Could everybody please take a seat . It really is a good morning, this is one of the first days of the year when spring is something other than a rumor. Welcome to one of all. My name is Tom Birmingham in i and i am Pioneer Institute senior fellow in education. This is the third forum that i i have posted over the last two months since joining pioneer. Given the lineup this morning, i believe you are in for a real treat. As is usual, we can expect a robust and Free Exchange of ideas varied opinions when we have the presentation on teaching world war ii in Public Schools. We would also like to express a very warm welcome to cspan , which is joining us this morning. The timing could hardly be better given that this week marks the 70th anniversary of victory in europe today. Day. Several guest speakers are heading to europe to celebrate. But first, let me thank our events cosponsors. The massachusetts historical society, the program of education policy and governance at Harvards Kennedy school of governance, the crawford review, we the people, the citizens of the constitution, the National Association of scholars, and the new england churchillians. Now, i would also like to announce some real exciting news related to our ongoing work to support u. S. History in our schools. The Pioneer Institutes Second AnnualFrederick Douglass prize in u. S. History encourages massachusetts public and private High School Students to explore the stories behind the states many historical landmarks and museum exhibits. For this years contest we received over 70 essays from across the state, from public, charter, parochial, and private high schools. Students chose from Historic Sites and had to develop essay an essay drawing on primary and secondary sources that explain the Historical Impact and significance of their subject matter. The first place prize is 5,000. Place is 2000, third place is 1000. Honorable mention is 500 each. Also, the first place Prize WinnersSchool Receives 1000. The judges selected four honorable mentions. Of University Park campus school, Courtney Cassidy of st. Marys high school, Mary Erickson of norwood high school, and yusuf sezer of grafton high school. I would ask you all to acknowledgment. [applause] mr. Birmingham we are pleased to have the top three prizewinners with us this morning. When i call your name i would like you to receive your certificate of appreciation and excellence along with your check. [laughter] thirdrmingham and the place winner is abigail long from Bishop Feehan high school for her essay on the Maria Mitchell house in nantucket. Abigail . [applause] mr. Birmingham the second place winner is Matthew Tormey of Pembroke High School for his essay on bostons Goudey Gum Company and the silver age of baseball cards. [applause] mr. Birmingham congratulations. And our first place winner is Julia Ruderman of minuteman career and Technical High School in lexington for her essay on the Old Schwamb Mill in arlington. Julia . [applause] mr. Birmingham congratulations to you. Lets give all of our top winners a hearty round of applause. [applause] well done and congratulations to you all. In addition to sponsoring the writing contest, in recent years pioneer has hosted u. S. History events. With these events, we hope by highlighting the major arrows of phases of u. S. History, policymakers will better appreciate the need for future generations to understand heritage. Sadly, in massachusetts and across the country, this is not happening now. For instance, on the civics portion of the 2010 test, the nations report card, only 7 of eighth graders to correctly identify the three branches of government who correctly identify the three branches of government. Unlike in english and math and science, in which we are internationally competitive, when it comes to u. S. History and civics, massachusetts students are no longer the exception, but just the rule. For example, in 28 years of a civics contest, our students have never finished in the top 10 states. Students are routinely outperformed by counterparts from california, oregon, indiana, virginia, and even alabama. This is one reason why we favor restoring the u. S. History mcat as a requirement for graduation from massachusetts high schools. This is what the education reform act originally required but the Patrick Administration jettisoned the requirements in 2009. To a significant degree, studying war is studying human nature in conflict with itself. War has always existed and will likely exist as long as humans do. Which is why better understanding war is to better understand ourselves. 2500 years ago, the athenians wrote the history of the peloponnesian war. If his time, it was a greek city states that were tearing themselves to pieces, and in his words, he reminds us about the awful nature of war which is as true today as it was two millennia ago. Practically the whole of the hellenistic world was convulsed by war. In the various cities these revolutions were the cause of many calamities as always will happen while human nature is what it is. In times of peace and prosperity cities and individuals alike follow Higher Standards because they are not forced into a situation where they have to do what they do not want to do. But war is a stern teacher. In depriving them of the power of easily satisfying dearly , satisfying their daily want it brings their minds down to the level of the actual circumstances. These stark words about the dark side of humanity dont mean that we cannot learn profound lessons from this stern teacher well considering to what lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Just like the era of world war ii and the holocaust produced some of the worst horrors humanity has ever witnessed, so too did the time of global conflict produce some of historys most heroic moments. For example, president roosevelt optimistic leadership, Prime Minister churchills charismatic resistance, the dramatic conquest of berlin, and the quiet, inspiring, and courageous words of a teenage girl, and anne. There are so many elements of world war ii that no one event can cover them all, but by enlisting 2 Pulitzer Prizewinning historians, a biographer, a World War Ii Museum director, a holocaust survivor, and several educators, were hoping we can open a larger policy discussion of the need to get an understanding of u. S. History and world war ii back into our schools and into the lives and minds of our students. Without more, i would like to introduce our first keynote speaker, David Kennedy, who is the donald history Professor Emeritus at stanford university. Professor kennedy received the deans award for distinguished teaching in 1988. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 2000. Professor kennedys over here, explored americas political, economic, and domestic life during old war one. His book, earth control in america, Birth Control in america, was i now present you professor David Kennedy. [applause] David Kennedy thank you, tom. Thanks to all of you for being here and thanks to the Pioneer Institute for organizing the discussion of world war ii. I would like to begin on a personal note that will strike you at first as completely unrelated to the subject but i will try to demonstrate that it has some relationship. I do a lot of bicycle riding in california, where i live, and a couple of years ago on a foggy saturday morning i found myself in the parking lot of a hotel in carmel, california getting ready ride roughly 100 miles down the big sur coast. I knew virtually nobody in the group of 100 people so we are milling around. You have to imagine the scene in your minds eye, a bunch of middleaged people in spandex. And one of these gentlemen, a fellow writer came up and introduced himself to me and said my name is jack, i am a lawyer in san francisco. How about you . I said my name is David Kennedy and i teach history at stanford university. He said, oh, you historians, i know all about you guys. All you do is you make up these whatif scenarios. What if this had happened, what if this had not happened . Well, as you might imagine, i thought that was a pretty severely reductionist description of my lifes work, but before i could muster anything even remotely resembling an answer, i have one for you, mr. Smartypants professor, he said, what if on november 22, 1963 it had been not john f. Kennedy but making a but Nikita Khrushchev would fall into the b fallen to the bullet . Howard subsequent history be different . I had never thought about that question before. As al qaeda, but something he said, i will tell you good i should have seen it coming. He said, i will tell you one thing we can say with absolute certainty about the subsequent course of history if it had been khrushchev and not kennedy, Aristotle Onassis would not have remarried. [laughter] David Kennedy now, it is very gratifying to me to see that many people in the room get the joke. There are people sitting down here who are staring at me blankly. This among other things illustrates that humor is generational in character. If you do not have a picture of mrs. Khrushchev in your head you do not get it. Well, this is point of this is that i think jack, the guy this thing on the, the regional the original version of the story goes back to a conversation between the australian premier and mao zedong but that is different. If you reflect on it for a moment, he had a serious point. That history is not a bench aside, a laboratory science. Cannot add or subtract this element, see how the reaction goes forward or not. So we do, whether explicitly or implicitly, often indulge in these thinking exercises about what if something had gone differently how might be course of events have taken shape differently. Here is a serious version of the question that jack pulled on me. What if the United States had lost world war ii . How would be course of subsequent history have been different . That is a strong form of the question, and more historically responsible version. What if the United States had emerged victorious but had gone to war on a different timetable on different Strategic Principles and with a different source composition . How will the outcome have differently shaped the world we have lived in ever since . And i do think the shadow of world war ii casts itself to the present century. We are going to illuminate americas grand strategy in the war. As a premise that underlies these remarks, the premise is that world war ii was a germanic we transformative event in history of the society and indeed of the world. That is the premise. The proposition i want to urge upon you this morning is that the transformations did not just happen in the case of the United States. They were the result of dramati some deliberately taken decisions. And thirdly, the events of the war, the result of the grand strategy, created the platform or the scaffolding or the infrastructure on which subsequent history has quite measurably built. Ok, so how transformative was world war ii . When i think about this, i go back to a sentence i read in a speech of winston churchhills, on the occasion of his reflecting on the announcement which was only 24 hours old or less, that japan intended to surrender. The war ended in may of 1945, the japanese now in august of 1945 were about to surrender as well. And churchill took to the floor of parliament and gave one of his more sustained assisting speeches. There is one sentence that jumped off of the page at me for a number of reasons, not least of all, he rendered to the United States in a fashion that has long since gone out of use in american english, but apparently is still common in british english. He rendered the United States as a plural noun. He said, the United States stand at this moment at the summit of the world. Mid august, 1945. United states stand up this at this moment at the summit of the world. That was a very true, accurate statement at that moment and it has remained true to a substantial degree ever since. From a historians point of view what is so arresting aside from the grammar is that from the Vantage Point of five years earlier in 1940, that statement was just wildly improbable. So something happened between 1940 and 1945 to make the statement that would have been improbable in 1940 accurate in 1945 and of course what happened is world war ii and that is the subject. Lets cast our minds back briefly to 1940. 1940 is the 11th year of the great depression. We believe that as late as 1940, 45 of all white households and 95 of all africanamerican households, applying the metrics of poverty developed a generation later, 45 of white households and 95 of africanamerican households lived below the poverty line in 1940. One Hoover Administration and to administrations had as of failed to find the 1940 exit from the greatest economic crisis in history. Just five years over the horizon of this future, this country was about to launch itself into a sustained, generation long period of Economic Growth that gave us the affluent society we have had ever since. And if we turn to the International Arena and ask what other contrasts between 1940 and 1945, the differences are if anything even more dramatic than they are in the domestic sphere. As of 1940, the United States was a country that had refused to join the league of nations even though it was the brainchild of an american president in 1918 at the conclusion of world war i. It was a country that for the first time had imposed a cap on imposed a new merkel a immigration, an country that insisted on the repayment of u. S. Treasury loans to allied governments after world war i, an insistence that badly disrupted International Capital flows and some would argue contributed not trivially to the crisis we know as the great depression. The country that had passed the highest protective tariff in its history in 1930, a country that had passed no fewer than five neutrality statutes in the 1930s, guaranteed supposedly to keep the United States out of any future conflicts. On every metric, this country was experiencing the most deeply isolationist moment in its long history. In the years before 1940. If you had walked down the streets of any major american city, boston, lets say, and you heard a Street Corner speaker saying Something Like my fellow citizens, i am here in this year 1940 to tell you about this economically stricken country and deeply isolationist country will five years from now stand on the threshold of Economic Growth and where they shared prosperity such that we have never seen before and our isolationist country will not only simply join the league of nations, it will form a new International Organization called the United Nations, domiciled in the city of new york. We will take the lead in creating new International Institutions like the Monetary Fund and so on and so forth and we will either grow and we will lead the globe into a period of growth. So much so, by the end of the century, a new world word will be coined, it will be called globalization. Anybody who made that speech or some version of it in 1940 would have been certified as completely detached from reality but we know, looking back with the stern that lantern of historical insight that that is exactly what happened. So, what happened to make that reality plausible and possible and realized in this interval between 1940 and 1945 . The answer is world war ii. So how did this happen . My students at stanford, when i can get them to speak candidly about their attitudes about studying history, have more than once told me, you know, professor kennedy, the problem with the study of history is just one damn thing after another. [laughter] David Kennedy and if you take nothing else away from the discussion this morning i hope it will be the thought that in this case, the result that we got in 1945, it is not the story of one damn thing after another, it is a story of very deliberately taken decisions. Grand Strategic Decisions that got us the result. We are coming to the point where the United States enters the war you backso let me take to that moment now and share with yo