Appomattox courthouse and surrendered his army of northern virginia, effectively ending the civil war. We will be live from Appomattox CourtHouse National historic park on both april 9 and 12th as historians including ed ayres reflect on the last battles and explore the aftermath and legacy of appomattox. We will also bring you reenact its of some of the key moments from 150 years ago and we will open our phone lines to take your calls. The surrender at appomattox live april 9 and 12th, here on American History tv on cspan three. Up next, we hear from Staff Members at the three president ial libraries based in texas about their collections documenting the white house years of Lyndon Johnson, george bush, and george w. Bush. The george bush president ial library and museum hosted this event. It is about 90 minutes. As we say here in texas howdy. My apologies to the people from johnson and bush 43, but that is what we do here. Welcome to the bush library. Im the director here. We have two Staff Members each from the bush president ial library 43, our own president ial library here in College Station and the Johnson Library in austin. Since we are already running a little late, we wont do extensive introductions, but Michael Mcdonald is the curator at lbj. Brooke, one of my former staff is the supervisor archivist at the library in dallas and Christina Oliver is the registrar. Here, we have our newly minted supervisor, Deborah Wheeler and our registrar. So, what we are going to do tonight is a behindthescenes look at some of the treasures at these three president ial libraries in texas. Were the only state in the country with three president ial libraries, so they are going to talk. They have 20 minutes each. Im going to stand in the back of the auditorium and if they go over 20 minutes, i will jump up and down and stop if that doesnt work, i will come up here and tell them they have to leave the stage. Hopefully we will leave a little time at the and because the idea is to leave sometime at the end for the audience to ask some questions you thought about during the program. We will leave some question time at the end and i will moderate that. There are microphones. Tonight is being taped by cspan so if you will raise your hand, you will be passed a microphone so we can get your question on camera. If you will wait for that and ask your questions, we have a lovely reception, so if you did not want to ask a question or had a question and did not have time to ask it, the panelists will be available after the program to take your questions will stop thank you all for being here. We are going to go in order of president ial libraries. Welcome to the podium the Johnson Library. [applause] i dont know the password. Is it something secret like lbj . While we are waiting for someone to come but the password and, i would like to thank orrin finch and the staff at the library for inviting us here so we can share the National Treasures from each of the president ial libraries will stop i hope you enjoy the items we have brought from the lbj library. I knew this wasnt all going to go flawlessly. You are awesome. Here we go. Ok when i was asked to come here to do a talk on what we have at the lbj library, i thought we have 45 million pages , so its hard to narrow it down to just a few things. The next thought i had was president johnson last telephone recordings. Have any of you heard they recordings . Good show of hands. President johnson, in the administration his staff recorded several hundred hours of telephone recordings and there were two dictaphone machines that you can see there in the middle. Its a rather antiquated type of recording device that has these plastic or vinyl belts that would sit on a cylinder and as it recorded, it would leave grooves in it like an old lp record that we used to have. I do remember those will stop the president would signal for his secretary, Juanita Roberts and she would flip the onoff switch. There were two machines. As the first one started to and, the second one would automatically pick up. That way, you didnt lose anything. We always warn researchers when it comes to the lbj library that there are transcripts done by the clerk typist at the white house, but they didnt always know what was going on with domestic or Foreign Affairs and they did not always know what the president was talking about. We always recommend if you are looking at the transcripts, that you also listen to the telephone conversations while you are reading it. I brought this one conversation just to give you a little example of what im talking about. In this conversation with the speaker of the house he and the president are discussing who might be nominated to be on the war and commission to investigate the jfk assassination. You can see where i have the blue arrows the president says you bet you, ive got a pack of them bastardize waiting on me since 4 45. If any of you have listened to the telephone conversations, you might say that sounds like lbj. He has a pack waiting in the oval office. But if you listen, he says i have the pakistani ambassador waiting on me. So were going to listen to this and when they are talking about the nominees for the war and commission, you will here he talks about a future president named gerald ford. Hes considered a pretty liberal fellow. Youve got to southerners, but you got to northerners that are civilians. I wasnt undertaking to argue with you. I sure want you to if you disagree with me. You couldnt have better men but im just thinking of the geographical location on the legislative level and that is something i call to mind for you to consider. Kentucky up north is considered self. They there are three men appointed to represent the public and none of them are southerners. You go ahead. You take care of the house of representatives for me. How my going to take care of them . Keep them from investigating. Listen, i got outside and i was doing some work i have a pakistani investor waited on me since oracle and 45 pakistani ambassador waiting on me since 4 45. That is a blatant error, but sometimes they can leave out a no worry not in the senate and it changes the meaning of the sentence or paragraph. I love this conversation. It shows the dynamic between Lady Bird Johnson and her husband. During the Second Press Conference he had these are the notes she took. She is critiquing his press conference and as you listen to the conversation, you can follow along that says during this statement, you were a little breathless perhaps slightly fast. You can see any upper corner, she gives him a b plus. As you listen to the president hes really funny because she calls him and says do you have time to listen to my critique and he says yes, maam. Im ready. When she gets to the part and says you got a b plus, he sounds a little irritated. Do you want to listen for about one minute to my critique . Yes, maam. I thought you looked strong firm, and like a reliable guide. You look splendid. Your closeups were much better than the distance one. You can get them to do it with whack there were more closeups and distances. During the statement, you were a little restless a little breathless, and i think it was little too fast, not enough change of pace. Dropping the voice at the end of the sentence. There was a considerable pickup in interest when the questioning began. Your voice was noticeably better and your facial expression was noticeably better. I think the outstanding thing is that the closeups were excellent. You need to have the opportunity to study more and read it with more conviction and interest. And change of pace. President johnson the problem is, they criticize you for taking so much time. In their questions dont get news, they catch hell, so my problem was trying to get through before 10 minutes and i still ran 10 minutes today. I took a third of it for the questions and i could have taken 15 minutes. But i did not know what to cut out. I thought if i replaced one of those names, they would call up the fellow and they would ask him about it and then they would publicize it good. Lady bird johnson i would use 13 minutes or 14 minutes for the statement. In general, i feel it was a good b plus. How do you feel about it . President johnson i thought it was better than last minute that than last time. I want to make a comment about this photograph will stop i use this photograph i want to make a comment about this photograph. Its when he says hes not going to run for a second term and there were a lot of wellwishers, friends and Family Members calling the white house to speak to both of them and there were two phones in the bedroom, so they were both taking phone calls. To me, it looks like they are talking on the phone to each other from across the room. In the summer of 1964, it was a busy and volatile time for the country. It was right at the time when american ships were under attack and the gulf of tonkin and there were three missing civil rights workers near philadelphia mississippi. There was a debate going on in the president s poverty bill, and a president ial election coming up that november. On august 4, the president was meeting with congressional leaders at the white house and jay and or hoovers assistant calls the president to tell him they found three bodies. I think it shows a very human side of Lyndon Johnson because he asks when they are going to make the press announcement. He says that 10 minutes and he says i want you to wait until you can notify the families. President johnson i think we ought to follow if we can talking to walter. [indiscernible] president johnson are you following him . Mr. President. Mr. Hoover wanted me to call you and say the fbi has found three bodies in philadelphia, mississippi, six miles west of where the civil rights workers were last seen on the night of june 21st. A search party has turned up the bodies about 15 minutes ago when they were digging in the woods in the underbrush off of route 21 in that area. We are going to get a car right away and move these bodies to jackson, its acidity, where we hope they can be identified. We have not identified them as of yet, but we have every reason to believe they are the three missing men. They were on the side of a dam that had been constructed near philadelphia, mississippi. We wanted to let you know right away, sir. President johnson when are you going to make the announcement . Right away. I plan on making it in washington just that the fbi has found three bodies and has identified them. President johnson if you can hold about 15 minutes, i think we are to notify these families. Do you wish to do that prior to the time they are identified . We think they are the ones. President johnson i think we can tell them we dont know but that would kind of ease it a little bit. All right, sir. President johnson i will get right back to you. All right, sir. You often hear background noise and we are pretty sure considering what some of the conversations that were about that were recorded that sometimes, one eat a roberts forgot to turn the machine off so things were recorded that probably were not meant to be. Whenever i speak to a group on telephone calls, i always include them. This is conversation with congressman adam clayton powell, the first africanamerican congressman from new york. He was the chairman of the House Committee on education and labor. This excerpt, lbj chastises powell because of the delays in the house on the elementary and secondary education act. It is a prime example of Lyndon Johnson and his arm twisting, or what we sometimes call the johnson treatment. Yes, sir. President johnson congressman powell once to put me on all stop congressman powell how is my friend . President johnson what the hell is happening in your committee. I told i thought you told me you are going to pass that bill. Congressman powell you want a 400,000 appropriation we could not pass one billion 200 million for school kids. Ive got nothing to do with what you are doing in the house investigation, but you dam near defeated the best Education Bill ive got an a hope youre going to be proud of it. Congressman powell in your appellation bill. President johnson the appellation bill doesnt have anything to do with anything. If you are going to let them lead you off the reservation iran for nothing last year. If you are going to tie up this congress and screw up when you have done for three weeks by running off until you get 400000 and appropriation, we can never get anywhere. You defeat this, hold it up and delay it and get us in this kind of shape, we cant pass anything and thats all right. I think you will be the hell of a bunch of your little world democrats. Its not going to bother me your liberal democrats. Its not going to bother me. Im very disappointed. I dont think you are entitled to it and think that you did. I think you looked me straight in the eye and said i will report this bill and get it on the floor. You didnt do it. You didnt then you ran off for three weeks and i couldnt even locate you to tell you. This is serious, this is bad, this is the thing we ran on all over the country and there are people being dam well taken care of. I would say that is quite a dressing down. The final conversation i wanted to play for you was one the president had with ibm president tom watson. This is the day after president johnsons famous american Voting Rights speech where he talks about being a teacher in texas and how he saw how the poverty and a good tree affected all of those students in this mexicanamerican school he taught in. He says in the speech i didnt know then i was going to become president and that i would have the power to change the lives of students and their children. He looks right at the camera and says im going to let you in on a little secret i intend to use it. In this conversation, he talks about how the republicans are not responding to this speech quite the way he expected. President johnson an interesting thing ive got that ought to give you a little hard. President johnson he says you have expressed the conscience of the nation and the nations commitment to civil rights. He should have unqualified support and you have all of mine. I thought it was the most forceful speech ive seen anyone make ive never seen you come through as strongly or anyone come through that strongly. President johnson the republicans in 12 i told them i never thought i would be president when i was teaching school, but i was and i had this power and im meant to use it. I looked over and all the democrats were up and i looked at the camera and put my head back and i look at the camera and i wish you had seen them get up. Thats what i was doing. All of them had glue in their britches and they were just stuck. When they saw the camera circling around with that little red light, it was the funniest thing i ever saw. They dam well on to have gotten that because it was magnificent. That is the glue in the britches telephone call. The last thing doesnt have to do with telephone calls its a couple of photographs of president and mrs. Johnson at Andrews Air Force base in 1969. They are leaving washington to go back to their retirement home in texas. If you see the little blue arrow pointing down, you will see there is a young congressman by the name of George Herbert walker bush in the crowd there to bid them farewell. The letters you see on the side, youre not going to be able to read them, but im going to give you some excerpt from them. The one letter is from the head of the university of texas oral history program. He wrote a letter to the president that says when i spotted congressman george bush of houston in the farewell crowd, i asked him why a prominent republican such as he was seeing you off instead of being in the midst of republican activities in the city. His reply was a nice tribute to you. He said youve been a fine president , invariably courteous and fair to me and my people. I thought i belong here to show in a small way how much i have appreciated him. I wish i could do even more. Lbj wrote congressman bush a letter and said i was deeply appreciative of your words as he quoted them to me. Please know i value your friendship as i do your fathers and i am glad you are one of us down here in texas. I wish you a long and illustrious career in congress. That is the end of my presentation. Im going to turn it over to mike donald. Mike good evening. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you, barbara for that presentation. I hope i can follow up. Tonight, we will be talking at the Museum Collection at the lbj library. As you know, the lbj library is on the campus of the university of texas in austin and like the bush library our mission is to promote the public understanding of the presidency by documenting the lifetime and lyrical career of Lyndon Baines johnson, the 36th president of the United States. Within the Museum Collection, we have over 55,000 objects. We usually have about 2 of the collection on exhibit at any time. The collection goes from head of state to two everyday objects that were used, worn or own lives johnsons during the presidency. Some of the gifts are from ancient middle eastern objects to objects that were used by the objects that were used by the president in the oval office during his time presidency. We have fine art that goes from childrens drawings to sculptures by frederick remington. Original artwork i charles russell. Diego rivera. We also have everyday items such that the president war. This jacket here, he wore the ranch a lot. We also have items from mrs. Johnson. For example this is the outfit she wore during the 1965 inauguration. Then we have objects that are just handcrafted by the ordinary citizen, both from the u. S. And abroad. This is a lucite paperweight that someone sent to the johnsons that represent their beagles. Everyone in the Johnson Family had the initials of lbj from lady bird, to the president , to the two daughters, to the beagles. Most of the objects that were sent by ordinary americans are sent because the gift or has some kind of appreciation, respect, admiration for the pre