ties to white house history. she also formed the white house paintings committee to seek out important works art that could be added to the white collection and displayed. she appointed first ever white house curator and she championed a public law that was passed by congress giving the white house museum status, which then meant that all items required for the white house collections, for her project and for after would be preserved and protected in perpetuity. and as i have said, she helped form the white house historical association, which carries on work to this day. jacqueline kennedy worked daily and tires tirelessly on the restoration project. she was by no means just its figurehead. hundreds of pages of her handwritten notes, memos, correspondence. now part of the jacqueline bouvier kennedy onassis papers at the kennedy library are evidence of that. did much of the research and seeking out the fine antiques and furniture that had some connection to the white house. early american history for a presidentia

nixon made on the white house collection. and just on how it looks overall and the fact that all of the things she did to enable more more people to come through the house and enjoy it, particularly in the era era, when it was much easier to get into the white house is something that, you know, literally millions of people have seen. they may not know that it was mrs. nixon who who acquired all these things and made it possible for. people with disabilities, others to come through and enjoy the house. she really has left. she really left an enduring mark on executive mansion that people and and really enjoy right up until the present time and i'm sure will for many years. you know i know that along with the furniture she was, as you mentioned, the adams portraits. she was responsible for the, i think, permanent loan is what they called it, of a portrait of dolley madison in bringing that to public display for the first time in the white house and was also there to oversee this rather sensitive process of bringing the portraits

the white house. now, it's shorthanded by saying white house history with frank sesno, who's our moderator. and. and, frank, you have big shoes to fill, at least high shoes to fill, because we have ann compton here and we had four episodes of white house history with ann compton. and that was great fun as well. this program is put together by the david rubenstein national center for white house history here at the association, led by dr. colleen shogun, dr. matthew costello, and all of their colleagues who are here today. put in a tremendous amount of work to put on this series, as well as our other substantive programs that we have as part of our education mission here at the association. i'd like to acknowledge a member of our board of directors, anita mcbride, who is here, and three distinguished former members of our board, bob mcgee, martha kumar and mike mccurry, who are also on the panel. we have several members of our national council on white house history who are the real wind in a in the sa

steve covered the white house from 2017 through 2021 as the senior white house correspond and subsequently as voa's white house bureau chief, he came to the job well prepared through his extensive global reporting. with more than 25 years in asia, reporting from tokyo, india, korea and thailand, his coverage has taken him to roughly five countries. he's reported from combat zones, uprisings and amid natural disasters. he was one of the few journalists to get access to the fukushima nuclear power plants. hot zone. recently, steve said in an interview that there is always tension in the symbiotic relationship between administration and the media. we need each other, but the goals can diverge too close of a relationship is not good for democracy. but if the relationship gets distant and hostile, that is also unhealthy for informing the electorate. herman's new book how journalists can balance that relationship and how the relationship with the white house evolved over time. before we begin, just quick reminder to please silence your cell phones. you haven't already. you'll also find cards for

welcome to the white house historical association. i am stuart mclaurin and i am the president of the association. it is a real privilege to have you here under our roof at historic decatur house. we have a full mid-room here and those of us, those of you who are joining us by c-span, we have a terrific program plan for you this evening. this is the first of four episodes in our white house history quarterly lecture series on media and the white house. now, it is shorthanded by saying white house history with frank says no, who is our moderator. [ applause ] and, frank, you have big shoes to fill, at least high shoes to fill, because we have in compton here and we had four episodes of has history with in compton and rk that was great fun as well. this program is put together by the david m rubenstein national center for white house history here at the association, led by dr. colleen jobin, dr. matthew castillo and all of their colleagues who are here today, put in a tremendous amount of work to put on this series as well as our other s

she asked the white house of congress and the white house ushers office to send as much information as they could on the history of the white house and its collections. after actually moving into the white house in the early days of the kennedy administration, she scoured every closet, and cranny, and toward various government storage facilities in search of treasures she hoped to find from presidents past that may have been forgotten. some items did come to life, but it quickly became apparent to mrs. kennedy that she would need to look outside of the white house to make her project a success. and although she was now extremely well read on the subject, she realized, she would need help to achieve her goal. so, within the very early months of 1961, mrs. kennedy formed the fine arts committee for the white house to help her develop restoration plans and acquire furnishings with ties to white house history. she also formed a white house painting committee to see what works of art that could be added to the white house collection and displays. she appointed the first ever white house cur

or happy when one was saved and restored when i learned we would be living in the white house, how can i help but think of restoring this much of its past as possible? it would have seemed criminal not to and i cared terribly about it. here is the house that all americans love and almost revere. practically nothing in an earlier than 1948. why shouldn't the residence of or the president of the united states, show pictures and portraits of great men in our history. furniture, books. so with that background in mind, in the winter of 1960, following the presidential election, mrs. kennedy hit the ground running, so to speak. she asked the library of congress and the white house office to send her as much information as they could on the history of the white house and its collections. and after actually moving into the white house in the earliest days of the kennedy administration, she scoured every closet, nook and cranny, and toured various government storage facilities in search of treasures that she hoped to find from presidents pasts that may have been forgotten. some items come to li

every corner of the white house, i think, reflects mrs. n's commitment to increasing the collection and to really make certain that the house reflected the earliest days of the republic, which is when it was build. in 2011, carl was good enough to mention that i had curated mrs. nexon's centennial visit. several of w us went to the whie house to the meet with some folks about how we might if involve them in the centennial celebrations of mrs. nixon's birth which would happen in 2012, and we met with the curator of the white house, bill allman. and i remember saying to him, we would really like to borrow a couple of pieces to exhibit out at the library in california. mrs. nixon acquired more than 400 piece, i'm sure there's something in the white house rare house that you could send out there that would not be missed in the white house. -- house. and he quickly replied that the everything she collected was of such quality and such historic importance that none of it is in the white house, and they're going to have to figure out how they can

at the white house. these enslaved workers performed a variety of jobs. they were chefs, gardeners, stable hands, maids, butlers, valets, ladies, ladies and. and did all sorts of other cleaning and other work around the white house. so we had this long history up until the lincolns of having a lot of enslaved workers in the white house itself. but things changed with first ladies, beginning with this with abigail adams, who had a very, very different opinion of slavery from her predecessor, martha washington. abigail was an abolitionist and shortly after john adams was inaugurated, and abigail wasn't there at the time. that was not a typical first lady. martha was not there for george's inauguration either. but martha had written a letter at one point in her life to john which said that and fortunately how could they, the southerners, reconcile human bondage with the ideology of freedoms that america had fought for. and abigail hired a free african-american named james, who worked at their farm. and duri

jackie kennedy, the tour of the white house. truman, they had one and it was not quite the same in black and white. and hers, she had an audience that was around 80 to 88 million people. and that was something of a national moment and that what often happens is the first lady is seen by the senior staff of the white house as a source of maybe she's going to cause trouble. but all of a sudden her poll numbers are higher than his and they start using the first lady where they become important in giving the human element and that view of what the president value like. >> so there is imagery around the first lady? >> and so it is very important. and that we would see that with michelle obama and they seem to be pretty cool where she was very warm and so you would see her there with kids and hugging kids. >> that's one of the things that i think is so important in my coverage across four presidents, but what i think is important for the white house press corp. to do, to have a chance to talk about the families. things that go beyond p

the white house. for the better part of a decade. then she went into storage and was found again 50 years later and is now on loan to the library from. the white house. and she arrived at the library in 2022, just as we were going to celebrate the 50 years since signing of title nine, which was a great advancement to women women that happened for women that happened during during the nixon era. as he signed law, now there's a back story to this that i want to share with you and i hope it you smile in the fall and i do 70 to 2 women's groups the force on women's rights and responsibilities and the citizens council on the status of women came to me and said they would like to give a bust of susan b anthony great suffragist to the white house in honor of what president nixon has done to elevate women in the federal government. i thought that was a wonderful idea and they proceeded to get it done. they had a copy of the marble bust of susan b, which is in the u.s. capitol. now, this one is bronze made in

when we worked in the white house, my office was like west wheatley, white house staff. i don't know. this is still true, but back when we were there pre-covid, you could after the president had gone home for gone back that home ivy down the hallway to his house you could give tours, private tours of the west wing. and my office was at the very end the tour because it was next to the oval office at the time and vice biden would have to walk past my office to leave in that day. and so i i'd say 15 times over the course of the two years i sat in that office would walk out of i could hear president biden and vice president biden consoling someone like would person sobbing on his shoulder about something had happened. their lives slip or a loss of a family member, you know, cancer, all these things and i always wondered, like, how did they get to that conversation so quickly? like they were just in the hallway. but it's just like that is who he is. i can only imagine how hard that was to tell to tell him that that of him on the most painful thing in his had not the other wer

jennifer, who you may know, is an author of white house the white house christmas is going to have a new book out on ceremonies at the white. and so we'll have a conversation with chef messina and jennifer pickens at our event in october. so stay tuned for news on both of those occasions and now for prime event that we're very fortunate and we're in for a treat tonight to talk about this very important and timely happening in our nation's history and on the centennial, this important historic occasion, we have robert rebecca boggs roberts here tonight is our speaker. and rebecca has been i many things in her life in her career and not limited to just these. she's been a journalist she's been a producer. she's been a tour guide. she's been a forensic anthropologist. she's been an event planner. she's been a political consultant. she's been a jazz singer. she's been a radio talk show host. and currently is curator of programing planet word, a museum set to open in 2020. she's also time to be the mom to two twin boys and, a wife and a great keeper of the family. in line. and on top of th

let's bring in selina wang at the white house. we're one week away from the democratic national convention. it kicks off next monday in chicago. what do you know about who will speak? >> reporter: the harris campaign is hoping to ride this momentum to the convention. form presidents barack obama, bill clinton and former secretary of state hillary clinton are expected to speak, as well as president biden. the white house saying that president biden is looking forward to the convention and talking directly to the american people about the stakes of this election. david? >> david: selina wang at the white house for us, thank you. abc news will cover the convention beginning monday in prime time on abc news life. the fbi is investigating an alleged hack of the trump campaign emails. the fbi investigating after the trump campaign said they were hacked by foreign sources. microsoft confirming a group run by iranian intelligence hacked the email account of a former senior adviser of the presidential campaign, but didn't identify the spec

and then the white house central files, white house special files. the special files had john erlichman papers and bob haldeman's papers, which turned out to be extremely important so. and are many, many more. i spent weeks and weeks at the library and there is no substitute for being on yourself to get your very contained clean and not dirty hands on these stocking. you just have to see them for themselves in person to get a sense of what you need. you don't need but was just a vast amount of material to go through and the foundation and the national arm just made it easy for me to do this even even during covid. and jason schwartz was particularly helpful then to me be able to some things during that very time. it was a difficult time to be researcher as i'm sure will know, nancy surely. so that's hopefully a brief enough summary of what i was able to get into and it was wonderful. that's great. thank. and we're looking forward to your book, tiffany, as you've been research ing here, what were some of the additional documents that you came across a

he said i'm not allowed in the white house. in fact, i've never been in the white house. you've never been in the white house? you didn't get in line to do tour like you could do with -- no, never done it. never allowed in there. never allowed in the white house. that's why he didn't chase him in. you can see on the video that the person stopped. he said i can't go in there, i'm not allowed to be there. the training is absolutely pathetic and if you look at the attack on president trump what you're going to find is that that extraction is totally embarrassing. didn't have a -holester for the gun. can't get to him. nobody knows how to open up the gate. it's pathetic and an embarrassment. i have to move on quickly to the other ones as well but these things have to be addressed. if you're overworked. maybe not trained the best and then you're -- what are you going to get? we found, and the reports will back this up, that they could not get security clearances for the agents and officers and so sometimes they'd put them out there without a proper security clearance. you don't

we work to the white house together my office the white house staff i don't if this is still true butck when we were there pre-covid after the president had gone back down the hallway to his house. [laughter] you give private tours of the westwick my office was at the very end of the tour it was next to the oval office at the time. president biden would have to walk by my office to leave that day.d iay probably would say it 15 tis over the course of the tears are set that office i would walk out. i would hear then vice president biden consoling someone like that person sobbing on his shoulder about something that happened in their lives the loss of a family member, cancer, all of these things i always wondered how did they get to that conversation so quickly there just in the hallway? that is who he is. can only imagine how hard that is to tell him that part of him on the most painful thing in his life had not people were upset by that. >> yes that is part of him. when i went to work for him first of all the biden team i did not work on the campaign. they reached out the potential to

yes, the statement from the white house, _ the white house? white house, as _ the white house? yes, the statement from the white house, as we - from the white house, as we expected, celebrating the achievement of the release that they have secured. president biden saying today, three american citizens and one american green card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in russia are finally coming home, calling it are finally coming home, calling it a feat of diplomacy. specifically, paul whelan, a feat of diplomacy. specifically, paulwhelan, evan a feat of diplomacy. specifically, paul whelan, evan gershkovich, a feat of diplomacy. specifically, paulwhelan, evan gershkovich, of course, alsu kurmasheva. she was imprisoned overfailure course, alsu kurmasheva. she was imprisoned over failure to course, alsu kurmasheva. she was imprisoned overfailure to register as a foreign agent will stop and vladimir kara—murza, who is in prison on treason charges. so taking all those together, we know there will be a real sense of relief obviously for the families

what did the white house press corps think of her? she didn't come to the white house and. hang with us in the press briefing room. she was a presence, especially during that time where she got the sadat begin. all that was done, obviously away, from the white house. but when we travel wild with her, she was just she was that that new year's eve in tehran at midnight, they brought the travel pool. me and couple of other reporters up to the the elegant ballroom of the the avalon palace. they opened the doors and there was president carter and mrs. carter shah of iran, king hussein of jordan. and they just all said, happy new year, toast and champagne and everything. and i said, mr. president, you're going to go to egypt tomorrow to see president sadat. why is that? he went one. barbara wasn't there because. she and john chancellor of nbc and some the other bigwigs had been invited to the party they were off dancing somewhere and indeed, a few minutes later, we went back downstairs. the president's secret service agent, -- kiser, came and got me said, the president needs to s