available every weekend on c- span 3. lectures and history, american artifacts, reel america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage about our nation's history. enjoy american history tv now and every weekend on c-span 3. weeknights this month we are featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on c-span 3. friday night we examine slavery and emancipation. we visit colonial williamsburg as former interpreters there describe the challenges of portraying the lives of slaves. watch friday night beginning at eight eastern on c-span 3. enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c- span 3. next, nixon administration officials describe events inside the white house in the

days before the apollo 11 moon landing. we will hear from two former presidential aides who were in the oval office when president nixon spoke to neil armstrong and buzz aldrin while they were on the moon. >> good evening ladies and gentlemen. as people continue to wander and we will get started because we have a hard q at 8:48. hello to our audience watching at home. i am the president of the richard nixon foundation. we would like to begin as we always do, please rise for the presentation of the callers and the singing of the national anthem.

[ music ] oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming? whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we

watch'd, were so gallantly streaming? and the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there. o say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

[ applause ] >> please be seated.

>> we have a lot to do and a lot of special guests to think before we get going tonight. you will hear in a couple moments from rhonda johnson who is the president of at&t california. at&t is the cosponsor with the nixon foundation of today's events which have been going on since the 5k race for space this morning right up to this moment celebrating 50 years ago. i have for the national anthem a lot of times but i have never reflected on home of the brave ever being more perfectly incorporated as when neil armstrong, heiko collins and buzz aldrin took off in that capsule 50 years ago this week. we are also pleased to welcome from at&t tonight, rhonda's assistant vice president richard. we have a very special guest. she would stand up, we would like to introduce you to keya eisenhower. she is the great-granddaughter of president richard nixon and the great great granddaughter of president and mrs. eisenhower and our honored

special guest tonight. welcome keya. i hope i got that right. i get the generations all wrong. the great great great granddaughter and great- granddaughter of nixon. quinn is a member of our nixon president and mike elsie is our director from the national archives and records association. mike really makes the trains run here and is a terrific partner. alberto sandoval is senior director of communications and public affairs. thank you for being here. the long, legendary disney promoter, friend of the nixon foundation. he is now on the transit authority and we are glad to have you. supervisor dawn wagner and his wife judge megan wagner. please stand up and say hello. >> we have with us tara who is the chief of staff to california senator and my

friend lucy dunn from the orange county business council. there she is. if anything happened to kim she was going to do the national anthem and she didn't even know it. i want to thank francis french. he is an apollo historian and he spoke earlier in the library theater today about the personalities of neil armstrong, michael collins and buzz aldrin. buzz will be with us on tuesday night. thanks to american happenings. it is great to have been here today to discuss them. jason silverman is a senior dragon development engineer at space ex. he spoke about the future of space travel today. he is not here with us now but her ear earlier today. i want to acknowledge doug paul for inspiring comments. he was the at&t plant manager general control in new york.

he had a key role in making connections from the earth to the moon that we are talking tonight and he saw the live feed even before nasa did. he played a crucial role in making a long-distance phone call in history possible. we thank him and want to give him a round of applause. [ applause ] >> i also want to thank our president and society members who are here or in the library watching from the overflow room. i want to thank a few people before i ask up rhonda from at&t. this event began a few months ago with a lunch in dc. for a long time jim ran the washington d office and i asked him given that this was the most memorable phone call in history, do you think at&t would be interested in being involved? and he said i will get back to on that.

i called stephenson who is the visionary leader of at&t and randall sent me a letter saying he wanted to talk to nicole anderson and turner and we did talk at length. i can't tell you how pleased we are to have partnered from start to finish with at&t. i would like to introduce to rhonda johnson. she oversees all of at&t in california. she lives in san francisco, not in orange county. she oversees and directs all of at&t's government affairs, public policy, philanthropic giving and social activity throughout california and they have 33,000 employees in california alone. rhonda is a veteran of the communications industry. she spent more than 30 years with at&t. she comes from the finance world having begun her career in chicago with the federal reserve. at&t is one of our leading job creators and innovators in the united states and in forming community engagement and celebrations. we are so pleased they have joined with the nixon foundation and the connection

they made 50 years ago watched by 1,000,000,000 1/2 people is indeed the most famous phone call in history. please rhonda johnson, come share a few words with us. >> thank you so much. i am rhonda johnson from at&t. i now have the job of president of at&t california. we are so proud and pleased to be part of this event and this day working in collaboration with the nixon foundation library. this is been a phenomenal day. i was able to participate early this morning, see the crowds and the people that came through and then personally to take a tour. i have been so impressed by what i saw in history that this president did and not only with the apollo 11 landing but everything in this museum is something you all

need to see. at&t has been and is playing a role in what happened 50 years ago. we are all here today to remember that historic event. when president nixon and millions and millions of people around the world watched two american astronauts step onto the moon's surface. to make and have that first step on the lunar surface in the sea of tranquility. we at at&t played a role and we did have one of our former employees who was part of that participate here today. he was involved in the transmission of that television view that we saw. i was a small child at that time. i was in a rural farm in illinois and i sat on the floor with my family watching the black and white tv vision of people stepping onto the moon. i will always remember that. you know when i think back about what it means to make that happen, we heard from our employee this morning about what happened traveling 240,000 miles from satellite

dishes around the earth, from nasa and from the oval office up to the moon. it really is a phenomenon. when we talk about transmission of the telephone call that was something that was a historic event. i have now seen documents from the 60s that talk about how nasa first reached out to at&t and asked us to work with them, the air force and usgs to make that call possible. it took a lot of brainpower and a lot of people dedicated to the mission to make that phone call happened. and it was the longest distance phone call ever. from the oval office in this lovely olive green pushbutton phone or the president of the united states called the astronauts on the lunar surface. that call traveled 240,000 miles up to the moon to the station on the moon and then

onto the backpacks and antennas that were attached to two astronauts as they talked to the president. you can see the transcript in your program. at&t is all about using our technology to make a difference in the world. connecting people. a little over 100 years ago it was the first transcontinental phone call. alexander graham bell called from new york to san francisco. 50 years later we made a call to the moon. also in 1983 at the world's fair in new york we have the first video conference phone call. then we developed the unix operating system, the precursor to things like windows and what we use today. then we have the first wireless, commercial telephone call in 1983. from there we now all carry around those devices that we can use and do marvelous things with, whether it is connecting to family and friends or things that may involve telehealth and other

things that frankly are things of our future. no matter what it is, at&t is there to help support technology. in fact, we have one of the most prolific librarians of patents. over 12,500 access patent at at&t. we received approximately five pounds per day. we continue to innovate. i think as i look back 50 years ago of the power and bravery it took and the dedication to the mission, whether it was landing on the moon, the transmission of the telecast or that phone call, it took people who believed in accomplishing a mission and were dedicated to it with perseverance and made amazing things happen. it was changing history. it is all about connections. that is what at&t's mission is about, connections.

so, we are so proud to be here and to be part of this program and i really want to thank you on behalf of at&t for having us here and participating. and now, i want to bring back hugh hewitt. you all know hugh. he is the president and ceo of the foundation. but he is an author, a lawyer, a tenured law professor, a columnist and he is a nationally known policy commentator. you have probably all heard him. an amazing man so accomplished and he will lead us through wonderful program. join me in welcoming back hugh hewitt. [ applause ] >> what you don't realize is rhonda just did the rn trick which is to stand with your hands before you, speak without a note and deliver a message flawlessly. many of us have seen president nixon do that many many times. let's get started, i would

like to welcome up alex eisenhower, dwight chapin, john price. i want you to know there's only one heartbreak in this program. we can go wherever the conversation takes us but at 8:48 we are going to the tape because it is 50 years ago to the minute that president nixon called the moon at 8:48. i have a clock in front of us here and you have a clock up there. if i miss that, i have screwed up. so we are not going to do that. on my far left, the grandson of president and mr. and mrs. nixon and great grandson of president eisenhower, please welcome alex eisenhower to the

library. >> seated to his right is dwight chapin. he is one of the moving forces behind the redo of our museum. he has been a moving force in the nixon world as far back as 1962. he served in the white house as deputy assistant to the president and appointment secretary and he was there on the night of the phone call. dwight, welcome. [ applause ] next to the white another longtime nixon aide, also in the administration from the first day, larry higbee, deputy assistant to the president. he works closely with bob alderman and he is a member of our board and one of the driving members of the foundation for many years. welcome back. and on my left, a man i just met for the first time tonight but i have heard about him for years. john price was a special assistant to the president and executive secretary of the urban affairs council.

a true mover of domestic policy in the white house along with daniel patrick monahan. i want to begin if i could because the moon landing and the moon phone call is for many of us a perceived memory. i remember it. i am 13 and i was 63 now. i remember being woken up to watch it on tv and listen to it at 11:48 or whatever it was to be there. but most people learn about it from their parents or their grandparents. alex, i had occasion to call your aunt tricia last week to talk a little bit about the family moment. i know you have talked to mom julie about it. would you tell people what the family was doing that night? >> yes. well, my mom told me she was on the second floor of the white house. they were looking out over the rose gardens. and she could see her father the president. she said it was the most

exciting moment of all of her time in the white house. that moment watching him speak to another man on another planet, i'm sorry, on the moon. she said it was so momentous. she said it was the best, most exciting, electric atmosphere of all of her time in the white house. >> you won't be surprised. tricia nixon cox told me they would look from the television to the oval, from the oval to the television back and forth because they couldn't quite believe what they were watching. the other part and i wonder if julia or your father mentioned this to you. when it was done your grandfather arrives back and they went down to greet him. he was completely humbled by the event. totally overwhelmed by the courage of the astronauts and staggered by the history of the moment. did that come through to you? from your mom as well?

>> yes. she said that he was really excited about it. he saw it as a great opportunity. to bring the world together. and even in his speech he talked about the gray surface of the moon and the earth, the beautiful earth. and he sought as a moment to bring everyone together in the country and the world. i think he saw it as an amazing opportunity. >> we are going to talk about the context for we get to the phone call. i want to begin with some comments about the soviets. this began in 1957. i was one year old. the russians launched sputnik one which i don't think anyone is old enough to remember on the stage. john, do you remember sputnik one? let's get the reaction to sputnik one. john, go ahead. >> it was a slap in the face to americans complacency.

we were in the eisenhower presidency. it was a benign era of good feelings. the country felt comfortable because they were confident they were being led intelligent, competent man who knew arms and armies. all of a sudden, sputnik goes up. i was at granel college, a small iowa college. and a physics major grabbed me and said let's go see sputnik. we drove 15 miles out into the greater darkness north of granel college and indeed with the naked eye could see sputnik circling the earth. the next morning i phoned my grandmother, and i said grandma, i just watched this soviet satellite circling the earth up in the heavens. she said it's not possible. god would not permit it. but permit it he had.

and what happened after that was this back and forth of initial soviet accomplishments followed by american response. ever in front, soviet accomplishments, followed by american response. >> mary, your recollection of that too. >> my recollection really goes back to the fact that i think it probably was the biggest wake up call the united states could have. for any of our space programs. what resulted from the first time over the next exceeding number of years was truly phenomenal. and we're here celebrating it today. >> it did kick it off, dwight. >> yes, it kicked into motion a chain of events. the united states was not used to being second in anything. and the fact that the russians got the sputnik up there and so forth was really a public relations black eye to the administration. and they determined very quickly that it couldn't be this way and that we had to make a change.

>> early on, the space program is rightly identified with president kennedy. i've been in touch with the kennedy foundation director. we hope this apollo 11 exhibit can travel there when it's done here. i hope you all get a chance to see it. it's so remarkable. president kennedy announced in houston on september 12th at rice university that we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things not because they are easy but because they are hard. dwight, i'll start with you and come back. when you reflect on what president kennedy said, the 60s descended into chaos there after. maybe the only thing that held it together was the space program. >> yes, i think this is a very important moment. and we hear it referred to quite often today that it would be a kennedy moment for example if somebody today set a goal that we were going to accomplish something in the next decade. america was ready for this call to arms so to speak. and president kennedy put it

out there, president nixon was behind it a thousand percent. he never waiverred on it. he thought kennedy had made the right decision. and the president was very supportive. >> larry, do you recall it shaping your college years ? you're a ucla guy, was the space race in the background the whole time? >> too many things were in the background the whole time. including several classes i didn't quite get to. no -- [ laughter ] -- i think it did shape and begin to bring focus, which is the word that i always associated with it. whether you were in high school or in college, because it was one of those things that captured the imagination and the concern of the world. not just the united states, the world. and i think our ability to react, as dwight pointed out to that. and come back strong and accepted the challenge and beat the challenge is really what makes the u.s. such a special

place to be. >> john, you want to add to that? >> the whole backdrop to the 60s is divided between conflict and change and the space program. >> very much so. and what the latter did was to give a sense of common purpose of shared purpose and finally, a sense of accomplishment, and national competence. >> larry, you were in the campaign, dwight, you were in the campaign, john, were you in the campaign. >> i was. how often did the space program come up in the 1960s campaign. the president won one of the narrowest victories but what was the space program's role if any. >> at one point in the campaign, i believe it was in early october, james web who was the head of nasa resigned and one of the reasons he resigned was that the johnson administration, which would include humphrey, the candidate that was running against nixon,

that they were -- wanted to cut back on the space program. and the president put forth a -- the president being kennedy -- nixon -- put forth a statement saying that it was imperative, he used the word imperative that the administration go ahead with the program, fully fund apollo, and keep it going. but there was a moment in time there where it was becoming a campaign issue. >> larry, do you recall being shut downright away. was it a conversation inside the rooms. >> a very brief conversation. i think what happened with the space program in general was really more of a backdrop issue that the president saw had value in terms of so many other things he was trying to get done. whether it was weaved together in alliance throughout europe. or southeast asia, or bring new people into the alliances that we all ready had. it was a great calling card that allowed you to get in and do other things. >> john, in domestic policy, it

was very expensive. was there ever any question about the expense over riding the importance of the mission. >> the expense was significant. it was something like 4% of the entire federal budget. >> does anyone know that? >> it's staggering if you think about it. >> larger than our defense budget now. >> it was ramped up and willingly and bipartisanly. and only after, as the joy and the feelings slowly dissipated were the attacks back on for budgetary reasons. why as with the peace and growth dividends supposedly coming from the winding down the vietnam war, why shouldn't we take these monies and apply them to other things. domestic imperatives. gdp. >> the space program is something that's always subject to people saying, why are are we doing this? and not spending the money on earth? on projects that would help the citizens of the planet here and particularly in the united states. so the important factor is that

there were 400,000 people employed putting together what happened here. i mean, it was a huge, huge industry. sneak helps account for the 4% of the budget. >> christopher, can you imagine the united states without a space program? i mean you're one of the younger generations, can you imagine growing up without all this around you? >> my generation takes it for granted. by the time i was born a man walked on the moon. we had seen this. it's part of being an american. thinking we can do the impossible. there had been a lot of times where they talked about cutting massive funding for nasa and now they're talking about private industry taking the helm and going up into space now. so you know, there are times when it felt like there wasn't much of a space program and there wasn't going to be. but it's exciting to see companies like space x and a renewed interest in space

because i just think it's one of the most interesting things in the world. >> it is. >> it's important to remember it was a choice. you had to make a choice to go. you had to make a choice to continue. you had to make a choice that night. we're going to come to that choice. president nixon is inaugurated january 20th 1969. exactly six months before the lunar landing. in his inaugural address he referred to the christmas eve mission of apollo 8 and astronaut anders who took a picture who took a picture near the lunar surface called earth rise. a view of it hangs in the oval office in california. and the president then actually spoke about the mission in his first inaugural address. let's listen to that excerpt. >> only a few short weeks ago, we shared the glory of man's first sight of the world. as god sees it.

as a single sphere reflecting light in the darkness. as the apollo astronauts flew over the moon's great surface on christmas eve, they spoke to us of the beauty of earth and in that voice so clear across the lunar, we heard them invoke god's blessing on its goodness. in that moment, their view from the moon archibald writes, to see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful. in that eternal silence where it floats is to see ourself as writers on the earth together. brothers in that bright loveliness in the eternal cold. brothers who know now they are truly brothers.

>> archibald, writers on the earth together. dwight was that the mood in the country in january of 1969. >> the country had then largely divided by 1968. and in 1969, what you hear the president doing there is working and starting to put in place the important job of bringing the country together again. and the rhetoric that he uses is to inspire and to have people have that magic ingredient of dreaming and thinking that things can be better. and the moon program was -- if nothing else, was a denominator of spirit. of spirit in the country. and he knew that was coming. and he brought it to the forefront of the american public because he thought it was so important to lay it in

there. >> our late friend, ray price, was very proud of the phrase, the lift of a driving dream, which appears in the inauguration, do you think that was specific to the moon program? or just generally about what rn wanted to accomplish. you first john and then you larry. >> i think it was more generally what he hoped to do. and what he hoped to restore. furthered to the point of how horrible thins were, there had been something like 125 urban riots in the cities across america, small and large in the prior year. and at that very place where he was giving his inaugural address, most of us were sitting in front on the east side of the capitol building, there were 50 caliber machine guns mounted on either side of the stairs manned by armored units. at 14th street, just a few blocks down the road in washington, there were still gutted, smoldering fires left from problems there. on his way back from inaugural

to review the inaugural parade, debris was thrown at his car. these were tense times. >> larry -- >> i think the whole idea of the dream is very nixon. he's always talking about dreams. he's trying to lift the country up. and move the country ahead. and bring it back together again to dwight's point. and i think he works very hard at that. he also had an uncanny sense of timing of when to take something that's sort of out there and make it the issue. and he clearly used the moon program more than once in that regard. very, very much unique to this president. >> dwight? >> i want to mention that i was with ray price and with the candidate, mr. nixon, when the words were uttered in new hampshire at the launch of the presidential campaign in 1968. and he talked about what america needed was the lift of

a driving dream. so he was into that rhetoric at the very outset of the campaign. >> i also want to talk to you three about space program and the soviet competition, rn would eventually become, you remember it as the greatest foreign diplomat as president of anyone that's sat in the office actually doing diplomacy. but when 69 arises, it's not long after the invasion of hungary -- excuse me, the invasion of czechoslovakia. it's in the middle of the vietnam war. where they're being shot at by the soviet weaponry. and the soviets are trying to get to the moon too i think. how much of it is real politic and how much of it is the lift of the dream. i'll go to you since you were the deputy chief of staff. >> if nothing else, one of the ways we can define president nixon was he was incredibly pragmatic. so the answer to your question

is yes, the lift of the driving dream was important. but beating the soviets was equally important. >> and real. >> and real. yeah. >> he was indeed both. and the quaker impulse was in him. unlike in herbert hoover. who was the only other quaker president to serve. the emblem of the logo on the president's grave out here is that it's most important to be remembered as a peacemaker. pat buchanan says in his book about nixon's white house wars that one of the most outstanding and remarkable features of this man was the reality of his commitment to finding peace. >> yes. he was a quaker. he believed in peace at the center. >> did we begin to talk to the soviets in 69. i don't recall. i don't believe we did.

>> i'm a domestic guy. but i think they started to put out some feelers. >> does anyone recall if the soviets reacted to this? i don't. >> no, i don't. >> what nixon did, we'll get to it perhaps is many boreman brought back some soviet medals which had been coniferred by the soviet union on their cosmonauts for acts of bravery and often death in trying to get into space. and nixon instructed that those medals be taken on apollo 11 and left on the moon as a gesture of comity to the soviet union. >> i didn't know that either. let's talk about the tension approaching the launch. was there ever any doubt in your mind on launch day or launch week, dwight, that it was coming down to -- we know we got used to during the challenger era, shuttle era, to having delays, etcetera. and delays, was there a

countdown that you were stuck on that you knew was going to be taking off on the 16th and landing on the 20th. >> the president's attitude and position on the launch for july 20th, pardon me, july 16th. and then the landing on the moon on the 20th was that it was one thing over which he had no control. this was a nasa operation. the president had delegated authorities. and people that knew the technologies and everything involved were the ones that he was relying on. and this did not involve considerations by the white house in terms of postponements or anything else. if they needed to be done, he would have absorbed them and agreed with what the authorities had said needed to be done. >> was there a science advisor, larry, to bob alderman or the president, was there somebody who was -- or was it just the

nasa director? >> i think it was the nasa director. >> he had a science advisor, lee bridge. >> all right so. when we get closer and closer to the launch, no presidential event is accidental today. everything is planned weeks, months, sometimes years in advance. when did the planning begin for the night of the launch and the night of the landing and the phone call? >> well, the planning recommendations from nasa probably were being generated by in the later johnson years. once the president took office, we had assistant to the president, peter flanagan, who became the point person with nasa. and then president nixon had struck up a friendship with astronaut, frank boreman. and frank boreman was brought into the inner circle, along with flanagan.

and frank's assignment was to keep the president posted on all of the technical stuff he needed to know about the launch and what was going to happen and help make some of the decisions. >> inside baseball, frank forman's role. can you expand on it. i know he's at the white house tonight at the phone call. did he have entrance and access as he needed it, larry, the great american, how did an astronaut fit in with a bunch of staffers who were trying to keep the president on schedule and doing a thousand different things? >> i think he became very quickly a trusted advisor. and somebody the president relied on. the other thing, i think the president genuinely liked being with him. their personality meshed well. they watched the landing together. and i think had he not wanted to get into private life, probably would have been a significant factor, politically, both in the united

states, republican party, and probably a significant advisor for the president on an ongoing basis. >> on july 16th when the launch took place, the only person with the president was frank boreman. >> that's right. >> that occurred at 9:32 in the morning on july 16th. if people do not know. let's watch that footage just to remember. >> 30 seconds and counting. astronauts report it feels good. t minus 25 seconds. 20 seconds and counting. t minus 15 seconds. guidance is internal, 12, 11, 10, 9, ignition sequence starts, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. all engines running. lift off. we have a lift off.

32 minutes passed the hour. lift off on apollo 11. >> oh boy. oh boy. it looks good. >> building's shaking. >> for the moment, i am on the way to the moon. . >> now, i see a lot of people younger man me here. rhett and i, my buddies and many other people. how many of you had the experience of having a television rolled into your elementary school classroom to watch the launch. every launch. and i don't realize that happened on challenger by the way. i was in the reagan administration. it traumatized the generation of children. how nervous were you three guys when this thing went down. >> you mean when it occurred.

>> yes, when the launch went off. >> as opposed to the 72 seconds after the launch of challenger, right? okay. yeah i was there. >> you went down to florida. >> yes i was there. and we were seated in bleacher like a high school football stadium stands. a distance, a good distance away from the actual launch site because of the power of the 7.5 million-pounds of thrust. and president johnson was there. he was in the front row. he had been brought there thanks to richard nixon who sent a new refurbished air force one to pick up johnson and his wife as a gesture of thanks to what johnson had done about this program. when the actual ignition occurred. being at the is distance we were. you heard nothing. there was no audio. only video. and it took a while. but then all of a sudden, the

ground began to shake like it was rolling. it was only a moment later that the air was slapping you against the face. >> how about back at the white house? >> i felt personally like i had a split personality. on the one hand you were trying to figure out what do you need to do now. on the other hand it's out of your control. and then you're thinking about what could go wrong. and the chain of events taking place over a number of days. and it really, i mean, you couldn't get it off your mind. but you didn't want to think about it sometimes, you know, it was very unique. >> as you would walk down the corridor in the west wing, you could hear from room to room every television was on by every staff person in the white house. okay now, there's been a lot of attention paid in the last couple weeks to william sapphire writing a memo to your

boss, larry. called the in event of moon disaster, offering suggested remarks in the case of a mission failure in that the apollo 11 astronauts did not survive. has that been over stated a little bit. was there more worry than we've been allowed to understand? >> i think it's the white house acting as they always tried to. covering every eventuality. they shelved it and said we're going to go for it and they went for it. and it's history. >> this has gotten a lot of attention in the last ten days. but it's gotten more attention in the last ten days 50 years later than it did ten days around the actual landing on the moon. i mean this was not something that was talked about. the day of the event itself of the landing, i do not recall it being mentioned once. i think it was on a shelf

probably in alderman's office. if something had gone haywire. they would have gone and gotten it. but it was not top of mind. it was way down. this was a positive, we're going to do it type of experience. obviously, there was a lot of suspense in it. but i mean there was no focus on this. >> there wasn't a constant drum beat going on of what about, what about, what about. that wasn't there. >> alex, your great grandfather on the eve of d day, i'm sure your father has told you this, because we worked on it in the book eisenhower at war. prepared a memo to the troops. or actually prepared a memo to the world accepting responsibility for the failure of the d day invasion. have you ever talked about that with your father and whether or not your grandfather was impacted by your great grandfather's sort of contingency planning for the worst case. >> honestly, not too much. it's just been a miracle that

the mission was a success. and, you know, they just moved forward from there. they had so many decisions that were life or death that he had to make in his life. you know, sending people off to their deaths constantly. one more success. i don't know how he handled it. >> i want to talk about the day off. let's switch to the day of. president nixon, held a sunday church service on the day of the lieu lunar landing. later buzz aldrin held a church service on the moon because of concerns that the aclu would object. tell us about the church service the president went to and why and how it occurred. >> the president and mrs. nixon established when they came into the white house sunday church services in the east room nondenominational. in this particular sunday, the 20th of july 1969, they had as

the presiding minister, the minister from whittier college, where the president had gone to college, a quaker. the -- one of the featured parts besides the prayers of a safe landing and a safe return, one of the featured little talks was by frank boreman who read from genesis. and he read what he had read around christmas time of 1968 as they circled the moon. and he read genesis back to earth. and that got an incredible amount of attention at that time. and it was repeated at this church service. >> i read today in preparing for this that marilyn mary o'hare objected to the reading and then buzz aldrin who is a presbyterian elder in the presbyterian church outside of

houston requested to receive the elements of the presbyterian communion on the moon and he did. but they went radio silent for that because of the objection to frank's reading to genesis. they didn't want that. >> i could say this, that if anybody had objected to frank boreman reading that genesis at that church service, president nixon would have made sure that frank boreman read that genesis. probably twice. larry, bob alderman wrote president nixon was really intrigued with his participation in the moon landing events. you're working closely with hr bob alderman. >> you knew bob. he was a fair hi serious man. and didn't fuss -- didn't suffer fools or anybody else lightly. he was really focused on the president and what we could get done in the time that we had. and looking at that whole

thing, it became pretty obvious that we needed to move very, very strongly to try to integrate the space program. into the other things that we were doing. and it was one of the few times when i actually talked to him after words. there was glee. absolute glee on the part of the president. clearly on the part of bob. and clearly one of the reasons because bob was so pleased to see the president was happy about this whole thing. and it really set up for the next several days just a tremendous amount of joy throughout the white house and i think throughout the nation. >> dwight, yes, well, it's very telling in the diaries. what larry says is so true. and bob was a serious man. but he chronicles that the president when neil stepped on the moon, the president went hooray, that's in there. and that he was ecstatic. i mean the language that bob is using reflects significantly

the president's attitude. now we have a special treat, i don't know how -- you couldn't get a super 8 camera into the white house today, dwight. but you got your super 8 camera into the white house. how often did you take a super 8 camera into the white house. >> i took a super 8 camera into the white house everyday. and bob alderman had one, i had one. and we used it. here's some footage. there's roger ales our technical advisor who later went on to notoriety at fox. there's bob hahderman at his desk working on some papers. you can see he's conferring with roger ales. this is during the day, while we're all waiting. there was a lot of waiting time going on on this particular day. there's frank boreman is frank is in a room that you never see. that's the president's little office that's off of the oval office. and that is the set on which president nixon watched the

lunar landing. there's frank on the phone. probably with nasa. and as you said, these are home movies that we took. and they're, you know, 50 years old. so the quality of it. there's the little tv that the president watched it from. and i think that's frank reynolds there. there's ron zigler. the press secretary. and we're in the cabinet room. we used the cabinet room. there you can see, that's olie atkins. the guy with the cigar. don't ask why we smoked cigars. but we did. and we really staked ourselves into the cabinet room there throughout the day. you can see the windows were dark. so you know, we're into nighttime. the module landed at 4:15 in the afternoon. and then the astronauts did not

walk until later. this is a still shot of the cabinet room. the oval office is down through that door way. there's a little office area. and then the oval office and we're all sitting around there waiting. the president at this time is over in the executive office building. but this was right ahead of the -- of the actual moon walk. >> i want to come back to the hide away in a second. but i note a lot of ashtrays here. >> yes. >> a lot of ashtrays. >> this was a different era. that's a lot of ashtrays. >> usage significantly declined as the administration went forward. >> but i also noted -- i don't think -- can we replay that home movie? is that possible? i want to go back and play the home movie again. i think people are amazed the cigar smoking in the white house is really a -- i don't think that's allowed by law in any more. >> there we go.

that's bruce. he worked for ron zigler. he was in charge of the press. roger ales. the television advisor. and basically got the president prepped as to exactly how everything was going to work and what the cues were. there's bob at his desk. and roger again. talking things over. >> close with no cigar. . >> again, you can see the windows, it's dark out. this is later in the day or evening. and frank again probably on the phone with nasa. he was constantly getting updates and trying to check to make sure everything was working the way that we had been told it was going to work. and then frank would give the cues to roger ales. and again, that's the little tiny set. i mean, that's what a 20-inch

color set. the president never watches television, larry is saying. and ollie atkins, the official white house photographer. and bruce. and again, to self promote. yeah. >> walk me through what you three did on that day. obviously you were running around with a camera, dwight. but how about you, john? >> i was, thanks to dwight, i was sitting right there. you caught the back of my head and my right hand lifting a cigar. >> you were too? >> i was there. >> in front of the cigar brigade. >> i was, and i had hair. i don't smoke any more. and i have no more hair. but then that evening, and again, thanks to dwight, i moved on into the oval office. >> the staff people, it was a waiting process. >> hurry up and wait really. >> we got there, you know, mid- morning, and we're waiting

until 4:00 for the, you know, the landing. and then we're waiting until late evening. and so we're sitting around, chatting, trying to figure out -- talking to frank boreman. if ewe look at the phone log, i got like six or seven cams from the president -- calls from the president that lasted about a minute or 30 seconds or something. because he was over in his office and he's antsy, you know, wanting to make sure what's going on and so forth. so it was kind of like a hurry up and wait type thing. >> and a lot of people were in their offices. the one thing you didn't want to have happen is any kind of communications break down. and you wanted to have something in place. so boom, you could just switch to another line or to another office immediately. so as dwight said, it was sort of hurry up and way. now we have media circuses where it's considered enormous if 30 million people watch.

super bowl is bigger what was the media doing. well, the media, that night, let's go back, we're talking abc, nbc, and cbs. i mean, it was a different media world. this was going to be covered by a pool. which meant that there would be a representative, media people in there that would feed the information to all of the others. so it was -- it was not the big elaborate media circus that it would be today. >> there weren't so 0 100 people sitting there yelling and asking questions and that sort of thing. the media had its own specific area inside the west wing. and a lot of the offices had to be manned for any eventuality. >> john,. >> yes, in the oval office you

had the network television cameras and you also had some of the print press there and still photographers came in later. but the mood there was fascinating. because, the media folks like the rest of us were very subdued. and there was an extraordinary mood, i felt in the room, after we settled down and the moment came near. >> this is a very, this is a completely noncontentious thing. there's nothing -- no one going on that's questioning why this is happening or why are we spending money here or anything. i mean this is suspense 101. i mean what is going to happen next? is it going to go against plan? and not, you know, some get you type thing. >> yes, that was walter cronkite was very pro- administration that evening. >> talk to us a little bit about what it was like to be in the white house when man landed

on the moon. . >> well, i'll say simply that a war went up from our group in the cabinet room there. just a ruckus scream, probably echoed in living rooms and bars and railroad stations all over the world. it was just a moment of absolute excitement. >> larry. >> i would agree with that completely. it was amazing to me. there was a -- kind of a hushed calmness almost after the roar. people were just -- just trans fixed on the whole issue and what we had done as a nation. what this meant to the world. and sort of asked you to think again about your place in the world. and where you really were not part of something that was so much bigger than you ever even dreamed. >> i think we're going to see some footage here in a few minutes that, let me speak to right now, briefly, and that is

that when you -- when you -- the over all feeling of the white house is exemplified by the president and he is rivetted to looking at the television. i mean, this is it. you'll see him here in a second. he's -- but he starts watching what's happening in front of him on the set. this is the technical crew getting ready. this would be once he had been advised that there's going to be -- that we're getting ready with the call. there's roger. there's frank. the president, it's interesting for sound reasons, his whole top of his desk, we covered with brown felt. trying to keep the noise level down. now, here he is. he's starting to look at the tv. and watch what's happening. he's getting interrupted by roger there. but come back to it in a second. and he just kept his focus on

what the men were doing. right now he's getting some -- roger's explaining to him what nasa has said. he's asking about the call. frank's on with nasa. that's the pool camera that fed all the networks. there's ales again. >> i want to cue that again to watch. but i'm going to preface it by saying he spent the early evening in a hide away in the office. and so when did he come over? walk us through one more time, dwight? >> he came over to the little office right before armstrong stepped on the moon. and halderman and boreman were with him in the little office before that happened. and once that happened he then came into the oval office. and there's roger briefing him. frank, the president wiping the moisture off his lip. which was a constant thing.

i thought there was more footage of this part. but there's not. he's just looking at the tv set. it's interesting there were two septembers. one on the right and one on the left. because we did not know on which -- how nasa was going to put the picture and so roger had devised that if the astronauts were on the right, nixon would be on the left looking at them. but he would switch over the other way if the astronauts were on the left. nixon would have been on the right. >> you know, there isn't any makeup person in the room. >> no. you didn't need makeup. probably, let me think, maybe. under our formula, maybe he had spent the weekend before. one of the tricks with are richard nixon that we learned that he learned early on from

1960 and jack kennedy was that he looked a heck of a lot better when he had a tan. and therefore he spent a lot of time in florida. but all of you would know, alex, you'll know, the modern media world is nobody goes any where without hair and makeup. and they would have been all over him today and in 2019, 50 years later, you don't talk for 30 seconds without hair and makeup if you're a public figure. . do we have on makeup? i don't know. >> no. >> talk to me about the tension of the phone call as we approach the ten minutes to go mark. we had doug earlier today talking about this extraordinary technical event. were you worried about -- at that point, the big thing is work. they're on the moon. but the little thing, the phone call is an amazing technological achievement. who was running the rope line

at the white house? >> my answer would be the white house communications agency. and that's part of the department of defense. and when their sheet came in, it's the one that says, the president's call, and it puts the time. and it says to, the call to, the sea of tranquility, the moon. we have those notes in the exhibition. it says call to the sea of tranquility on the moon. how much time did he spend prepping for what he would say to the astronauts ? do any of you know? >> i don't. >> i can't say. i would say probably considerable time knowing him. i can envision that he was over in the eob office with his yellow pad on his lap and that he wrote out several different thoughts that he might have on how he would do it. this is a man who always

prepared. and he always loved to tell the story about winston churchill .and how churchill one time somebody came up to winston churchill and said how in the world, the spontaneous remarks of yours are so special. they're so great. and winston churchill said some of the hardest work i do is writing those spontaneous remarks. >> just to add to that, he often would come out in the owe oval office with a bunch of paper work and give it to me. what we did is have special remarks for what he might be speaking about ahead of time. and the process was the same. he'd read them. turn the page over. write out his own remarks. look at it quickly. toss it in the out box. and then he'd sit there and give those remarks word for word for word perfectly with no notes in front of him. and if you notice there, there's no note in front of him

here. >> couldn't we just bring it back for a moment to him sitting at that desk. and to dwight's point earlier. the intensity with which he was watching those three consoles. when the astronauts were out on the moon and about to talk to him, they lifted a flag through a laniard. and at that point, nixon clapped three or four times and saluted in the room. and you're speaking to the press. and dwight saying again, the wonderful mood. at the end of the talk, some wag many the press spoke up. and the president said i'd hate to get the toll charges on that call. and one of the press guys said make it collect. . >> let me ask you if any of you have any memory, president and mrs. nixon are buried outside in a very wonderful place.

mrs. nixon so central to his life. so wonderful to everyone who worked for her. do you have any recollection of how she approached this evening and how she approached the space program in particular? >> i don't. in fact, when alex was talking, the girls watching through the window and i don't know whether they referenced whether mrs. nixon -- >> she was there. patricia told me she was there. >> she was up there watching down but then when he finished, your mother and dad, and your aunt, went down to the rose garden. and when he got done doing the simulation for the photographers, after the call, there was a press opportunity for the photographers, and then he got up and walked through the rose garden doors. and that's when your mom and dad and aunt greeted him in the

rose garden and mrs. nixon was still up in the mansion i believe. >> so in terms of the number of people in the room for this, i counted six. that's not a normal -- was that a normal -- did he keep his office staff small? and in the room? >> when this happened? absolutely. absolutely. a rule 1a was staff -- unless you needed to be there, you weren't there. >> so larry, how many people were in the cabinet room? >> the cabinet room is different. >> the cabinet room is totally different. it's some place where the staff is now gathered. >> how many are -- >> are there 20 people in there? >> no, i would say 6 or 8. just like it showed in there. but you have to remember, for a good portion of this, most of the staff needed to be in their office. >> well the other part, larry, is it was sunday. and a lot of people just weren't in. >> but as dwight said, you

could go down the hall and see the tvs on. there's usually at least one staff person if not more manning that office. >> i can't imagine someone not going to the white house on the day they were landing on the moon. did someone said they had something better to do that day? >> i don't think so. what was bob hahderman doing so central to the presidency and the president. what was he doing during this period of time. >> he was with the president for a good portion of time. and he was along with frank providing information. and remember we were getting ready to leave on a trip, weren't we? >> in his diary, he says that he, for part of the afternoon, he went back to the hotel. he was still living in a hotel. they had not moved permanently to washington. and he was packing for the tip. >> yeah, it was a pretty tight schedule for those guys. >> and so after in is done, and we watch it in five minutes, 50 years to the moment, how long until he leaves the white house to go and greet them?

splash down is in three days, right? after this. how long does he wait until he leaves ? >> the walk was on the 20th. he stayed at the white house on the 2 1st. and on the 22nd he flew to san francisco. the 23rd he flew to johnson island. and from johnson island out to the uss something, arlington, he spent the night on the arlington, and then at 4:00 a.m. the next morning, he's by helicopter, he went from the arlington to the uss hornet. and when the splash down occurred the helicopter that picked the capsule up brought it to the hornet. and the president was on the hornet when the capsule -- when the helicopter brought the astronauts to the hornet. >> the whole world was watching and they stayed watching. john, i remember in my prep for this. you traveled with a french person down to cape canaveral, who was that? >> his name was john. and he was my seat mate on air

force 2 going down. and we chatted amiably about a lot of things. he had been a tutor to an emperor of vietnam. he was living in hanoi when the japanese invaded and was imprisoned in terms during the war. and saw on the steps in hanoi, hochi men visiting with officers. he chatted about this and later sent me a book he'd written. what i did not know, and what was meant not to be known, this was a cover for him. he was a director of air france. and he was going to watch the launch. ps, the reality was, as dwight knows, that he had come actually in to see nixon and kissinger the day before. because he was the intermediary

between richard nixon and hochi min. and he was the guy who was opening the path to the negotiations. and it was the first meeting they had together. he carried a letter from nixon to and the first meeting between kissinger and the viet kong was held in his department in paris. >> where were doctor kissinger. secretary of state rogers, laird and the vice president. >> they were all playing gin rummy together. >> i know kissinger was in new york. on the phone log he called henry. and had a long conversation that day. the vice president is not on the phone log for that day. nor is the secretary of state. so i don't know where they were. and so as we get there, there are thousands of people involved in this. we're two minutes away from 50

years ago. thousands of people have got to execute. was he nervous at all? was he nervous? nervous is not a word -- antisipatory is the word used in one of the films that we did. and i think that there was just this high degree of expectation of something big transpiring. but i would not use the word nervous. >> i think focus, can we come in a little closer to it. but with this, dwight says this sort of expectation on top of it. >> we're now at 8:47. and the phone call occurs at 8:48. so i'm going to just lock into the break. and we can anticipate the president waiting, this is a replica of the green phone, which is on -- the real phone is in our exhibit. you can go in and see it. put yourself in the mind of

richard nixon, waiting to talk to people on the moon, in the longest phone call in history. . >> it's frank boreman that gives him the cue here. >> oh he does? >> yeah. >> you don't see it. but that's what happened. . >> something rather important is coming up here. >> neil, the president of the united states is in his office now. and would like to say a few words to you, over. . >> that would be an honor. >> go ahead mr. president.

this is houston out. . >> hello neil and bart. i'm talking to you by telephone from the oval room at the white house. and this certainly has to be the most, historic telephone call ever made from the white house. i just can't tell you how proud we all are are for what you have done. for every american, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. and for people all over the world, i am sure that they too join with americans in recognizing what an immense feet this is. >> what did he do immediately after he hung up? did he walk out to the rose garden to meet mrs. nixon and the girls ? >> immediately after what you just saw, there was a pause, and then the white house photographers all came in. and they did the still shots that ended up in the, you know, in all the news papers and so forth. and that took, probably five minutes. and then he got up and went out to the rose garden to see alex

parents and so forth. >> trisha nixon cox told me two days ago he was incredibly humbled by talking to these people. it was not a celebratory moment for him. it was him proud to be an american. i wonder if you is a reflection on that. >> yes i'm sure in his heart of hearts he was feeling tremendous pride in what happened for the nation and what these men accomplished. >> i think that was true throughout the white house. >> yes, and it's so indicative of the kind of role the president can play at a moment like this of understanding the breadth of the people's interests whom you represent. >> alex, would you remind us of what your mother said about that night. it's on the quote in the wall in the museum. >> he just remembered it being

the most electric moment of her time in the white house. it was the most excited she was the entire time. another thing her grandmother told her is when they went on the goodwill trip, operation moon beam, and they were traveling around, hundreds of people that came up to nixon and pat were calling him moon king and moon queen. which i thought was very interesting for their role in the whole event. that must have been pretty interesting. >> i want to talk about this splash down now. bob halderman writes that the splash down happened in spectacular fashion in the south pacific. a fire ball rose from the horizon. arched to the sky. turning into a red ball and disappearing. dwight, we have more footage, can you describe what's going on on the uss hornet here. >> okay the helicopter you see

here has the astronaut. they have just landed on the hornet. they've been picked up in the water. the band is playing columbia the gem of the ocean. because the spacecraft was called columbia. you'll notice that the helicopter is going down below. the men went below deck here and then were taken out of the helicopter through an air chamber and they went in to the, we'll see that in a minute here, the president is with tom payne in the glasses on the right, he's the head of nasa, they're aboard the hornet. and on the left, you can see the image of secretary of state rogers who was there. now, this is where the president talked to the astronauts there in this basically an airstream holding area. which they had to stay in for how many weeks ? two weeks i think? on the right there, is admiral

john mccain. john mccain's father, who is chief of the operations in the pacific. here's the president. the astronauts had now gotten into this unit from the helicopter and they are at this window. and they are talking to the president. now, this is super 8 footage. i think we have some actual footage here coming up of the voices. but that's the president very animated, and really getting a kick out of this. i mean and there's buzz aldrin. he's getting a kick out of it too. >> we will have dr. aldrin here on tuesday night to honor him with the richard nixon greatest come back award ever on tuesday night here in the east room. from here, the president goes on to guam, why is that? what is the purpose of going to

guam? we had the ambassador of germany here to talk about the address he gave that day. but why then on to guam? >> guam because we are in the process here of adjusting body clocks and getting ready for a launch from guam into manila. our first stop was manila. and in fact, this is the motorcade leaving the airport in manila. to see the landing on the moon. this was just along the way, all the kids with the flags. and you're going -- there we are. there are the astronauts on the moon. this is the start, the first stop on the good will trip that the president did after the moon landing. and the goodwill trip, you can see here, the philippines, indonesia, thailand, india, vietnam, pakistan, romania and great britain, huge, huge crowds. everywhere we went.

and of course this had all been timed. to be immediately after the moon walk. and had been done with the idea it was gong to be a successful venture. and this was a, after the -- with the vietnam war and everything, this is a way of trying to bring back united states prestige in the war. >> how much planning went into this? >> lots of planning went into this. this trip was incredibly complicated. particularly the romania stop and the pakistanian stop both were complicated. both of those countries ended up -- they had leaders who had ties to the chinese. and it was part of the strategy of -- that eventually led to the president going to china. >> let's go to the dinner. because we're wrapping up here. the astronauts have to be in quarantine for a long time.

they make a triumphant return to the united states. here at the dinner on august 13th. before they leave on the goodwill tour, what was >> well, it was exuberant. the president was ecstatic to have these men going around the world on their goodwill trip that you represent the united states in what had been accomplished. and put another way it was harvesting all of the greatness that had been accomplished. >> i don't know that people know this but when they visited mexico city, 7 million people blinded the road from the landing to there, 7 million people came out to see them when they landed. they were really extraordinary celebrities, in the age before buzzing neon may have been the most famous men on the planet .

>> if you had to pick one word to put with them, they were authentic. >> did you want to add to that? >> larry? >> i would say that's a good definition, they are the rock stars of the world . >> to get back to the white house, two days after the silent majority speech, what was the impact of having them back? by this part in july, it's been four months and they are still superstores in rock stars, how important is it when they come back? >> november 5 when they come back, that's interesting, never put that together, the silent majority speech was a famous speech the president gave lori called on the great silent majority to speak up on the vietnam war. so, i believe that the great

silent majority was further impacted by the picture you see here and by the president being with the astronauts on the south ground . >> i would like to wrap by talking about the impact of the apollo mission, generally. i do believe that what you just said, the vast population of the united states into proud americans despite divisions on the war but you guys lived it, you tell me, john? >> i think is bill safire and richard nixon have said, he's a layer cake. one of the elements that was in his mind and heart is one that struck people all over the world whether they are religious or secular. it is summarized by the airman sonic which goes to the first and last phrases goes something like this, i have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies, i have tried the arden trespassed sanctity of

space, put out my hand and touched the face of god. at one level i think that people felt that and at another level, bringing it closer down to earth, english was the language spoken in that one sentence by neil armstrong. english was the language spoken in this phone conversation heard by a quarter of the population of the earth, so there was definitely a moment, an american moment and that was then followed up by all kinds of tactical moves. nixon took on one of his visits in the soviet union, a piece of moon rock but now there are lots of ways of looking at that, it was a tactical move and a nice way of saying we beat you and that moon rock sits in the cosmonaut museum in russia, in moscow. but they start with deeply spiritual word . >> they gave the leaders a tiny

piece of the moon rock also despite the fact that nasa was not really excited about the whole thing. the thing i think about the silent majority that is, i got the feeling that was the first time he really felt that he broke through and really had established a unique and separate group of people that really were more pro-american and more proud and willing to speak up about what we done, the moonwalk or anything else, the name, the silent majority really resonated with him and an awful lot of people and gave him a path to move forward . >> and ultimate question about the impact of the mission . >> i would just like to say that the kennedy assassination and 9/11 served in each of its own ways to bring americans together and what is so special about

this particular event and we've heard it referred to in terms of the hundreds of millions of people that watched it is, this event truly brought the whole world together and, i guess that i want to say that the world could use another event like this . >> alex, i want to close with you earlier, in a small dinner you told us about playing flashlight tag with your grandpa . when you were young, did it ever occur to you that this is the fellow who called the shot to go to the moon after the technical logical difficulty? what is your reflection watching this tonight? >> it's always interesting looking at him as a historical figure, especially since i didn't really know a whole lot of what he did as president, i sort of shied away from politics when i was younger. i looked at him strictly as a grandfather. so, it's always

really fascinating just seeing how much of an impact he has on the world. his signature is on the moon right now, that blew me away when i heard that today. so, it's amazing the things he has accomplished and that he was able to be a part of this . >> he signed a plaque that is on the moon and the plaque says we came in peace for all mankind , i can't think of a better way to end on that except perhaps to have tim come up and meet us and god bless america if we would all stand. [ applause ] [ music ]

god bless america, land that i love, stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above. >> from the mountains >> to the prairies >> to the oceans white with foam, god bless america, >> my home sweet home. >> god bless america >> my home, sweet home. god

bless america. from the mountains >> to the prairies >> to the oceans white with foam >> god bless america >> my home sweet home. >> god bless america >> my home, sweet home.

[ cheering and applause ] [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen i would like you to please join me in thanking our panel for the recollection tonight, it was truly extraordinary, gentlemen. [ applause ] and, once more if you would join me in thanking at&t for making this possible tonight. tonight, rhonda, thank you so much. [ applause ] >> good evening safe travel on your way home, drive safely, friends.

good night . >> all week we feature american history tv programs is a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan-3. lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral history the presidency and special event coverage about our nations history. enjoy american history tv now and every weekend on cspan-3. >> in 1979 a small network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea, that viewers make up their own minds, c-span open the doors to washington policy for all to see, bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. a lot has changed in 40 years but, today the big idea is more

relevant than ever. on television and online, c-span is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind. brought you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider . >> next, valerie neil headed face history museum at the smithsonian air and space museum shows us artifacts showed space exploration from the moon to mars. >> each week american artifacts takes viewers and archives, museums and historic sites around the country up next we visit the smithsonian national air and space museum, located on the national mall in washington dc. our tour guide is valerie neil ahead of the space history department at the museum showing artifacts of space exploration from the moon to mars . >> i am valerie neil and we