Clifton thank you, andy. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, truman scholars. To be here. I am honored to have been asked. Honored to serve on the board. I have to tell you im a little bit stunned. I was 19 your desk i was 19 years old with my mother in independence, missouri when the first truman scholarships were awarded in 1977. I was in college and i was sort of in all of being in that group. As my mother told me i should be. [laughter] clifton, allut it, of these young people are doing a lot better in college that you. Re are [laughter] the panels have been fantastic. This is a great way to spend the afternoon. Some have been talking about my grandfathers leadership style, his outlook on life, things i found out about when i was very young. My grandfather came to stay in new york city and he got dawn, wentrack of for a walk, and grabbed as many newspapers as he could find. My brother and i were the first ones down one morning. He was behind the newspapers and we thought we would tiptoe behind him to get to the den. They caught us. He stopped us and said where you going . And i said watch bugs bunny. He said, you dont wanted do that. I thought, yes, i do. [laughter] and he said, i have a better idea. He reached to the top shelf and got a book and said come here and sit down during you didnt down. You did not argue with harry truman. My mother came down a few minutes later and stopped cold. She had never seen anything like this in her life during we werent moving. And grandpa was reading to us from a book that did not have one picture in it. She said, what are you reading to those kids . The books. Er it was history of the polynesian war. 6 00 in the morning to a fouryearold andy 2yearold. [laughter] so education, which you all know. He was a terrible babysitter. I had one of those hobbyhorses you could ride. You could kill yourself aware those. My mother was always tell me telling me i was going to camusso. I was with my grandfather and i tipped it over and telling me i was going to kill myself on it. I was with my grandfather and i tipped it over. He said, dont touch am. Grandpa was glaring at me from over the top of the newspaper. I burst over the burst into tears. And he said you, you are not heard. You get back on that and start writing again. And i did. Did not tell me that my grandfather had been president of the United States. I found out in school. [laughter] [applause] went to first grade one morning and said wasnt your grandfather the president of the United States . I said, i dont know. Ill go home and ask. And i did. Awent home and my mother told story about me for years, well into my 40s during i dropped my book bag at the door and i put my hands on my hips and i said, mom, did you know [laughter] to which she said, yes. Just remember something. Any little boys grandfather can be president. Dont let it go to your head. It did not. So education, a stiff spine coming humility, the three hallmarks that my grandfather taught me before i was seven years old. You know, you keep things in perspective, you are card and if something happens, hard, and you work if something happens, you dont go crying to your grandmother. Who reallywo folks care about this country, care about American History and not only about the past, but about where this country is headed. A knownbest loft is historian. E is the author of nine books, he is an expert on president ial leadership. And i have met. He went to school with my and your brother william. Way tocovered that one get people to read your books is to sign it to them. An honor it is for me to serve on the truman foundation. Secretary albright embodies the best this country has to offer. She is an immigrant and has done so much for her adopted country, just as immigrants have done all of the United States. She was the 64th secretary of the United States. I know my grandfather would be so pleased that she leads the foundation that bears his name. Ladies and gentlemen, let me turn it over to secretary albright for a conversation about president ial leadership. Thank you very much. This is the room were president kennedy had his press conferences. Matalin i guess. Madeleine i guess. This, butt remember you had just graduated from college. And i said see me what are you going to do. You said im going to be a diplomatic historian. I said, ok. Obviously a dishwasher of the future. Anyway, it certainly turned out to be true and you have done amazing work in terms of writing about our history and president. Im glad you decided to do that. Thank you. I am mildly glad that you decided to go with the closely diplomacy and government and compile a record that is important in the history of this line ofand people in my work will be writing about for a very long time. And maybe to again, if i could say one word i love the fact that we are here and what we are all doing. One of the things i love about president truman, you go back to the founders and one of the most basic beliefs was that they were trying to construct a country in which you could become president or secretary of state, no matter what your background was. And they would love the fact that harry truman came from Humble Beginnings in the midwest , was able to become not only president , but one of the great president s in American History. He had thisou know, usually strong feeling about education that came from a lot of things, but not least from his own life. Man,s this brilliant young loved reading history, used to i readi think he said every book in the independence, missouri library, which not which was not an immense library, but i think you did. He couldnt lay contact sports. They said, we are poor. We cannot pay to replace your glasses if you break them. Book was ae history book with the incorrect title of great men and famous women, 1890s. And the subtitle a think was from nebuchadnezzar to sarah bernhardt. [laughter] but the point is, in his life, this is someone who should have gone to college, a great college, got to graduate school, couldnt do it did namely because of his family economic circumstances. If there was one thing he , when hetrongly of became president , he wanted to help others. One way was to strengthen the Community College system. Therem telling you is would be no one who would love to be here more today than harry is truman. And with that said, let me begin with a question for secretary albright. You all know her background, coming from europe. What difference did it make in your life that harry truman was president rather than somebody else . Secretary albright i couldnt think of anything better than to put truman in education and that opportunity. We came to the United States in 1948. He was the first president and i really came from a family that loves Foreign Policy and institutions and very grateful to the United States in every single way. My father was in czechoslovakia. He was ambassador to yugoslavia. After that, his last assignment was to go to the united nations. Epresenting czechoslovakia so i grew up always thinking about Foreign Policy. I think my lodestar has always been, when america is involved, good things happen. And when america is not there, bad things happen. , munich waslovak important and the United States was not at munich. When the americans came into the war, i was a little girl in london and you could see what a difference it made. The rtunately, curtain came down in the country that i was born in came down behind the iron curtain. Harry truman did something. That was the part that was so important in terms of stating what americas position was going to be. And whether it had to do with the. 4 program or the truman doctrine or nato, everything that would indicate that america would be playing a leading role in being out there and doing something. So in that regard. The other part that i thought about was institutionally everything that i kind of we were talking about Public Service. I do teach. In talking about the National Security act, it was basically design because of the way roosevelt made decisions. It was a punishment by the bureaucracy. Michael tell a little bit about it. Secretary albright he made decisions by pitting people against each other and i getting a sense of where decisions are coming from. And the bureaucracy was fed up with it. Ad forestalls revenge set National Security harry truman was the first one that had to operate under the National Security act during he was the one that dealt with the fact of how decisions could be made and how the information came to him. It was made clear that the secretary of state would be the leading member of the cabinet, which i appreciate. Michael and there would be a Defense Department. Secretary albright and there would be a Defense Department with the cia. Michael maybe not just intelligence and army intelligence. Secretary albright it would unify things. The other part that i have to that he and the natural send really set up a system between we had all been operating under, whether there were discussions earlier about the Marshall Plan, what americans responsibility, nato, i am wearing my article five 10, and really how that works. Then also strengthening the united nations. Activities, the response to the korean war, uniting for peace i wont go through all of that. But many of the things i learned operatede and then under, whether in or outside the government were set up at that particular time. I canres nobody that honestly say has had a bigger influence in one form or another that harry truman on my life. Who was the secretary of state who got the idea to name the after harry truman . [applause] secretary albright let me just say, i really thought that we needed to do that for all the obvious lesions obvious reasons. We had the most amazing ceremony here in order to commemorate it. And im very proud. And if i may say so, when the next people came in, they wanted to erase everything. Had granite. Michael dont you like that harry is chairman and dean at just and have their names on here in a very big way . Secretary albright yes. Dinner thatre was a you are not nice enough to ask you to come and talk at, at the Benjamin Franklin room, the evening of the naming. Didevening was destined idea was to have a menu that was served in the white house in 1947, perfectly historically correct. The only downside was, a, if you did not like jello molds with strange things floating in the, you are probably out of luck. If the other thing was, anyone had a sodium problem, was probably carried out of there. Secretary albright yes, it was a typical [laughter] jello, triscuits. People wondered why we were doing that. It wasnt just elegance. It was real. Piano. E the truman an able toproud that i was be in office at the time that we were able to do that. There was nothing more symbolic in terms of americas role in the world than having Harry Trumans name on this building. Michael totally appropriate. Youre talking about the difference it made that harry truman was president rather than somebody else in the late 1940s. Im not too wild to counter actual history, factual history, but i have often thought about what life might have been like for the United States and the world had truman had not decided to replace wallace as his Vice President. Ive got some views on that. Do you want to start . Secretary albright from everything that ive read about , we had completely different views about what americas role was, who the American People were, and a lack this is not nice , but a lack of michael we got to be honest. Secretary albright i talk a lot about the role of individuals in history. And to have had Henry Wallace in office would have changed the whole direction of american after certainly 45 on and whatever influence he might have of before that in a variety ways. It certainly goes to the point of what americas role should be, what our responsibilities how we see ourselves in relationship to the rest of the world. Just totally different. And im surprised for people, not the people here, but how harry truman turned out to be who he was. What is it that made him and do the things that he did. One was the recognition of israel, that we hear about often. Generally, his approach of what needed to be done in the balkans and the number in a number of different ways. And his response to what the korean war was about. Any number of different aspects that made a difference that Harry Wallace wasnt there. Michael absolutely, wallace would not have seen the soviet threat in the way that. Truman did that truman did. I dont even want to begin to think what life might have been like. In april 19 45, when harry truman became president , a lot of americans were horrified because Franklin Roosevelt, one of the great men, who little or nothing about his recent senator had to speak well to Franklin Roosevelt in the fall of 1944 or summer of 1944, he realized that wallace was not up to being second in the one of succession dream his next term and harry truman was. Thatownside, famously, was roosevelt, although it was late in the war and roosevelt, as we well now know, had plenty of vascular death had bachelor disease and had plenty of reason vascular disease and had plenty of reason to think he would not serve that timeout. The result was, when roosevelt died in april, harry truman was left to try to figure out what roosevelt had in mind just before the end of the war in europe and just before he would have to take up the job of ing to create a post world a postwar world. He had a green eyeshade and he called in for all of the documents of the last few that roosevelt had been dealing with, that he could read and somehow figure out what was on roosevelts mind. Truman was reading the minutes of the conference with churchill and stalin and some of the cable traffic between roosevelt and churchill and stalin during the previous two weeks, trying to figure out what was on roosevelts mind. Because roosevelt had not told him. This,st famous part of the fact that roosevelt had not told him about the presence of the atomic bomb and what a difference that would make him a not only in the course of winding down world war ii and winning, but also the postwar world. Secretary albright people have been talking about how people view the vice presidency. Clearly, i think what happened in the Roosevelt Truman transition is something that taught other president s later how not to do it. And i can tell you from my own experience in the carter administration, Vice President mondale became a complete harner. It was true of clintongore. And now we talk about joe biden. Was a recognition that you could not leave the Vice President in the dark here in and we are lucky that truman had the streetsmarts of people worth talking about, an understanding of the american system in terms knowing how to work with you cant say that he had a Great Congress to work with. There wereink that lessons that came out of not having had meetings with the Vice President. Michael thats exactly right. He sort of practiced what he preached by choosing his Vice President , alan barclay of kentucky. Tell me if this sounds right to you. Ill is look at the truman case has one case where history works the way it is supposed to because, when harry truman went back to missouri, may be clear for correct me on this, but his rating was about 23 . I remember when i was a young historian, by which time, truman was much better thought of, i wondered why come up when i looked at the internal numbers, people were impatient with the korean war and the entourage and a lot of people said we dont like truman because it doesnt remind us of Franklin Roosevelt, who was our idea of the president. An apocryphal story but too good not to tell. 1952, truman was asked by a reporter what he thought of richard nixon, who was running for Vice President. Nixon wasply was that full of manure and this was published. And someone went to best truman and asterisk she couldnt get the boss to be more elegant. Have no idea you how long it took me to get him to use the word manure. [laughter] whether or not the story is true and i do not vouch for it, it does make the point that, when we americans look at president s in our own time, we are often oftentimesids obsessed with trivia. And that is why they look so yearsifferent 30 or 40 later. If you look at a president who is sitting in the white house and the day today in the things that may seem excessively important at the moment, 40 years later seem trivial and the opposite is also true. So tell me if this sounds right to you. From my point of view, this all works with president truman things wouldhese cause americans in 1952 and 1953 to not realize he was a great man, here we are 63 years later and we are much better at understanding and appreciate the qualities of leadership he had, the great common sense and modesty, huge powers of policies and also the were. If we were here in 1953, if we were talking about what president truman had done, we would have said he would have said turkey and the Marshall Plan and nato and we hope that those things would help america prevail in the cold war, but we cant be sure. You advance the clock to 2016, we are looking back on this with total hindsight and the luxury of knowing how all this turned out. And with total retrospect we say, harry truman was a great man for also to reasons. But one of them was he was the guy who devise the policy that allowed about 12 cold war president s to contain the soviet union with the hope it would ultimately collapse and we would live in a different world. We know this was a very great leader. Secretary albright no question. But i think what is interesting and i remember this, there was a sens