a favre -- a fellow named ken paulson was discussing a first amendment program and yet -- and uttered the word yoko ono. the lights and everything and the control room went out >> i was holding my breath when you said that. >>yoko ono is our patron saint and nothing could be worse than that. there was an arc welder plug into our circuit who shot the lights off. >> instant karma. >> we have a picture of yoko ono with a welding outfit on from that time on. >> that sounds like it when she is singing. >> how many of you know who yoko ono is? >> out many have heard her sing? [laughter] good memories? i would like to move on because we talk about memories. john, you took the show to berlin. 1990's, close-up made a trip to berlin after the fall of the wall. talk about the next clip. >> this was a fascinating time. we did programing twice for berlin and we went back after this to see what was happening. the thing that is most memorable for may was the east german students. they were savvy about what was happening in their lives. they knew that in their schools that they had essentially been l

. >> as we choose to find ways to resolve the ambiguity between ken lewis, hank paulson, yourself and of course a number of people hoops e-mails have been cited today, are you prepared to answer in writing, not return here probably, additional questions that may come up to help us clear that up? >> yes. >> do you at this time believe that intentionally ken louis, paulson or any of the people we cited in e-mails intended to lie in their statements? >> i have no judgments. >> but you believe in good faith they think what they are saying is true at least as far as you know? >> as far as i know. >> do you think federal regulators should pick winners and losers as they go through trying to figure out in a crisis like this who gets to own who or who gets bailout money and who doesn't? >> i think all these interventions are very unfortunate and only made necessary by the extreme circumstances. >> earlier one of the people we mentioned was mr. lacher. in light of his e-mail, paraphrasing a longer discussion, do you intend to speak to him and try to clarify how the difference interpretation co

paulson, ken lewis and his board of directors in order to force the bank of america to acquire merrill lynch for going recognize the actions took place and significant economic challenges and uncertainty but there must be limits to government action even in the time of crisis and those limits must be respected. we must keep in mind is pressure was exerted after many of the nation's banks were forced to accept taxpayer money to the tar program. winnowed in october 2008 mr. paulson, mr. janke, mr. geithner and ms. bair brought the ceos of the largest banks to the treasury department and demanded they except the partial nationalization of their banks. i look forward to learning more about the role in this process as well. thank you again and i would ask for unanimous consent to include in the record majority and minority reports and all documents referenced in those reports. >> without objection, so ordered. mr. bernanke is a longstanding policy that we swear all of our witnesses in. please stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothi

there been conflicting reports under oath by ken lewis and by secretary paulson about what occurred. to his credit, chairman bernanke has been quick to give as written responses both publicly and privately, and today we would hope would lead to a thorough understanding of whether in fact there is a vast misunderstanding of the threat was, what the intent was, whether or not what we often called, and i have called, a cover-up was in fact simply appropriately determining why an agency should be not informed. i for one personally doubt that all of these can be explained away. but it is very possible that today, said it will show was that if we all had to do it again we would do it differently. i think is important today we give chairman bernanke a falling complete opportunity to talk about the environment in which she was working, his desires and reasons for doing what he did and were discussions that he might or should or could perhaps replace the board of the ceo of bankamerica may have in fact been blown out of proportion, may have been misunderstood. peifer one though in looking at

paulson about his discussions with ken lewis because there's been testimony and we've heard that paulson said very clearly that he would fire ken lewis and the board and it seems to me in the reading of all this stuff is that the government became one and so perhaps what mr. paulson said was thought of as coming from you. there could be some of this coming about. so confusion comes about after the fact. >> gentleman's time has expired but the witness can answer your question, of course. >> could you describe the conversation you had with mr. paulson about his conversation with mr. lewis? >> he reported back to me that mr. lewis, as i recall, had decided not to invoking the m.a.c. and that laid open the basis for developing the transaction but, again, i never told anyone to threaten mr. lewis. >> thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. chair recognizes mr. cummings of maryland. you may proceed. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. bernanke, as i've listened to you carefully, i think i get it. i think i get it. you are so -- you were so intertwined in this thing and following up one mr.

paulson and i had conversations given our common concerns about the financial system. all i can say is i sure i never told him to convey such a message to ken lewis. >> mr. paulson says in a letter from new york attorney general andrew cuomo to congress hear reports paulson told him paulson made the threat at the request of bernanke. that isn't correct? >> nope. >> did you say t.a.r.p. said he modified the state. how did he modify? we don't have any information. >> he issued a statement to the fact he did not receive the information that he made inferences but as far as i know he modified a statement on that particular issue. >> how about mr. blacker, is he lying in? >> he summarizing a long conversation. i don't recall exactly what was said. >> have a long talk with an act, they think that the mac is -- if they play the card and need assistance management is gone. you didn't say anything like that? >> i don't know if i did or not. >> one of the things -- i was chairman for six years and we did a lot of investigating. one thing i learned is that in order to keep people from purging themselves they can't remember anything. are you sure you c

suggest that hank paulson, ben bernanke or anyone else operating on behalf of the united states government was given the power to force shotgun weddings. today we're going to hear from ken lewis, ceo of bank of america. a man who spent decades understanding the value of financial institutions. we will hear about the transactions, the ratios determined for a stock trade type merger were in fact considered to be reasonable. as the chairman has said, rightfully so, the federal government played a clear part in this, but the american people should understand their dollars were not given to any party in this transaction, but, in fact, loaned at an amount substantially greater than the interest rate paid by the federal reserve. as such ken lewis had an obligation to reck fliz they were going to have to pay this money back and they had to receive value in this transaction. allegations made throughout the press and will undoubtedly be reiterated here today. that the value that was being questioned by bank of america had something to do with getting more money from the federal government. that may be true. having done acquisitions myself, more often it is, in fact, the ratio bei