President Kennedy’s commencement address at American University when he called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  June 10th marks the 50th anniversary of his “Peace Speech” in 1963.

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June 10th marks the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, when he called for high-level negotiations with the Soviet Union, a nuclear test ban treaty and an end to the Cold War.  This is a conversation with two veteran journalists, Tom Brokaw and Nick Clooney, on the Kennedy presidency and the significance of his “Peace Speech.”  This program was hosted by American University’s School of Communication and the Newseum.

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Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial overlooks Washington D.C. from the heights of Arlington National Cemetery. As the nation commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War – and after a six-year restoration effort – the house once again looks much like the home that  Lee knew. Built by George Washington Parke Custis, the step-grandson of George Washington, it was originally a memorial to the first president. Robert E. Lee married Custis’ daughter, Mary. It was at Arlington House that Lee resigned from the U.S. Army at the outset of the Civil War. Now it stands as the only national memorial to a Confederate leader, recognizing Lee’s post-war public efforts at reconciliation.                                                                                                             

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Oregon State University professor Christopher McKnight Nichols teaches a class on Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy, focusing on the period between 1989 and 2001. The class looks at military engagements by the United States during the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, including Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Haiti and Serbia -- as well as the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia and Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. Oregon State University is in Corvallis.

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Eleanor Roosevelt biographer Blanche Weisen Cook talks about the legacy of the former first lady and her commitment to human rights around the world. Ms. Cook published “Eleanor Roosevelt Volume one” in 1992 and is currently writing the third and final volume. She spoke at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York.

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Author Catherine Clinton discusses how both President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis suffered the loss of a child while in office and how it impacted their wives. In 1862, the Lincolns lost their 11-year old son, Willie, from what was believed to be typhoid fever. In1864, the Davises lost their four-year old son, Joseph, in a fatal fall at the Confederate White House in Richmond. Professor Clinton also explores mid-19th century mourning practices and etiquette. The National Archives in Washington, DC, hosted this event.
 

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On this History Bookshelf, Julia Scheeres presents a history of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, a cult that attracted hundreds to Jonestown, Guyana, where on November 18, 1978, they engaged in a mass murder-suicide. Nine hundred and nine men, woman and children died at the compound, and several others who had been investigating the cult were assassinated at a nearby airstrip, including U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and three members of the media. This event took place at Books Inc. in Berkeley, California.

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Medgar Evers was a Mississippi field officer for the NAACP when he was gunned down in his driveway by a sniper on June 12, 1963. To mark the 50^th anniversary of his death, the Newseum hosted a conversation with Evers’ widow Myrlie Evers, former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, and Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter whose work helped convict – some 30 years later – segregationist Byron De La Beckweth in Evers’ murder.

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On June 11, 1963 President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation on Civil Rights.  That spring, civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama had been met with violence by police.  And on June 10th, the federal government ordered the Alabama National Guard to protect two African American students attempting to enroll at the University of Alabama.  In his Oval Office address, President Kennedy called on Americans to address a "moral crisis" "and to support congressional action against segregation and discrimination."

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Last June, as the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in approached, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library released interviews with key staff charged with investigating whether there were grounds to impeach President Nixon. These interviews were conducted by the former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Timothy Naftali. We hear from Jeffrey Banchero, who was a research assistant for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee during their impeachment inquiry. Mr. Banchero talks about transcribing tapes of the president’s private conversations, working with special counsel John Doar, and the reactions of congressmen as they listened to the secret tapes. Mr. Doar admonished his staff not to talk about the proceedings – a warning they heeded for four decades.

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