Come Friday morning, you may notice a rather brightly colored bus parked on the plaza outside Clark Hall. In fact, it would be hard not to notice the bus pictured above, no?
According to an announcement from the public affairs network, the bus is on tour to promote a new series about U.S. presidents’ wives, from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. “First Ladies: Influence and Image” began Monday, but if you missed the debut, don’t worry — C-SPAN plans to profile every single First Lady, so there is probably a whole lot more to come.
According to the release, the bus is visiting “key historic places in the first ladies’ lives, from hometowns to universities to presidential libraries.” Thus, it will be at Clark from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., then will move on to Monticello from 2 to 5 p.m.
Visitors will be invited aboard the bus, where they will learn about C-SPAN and its offerings through interactive technology, according to the release.
OK, the headline might be a little misleading. While Hillary Clinton has been much in the news lately, the former top U.S. diplomat who is speaking Monday evening at the Miller Center is Madeleine Albright, who served under Hillary’s husband.
Albright will speak at 6 p.m. on her latest book, “Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948,” in which she recounts the Nazi invasion of her country of birth, Czechoslovakia, when she was a child. “Prague Winter” also explores the beginnings of World War II and its immediate aftermath through a personal lens. A book signing will follow.
She will take some questions after her talk. Those unable to attend in person can tweet their questions to @Miller_Center or post them at facebook.com/millercenter.
Seating at Miller Center Forums is on a first-come, first-served basis, and the crowds arrive early there. But if you can’t get a seat, don’t despair; Miller Center Forums are streamed live at millercenter.org.
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
On Grounds,
People | Friday, February 1st | By: Dan @6:15 pm |
What will the scholars of American political history be writing about this era decades and centuries from now?
Yes, politics were nasty in America’s founding era — just like they are today — but that’s not really what we think about now. So what will people think about when they go back to the early 21st centry?
That’s a layman’s way of looking at what U.Va.’s Miller Center explores in its Governing America in a Global Era program. The program includes a Colloguia Series, described as “an open forum for scholars to share their works-in-progress and exchange ideas about politics, history and current affairs. Each speaker’s paper will be posted online one week prior to his or her scheduled colloquium. Lunch will be served starting at 12:30 pm, and paper presentation and discussion will run until 2:00 pm. All colloquia are free and open to the general public.”
They do ask for RSVPs, though, so don’t just drop in looking for lunch.
You likely won’t get the screaming heads that you see on TV discussing politics. But if you want to hear some serious, reflective, considered political talk, it’s a nice refuge from the hubbub.
Miller Center of Public Affairs | Friday, September 28th | By: Dan @3:46 pm |
Read presidential speeches made on July 4 and the back story on how the Declaration of Independence came to be by visiting the Miller Center’s online presidential speech archives and the University Library’s Declaration of Independence site.
The Independence Day speeches in the Miller Center’s archives include addresses made by John Quincy Adams in 1821, Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and U.Va. alumnus Woodrow Wilson in 1913.
Adams’ speech praises the virtues of America; Lincoln justifies the Civil War and asks Congress to validate actions he took unilaterally; and Wilson speaks at Gettysburg on the 50th anniversary of that defining battle.
The story behind the Declaration of Independence, from its first printing to popular 19th-century facsimiles, is illuminated through the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection, the most comprehensive collection of letters, documents and early printings relating to the declaration and its signers. The collection traces the writing, printing and dissemination of the declaration in 1776, and subsequently, its remaking in the years after the Revolution into the American icon it is today.
Documents and letters from the signers bring to life the stories of the individuals who took great risks at that pivotal moment in American history. One was U.Va.’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. He drafted the Declaration of Independence at age 33 with help from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, and later called it “an expression of the American mind.”
If you’re looking to add a little depth and perspective to the 2012 presidential campaign, U.Va.’s Miller Center – an entity largely devoted to the study of the American presidency – has a new blog, “Riding the Tiger.” (The name is drawn from a quote from Harry S. Truman’s memoir: “I discovered that being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.”)
The blog will feature posts written by Miller Center scholars adding historical context to the presidential race, drawing upon the center’s many digital resources, “including excerpts from the secret White House tapes, oral-history interviews and presidential speeches,” according to the center’s announcement.
Recent posts include video of President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on the separation of church and state, a look at the history and revival of manufacturing as a political issue and an entry on the Tea Party’s potential impact on the election. The photo at right, of Ronald Reagan celebrating his California gubernatorial victory in 1966, is from a post about what kinds of life experience correlate most strongly with success as in the White House.
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
politics | Wednesday, February 29th | By: Dan @5:24 pm |
An interesting nugget mined from the Miller Center’s oral history of the presidency of George H.W. Bush …
Back during the 1988 presidential campaign, Bush was trailing Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis by 18 points in the polls, and there was definite concern setting in. James Baker, then Bush’s campaign manager (and later secretary of state), recalls a “not … altogether unserious” suggestion that the campaign add a shot of testosterone by adding a certain Republican mayor of Carmel, Calif. to the ticket.
Guy by the name of Eastwood. Clint Eastwood.
Of course, the idea never took root, Bush eventually won and Dan Quayle became vice president.
Based on the Miller Center’s work, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos recently asked Eastwood if he had been aware that his name was being talked about.
He said he had not been aware. “I would have said, “I want to be the first part of the ticket…why would I want to play a supporting role?,” he quipped.
You can hear the audio clip from the Miller Center’s interview of Baker here and find the transcript here (just search for “Eastwood”).
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
News,
People | Thursday, November 10th | By: Dan @5:59 pm |
Want to be on TV? C-SPAN is expected to be at U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs on Monday at 11 a.m. to tape a talk by history professor Gary Gallagher of U.Va.’s College of Arts & Sciences.
Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War and a nationally esteemed Civil War expert, is expected to speak on “Remembering the Civil War.”
The air date for C-SPAN’s broadcast of the talk has not yet been announced.
Arts & Sciences,
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
TV | Friday, February 18th | By: Dan @5:00 pm |
Marking the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs last week hosted a conference at the National Press Club in Washington that examined the Gipper’s foreign policies.
The conference featured former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, as well as NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell moderating a roundtable that included Sen. Jim Webb; former Sen. John Warner; John Negroponte, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former director of national intelligence; and former State Department official Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. There were also several sessions with respected scholars from inside and outside of the Beltway.
You can read the Miller Center’s writeup of the conference here (pdf file), or watch video here (though they are still adding segments).
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
News | Wednesday, February 16th | By: Dan @1:10 pm |
A good Monday morning to you. How was your commute?
For many, that question would elicit a snarl.
This morning at 10 in Washington (assuming no traffic delays), former U.S. transportation secretaries Norman Mineta and Samuel Skinner will stand alongside Gerald Baliles, director of U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, to release what is being billed as a bipartisan report outlining 10 recommendations to fix the nation’s transportation system. You can watch a live webcast here.
According to the advance publicity:
The report concludes that the country’s transportation infrastructure is no longer adequate and that it is costing the U.S. economy dearly. It offers 10 practical and sustainable recommendations, including:
• looking beyond the gas tax to finance highways and other infrastructure
• effectively reducing traffic jams that are wasting too much fuel and too many Americans’ time
• giving priority to transportation projects that will have the greatest long-term economic benefit
The report is based on the David R. Goode National Transportation Conference, which the Miller Center hosted.
U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, celebrating its 35th anniversary this year held an event Monday night to honor former Virginia Gov. Linwood Holton, a longtime member of the center’s governing council and foundation board. The event provided a somewhat historic photo opp, as Holton (left) posed with two other former Virginia governors, Tim Kaine (center) and Gerald Baliles (right). (Baliles is the current director of the Miller Center.)
Together, the governors’ terms touched parts of five decades. Holton was the 61st governor, from 1970-74; Baliles the 65th, from 1986-90; and Kaine the 70th, from 2006-10.
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
People | Tuesday, June 29th | By: Dan @1:20 pm |
This just in from Kim Curtis at U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs:
Over time, presidents have undertaken a variety of different approaches toward tax policy in an effort to respond to the large and often unpredictable U.S. economy. Whether the president was raising or lowering taxes, his attempts to inform the public about tax policy have been met with varying success.
As Tax Day approaches, the Miller Center has put together an online exhibit, looking at presidential tax policy. This exhibit includes a wide array of Miller Center resources, such as presidential speeches, Forums, presidential recordings, and oral histories.
For example, we have included a video of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 visit to the Internal Revenue Service. President Kennedy, the first president ever to visit the IRS, was trying to bring attention to the Special Message on Taxation that he had delivered to Congress just days earlier.
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
News | Monday, April 12th | By: Dan @5:37 pm |
In honor of Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, and the tradition of U.S. presidents throwing out the ceremonial first pitch — as Barack Obama will do Monday as the Washington Nationals host the Philadelphia Phillies at Nationals Park — U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs offers a look back at presidential pitching form through the years. (Images after the break.)
Continue reading…
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
Sports | Friday, April 2nd | By: Dan @4:09 pm |
If you’re an undergrad looking to research something having to do with the American presidency, U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs may be able to help.
The center offers a $5,000 undergraduate research award — $4,000 to the student and $1,000 to his/her faculty sponsor — for independent work related to the center’s work. Helpful hint: Student who choose advisers from among the center’s faculty will receive priority.
The application deadline has been extended to April 15. Applicants will be notified in May, and final reports are due in April 2011.
The headline may be a little deceptive; U.Va.’s Miller Center of Public Affairs is still safely headquartered in its fantastic building on Old Ivy Road. But now the center has a second address: 1900 K Streeet NW in Washington.
It makes a lot of sense. The center has opened a satellite office to “facilitate its unparalleled study of the American presidency, to build on its work developing practical public-policy solutions, and to connect with the tens of thousands of U.Va. alumni in the area.”
The improved access will be of great benefit for the center’s Presidential Oral History Project, as just one example. It will be a lot easier to get key figures from past administrations to pop over to K Street than to make the trek to Charlottesville, the release points out.
Sounds like a win-win for everyone involved.
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
News | Thursday, October 29th | By: Dan @4:03 pm |
Today’s release of 154 hours of tapes made by President Nixon in January and February 1973 are creating a bit of a stir over at the Miller Center of Public Affairs‘ Presidential Recordings Program, which features audio and transcripts of the recordings of six American presidents, plus research and annotation to put them in context.
For today’s release, Ken Hughes, the coordinator of the Nixon Project for the Presidential Recordings Program and a research fellow at center, has created a primer for journalists covering the release.
Hughes has launched an all-out social media blitz, writing about the tapes on his blog, Fatal Politics, and also Twittering about them.
Already, he’s repairing history. A previously released version of a Jan. 20, 1973 telephone conversation between Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger over the Vietnam War had only been documented from Kissinger’s side; the new Nixon tapes have allowed Hughes to fill in some missing words and phrases. The result can be pretty illuminating:
On January 20, 1973, when Nixon and Kissinger were discussing the threat of a cutoff of U.S. aid to South Vietnam spearheaded by congressional conservatives — a threat designed to force South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to accept Nixon and Kissinger’s settlement terms, which all three realized would lead to a Communist military victory following a face-saving (for Nixon) “decent interval” — Nixon said, “I don’t know whether the threat goes too far or not, but I’d do any damn thing, that is, or to cut off his head if necessary.”
Pretty important sentence, no? But whoever transcribed the conversation for Kissinger didn’t include it.
Miller Center of Public Affairs,
News | Tuesday, June 23rd | By: Dan @2:28 pm |
