and nixon knew this because these letters were from graham to nixon himself. let me skip over kennedy at houston. you can read that chapter, i call it a lion in a den of daniels because he was surrounded by all of these protestant ministers, and it was universeally seen as the turning point of his campaign where he effectively answered all of the questions from these clergy people and received a standing ovation from the ministers in houston. it was nationally broadcast, rebroadcast around the country by the denty campaign, and i think correctly that is seen as the turning point of the campaign in early september 1960. i want to turn our attention to an episode here in nashville and read a passage about what happened in this episode. another conservative protestant denomination in the south, the churches of christ, produced a large volume of anti-catholic tracts and papered the countryside with it. as a matter of information, it's very hard to convey the current generation the power of the tract in the protestant world in the 1950s and '60s. i group up in the

nixon refused to answer that question. and it was like wait a minute you're running against a catholic. he said you're not going to answer that question? late in the day, and they tell the story at the very end of the book. an editor of the baptist standard which is the record among baptists had over 300,000. think about that of paper by one denomination in one state than 100,000 readers. the. we're still waiting for an answer to her question. are you going to allow federal money? and nixon in a strategic blunder his epic proportions right back and says we know i'm a state right kind of guy. so if i send federal money to the state of tennessee and the state legislature decides that their infinite wisdom they want to put some of that money in the conference of catholic churches, god love them. let them do it. well you can imagine -- the baptist editor said you've got to be kidding me. the protestant guy is giving a catholic answer to the question in the catholic ice cube in the protestant answer to the question. and so kenn

and nixon knew this because these came from letters that graham wrote to nixon himself. let me skip over 20 inches in. you can read that chapter. i call it a lion and. he was surrounded by all these ministers and he was universalizing as a turning point of his campaign when he effectively answered all of questions on these clergy people, and received a standing ovation from the ministers gathered there in houston. it was nationally broadcast that was rebroadcast around the country by the kennedy campaign, and i think repligen is seen as the turning point in the election in the early september of 1960. i want to turn now to an episode more localized here in nashville. i will read you a passage here about what happened in this episode. another conservative protestant in the south, the churches of christ, produced a large one of anti-catholic and paper to the countryside with him. is very hard to convey to the current generation, the power of the tract in the protestant world in the 1950s and '60s but i grew up in the churches of christ, and in our church we had a deacon wh

but he used nixon as his ambassador. nixon was a very important in that way. i would say that the first water, powerful vice president was richard nixon. -- the first modern powerful vice president was richard nixon. i'm going to have to repeat myself in terms of the cheney and george bush -- ask the question 50 years from now. host: part of the exhibit features theodore roosevelt. for those with a military background, how did they adapt to the vice presidency? guest: good question. i am trying to think of an example prepa. roosevelt resigned his post in 1898. he was among many americans urging war with spain. he was particularly interested in taking the spanish out of the western hemisphere. the cuban situation was deteriorating. he made some maneuvers with the secretary of the navy, ordering the pacific squadron to be stationed off the philippines prematurely, without the president' or the navy being aware. when war was declared, roosevelt resigned and his volunteer rough rider unit was made up of people near the dakotas, near his ranch, and people that he k

no, no, speeches by nixon. kennedy said to me, i imagine, they did something so foolish and dangerous based upon a gubernatorial race by a defeated presidential candidate. that shows you how little they understand our system. they said to me, what the hell, we don't understand their system very well either. [applause] [laughter] . .

nixon at the museum collection of the white house after. >> nixon's contribution to the white house iss. you could use it as a set for the nixon movie and it would be pretty authentic. they brought the white house to that state. it is a home whose occupants are still under siege for most of it -- much of his presidency. from the vietnam protesters at the beginningto the watergate scandal at the end. the white house became a place for president nixon. >> his intellectual privacy. he would hold up at his favorite room and a white house. the lincoln sitting room. he loved a fire in the fireplace, and was his habit, he would turn the air conditioning up as high as it would go and start a fire. it was important for every president to have a place in a time where he can think. for nixon, that is what the sitting room was all about. in the and it turned out to be a place of security as well as memories. sooner or later, every president bonds with lincoln. nixon famously compared himself to lincoln in the sense that he justified the abuse of power under watergate with the wartime setting in wh

>> guest: nixon was in a bind. on the one hand he wanted to hold catholics and his party but he wanted to increase the number of products in the fact they he could not do it overtly or the one television and say you cannot vote because it is against your theology he would come off as the anti-catholic bigot. he had a clandestine campaign where he hired a staffer who traveled the country and network with the major evangelical leaders of the day and preachers of the day to talk more about anti-catholic themes and disseminate more anti-catholic literature. nixon had to be careful in a vacaville man sort of way to have forces in the field. >> host: low was the role of a norman vincent peale and billy graham? >> they were crucial program moved to europe in the summer by continued to hold meetings in europe of leading protestant evangelical leader strategizing how we can be this guy. they came up with a host of meeting in washington d.c. in early september at the mayflower hotel and he chaired that meeting it was a secre

but this was a big deal for president nixon. his knowledge that the u.s. might not fare so well in the comparison about missile construction or thrust. fast forward a year to the debate with senator kennedy for the presidency. kennedy called nixon on that and said it is on acceptable, senator kennedy, that we would say this, because clearly missile thrust is more important, and as an economist, what is more important to me is what the vice-president said. nothing. the correct answer is the superiority of the united states, because of a small critically important number called productivity growth. one of the things that will determine our future is the pace of that growth. vice-president nixon's error was a simple one, but it really was the key to why the race between the united states and soviet union was vastly different. there was also an essential air -- error. crucial for got a simple number. the no. i'm about to say is a constant. it never changes. it is called 100%. the tierney of 100% is that the shares of government spending must add to 100%. why d

nixon at the museum collection of the white house after. >> nixon's contribution to the white house isous. you could use it as a set for the nixon movie and it would be pretty authentic. they brought the white house to that state. it is a home whose occupants are still under siege for most of it -- much of his presidency. to the watergate scandal at the end. the white house became a place for president nixon. >> his intellectual privacy. he would hold up at his favorite room and a white house. the lincoln sitting room. he loved a fire in the fireplace, and was his habit, he would turn the air conditioning up as high as it would go and start a fire. it was important for every president to have a place in a time where he can think. for nixon, that is what the sitting room was all about. in the and it turned out to be a place of security as well as memories. sooner or later, every president bonds with lincoln. nixon famously compared himself to lincoln in the sense that he justified the abuse of power under watergate with the wartime setting in which his administration pointed out. just a

this was a big deal for vice president nixon to have brought up.acknowledged, though, that the u.s. might not fare so well if the comparison were about missile construction or missile thrusts. fast forward a year to the debate with senator kennedy for the presidency. kennedy called nixon on that and said it is unacceptable to me, senator kennedy, that we would say this because clearly missile thrust is more important and what is amazing to me as an economist is what vice president nixon said. nothing. the correct answer. an economic counselor would have told him is the superiority to have united states is you can have both colored television and eventually better missiles because of a small number that is critically important and it is called productivity growth. t growth. vice-president nixon's error was a simple one, but it really was the key to why the race between the united states and soviet union was vastly different. there was also an essential air -- error. crucial for got a simple number. the no. i'm about to say is a constant. it never ch

no, no, speeches by nixon. kennedy said to me, i imagine, they did something so foolish and dangerous based upon a gubernatorial race by a defeated presidential candidate. that shows you how little they understand our system. they said to me, what the hell, we don't understand their system very well either. [applause] [laughter] . . >> if he thinks that i should apologize for kennedy's success in prevailing, i ain't going to do it. i would just say finally that in one of the many biographies of senator ted kennedy that appeared several weeks ago, it it was reported that during this last 15 months or so of his life since he received the death sentence from his doctors, knowing that everyone in his household because he's did most of the time on the cape, that he would rise in the morning, get to the top of the stairs and the lowdown in that great booming voice of his, "i am still here ." i am here today to tell you that i am still here. [applause] h[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions

and i knew that that kind of record have dried up ignobly had recorded their conversations since nixon. my impression was that they are not keeping the kind of record data that will enable you to really find out today what george bush was really thinking before he went into iraq. you know, we're going to have to make do with the myth and the filters and images. and i wanted to do better than that. i was done that he wanted to do better than that. he was thinking about those things even before he took office. >> host: describe briefly 1972. how well did you know him? >> guest: we live together. were the two texas coordinator he asked if he could bring his new girlfriend, hillary, to our apartment so the three of us got an apartment together. hillary also worked in other states and even bill and i had the time, we were traveling all over like water bugs in the big state of texas. we didn't spend all that much time together. we were technically responsible for the state. we made lots of decisions and getting shellacked the way we did by richard nixon in 1972, is a bonding experience. when

john kennedy and richard nixon or two of the most brilliant minds america produced for the richard nixonwas on the national ticket five times and won four out five times in the last i checked the batting averages one of the best batting average of anyone who has run for the american president and of course john kennedy becoming the first and only roman catholic president is an interesting story in and of itself. secondly it was an extraordinarily close election. kennedy won the election by a tick or two over 100,000 votes out of the tens of millions cast so it was extraordinarily close. it was also i argue the first modern campaign when you think about pollsters, you think about use of media, you think of mass buying of advertising and when you think about religion as a political force you have those together in many things which we take for granted in our presidential races today in many ways began in that election so i think it is the beginning of modern political presidential campaigns. but it was also what i call the larva stage of the religious right in the united states. if you loo

where the president to be disabled, were eisenhower and nixon. in the agreement that eisenhower and nixon had, said essentially that if for some reason the president became incapacitated and wasn't aware he was incapacity, the procedure that reduces the vice president would have to consult and get the support of half the cabinet in order to assume the powers of the presidency. lyndon johnson and john f. kennedy came to a similar agreement, with just one little clause. that had to be running around in lyndon johnson's mind of every boy second. kennedy said he not only had to seek the support of half the cabinet, he had to consult with the attorney general of the united states. attorney general of the united states was the president's brother, robert f. kennedy. in lyndon johnson's arch enemy in the white house. are a lot of this is speculative. we don't know what's going on. lyndon johnson being the political creature he is new every word in a document, and every punctuation point. and he knew, what was he thinking? was he thinking is going to be

and the agreement eisenhower and nixon wrote city essentially that if for some reason the president became incapacitated and wasn't able -- wasn't aware he was incapacitated the procedure they would use is the vice president would have to consult and get the support of half of the cabinet in order to assume the power of the presidency. lyndon johnson and john f. kennedy came to a similar agreement but there is one of little pause the had to be running around lyndon johnson's mind. kennedy said that he not only had to seek the support of half of the cabinet. he had to consult with the attorney general of the united states. attorney general of the united states is the president's brother, robert f. kennedy and lyndon johnson's arch enemy and the white house. you have to think again, you know a lot of this is speculative. we don't know what is going through people's mind but lyndon johnson being the political creature that he is new every word in the document and every punk chelation point and he knew what was he thinking? was he thinking this was going to be able for willson situation

is the beginning of the nixon administration. and it's all the rest going on, you say my staff and i, with the president's strong support, undertook a re-examination of military doctrine. the first problem was to define the strategy for general nuclear war. according to the doctrine of assured destruction which had guided the previous administration, we did term -- we deter the soviets attack by defensive forces at the table of achieving a number of civilian deaths and industrial damage. it was all very well to threaten mutual suicide for the purpose of deterrence, particularly in the case of a direct threat to national survivor -- national survival. but no president could make such a threat credible except by conducting a diplomacy that suggested a high irrationality. how could u.s. hold its allies together as the credibility of the strategy eroded and that we deal with this issue if it came time, as you say, if deterrence failed, and the president was finally faced with the decision to retaliate, who would take the moral respon

and then it became nixon's war. once he lays out a strategy that leads to a victory or not, it becomes his. i think of the caller is correct in saying that there is nothing he can do that will not be criticized, that is absolutely certain in this environment. i think that there has been a dangerous narrative advanced in the last several years where to be patriotic, really it is since 9/11, to be patriotic america can only do right. whenever it is we are doing, it must be right. i think that we will find that sentiment rising more strongly. host: wyoming, minn., a republican line. you are on with our two guests, james joyner and adele stan. caller: i am a first-time caller or what ever. i am a little nervous, but my first comment, as far as dick cheney and george bush are concerned, the media should not give coverage to war criminals like them. president obama needs to start telling the truth about the war in afghanistan. there is a gentleman on cnn that has been in iraq and afghanistan since these wars started. ther

>> that is the kind of question i would expect from are the nixon library. the fact is that the missile gaffe was an expression not originated by john f. kennedy and not a central issue in his campaign as said in previous panels t arose from three separate commissions that were appointed during the eisenhower administration, at least one that gave the commission, i believe, an official body, one was a rockefeller commission, which was unofficial. i have already forgotten the third. all assumed or were told that the soviets had the capacity to build more missiles at a faster rate than the united states, but they did not say that the soviets had actually made good on that capacity. they merely assumed it. it was picked up by a good friend of the president's, john f. kennedy, that is, joe auerbach, who wrote a good deal about it. he may have first referred to it as the missile gap. and johnson and others also talked about the missile gap. kennedy was running on the theme "we can do better, we must do better, we cannot afford to let the soviets get ahead of us i

went off of that system under president nixon in august of 1971, instead of fighting to maintain a stable monetary system or figure out how to get back to 1, which is what i think the imf should have fought to do, it waited a few years and then it accepted that. now, any country can have any kind of exchange arraignment they want, floating, fixed, they can have a currency board, they can piggyback to another country's currency. the only thing they cannot do is pay their money to gold -- peg their money to gold. in the meantime, the imf's sits on virtually all of the gold that was contributed from the beginning from countries that had to pay in gold or dollars to be a member of what was supposed to be a stable, international monetary system. >> my recollection is that jack kemp was a big gold supporter and he had an outfit called empower america. >> i was on that board. i am very proud of that. kemp was a visionary. there was a plan to launch of the jack kemp foundation. it is invigorating to see the people that were part of that movement, the supply side, now we could say that the supply-

leaving beijing today the president walked along the same section of the great wall of china richard nixon visited in 1972. >>> in between state dinners, closed door meetings and sightseeing he had a rare reunion with his brother. mark obama has been living in southern china. he claims in his new book their father physically abused him. he wouldn't bring that up when they met at the president's hotel. >> we just had a big hug and my wife and he had a big, big hug. and it was very, very powerful. very, very intense because he's my big brother. >> president obama says he hasn't read his half brother's book but says it is no secret their father was troubled. >>> west virginia's robert byrd is making history. the longest serving member of congress ever. byrd has represented west virginia 20,774 days, that is almost 57 years. byrd came to washington in 1953 along with the first eisenhower administration. it is not the only milestone he is marking in two days he will turn 92 years old. >>> the crew of the space shuttle "atlantis" is at the international space station. what they are doing there n

brothers survives the civil war, the great depression, world war i, a world war ii, the korean war the nixon impeachment, it survives so much, 9/11. but what she could not survive was the change, a very dramatic change of business philosophy. and then they should business bank the reason is survived is it was in the moving business. campbell soup corporation 80 years ago wanted to build their first plant and make the first investment to create some jobs for pro it came to be met brothers and needed $10 million and it did traditional investment banking. even brothers is the black-tie investment bank. they raise that $10 billion and gave it to campbell soup and sold bonds and stocks to do it and made a fee. that is a traditional investment banking fee, a traditional business creates jobs, that is the moving business. what we started to see on the trading floor in 2004, 2005, 2006, you could clearly see bloodcurdling scare through the years going forward that the men -- lehman was getting into the storage business come a bigger bets kumbaya long assets, a commercial real estate and residential

furthermore, whittaker chambers became a great buddies with people like richard nixon. he was adulation by ronald reagan. he was admired by j. edgar hoover and so on. all sorts of villains of the intellectual left with the friends of whittaker chambers. so you can see he was a popular figure. >> host: you talk interesting about what i would call aesthetics which relate to your own work and a large part of your career, you quote i believe that maybe cromwell time, round and you say they wrote of people that they were wrong but romantic, or right but repulsive. >> guest: that's from a very -- i'm using a book by yeats and sellers called 1066, and all that. a sort of joke history. yes, he characterizes the roundheads as right but repulsive. and the cavaliers as wrong but romantic. you can apply that to some of our characters. >> host: we look at a visualage. if you look that he is back. is the first impression on the entire impression of how much intake beyond a first impression should you do. and that was clearly a lot of attention here was to make the people who are sayi

richard nixon was the subject of a biography by tom wicker titled one of us. .. i have a couple of questions already. while most of us would agree that tolerance is far preferable to intolerance, is in this new cultural individualism and cons with humanitarianism of historic democratic party values? >> yes, there is a great line which is that we have a two-party system in part because if we didn't they would have to be invented the. we have a republican party that, of course, values freedom and individual rights and is more libertarian minded. democrats have always valued those things to, but they also very much value equality of opportunity and i think it is that particular value in many respects that it is certainly on the rise in a question in the go through moments of our political history or it's not one of the other, we wanted all, but we go through moments where we are revising not our values and how we define them. and i think we are at all of these revolutions basically treating a moment now where we are rethinking, what is freedom, what our individual r

furthermore, whitaker chambers became great buddies with people like richard nixon. he was agitated by ronald reagan. he was admired by jay edgar hoover and so on. all sorts of feelings of the intellectual left for the friends of whiteaker chambers. you can see that he's going to be a popular figure. list could you talk about what i would call esthetics which relates to your own work in the large part of your career you quote i believe from cromwell time around than you say the root of people that they were wrong but romantic or write the propulsive. >> guest: that is from a very amusing book by yates and and sellers called quote code 1066 and all that," a sort of joke history of britain. the roundheads as right but we will sieve and the cavaliers has wronged but romantic. you can apply that to some of our characters. >> host: we live in a visual age, so if someone is bad -- looks bad is he that? is that the entire impression? the entire intake in the impression should you do and that was clearly a lot of the tension was to make the people singing these things that t

went off that system under president nixon in august of 1971, instead of fighting to maintain a stable monetary system, or figure out how to get back to one -- which is what i think the imf should have sought to do -- it waited a few years, kind of fumbled along. and then it accepted that. and now its attitude is, any country can have any kind of exchange arrangement they want -- floating, fixed. they can have a currency board. they can piggyback and peg to another country's currency. the only thing they can't do is peg their money to gold. so, it's not just a betrayal of the original idea, it's almost perverse. they can't peg to gold. meantime, the imf sits on virtually all of the gold that was contributed from the beginning, from countries who had to pay in gold or dollars to become a member of what was supposed to be a stable, international, monetary system. >> vin weber you mentioned earlier. my recollection is that jack kemp was a big gold supporter, and he had an outfit called empower america, and that vin weber was involved in empower america, and you were involved with empower

nixon 1960. this event is 45 minutes. >> i want to talk about why we should care about the 1960 election, what was so special about that one. secondly, i want to tell you about the major lessons i learned in my research that you can find in the book if you take the time to read it, thirdly, i want to walk you through pivotal en

also the post office is now public and has been since nixon's time.s is just a republican attempt to -- well, as i see it, bring down obama. you know, there wasn't any problem in paying for an unfunded occupation in afghanistan and iraq. but now to help the people, there is. here in texas, we have one of the worst health care systems in the nation. what -- when i was working every year, our premiums and co-pays would go up but our coverage would go down. you know, if the republicans have their way in this state, nothing will get any better. it just amazes me the scare tactics that the republicans are putting forth to do whatever they can do not help the people. host: thank you. guest: well, i agree with you, the results of this bill are scary. but it's because of what's this in the bill. the bill does cut nearly a half trillion dollars out of medicare. that's never happened before. and if you have a medicare advantage plan, which one out of four medicare recipients does, their benefits will be cut. the bill does increase taxes by a half trillion dolla

>> i have to say carrie prejean tapes are much more than nixon's tapes. although watergate, prejeangate, two very different things. and i'll be quiet now. >> carlos, stranger things have happened. we've been at this a long time and we've seen the weirdest of the weird. leslie, let me ask you this. can you possibly see this now, i've come up with an idea for a platform that perhaps carrie prejean could run on, i've made my notes here, how about the anti-opposite marriage and pro-sex tape video reform platform, heh? how do you like that? >> how about, i had breast implants and asked to give them back platform. carlos, did you do a sex tape at 17? i know i didn't. we're all crazy at 17 but we didn't all do sex tapes, especially sex tapes alone. a.j., i think this is exactly what we're proving america would do, which is laugh at this. except for some extremely anti-gay groups in america that would latch on. i don't think she has a chance at all. now, unless she were to go into politics in the future. >> i've always disagreed with the idea that any publicity i

on he was in charge of the new federalism for president nixon. and president carter he was the one who brought the civil service reform. ronald reagan, reagan came in and put dwight in charge of shutting down an agency. now for a civil servant shutting out an agency is about the most unpleasant thing you can never asked him to do but he said time to do this because i want to prove that a civil servant will do what the president asks of him. the white shut down the first federal agency in 50 years since the depression. now he was even kidnapped by colombian drug lords while leading the war on drugs with the state department and soon after a white retired from that. [laughter] >> i think i would retire to after being kidnapped by colombian drug lords. the story of survivors that in a democracy we are all participants in shaping our future. one story about him that i love it is early in the kennedy administration he was pulled over from the eisenhower administration and he was arguing for a nuclear test ban treaty and he got in an argument with arth

also the post office is now public and has been since nixon's time. just a republican attempt to -- well, as i see it, bring down obama. you know, there wasn't any problem in paying for an unfunded occupation in afghanistan and iraq. but now to help the people, there is. here in texas, we have one of the worst health care systems in the nation. what -- when i was working every year, our premiums and co-pays would go up but our coverage would go down. you know, if the republicans have their way in this state, nothing will get any better. it just amazes me the scare tactics that the republicans are putting forth to do whatever they can do not help the people. host: thank you. guest: well, i agree with you, the results of this bill are scary. but it's because of what's this in the bill. the bill does cut nearly a half trillion dollars out of medicare. that's never happened before. and if you have a medicare advantage plan, which one out of four medicare recipients does, their benefits will be cut. the bill does that will mean that premiums for insurance

[applause] we elected kennedy over nixon but we still had to march on washington.to march in selma. our activism empowers the president. our silence betrays him and the tradition. i close on the meeting with franklin d. roosevelt. he and his group said they had an agenda. we need health care. we demand these things. roosevelt said, i agree with everything that you are saying. now go out and make me do it. without your activism, i cannot be your ally in the white house. we have more education than ever before. more of us with degrees. when i was in south carolina growing up, we did not have no degrees or measurable intelligence. there would be making all kind of noise in cleveland. you'd go to the valentine packing plant two blocks away. you could smell those hogs. they would back up to a pool of scalding hot water, boiling hot water. they would put the grease in the bottom and the hog would slide down and have no hair and the sausages on the other end. those hogs, smelling their death, those hogs squealed so loud, with a stink so odorous, people change the law beca

nobody runs around caen themselves a richard nixon republican or a hayes republican. it does not always mean that they understood what ronald reagan stood for. . . >> we will show the 14 vice- president that became president. happy thanksgiving to all of you. we will be back tomorrow at 7:00 a.m., eastern time. c-span[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> you were watching c-span, created for you as a public service by america's cable companies. coming up this thanksgiving day, director steven spielberg received the liberty medal at the national constitution center. then, remarks from the former undersecretary of defense, paul wolfowitz on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. after that, political strategists assess the new obama administration as he nears his first year in office. friday, for the first time in british history, parliament opens its chambers to non-mp's as they debate in the house of commons. former new york times reporter at what has to his plagiarism. a look

i was around during nixon.i don't know when they ever hired 35 people in mahoning county in a presidential campaign. but you know why they could do it? you know why they could do it? because they had the money. that's why they could do it. it made a big difference, i think. to me, that is the explanation for why obama created this tremendous campaign organization. but the point is they also did not do one of our themes, it was not coordinated with the local party. but when we talk about the party, they really didn't take the party leaders, statutory party leaders were not in council. i mean, there were actually people from out of state running this organization because their job was to follow the manual, and it wasn't -- we don't want to hear from, oh, so and so over in third ward, you know, this is the way we did it, kennedy won, they weren't going to hear any of that. this is the model that you follow, and you know what, it's better, we just bring people in from out of state, so it highlights the point that 1

one of the surprising tidbits of this is that richard nixon lived several months in -- and to clinton's term, and communicated with clinton who took his advice quite seriously. at one point, he went to see strobe talbott and said yeltsin may be a drunk, but he was the best they're likely to get out of that screwed up country. they had to keep him from becoming there any or being replaced by someone who wants to be their enemy, and that is not a bad summary of what the administration tried to do. clinton moved to try to build a personal relationship with yeltsin, and he did a lot of specific things -- more money for economic assistance, getting russia admitted to the so-called g-eight, which required refocusing from economics to political situate the -- considerations. it appears the clinton, who was a very successful politician, had a lot of sympathy. i did not see the president that often, but i did once have the privilege of briefing him before a meeting with yeltsin, one of the administration clearly mean, we correctly, pulled its punches. he said if we had a situation anything like

lot that we can learn between the experiences of president kennedy, president reagan, presidenand nixonn be applied. we are still the most powerful country in the world. we are trying to get them to stop going down the road that they are going towards. there is a new development really in the last decade, the juxtaposition of terrorism and nuclear weapons. it is one thing that iran and north korea will be rational states. it is another thing to deal with rationality when dealing with osama bin laden. this is a very dangerous age. on 9/11, osama bin laden used in the crudest means possible to kill 3000 people. if he had used biological weapons, nuclear suitcase, it would have been a truly catastrophic event with the deaths and wounded in the multiples of 3000. while we practice traditional straighstatecraft, we have to dl with this very issue. >> , to longer do you think that this government has? >> it is hard to know how much time one has but there is time available. everyone agrees that the north koreans are not fully capable. i think it is a mistake to say that we need to rush to an i

i did not note any campaign -- i was around during nixon, i do not know when they ever hired that many. they could do it. for me, that is the explanation for why obama accretive this tremendous campaign organization -- created this tremendous organization. but we look on here, we talk about it, and the statutory party leaders were actually people from out of state running this organization. their job was to follow. we do not want to hear from old so-and-so. they were not going to hear any of that. this is the model you follow. it is better. we bring people out of state. it highlights the point that in 1996, we select the person who is going to court in a campaign, and i think we look at the way they did it. today we send in people from, god forbid, massachusetts and these foreign places. they send people in to run these campaigns and i think they did it on purpose. i do not think it was that they could not find anybody to do it. it was just a good way of keeping the model they wanted, which to some extent, they have created in the primary and want to move away from. but i think it is v