this was a big deal for vice president nixon to have brought up. he 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 neve

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] . . >> 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

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

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

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

>> 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

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

also the post office is now public and has been since nixon's time. this 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 d

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

a lot that we can learn between the experiences of president kennedy, president reagan, presidenand nixon. power can 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 ru

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. this 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 that will mean that premiums for in

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 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

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

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