer has its disadvantages. the report that in the early days he was often as

i want to thank before i begin the kauffman foundation, i want to thank the harry s truman library in the jude, my runs there. i want to thank the kansas city public library. i am from cazenovia college. i usually begin these talks by making fun of the snow record that we have. it's the snowiest place in the country, or so i'm told, but then i was watching your weather this past winter, and i was getting some bulletins about how bad the snow was. no longer have to feel sorry for me. apparently i have to feel sorry for you. you didn't think i was going to start with them, did you? on august 8, 1974, the day before richard nixon resigned as president of the united states, after he had made his decision after he had spoken to the american people, he went out and as wasse garden, usually the case in those days, hisas followed closely by secretary of state and director of national security, henry kissinger. and was, by all accounts, and bleed drained of all energy. physically and emotionally propping him up, as nixon was going to go back to to relax before the next day's trip back to calif

seen anything to say that it really strung out, but in the eyes of the leadership, particularly harry s. truman, once he learns the general filing of leslie groves is what this device that will be tested in july 1945 in the place in new mexico and people telling its award-winning weapon, and he's already got planners telling him the casualties for the invasion, the next step after okinawa which occurred in the fall of 1945 is going to be easily in hundreds of thousands dead. you know, we can look back and think about the horrors of the nuclear age in nuclear weaponry, but the one thing for what i can tell he's reading, including chris donner's, he felt, a lot of the veterans felt it was right thing to do. we all live under the shadow of that but that was a concomitant response to what happened at okinawa. the casualties, the horse. but to go back to your question i think was the first stage, if we didn't have okinawa there was no way leaving the atomic bomb out we couldn't have gone and then do what we're planning on doing in the fall of 1945. >> we have reached the end of our time industry but

s with the korean war. reagan's enthusiasm for roosevelt transferred to harry truman. he believed in harry truman but as the korean war dragged on reagan grew concerned that war began in june of 1950 with the north invasion of the south but two years later there was no end in sight. the korean war had become a mindless meatgrinder, a lot like the war in vietnam a generation later. in the spring of that year 1952 reagan wrote to his -- dwight eisenhower urging eisner to seek the presidency. the general welcome that offers supported reagan campaigned on i expect half the 1952. he continued again in 1956 and he then worked for their eisenhower designated successor richard nixon in 1960. but always as a concerned democrat. in 1962 a decade after his original connection with eisenhower reagan reregistered as a republican and that was as he put it because his party had left him not the other way around. interestingly enough as a result of that relationship eisenhower became a reagan mentor not well-known. those men develop dish salad relationship and at the end of 64, at the