what is also clear is once maccarthy altered in the beginning of the end of maccarthy has been eisenhower directed his subordinates not to testify about conversations and the white house, that he invoked executive privilege in order to do that come to power by the way he probably did not have heard that the home of the constitutional conversation. he invoked privileges he may or may not have had and used it to cut off access to maccarthy. that is the beginning of the end of maccarthy. at the end of 1954 he came in early 53, but in the 54, mccarthy was done. said that is too long and i think the country would have been better off had he been cut off earlier. but once he was caught off comeliness cut off thoroughly and permanently. >> the words i thought would come up about eisenhower was patients. he had a patient's test the patience of an old man, really that people don't have today. he knew, i think in his heart how these things are going to hand and probably even had a timeframe in his mind. in doing books on the presidency , really books designed to show what it a president dies, i cam

robert is this new senator to joseph maccarthy. how do we know what happened the first time they met. two of johnson's staff people told me the same story. they told me he had breakfast every morning and joe maccarthy around the roundtable and register where he would it is with his staffers and maccarthy is there for four or five including bobby kennedy. had some kind of a confrontation? >> the next time the action had a conversation was probably at the democratic convention in 1960, where president kennedy was there. how has he been in their? >> lyndon b. johnson was 62. i did that very quickly. bobby kennedy was born in 29. >> there was a great deal of difference in age. what have lyndon johnson done until the time he was selected? what had robert kennedy done? >> at the time that johnson starts running against jack kennedy for the 1960 democratic nomination, he has been the senate majority leader for six years. he is in the greatest majority leader in history. he made the senate work. he introduced his own bills. it was the cent

joe maccarthy dominated a lot of young people's impressions of what young people were about. ice eisenhower was a different figure but not a young kind of person. contrast of one of energy and age. that was one element i think. the conservatives picked up on that and the nominating young dynamic people that were interested in ideas, set of their own think tanks and so on that picked up on the same impulse. that was one element. second one i think that then the question was. can moderates being moderate get real excitement going and can they be as disciplined and fervent and as passionate as people with a clear eest identi are? we said, yes we can. we can be fiery moderates and we're fiery. that was our first declaration. what was there to be fiery about. there were two inc.s in actually. most important was the whole civil rights manner. i think that was absolutely at the center of the identity and sense of purpose and it did seem as though more conservative republican where is pulling a way from the party of lincoln identity. we use lincoln has a logo and all the stationary a