truman comes in. the economic planners are wanting to institute this but they think the war is going to go on till 1946. germany, of course, surrenders in '45. it appears that it will go on for a long time. truman did not know about the atomic bomb when he became president. that's one of the shocks. roosevelt had never informed him that it was being developed. in fact, one of the odd things was the day that truman became president he did not know we had an atomic bomb but stalin did. one of the ironies of history, the russians knew we had it, the president of the united states did not. happily, secretary of war stimson told that to truman early in his presidency so now he knew and when he decided to use it on japan in august, congress is out of session. it takes most of america by surprise, august 6th an atomic bomb on hiroshima, august 9th on nagasaki and congress were out of session and the planners did not have a chance to send their programs and immediately truman wants to get them into session bu

truman did not know about the atomic bomb. that is one of the shocks peering roosevelt and never informed temp that it was being developed. one of the opting for the day truman became president, he did not know we had an atomic tom, but stalin did. ironies of history, the russians knew we had it, the president of united states did not. happily, secretary of war simpson told that to truman early in his presidency, so now, he knew. and when he made the decision to use it on japan in august, congress is out of session. it takes most of america by surprise august 6. an atomic bomb on hiroshima august 9, on nagasaki. congress is out of session in the war is over. the planners had not had a chance to come in with their programs. admittedly, truman wants to get them back into session, by this time, some of the congressmen were saying, you know what, this 94% tax will not get america back on track. here is truman's secretary of treasury, gives you an idea where the americans were who favor this kind of intervention. attains had come o

i am going to the truman house, his letters at the truman presidential library. i can't encourage people enough to check them out. you got to slog through a lot of stuff, some wonderful gems from his training through combat coming home and presidential papers. and with general purging, the national world war i museum, coming out and a chance to talk to you all especially if you have letters or emails and thank you so much. [applause] >> just like the national wilbur museum and memorial, the war that his project is a google story, don't forget www. warletters.us but also like us, the global story. if you are looking to the clinton, roosevelt's propeller or purging's flag across the glass rigid is in the main gallery, if you haven't been there, those are there. it is more poignant after you have read andrew carroll's book. please join us for the book signing. >> watch the 2017 colby military writers symposium today at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv. willing. ♪ ♪ >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's c

it was president truman. general, i want you to go to china for me as special ambassador to try and broker some kind of an arrangement between shanghai scheck and melts a song. yes, sir. catherine heard this about an hour later on the radio that marshall was going to china. hell tos held to pay -- pay, but off he went. working under the auspices of the army on the state department, yet asked president truman committee work with the under secretary of state dean ashton is sort of a rear echelon. marshall service in china was a standards, and what became known a little bit later in the political history as the china lobby made him pay for it, although nobody it seems to me could have been expected successfully to broker such a coalition government as was proposed. he came back having been visited by eisenhower and asked if he would consent to be appointed secretary of state. 1947, took over secretary of state. atchison was in the under secretary. a time we might call revolutionary in the making of american fore

truman, kennedy. barack obama. >> charlie: i saw barack obama and i saw him because we're doing something for a future project and i said how's the memoir coming and he said i've already written two chapters. i said that's amazing. he said i started writing in tahiti. it's not a history but a memoir. >> it will be an important book. >> charlie: because of unique insight and the capacity he has for words. >> absolutely. very talented writer. and a gentlemen. >> charlie: interesting. bush 41, john meacham was going to call the book "the left gentlemen" and his publisher wanted something else. >> i have known seven presidents i interviewed them or spent time with them. nothing like you have but the one i know best is bush senior. >> charlie: 41. >> and i knew him, met him well before he got in politics and he's a wonderful human being. >> charlie: that's what comes out doesn't it? the sense of integrity, you ma t mant -- humanity and patriot six a man at 18 years old gets accept to yale and goes to the n

david: harry truman. charlie: harry truman, the one that you know well.avid: he never went to college, but he never stopped reading history. he said the only new thing in the world is the history you don't know. and now, with our 45th president, we have a leader who doesn't know much of anything in the way of history, and who has said so. charlie: he said he does not read biographies. david: he dismisses biographies books, reading, and history. let my feelings about the importance of history, as you said, go back several decades. that is what this book is a collection of. i think we must encourage, stimulate, and bring history theeh its importance in whole system of education. charlie: a couple of things. werehower said the there four key qualities to measure a leader by. character, ability, responsibility, and experience. david: and dwight eisenhower wrote one of the very best books ever written about the second world war. charlie: let's talk about that. i don't have any reason to be able to contradict that, but i am surprised. david: no, he did. charlie

in david's words, the truman house is far distant in missouri and far different. it is quite another kind of setting, just as harry truman was another kind of american. we sold a lot of books that day. will always cher-my memories of hosting david mccullough not only in the store put many book venues in the chicago area. let us all welcome him today to the most special of them all, the american writers museum. we did it. >> thank you very much. thank you all. and let's all be very grateful that be live in this marvelous country and the things of importance are still happening. we're a good people and we are doing good work. i travel up and down the country, time and again, i've been in every state many times, and i know that so much is going on that's positive and important. it doesn't get much attention. and we should know more about it than we do. we are a nation of ideas and have been all along. no computer, as far as i know, has ever yet had an idea. we are also nation of immigrants, all of us, and we should always take heart from that. and i took heart instan

when the white house had to be billed during -- built during truman's presidency. , truman made sureent back on the mantelpiece. when kennedy was president, he had it carved into the marble part, rather than the wood. what adams wrote to abigail was, "may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof." what i love about it is he puts honest first. character,ength of that is what matters in the job. strength of character and confidence that the american enduring, and the american spirit -- charlie: which is the title of the book. david: yes. i have spent a lot of time with john adams and harry truman, and feel,re roosevelt, and i often, that lots of other biographers, historians, have expressed the same thought. you get to know these people in many ways better than you know people in real life. you read their letters. [laughter] david: exactly. and the letters are so revealing, and they are so often touching and eloquent, and the relationship between bess and harry truman as found in the letters, the relationship between abigail and john adams is found in those letters. there

speaking of truman and big hou house, after truman became president the other man from truman's battalion wrote and congratulated him. truman was trying to win the war and had a million things going on. they sent him a second letter referred to him as i think president harry because i called him captain harry. he said i hope you got my letter, congrats. the reason i'm calling you now is my grown son has been lost in combat. he was shut down and we can find him. he said i know you have these things going on but if there's anything you can do to help me find my boy, i would be grateful. i will leave it at that. but this is to circle back to your original point, that truman was also a sensor. he was reading the letters so as a sensor he got around censorship to say here's what's really going on which is during world war two. and troops were doing the same thing. . . but there is really wonderful things from his training all the way through combat and defend the presidentiathen thepresidene again the intent is to make people see different sides especially but i cannot thank you enough for com

and harry truman becomes -- not that i'm comparing our presidenv to harry truman but truman is not supposed to win. never poll had him winning. but any event, they're really stuck now. and republicans, like buckley and people who supported taft on the domestic side, wanted to shrink the new deal and get back to what life was like before the great american state and get rid of agencies and taft was the guy to do that. now they get eisenhower. now, eisenhower was a very shrewd politician. and he let the party talk about roll back of the welfare state at home, which all republicans supported, and rollback of thei stalinist encroachment abroad. and buckley's surmised -- wasn't sure about what he was going to do about stalin. did believe the nato argument, thought maybe he could do better on foreign policy than stevenson. >> adlai fee stephenson. >> guest: not trying block... -- that that that he will be tougher on the cold war. but he had some doubts. he had some doubts about the domestic agenda. i discovered later that eisenhower rubbed his brother basically saying look, we just can't come in

truman and ike did not play ball on that thing, although truman knew he had to get us out of the korean war quickly. he did eventually solve it post 100 days of june of 1953. kennedy started playing as a democrat and catcher he -- and capturing the new frontier bottled off the new deal. let's talk about the spirit and not get into the policy weeds because we don't want to be compared to fdr too closely. when john kennedy entered office he had an 83% approval rating, john kennedy. that was after the bay of pigs. many historians thought it was a fiasco. kennedy took line for it, failed exercise in cuba. why? why did he have such a high? because he reached across the aisle. he launched the peace corps in 1961. he started the alliance for rock dress. he engaged in the space race. alan shepard came in during the first day of kennedy's administration when the space race was on. by may 25, 1961, that is when john f. kennedy went to a joint session of congress and said we are going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and started chasing the moonshot. let's do something that is a b

harry truman ranks high on our c-span poll as one of the great presidents. did not have a college degree but he would read biography and deep into american history. hundreds of biographies of everyone from sam houston to abraham lincoln, robert e. lee and robert fulton. he had such a breadth of american history. that is why truman would love the painter thomas hart benton who would do portraits and murals of american history, and that is someone without a college degree. read "guns ofy august," which was a warning about how big war can happen by a strange little event that seemed minor. a chain event can lead to something horrific. the behavior of the kaiser wilhelm, the fecklessness that took over europe. that was important for the kennedy years. he read that at the time of something like the cuban missile crisis. being a reader mattered. publishedchel carson the book "silent spring," which gave birth to the environmental movement and kennedy read her articles in new york and at a press conference was asked and said i'm going to get in investigation, and he

they have gone so liberal starting with truman. if roosevelt would have lived another year we would have won the korean war but truman took all the fight out of us. what is liberalism and that is why we didn't win in korea. >> what is the problem with the democratic party today? >> caller: you will see 80% of the people going to college since the truman era are all liberals. >> do you want to talk about the history of the democratic party and where it is today. >> guest: you had a democratic party in disarray. you had president obama and great for the obama brand, but if you look at what happened to the democratic party during the eight year rein you saw masses lossess at the state level, house and senate level, and you have a democratic party that is having its own identity crisis. can democrats accommodate the modern democrats so they can win swing districts? this is the question for democrats because if they don't do they they will not not have the success they want to have in the mid-term election. it is so early. they are star

they have gone so liberal starting with truman if roosevelt would have liveded another year we would have won the korean war. but truman just took all the fight to out of us with his liberalism and that is why we didn't win in korea. >>host: what about today with the democratic party?.. >> caller: if you check the colleges they say 80 percent of the people going to colleges since the truman era are liberals in the end up with the dark skin liberal and look what he did to this country. >>host: day want to talk about the history of a a democratic party. >>guest: i will take the first part is a good question the way that he phrased it is a questionic almost all the coverage the trouble favorable ratingsgues were so low despite all of that they still probably may not win back the house for the senate because of what the caller was talking about you have a democratic party in disarray with president obama that i think was great for the obama brand but look at the democratic party during his reign you saw massive losses at the state level and that the senate muffled and big losses in the g

they have gotten so liberal starting with truman. if roosevelt had lived another year, we would have won the korean war, but truman took all the fight out of us with his liberalism. that is why we did not win in kora. -- in korea. host: what do you think is happening today with the democratic party? check withyou colleges, then you will see that 80% of the people going to college since the truman era are all liberals. up with the dark skin at what he didok with the country. host: i'm not sure where we are going with that. jim bender chaim, do you want -- jim, do you want to try and talk about the liberal -- the democratic party notice? nowadays? guest: well, when it came to the liberal coverage of donald trump's campaign, it is unlikely that the democratic party is going to win back a lot of the house. right now, you have a democratic party that is in disarray. if you look at what happened to the democratic party during resident obama's -- president youa's eight year reign, saw big losses in the number of houses and governorships. so

truman who was the artillery captain. they reach referred to truman as a failed haberdasher.you read the experience and he literally was almost killed several times in the war not just from artillery but it was rather impressive and if so. there is a story i include as an anecdote where daring the fire his horse toppled over and he was suffocating to death. he said i was within seconds. he came over, pulled him to safety and saved his life. at the end i follow back on all these people. one of my favorites was bill donovan. so what happened to all these guys come and then click they had a big clash in the white house. he came to him and said we need to create kind of a central agency that gathers intelligence and he said no. i'm not going to do it because an agency like that will turn on its own people. he said that will never happen. so what's interesting is he said you have to have some sort of an intelligence gathering institution. of course we need the cia. and as it turned out, they did turn on the americans. so i talk about the story at these intersections of how they se

the band from harry truman high school also entertained the crowd along with a group of mummers in their fancy costumes, there they are. children decorated their bikes and took part in the festivities. we even saw a chicken who was enjoying the parade. >>> 6abc is helping put a little more love in your memorial day. prime time tonight kicks off with an all new episode of the

truman did the fair deal. he didn't want to do deal again. deal had been done. presidents are looking for change. the new frontier, and the frontier is space, the frontier is oceans, science, technology, and it worked. i thought it was a great slogan. i still do. people that loved kennedy defined themselves as new frontiersman. there was a whole group of senators that could be determined if they were part of the new frontier team, like frank anderson in new mexico. when that phrase became the cornerstone of the democratic convention in 1960. when john f. kennedy took the nomination and los angeles, he beat out hubert humphrey. he beat out lyndon johnson. evenson -- at least adlai stevenson. he ran for years trying to get the nomination. the term new frontier stuck and it still has a lot of credence to it because it captures there is something different going on in the early 1960's. it is time the new generation , the lieutenant junior grade of in,d war ii were coming replacing somebody like general eisenhower. susan: i was looking if i could find it. in your int

the story of harry truman. he and his wife were headed to dinner and got lost. his wife said stop the car and go ask have to get to the house. he knocks on the door and says where do business live? he said down the street and down the block. he walks awaiting its halfway down heels did anybody tell you that you look like kerrey truman? he said i bet that makes you mad. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] one. >> that this did very big problem be. >> then this say very strong word but asset what i said. thank you. >> where did you go to school? >> alabama [inaudible conversations] five. >> how laugh and then there's the final agreement come together? select the agreement was reached to late on sunday we did not see the text and tell about 2:00 in the morning on monday. less 1600 page leg

wallace begins to criticize truman's cold war policies good and truman fired him. and he runs work, i'm glad reagan for something because here is the beginning. wallace runs. now, buckley noted wallace going to be president. but he is terrified that maybe he will get 12 percent of the votes but he is terrified from probably 60 to 70 percent of that one or two percent of the vote will be -- and of course yale professors! ideas matter and ideas have consequences. while this won't be important but his followers will be around for a very long time. and i'm going to set up my own movement to resist that and push the kind of politics i want. so even though he is technically supporting this and he is part of the yale republican club, half of the faculty - the fact that the communist party with that openly and now we know that, they were openly running a campaign and he says we have to do the same thing on our side. >> you have got us to an interesting point. one of the remarkable things about buckley, taking charge of the conservative movement. he faced a movement or have

truman had his own term and now many people in the country felt there needed to be a change in government. the republican front-runner was a man named senator robert taft and taft was from an old republican family in ohio. his father had been president and he was known in party circles as mr. republican. isenhour came in and the taft people were immediately concerned about the emergence of a celebrity candidate. they called him a glamour candidate. it's hard for us to imagine isenhour being labeled as the glamour candidate but to the die-hard taft people that's exactly what he representative. isenhour came in and there was a big struggle between traditional republicans and many of these people were not internationalist people like him who were media savvy and very good on television and very good on the radio and also had a much more global vision for the united states. eisenhower was a hero to monumental proportions. he was the person who had led the allied forces to victory in world war ii so many republicans in hollywood and many democrats would previously supported roosevelt found the

. >> to the relationship between president truman, i do you have some thoughts?what are your opinions?. >> that wonderful book that is out right now about that particular disagreement but my focus is on congress rather than the civilian or military side that this is something i've inexpert on bed truman -- i.m. and expert on but treatment or correa which was the first large scale military conflict post-world were to done without the declaration of war. and we haven't said several door to bed at the same time no conflict of that scope for scale. and that is no way that truman out conflict can arrive in which they don't declare a war but also not as the president -- president with the second goal for with the operations in afghanistan for authorization and seeking to use military force of that scale. >> thanks for writing the book and a like the fact that you raise the fact that armed intellectual combat is a normal for society it is interesting to have a second analysis and have more of a stampede effect sometimes they lose track of the fact sometimes of their fig

. >> so to their relationship with president truman do you have some thoughts that was a flash point?what is your opinion?. >> there is a wonderful book about that by hw brand about that disagreement but my focus is on the civilian and military fight that is not something i am inexpert on truman is a striking figure not the least of which is korea with that large scale military conflict and it was done without a declaration of war and we haven't had one since but at the same time we never had a conflict of that scope for scale. and truman shows how conflict can arise in which we don't declare war apparently but also at least not in practice has evolved with the first and goal for but in the operation in afghanistan did go to congress before the use military force at that scale >> thanks for writing the book. i thought it was great to have that armed intellectual combats and better things happen but also that second analysis if we don't have those debates and have that stampede effect, either those outcomes turnout as well? because sometimes as a citizen of this track of the fact that

another thing -- we had harry truman. he went back home broke. he never went around doing speeches. he said i would not accept money for being a president. so there's a difference. host: i can give you some history on that as well. from cal thomas, "when he left office in 1953, harry truman and his wife went to independence, missouri, where they lived in a house they previously shared with her mother. he refused to serve on corporate board's and rejected other financial opportunities that might have been his because he said he did not want to diminish the integrity of the presidency. richard nixon departed from that standard, charging for $1 million for an interview with frost. to paraphrase the title of a book by joe mcginnis had begun." don is in memphis, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i would just like to say one thing. for hundred thousand dollars for $400,000 fee -- for speaking fee is so ridiculous with people struggling with minimum wage. "anybody said it best, who would pay that kind of money to listen to somebody speak is a sucker born every minute." i think

harry truman says we're going to take care of them. you can't go on strike because if you do, our economy collapses. in the in 1946 -- this is in 1946. so that is how this came about. bill say, we will, they're going to bail them out. we're not asking for a bailout. you understand these people basically made an agreement that every ton of coal that was mined from 1946, you nighted mine workers basically, there would be an amount of money set aside that came from every ton that went into this fund. every union contract, they contracted and they left money in their contract to pay for their benefits about of health care and pensions and didn't take money home to their family they could have used. they made all these sacrifices for all these years. it wasn't their fault that the bankruptcy laws that were passed in congress allowed companies to walk away and leave them high and dry. it wasn't their fault. they did everything. so finally we've all come together to do what -- the right thing that should have been done. and everybody says we'

truman's letters are digitized and available on the truman library websites. people can read them. i recommend they do. they are fascinating. >> you have made the point that the united states had to ramp up to be able to participate in world war i. what was the size of this country's standing army before war was declared? once the war was over, what was the size of the permanent army in the united states in. >> the regular army that i alluded to before the regular soldiers that were spread out the united states, whether they were in coastal artillery forts or not far from here at fort leavenworth or somewhere out on the west coast, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 some thousand. that's the reason we had to bring in the national guard and troops. after the first world war, typical of the united states, we do downsized significantly. the drafted troops and those enlisted, they all go home and they put their uniforms away and they are done with the military. pretty much the same thing with a lot of the national guard troops. if you are in the regular army, somebody like george s.

. >> rose: including those who had not been university presidents -- >> harry truman. >> rose: harryman being the one you know well. >> yes, who never went to college but who never stopped reading history. he said some wonderful things about it. he said, "the only new thing in the world is the history you esn't know much of anything in the way of history, and who has said so. >> rose: he says, ," i don't read biographies." >> he dismisses biographies, dismisses books, dismissing reading, dismisses history. on the mantelpiece of the state dining room in the white house, there is a quotation that was first carved into the mantel piece by franklin roosevelt from a letter john adams wrote to his wife, abigail, the first night he spent the night in the white house. he was the first president to spend the night there. and then when kennedy was president, he had it cawrved into the marble part of the mantelpiece, rather than the wood, which had been prior to that. what adams wrote to abigail was, "may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof." >> glor: james fader is an actor

you can have it squeaks like weaks truman, no, -- pips like harry truman, no, he was not that small. one of the things they did was create new technologies that had already brought women out of the home, which women were especially good at. there was only one technology in world war i that the united states had an edge in and that was its rifle. iron andd states and food and blood as muscle and in worldrance to fight war i. it did not have the facilities to make guns and planes and tanks and trucks on the scale being made in france at the time. there was one thing the united states was good at and that was a telecommunication. i'm showing you a world war i poster trying to recruit men to operate telephones, telegraph and radios. instrument of generalship in world war i was at the telephone. it had been invented in the united states by alexander graham bell who like many great americans was an immigrant. he came from scotland and invented the telegram here. -- at the telegraph here. the telegraph is morse code. someone has to receive the message, they have to type it up and send it to

rather, the bombs were -- president truman signed an order to deliver each atomic bomb as it was ready. so there was no specific analysis for the need of the second bomb. yes? >> how was your experience as an exchange student? >> how were my experiences as an exchange student? that was a long time ago. [laughter] they were great. they were very hard as well. being in an environment where i had no one to speak to comfortably for a long time was hard. but it was fascinating, and it completely opened up my life to a sense of global experiences that i had not known before. yes? >> i'm curious about the willingness of the participants to be exposed through your writing and whether you encountered any problems. i know that some of the other people probably did not want to have so much exposure because you've said they did not want their names used. >> no, it's not that they didn't want their names used, it's just i had to limit the number of names i used in order for readers to really follow the book. basically, most people -- i believe it's true in hiroshima too, but also, definitely, in na

they helped to imbue president truman and the secretary of state marshall to take this role. this role has been pretty hardy. this system of alliances, this world order of free trade and the spread of democracy has worked pretty well since 1945 to keep the larger piece. there have been big mistakes. vietnam, a tragic mistake. lots of falling outs. we forget that france dropped out of nato or tried to in the 1960's. lots of turmoil, little mistakes, but the larger order persisted for the past half-century and more. risk.rder is now at we have a president of the united states who pretty openly said that it was too expensive, i don't like this free-trade. our allies are not spending enough on their own defense. in some of his tweets and s tatemetnnts, sounds like an isolationist. the orders that these men created is not in question -- now in question. >> one of the things that the 1918 peacemaking wilsonian vision that should come after -- that they focused on was the for of self-determination peoples who had self -- suffered through the war. that was the great, unredeemed promi

wallace begins to criticize truman's tough cold war policies. and truman fired him. and he runs for, i'm glad ray get into this because here we get to buckley in his watching all of this. and wallace runs as the candidate president. buckley knows he's not going to the present but his terrified and maybe wallace gets one or two percent of votes part of what is terrified is probably 60 to 70 percent of that one or two percent of the road are going to be artists, writers and of course professors from yale. ideas matter! ideas have consequences. wallace will not be important but his followers will be along for a very long time. and i'm going to sit in my own movement to resist that supporting duty and the yale republican club, his going around to various radio stations debating on various radio stations. and the fact that the communist party was that openly and now we know this, openly running presidential campaign and they have too many intellectuals peers the big you have to do the same thing. >> you have got us to an interesting point. one of the remarkable things abo

harry truman's 35th division will also go in at the same time. also, not a lot of experience for this battle and they'll also have substantial problems overcoming a very stiff german resistance and very difficult terrain. >> i once had a physician tell me that war forces the greatest advances in medical science. what did world war i contribute to medical science? >> well, a host of things. one of the signature mallities of the war is something called gas gangrene. if you look at where it was fought in northern europe it has been well maneuvered for millennia. when you get hit by a shell fragment or bullet it carries all of that in and it is creating these very nasty secondary infections. the wound themselves could easily be treated but it is the infection that's killing them. so, medical science, mostly the british and french, are trying to figure out how to how to deal with this. ultimately they go to radical solutions. traditionally you would close up the wound and let it heal. if you do that all you are doing is keeping the infection inside. t

coming up saturday morning, the american enterprise institute's gary schmitt and truman national security projects michael green discuss president trump's trip to the middle east and europe, and will magazine reporter severely discusses homelessness in los angeles and what is being done to solve the problem. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. saturday morning. join the discussion. >> regardless of your background, remember where you came from. hold on to the way so many of you reached out to mentor young persons. hold on to the way you engage in this community. make sure to bring that commitment to whatever walk of life you choose. bravery, not perfection, unlocked the key to every door i walked through since. it took me 33 years to figure out that brown girls can do the too.s white boys can do, >> you have to help others. that is what this is all about. saturday night at 8:00 eastern, 2017 commencement speeches. includekend sessions arnold schwarzenegger, former vice president joe biden and the mayor javier gonzalez and michigan governor rick snyder. saturd

[applause] vp pence: we have with us a two-time olympian, two rhodes scholars, two truman scholars, 15 fulbright scholars, a quadruple domer, national champions in fencing and soccer, the indiana campus compact wood award winner, and most impressive of all -- i say with gratitude that 38 of you will leave here and serve as officers in the united states army, navy, marine corps, and air force, and we thank you for your service. [applause] vp pence: now, today is a day of celebration, and the sun is out. [cheers] vp pence: it's also a day of appreciation, especially for all those who believed in you and saw you through -- your friends, these great professors, and your wonderful families. on behalf of all the moms and dads here, i can attest firsthand that this ceremony is one of the proudest moments of their lives. [applause] you know, i've been a governor and now i'm vice president of the united states, but the most important job i will ever hold is that of husband and father. [applause] in fact, my wife of 31 years, the second lady of the united states of america, is also with us today

coming up this morning, the american enterprise institute's gary schmitt and the truman national security project's michael grimm discussed president trump's trip in europe. angeles and in los what is being done to solve the problem. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern this morning. it joined the discussion. weekend, on book tv on c-span2, tonight on 8:30 p.m. eastern, condoleezza rice looks at democracy around the world in her book. >> americans in particular were blessed with founding fathers who understood and institutional design that would protect our liberties, our right to say what we think, to worship as we please, to be free from the knock of the secret police at -- to haveave that the consent of those who govern you. it can't be true for us and not for them. professor on the controversy and perception of sounding black in his book. >> i think we need to get comfortable saying black people have a slightly different found, because they often spend more time with one another just like white people find more like one another because they spend more time together

they brought up their stoves in the dark is that they cooked a hot breakfast for the truman ts for thedy appreciate that had while recognizing this was going to be a bad scene when you're being prepared for some deep unhappiness. all of a sudden, there was an immense crash in the tree above us. a shell had hit there and shattered its fragments downwards, kill my sergeant immediately. he had an involuntary groan and i was hit in the back and the leg. >> what does that word hero mean to you in. >> somebody who survives the whole experience being ruined by it. some of the people that didn't win medals, like my medals, for example, a mexican boy. he was shot through the leg at the moment when i was damaged by shell fire. he never mentioned it. he never said, i've been hit. he just went about his business with his bandages, cutting people's trousers off with his surgical shears as if it was a normal thing to him. that's a hero. somebody like that. that's something admirable. >> 53 years later, it still touches a deep chord. >> absolutely. >> many gis came home with the idea they were spared

government in the 1940's and 19 four -- 50's and 60's. >> although truman very famously calls it the second ration of the milk -- desegregation of the military, it wasn't actually desegregated during the korean war. there's a fascinating dissertation. the reason the army finally got desegregated was it became too complicated to come up with separate units, black and white, separates doctors, black and white, separate chaplains. it was the need to get those troops to korea in the 1950's that was the first time that the military was truly desegregated. >> this only happened because of the freedom movement. it didn't happen -- most of the see was a southern town -- washington dc was a southern town. when i got here in the 60's as an intern. it was clear it was not desegregated. there were certain places that if you are black, you didn't go. are out ofately, we time. i can tell to the three of you forever. please give a thank you to our guests. [applause] there will be able to signing downstairs in the lobby, with will and michael. >> interested in american history tv? visit our website,

charlie: the next is a great photograph you all know of truman capote.eginning of enn'sportrait -- p portraiture. enn created a weird set by putting two seater flats together by creating a very acute angle.it was just him and his subject. truman capote had just published his first stories. he was leaning into the wall. on the floor is basically threats of carpet. but int clean per se, this space and controlled environment, we have a psychological portrait that not only stands the test of time, but makes you sort of feel like capote was already the master of his own craft, and penn, too. charlie: he drove an ambulance in italy in world war ii. jeff: yes. penn started the war in mexico. before pearl harbor. he painted for a year. he came back, almost immediately went to war. he, like many others who had -- largeography, photography, found themselves in fields that photography could play a role. charlie: he wanted very much to be seen as an artist. and he was. i think anyone who is in his presence who had the pleasure of meeting him nude that he was one of

/israel relationship from truman to obama. ambassador, good to have you. >> good to be with you.'s start here, what is your overall score of the president's trip and what are the hits and the missus? >> i think the trip was generally a success, you can divide the trip between the middle east and europe. reception in the middle east was bound to be good because he's not president obama. the israelis and the arabs both looked at president obama fairly or not, and were convinced -- they generally were convinced as he was withdrawing from the middle east, withdrawing from responsibilities and looked at iran as being, in their eyes, part of the problem in the area, not the solution in the area. president trump makes it clear, he sees iran as a major threat in the region. that was bound to be well received in the arabian peninsula with the saudis and the israelis as well. so from the standpoint of reestablishing relations, i think he did a good job, the essence of what he had to say was well received. the speech he made in riyadh mobilizing muslim leaders to fight and try to defeat ext