to. >> robert mcnamara leaves office.on a personal level by the war. >> tonight the communists hit the very heart of saigon, the brand-new u.s. embassy building. and at least ten cities in that war-torn country. >> the tet offensive was the big show of the vietcong. >> it's huge. they've got the americans and south vietnamese completely by surprise. >> it exposed how tenuous the u.s. hold was. >> who won and who lost in the great tet offensive against the cities? i'm not sure. the terrible loss in american lives, prestige, and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there. it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of vietnam is to end in a stalemate. >> when walter congress are kite, who is the most trusted man in america, said that, lyndon johnson said "if i've lost walter, i've lost middle america." lyndon johnson realized he was no longer in charge of the war. the war was in charge of him. >> what did you lose? >> i had a 36 when we started. we got 21 killed. >> what were you thinking abo

robert mcnamara, defense secretary at the time told a book before he died telling how wrong he was.'s amazing to me 50 years after the voting rights act and the civil rights act, how courageous lyndon johnson was. he doesn't get the credit he deserves for the good that he did do. on the vietnam front he was going wrong. we recognize that now all these years later. johnson doesn't have a whole day. king does. johnson doesn't have a monument. king does. we see was right 50 years later by king paid a serious price for that. last year of his life he was drinking a little heavier. smoking a little heavier. he couldn't stop the habit, kind of like barack obama. but his life in the last year was just so, the visual impact. when he guided the autopsy on his body, he was assassinated at 39. the autopsy revealed the inner parts of a 67 year old man, distressed and the pressure on them on the outside is 39 but inside he is in his '60s. he wasn't going to live forever anywhere but that kind of pressure and stress on his organs were taking a toll on him but he never -- that's what makes this boo

but despite the problems of the vietnam problem, robert mcnamara was head of the world cup and he was addressing global citizenship so to speak. and there have been leaders of the imf who have done similarly. so that element is important and to view global corporation as purely a matter of national diplomacy cooperating and working together, i think underestimates the degree of need there is for a global or regional demos in a way. but we are very far away from having achieved this yet. thank you so much for coming all of you, and thank particularly the panel, the wonderful panel we've had. i hope you've enjoyed this and brookings is fulfilling its mission of bringing such discussions together and please give a round of applause to our panelists. [ applause ] >>> we wanted a building that was very accessible to the community. and it needed to be -- to incorporate a future that we didn't -- we can't predict the future. part of the problem with the old library is that we were tapped out on as many computers and wiring that we could fit into that structure. so our new building needed a l

which was a year and half later i was out by then but i was over in a conference in moscow with robert mcnamaraand a bunch of people and akhromeyev was then not chief of staff of the armed forces but he was gorbachev's military advisor so i sent them a note to say hello. he said come right over. his office was right down the hall from gorbachev. we had a wonderful hour talking and in that hour he showed me around his office and showed me his chandelier. it was a wonderful chandelier and his phone bank of his six phones of different colors and shapes and sizes that attracted more attention and we say goodbye and i thanked him for all of his cooperation. it was absolutely wonderful at reykjavik and being to me the hero at reykjavik and the soviet union starts to fall and on september 26, 1991 i'm reading in the "washington post" about the fifth paragraph down in article about michael dobbs and is said to akhromeyev suicide in his office with the chandelier, took the rope from the drapes tied it up and with the chandelier committed suicide right on the hall from gorbachev's office. and if that was

he profiles such figures as marie currie, albert einstein, curtis lemay and comer robert mcnamara, ronald reagan and mikhail gorbachev. this one-hou one hour and ten ms program is next on booktv. >> i remember going to the library when i was around 11-years-old and picking out a big beautifully illustrated book printed in 1956. it was entitled our friend, the atom by german science author. the preface featured a parable about a man that wrote to the corruptincorrupting lamp that bt forth a mighty genie that stood for atomic energy. he called the person he must be handled carefully for he could either be a tireless uncomplaining servant, or the most fearful and a terrible master the man had ever known. the man didn't want this responsibility. but the genie told him now that he had been free he couldn't put him back in the bottle he had to decide how to use and. tonight's presentation of the age of reagan's details visit much richer digital form and tolls among its stories scientists whose interest in the atom sometimes called within and out of hitler's persecution drove from germany the ve