property house in astrology

(chã¶gyam trungpa rinpoche)spirituality is a particular termwhich actually means a dealing with intuition. in the theistic tradition there is a notion ofclinging into a word. a certain act is regarded as displeasing to ourdivine principles. a certain act is regarded aspleasing for the divine whatever. in the tradition ofnon-theism, however

it is very direct that the case history is notparticularly important. what is actually importantis here and now. now is definitely now. we try to experience what isavailable there, on the spot. there's no point in thinkingthat a past did exist that we could have now. this is now. this very moment.

nothing mystical, just now,very simple, straight forward. and from that nowness, however arises a sense ofintelligence, always that you are constantlyinteracting with reality one by one, spot byspot, constantly. we actually experiencefantastic precision, always. but we are threatened by the now so we jump to thepast or the future. paying attention to the materialsthat exist in our life

all these choices takeplace all the time but none of them are regardedas bad or good per se. everything we experience areunconditional experience. they don't come alongwith a label by saying "this is regarded asbad" or "this is good". we experience them but we don'tactually pay heed to them properly. we don't actually regard thatas we are going somewhere. we regard that as a hassle waiting to be dead.

[echoed: waiting to be dead] that's a problem. and that is nottrusting the nowness properly that what is actuallyexperienced now possesses a lot ofpowerful things. it is so powerful that we can't face it. therefore, we have to borrow from thepast, invite the future, all the time and maybe that's whywe seek religion. maybe that's why wemarch in the street.

maybe that's why wecomplain to society. maybe that's why we votefor the presidents. it is quite ironical andvery funny, indeed. zeitgeist (j. maxwell) the more youbegin to investigate what we think we understand,where we came from what we think we're doing the more you begin tosee we've been lied to. we've been lied to by every institution.what makes you think

for one minute, that thereligious institution is the only one that'snever been touched? the religious institutions of thisworld are at the bottom of the dirt. the religious institutionsin this world are put there by the same people who gave you yourgovernment, your corrupt education who set up your internationalbanking cartels. we have been misled away fromthe true and divine presence in the universe thatmen have called god. i don't know what god isbut i know what he isn't.

and unless and until you areprepared to look at the whole truth wherever it may go,whoever it may lead to the more you educate yourself,the more you understand where things come from, themore obvious things become and you begin to see lies everywhere.you have to know the truth and seek the truth and thetruth will set you free. they must find it difficult... those who have takenauthority as the truth rather than truthas the authority.

g. massey, egyptologist (g. carlin)because i have totell you the truth, folks. when it comes to bullshit big time, major league bullshit you have to stand in awe of theall-time champion of false promises and exaggeratedclaims: religion! think about it.religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisibleman living in the sky who watches everything you do,every minute of every day.

and the invisible man has aspecial list of ten things he does not want you to do. and if you do any of these tenthings, he has a special place full of fire and smoke andburning and torture and anguish where he will send you to liveand suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever andever until the end of time! but he loves you. [laughter and applause] he loves you.

he loves you and he needs money! he always needs money! he's all-powerful, all-perfect,all-knowing, and all-wise; somehow, just can'thandle money! religion takes inbillions of dollars they pay no taxes and theyalways need a little more. now, you talk about agood bullshit story. holy shit! part i:

the greatest story ever told (p. joseph)this is the sun. as far back as 10,000 bc history is abundant with carvings andwritings reflecting people's respect and adoration for this object. and it is simple to understandwhy, as every morning the sun would rise, bringingvision, warmth and security saving man from the cold, blind,predator-filled darkness of night. without it, the cultures understood,the crops would not grow

and life on the planetwould not survive. these realities made the sun themost adored object of all time. likewise, they were alsovery aware of the stars. the tracking of the stars allowed themto recognize and anticipate events which occurred overlong periods of time such as eclipses and full moons. they in turn catalogedcelestial groups into what we know todayas constellations. this is the cross of the zodiac

one of the oldest conceptualimages in human history. it reflects the sun asit figuratively passes through the 12 major constellationsover the course of a year. it also reflects the 12 monthsof the year, the four seasons and the solstices and equinoxes. the term zodiac relates tothe fact that constellations were anthropomorphized orpersonified as figures or animals. in other words, the early civilizationsdid not just follow the sun and stars they personified themwith elaborate myths

involving their movementsand relationships. the sun, with its life-givingand saving qualities was personified as a representativeof the unseen creator or god. god's sun: the light of the world,the savior of human kind. likewise, the 12 constellations representedplaces of travel for god's sun and were identified by names, usuallyrepresenting elements of nature that happened duringthat period of time. for example, aquarius the waterbearer, who brings the spring rains. this is horus. he is the sun godof egypt of around 3000 bc.

he is the sun,anthropomorphized and his life is a series of allegorical mythsinvolving the sun's movement in the sky. from the ancienthieroglyphics in egypt we know much aboutthis solar messiah. for instance, horus, beingthe sun or the light had an enemy known as setwho was the personification of the darkness or night and metaphoricallyspeaking, every morning horus would win the battle againstset, while in the evening

set would conquer horus andsend him into the underworld. it is important to note that 'dark vs.light' or 'good vs. evil' is one of the most ubiquitousmythological dualities ever known and is still expressed onmany levels to this day. broadly speaking, the storyof horus is as follows: horus was born on december 25th of the virgin isis- mary his birth was accompaniedby a star in the east and upon his birth he wasadored by three kings. at the age of 12, he was aprodigal child teacher.

at the age of 30 he was baptizedby a figure known as anup and thus began his ministry.horus had 12 disciples he traveled about with performing miracles such as healingthe sick and walking on water. horus was known by many gesturalnames such as the truth the light, god's anointedson, the good shepherd the lamb of god and many others. after being betrayed bytyphon, horus was crucified buried for 3 days andthus, resurrected. these attributes of horus,whether original or not

seem to permeate in many culturesof the world for many other gods are found to have the samegeneral mythological structure. attis of phrygia, born of thevirgin nana on december 25th crucified, placed in a tomb andafter three days, was resurrected. krishna of india, bornof the virgin devaki with a star in the eastsignaling his coming. he performed miracles with hisdisciples and upon his death was resurrected. dionysus of greece, born ofa virgin on december 25th

was a traveling teacher who performedmiracles such as turning water into wine. he was referred to as the king ofkings, god's only begotten son the alpha and omega and many others.upon his death he was resurrected. mithra of persia, born ofa virgin on december 25th had 12 disciples andperformed miracles upon his death was buried for3 days and thus resurrected. he was also referred to as thetruth, the light and many others. interestingly, the sacred day ofworship of mithra was sunday.

the fact of the matter isthere are numerous saviors from different periodsfrom all over the world which subscribe to thesegeneral characteristics. the question remains:why these attributes? why the virgin birthon december 25th? why dead for 3 days and theinevitable resurrection? why 12 disciples or followers? to find out, let's examine themost recent of the solar messiahs. jesus christ was born of the virginmary on december 25th in bethlehem.

his birth was announced by a star inthe east which three kings or magi followed to locate andadore the new savior. he was a child teacher at 12.at the age of 30 he was baptized by john the baptist andthus began his ministry. jesus had 12 disciples which hetraveled about with performing miracles such as healing the sick, walkingon water, raising the dead. he was also known as the king of kings,the son of god, the light of the world the alpha and omega, thelamb of god and many others. after being betrayed by hisdisciple judas and sold

for 30 pieces of silver, he wascrucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days was resurrectedand ascended into heaven. first of all, the birth sequenceis completely astrological. the star in the east is sirius, thebrightest star in the night sky which on december 24th aligns with the3 brightest stars in orion's belt. these 3 bright stars in theorion's belt are called today what they were called in ancienttimes 'the three kings'. and the three kings and thebrightest star, sirius all point to the place of thesunrise on december 25th.

this is why the three kingsfollow the star in the east in order to locate the sunrise,the birth of the sun. the virgin mary is the constellationvirgo also known as virgo the virgin. virgo in latin means virgin. virgo was also referredto as the house of bread and the representation of virgo isa virgin holding a sheaf of wheat. this house of bread andits symbol of wheat represents august and september,the time of harvest. in turn, bethlehem literallytranslates to "house of bread".

bethlehem is thus a referenceto the constellation virgo a place in the sky,not on earth. there's another veryinteresting phenomenon that occurs around december25th or the winter solstice. from the summer solsticeto the winter solstice the days becomeshorter and colder. and from the perspectiveof the northern hemisphere the sun appears to move south andgets smaller and more scarce. the shortening of the daysand expiration of the crops

when approaching the winter solsticesymbolized the process of death to the ancients.it was the death of the sun. and by december 22nd the sun'sdemise was fully realized. for the sun having moved southcontinually for six months makes it to its lowestpoint in the sky. here a curious thing occurs: the sun stops moving south, atleast perceivably, for three days. and during this three day pause,the sun resides in the vicinity of the southern cross,or crux constellation.

and after this timeon december 25th the sun moves onedegree, this time north foreshadowing longerdays, warmth and spring. and thus it was said:the son died on a cross was dead for three days, only tobe resurrected or born again. this is why jesus andnumerous other sun gods share the crucifixion, three-daydeath and resurrection concept. it is the sun's transition periodbefore it shifts its direction back into the northern hemisphere,bringing spring and thus salvation.

however, they did not celebratethe resurrection of the sun until the springequinox or easter. this is because at the spring equinox,the sun officially overpowers the evil darkness as daytimethereafter becomes longer in duration than the night and the revitalizingconditions of spring emerge. probably the most obvious ofall the astrological symbolism around jesus regardsthe 12 disciples. they are simply the 12constellations of the zodiac which jesus, being thesun, travels about with.

in fact, the number 12 isreplete throughout the bible. coming back to the cross of the zodiac,the figurative life of the sun this was not just anartistic expression or tool to track thesun's movement. it was also a paganspiritual symbol the shorthand of whichlooked like this. this is not a symbolof christianity. it is a pagan adaptation ofthe cross of the zodiac. this is why jesus in earliercult art is always shown

with his head on the crossfor jesus is the sun. the son of god, the light ofthe world, the risen savior who will come again asit does every morning of the glory of god, who defendsagainst the works of darkness as he is born againevery morning and can be seencoming in the clouds up in heaven with his crown ofthorns or sun rays. of the many astrological/astronomicalmetaphors in the bible

one of the most importanthas to do with the ages. throughout the scriptures, there arenumerous references to the age. in order to understand this, we needto be familiar with the phenomenon known as the precessionof the equinoxes. the ancient egyptians, alongwith cultures long before them recognized that approximatelyevery 2150 years the sunrise on the morningof the spring equinox would occur at a differentsign of the zodiac. this has to do with aslow angular wobble

that the earth maintainsas it rotates on its axis. it is called a precession becausethe constellations go backwards rather than through thenormal yearly cycle. the amount of time it takes for theprecession to go through all 12 signs is roughly 25,765 years. this is also calledthe great year and ancient societieswere very aware of this and they referred to each2150 year period as an age. from 4300 bc- 2150 bc, it was the age of taurus, the bull.

from 2150 bc- 1 ad, it was the age of aries, the ram. and from 1 ad- 2150 ad, it is the age of pisces the age we are stillin to this day. and in and around 2150 wewill enter the new age the age of aquarius. the bible reflects broadlyspeaking a symbolic movement through three ages whileforeshadowing a fourth. in the old testament whenmoses comes down mount sinai with the ten commandments,he is very upset

to see his people worshipinga golden bull calf. in fact, he shattered the stonetablets and instructed his people to kill each other in orderto purify themselves. most biblical scholars will attribute thisanger to the fact that the israelites were worshiping a false idolor something to that effect. the reality is, the goldenbull is taurus the bull and moses represents thenew age of aries the ram. this is why jews even todaystill blow the ram's horn. moses represents thenew age of aries

and upon the new age everyonemust shed the old age. other deities mark thesetransitions as well such as mithra a pre-christian god who killsthe bull in the same symbology. jesus is the figure who ushersin the age following aries the age of piscesor the two fish. fish symbolism is veryabundant in the new testament. jesus feeds 5,000 peoplewith bread and two fish. when he begins his ministrywalking along galilee he befriends two fishermenwho follow him.

and i think we have all seen the "jesusfish" on the back of people's cars. little do they knowwhat it actually means. it is a paganastrological symbolism for the sun's kingdomduring the age of pisces. also, jesus' assumed birth date isessentially the start of this age. at luke 22:10 when jesusis asked by his disciples where the last passover would be jesus replies "behold, whenye are entered into the city there shall a man meet youbearing a pitcher of water

follow him into the housewhere he entereth in." this scripture is by farone of the most revealing of all the astrologicalreferences. the man bearing a pitcherof water is aquarius the water-bearer, who isalways pictured as a man pouring out a pitcher of water. he represents theage after pisces and when the sun (god's sun)leaves the age of pisces (jesus) it will go into the house ofaquarius, as aquarius follows pisces

in the precessionof the equinoxes. all jesus is saying is thatafter the age of pisces will come the age of aquarius. we have all heard about the "endtimes" and the end of the world. the cartoonish depictions inthe book of revelation aside the main source of this ideacomes from matthew 28:20 where jesus says "i will be withyou even to the end of the world." however, in the king james version,'world' is a mistranslation among many mistranslations.

the actual word being used is'aeon', which means 'age'. "i will be with you evento the end of the age." which is true, as jesus' solarpiscean personification will end when the sun entersthe age of aquarius. the entire concept of end timesand the end of the world is a misinterpretedastrological allegory. let's tell that to the approximately100 million people in america who believe the end ofthe world is coming. furthermore, the characterof jesus being a literary

and astrological hybrid is mostexplicitly a plagiarization of the egyptian sun-god horus. for example, inscribedabout 3500 years ago on the walls of thetemple of luxor in egypt are images of the enunciation the miracleconception, the birth and the adoration of horus. the images begin with thothannouncing to the virgin isis that she will conceive horus

then kneph, the holy ghost,impregnating the virgin and then the virgin birthand the adoration. this is exactly the story ofjesus' miracle conception. the literary similaritiesbetween the egyptian religion and the christianreligion are staggering. and the plagiarismis continuous. the story of noah and noah's arcis taken directly from tradition. the concept of the great flood isubiquitous throughout the ancient world with over 200 different cited claimsin different periods and times.

however, one need look no furtherfor a pre-christian source than the epic of gilgamesh,written in 2600 bc. this story talks of a greatflood commanded by god an ark with saved animalsupon it and even the release and return of a dove, all held incommon with the biblical story among many other similarities. and then there is theplagiarized story of moses. upon moses' birth, it is said thathe was placed in a reed basket and set adrift in a river inorder to avoid infanticide.

he was later rescued by a daughter ofroyalty and raised by her as a prince. this baby in a basketstory was lifted directly from the myth of sargon ofakkad of around 2250 bc. sargon was born, placed in a reedbasket in order to avoid infanticide and set adrift in a river. he was in turn rescued and raisedby akki, a royal mid-wife. furthermore, moses isknown as the law giver the giver of the tencommandments, the mosaic law. however, the idea of a law beingpassed from god to a prophet

up on a mountain isalso a very old motif. moses is just another law giverin a long line of law givers in mythological history. in india, manou wasthe great law giver. in crete, minosascended mount dicta where zeus gave himthe sacred laws. while in egypt there was mises,who carried stone tablets and upon them the lawsof god were written. manou. minos. mises. moses.

and as far as the ten commandments,they are taken outright from spell 125 in theegyptian book of the dead. what the book of the dead phrased "i havenot stolen" became "thou shall not steal". "i have not killed" became"thou shall not kill". "i have not told lies" became "thoushall not bear false witness" and so forth. in fact, the egyptian religion islikely the primary foundational basis for the judeo-christiantheology. baptism, afterlife, finaljudgment, virgin birth

death and resurrection, crucifixion,the ark of the covenant circumcision, saviors,holy communion great flood, easter,christmas, passover and many more, are allattributes of egyptian ideas long pre-datingchristianity and judaism. justin martyr, one of the first christianhistorians and defenders, wrote: "when we say that he,jesus christ, our teacher was produced without sexualunion, was crucified and died and rose again, andascended into heaven

we propound nothing differentfrom what you believe regarding those who youesteem sons of jupiter." in a different writing,justin martyr said: "he was born of a virgin,accept this in common with what you believeof perseus." it's obvious that justinand other early christians knew how similar christianitywas to the pagan religions. however, justin had a solution. as far as he was concerned,the devil did it.

the devil had the foresightto come before christ and create his characteristicsin the pagan world. (b. hicks)fundamentalistchristianity, fascinating! these people actually believethe world is 12,000 years old. i actually asked one of theseguys "ok, dinosaur fossils?" he says "dinosaur fossils? god put those hereto test our faith!" [laughter] "i think god put you hereto test my faith, dude!"

(p. joseph)the bible is nothing more thanan astro-theological literary hybrid, just like nearly allreligious myths before it. in fact, the aspect of transferenceof one character's attributes to a new character can befound within the book itself. in the old testament there'sthe story of joseph. joseph was aprototype for jesus. joseph was born of a miracle birth.jesus was born of a miracle birth. joseph was of 12 brothers.jesus had 12 disciples. joseph was sold for20 pieces of silver.

jesus was sold for30 pieces of silver. brother judah suggeststhe sale of joseph. disciple judas suggeststhe sale of jesus. joseph began his workat the age of 30. jesus began his workat the age of 30. the parallels go on and on. furthermore, is there any non-biblicalhistorical evidence of any person living with the namejesus, the son of mary who traveled about with 12followers, healing people?

there are numerous historians wholived in and around the mediterranean either during or soon afterthe assumed life of jesus. how many of these historiansdocument this figure? not one. however, to be fair, thatdoesn't mean defenders of the historical jesushaven't claimed the contrary. four historians are typicallyreferenced to justify jesus' existence. pliny the younger, suetonius andtacitus are the first three. each one of their entries consistsof only a few sentences at best and only refer to 'christus' or thechrist, which in fact is not a name

but a title.it means 'the anointed one'. the fourth source isjosephus and this source has been proven to be a forgeryfor hundreds of years. sadly, it is stillcited as truth. you would think that a guywho rose from the dead and ascended into heavenfor all eyes to see and performed the wealth ofmiracles acclaimed to him would have made it intothe historical record. it didn't because oncethe evidence is weighed

there are very high odds thatthe figure known as jesus did not even exist. "the christian religion is aparody on the worship of the sun in which they put a man calledchrist in the place of the sun pay him the adorationoriginally paid to the sun." thomas paine (1737-1809) (j. maxwell)we don't want to beunkind, but we want to be factual. we don't want tocause hurt feelings but we want to beacademically correct

in what we understandand know to be true. christianity just isnot based on truth. we find that christianity was infact nothing more than a roman story developed politically. (p. joseph)the reality is,jesus was the solar deity of the gnostic christian sect and like all other pagan gods,he was a mythical figure. it was the political establishmentthat sought to historize the jesus figure forsocial control.

in 325 ad in rome, emperor constantineconvened the council of nicea. it was during this meetingthat the politically motivated christian doctrineswere established and thus began a long history ofreligious bloodshed and spiritual fraud. and for over the next1000 years, the vatican maintained a politicalstranglehold on all of europe leading to such joyousperiods as the dark ages along with enlightening events suchas the crusades and the inquisition. christianity, along with allother related theologies

is a historical fraud. these religions now serve to detachthe species from the natural world and likewise, each other. they support blindsubmission to authority. they reduce humanresponsibility to the effect that 'god' controls everythingand in turn awful crimes can be justified in thename of a divine pursuit. and most critically, it empowersthe political establishment who have been using the myth tomanipulate and control societies.

the religious myth is one of themost powerful devices ever created and serves as the psychological soilupon which other myths can flourish. (d. griffin)a myth is an idea that,while widely believed, is false. in a deeper sense, inthe religious sense a myth serves as an orienting andmobilizing story for a people. the focus is not on the story's relationto reality but on its function. a story cannot function, unlessit is believed to be true in the community or the nation. it is not a matter of debate ifsome people have the bad taste

to raise the question of thetruth of the sacred story. the keepers of the faith do notenter into debate with them. they ignore them or denouncethem as blasphemers. it is wrong, blasphemous andsinful for you to suggest, imply or help other peoplecome to the conclusion that the us government killed3,000 of its own citizens. part ii: all the world's a stage (man on phone) as if ademolition team set off...

when you see demolitionsof these old buildings. (series of 3 reporters)it looks likeone of those scenes of an old building beingpurposely blown up. anybody who's ever watched abuilding being demolished on purpose knows that if you'regoing to do this you have to get at the under-infrastructure ofa building and bring it down. the way the structure iscollapsing, this was the result of something that was planned.it's not accidental that the 1st tower just happenedto collapse and then the 2nd tower

just happened to collapsein exactly the same way. how they accomplishedthis, we don't know. (fireman casaliggi) the buildingcollapsed to dust. you don't find a desk,you don't find a chair you don't find atelephone or a computer. the biggest piece ofa telephone i found was half of the keypad andit was about this big. - what happened to the concrete?- the concrete was pulverized. from river to river there was dustpowder, two or three inches thick.

the concrete wasjust pulverized! (man on phone)...reminiscent of thosepictures we've all seen too much on tv before when a buildingwas deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamiteto knock it down. - it's as if they had detonators...- yes, detonators -...planned to take down thebuilding, boom, boom... i heard a 2nd explosion. there was aheavy-duty explosion. there was a secondary explosionand then a subsequent collapse.

...explosion blew and thenit knocked everybody over. to me it soundedlike an explosion. it sounded likegun-fire, bang-bang! and then all of a suddenthree big explosions. ... and we heard bigexplosion coming down. ... and then the entire topof the building just blew up. - we saw some kind of explosion.- by the force of the explosions... - big explosion... it blew us back into the 8th floor.- we got to the lobby, there was a big explosion. the lobby looked as if abomb had exploded there.

(series of 7 witnesses)huge explosion,now raining debris... there's been a huge explosion!!! huge explosion that weall heard and felt. we just witnessed some kindof follow up explosion... we heard a very loud (it blasted!) explosion... smoke and secondaryexplosion in tower one... that is another bomb going off.he thinks that there were actually devices that were planted in the building...planted in the building... the 9/11 myth

19 hijackers, directed by osama binladen, took over 4 commercial jets and, while evading the air defense system(norad), hit 75% of their targets. in turn, world tradetowers 1, 2 & 7 collapsed due to structural failure throughfire in a 'pancake' fashion while the plane that hit thepentagon vaporized upon impact as did the plane thatcrashed in shanksville. the 911 commission found that there wereno warnings for this act of terrorism while multiple government failuresprevented adequate defense. 'no warnings'

(c. rice)i don't thinkanybody could have predicted that they would try to usean airplane as a missile a hijacked airplaneas a missile. nobody in our government at least, andi don't think the prior government could have envisioned flyingairplanes into buildings. no specific threat involvingdomestic operations involving what happened obviously,the cities, airliners and so on. there were no warningsigns that i'm aware of. usatoday reports that in the 2 yearsbefore the attacks on september 11th

norad conducted exercises usinghijacked airliners as weapons. and one target was theworld trade center. cover of fema responsemanual, 1997. operation "mascal", oct.2000, simulated a plane crash into the pentagon. (journalist)in confidential documentsfrom the philippines obtained by cnn the plan was clear: he will boardany american commercial aircraft control its cockpit, and diveit at the cia headquarters. other buildings targeted included thepentagon and world trade center. the federal aviation administration(faa) received 52 warnings

about al-qaeda in thesix months before 9/11 and did notapparently heed them. (journalist)the pentagon reportedlydoes not want the public to hear next week's senatetestimony about the former secret intelligence unit,known as 'able danger' and it identified mohammed attaand three other 9/11 terrorists as members of an al-qaedacell in brooklyn, new york more than a yearbefore the attacks. and we found two of the three cellswhich conducted the 9/11 attacks.

(journalist)lt colonel anthony shaffer,the first member of 'able danger' to go public, has now been told in writingby the defense intelligence agency that it can't speak to members of congressor their staff without prior approval. this is an attempt toprevent the american people from knowing the facts about howwe could have prevented 9/11 and people arecovering it up today. (journalist)security andcounter-terrorism was blinking red in the words of george tenet, thatthe warnings of an imminent attack were so severe that somethingdramatic should have been done.

it was unparalleled. instead, ourpresident went on a month-long vacation. 19 hijackers (m. meacher) the head of pakistaniintelligence (isi) mahmood ahmed requested omar sheikh to wire $100,000 to mohammed attawho was the lead hijacker. (2 journalists)hijacker mohammed attareceived wire transfers via pakistan. the man sendingthe money to atta is believed to be ahmedomar saeed sheikh. omar sheikh admittedhe was supported

by the pakistani government'sintelligence service, the isi. no inquiry was ever made as to whygeneral ahmad ordered $100,000 to be sent to mohamed atta. on the morning of september 11, governmentofficials were having breakfast with general ahmadin washington. the 911 commission deemed thefinancing of the attacks was 'of little practical significance'in their official report. (journalist)as hard as this is to believe,that two of the alleged terrorists involved in whathappened on tuesday

may have attended schools run by u.s. military. evidence was alsoapparently planted. the passport of oneof the hijackers on flight 11 was allegedlyfound in the rubble. the hijacker's passportwas found blocks from the world trade center crashsite, if you can believe that. the 9/11 hijackersare alive and well that's according to the chiefof japan's democratic party who says 9/11 is a hoax.

several of these 19men are still alive. "i couldn't believe it whenthe fbi put me on their list. they gave my name and my date ofbirth but i'm not a suicide bomber. i am alive.i have no idea how to fly a plane." at least 7 of the hijackersare still alive. the fbi has to this daynot revised their list. at least 5 hijackers are reported aslinked to us military institutions. osama b. laden of course we're after saddamhussein, i mean bin laden, he's...

(journalist)in the early 80s binladen worked with operatives from us intelligence, the pakistanimilitary and arab states. january 2001.the bush administration orders the fbi and intelligence agenciesto back off investigations involving the bin laden family including two of osamabin laden's relatives who were living, guess where?in falls church, virginia right next to cia headquarters. when he was already america's'most wanted criminal'

he reportedly spent two weeks inthe american hospital in dubai was treated by an american doctorand visited by the local cia agent. we have not seen one piece ofevidence that links osama bin laden directly to the planningstages of september 11th. (d. griffin)this failure to provideproof was later said to be unnecessary because bin laden, in a videoallegedly found in afghanistan admitted responsibilityfor the attacks. "i have carefully examinedthe pentagon's translation which is very problematic.at the most important pieces where it is held

to prove the guilt of bin laden, itis not identical with the arabic." arabist dr. abdel eim husseini "the american translators who listenedto the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of thingsin that they wanted to hear but cannot be heard, no matter howmany times you listen to the tapes." gernot rotter, prof.of islamic studies at university of hamburg in 1976, osama's olderbrother saleem bin laden hired a man in texas bythe name of jim bath to handle all the investments in theunited states for the bin laden family.

jim bath also happens to be apersonal, almost life-long friend and former international guardpilot, with george w. bush. the connections between thebushes and the bin ladens become much more clear whengeorge herbert walker bush made trips to saudi arabia in1998 and 2000 to meet with the bin laden family on behalf of acompany called the carlyle group. on the morning of 9/11, the carlylegroup was having a conference in washington, which included osama'solder brother, shafig bin laden. the carlyle group is linked to theworld's largest defense contractors

which continue to reap massive profitsoff of the post 9/11 'war on terrorism' and afghan/iraq wars. pentagon (reporter)how could anyonefly a 60 ton, 125 foot wide 44 foot tall plane throughthis obstacle course? (d. griffin)the aircraft before strikingthe pentagon reportedly executed a 270 degree downward spiral and yet hani hanjour wasknown as a terrible pilot who could not safely flyeven a small plane.

"he didn't care about the fact thathe couldn't get through the course." "i am still to this day amazed that hecould have flown into the pentagon... " - az flight school employee (newyork times report 5/4/2002) (reporter) no seats,no luggage, no bodies. nothing but bricksand limestone. (d. avery)the official explanation isthat the intense heat from the jet fuel vaporized the entire plane.flight 77 had two rolls royce engines made of steel and titaniumalloy and weighed 6 tons each. it is scientifically impossiblethat 12 tons of steel

and titanium wasvaporized by jet fuel. we're also told that the bodieswere able to be identified either by the fingerprintsor by their dna. so what kind of fire can vaporizealuminum and tempered steel and yet leave humanbodies intact? (reporter)from my close-up inspectionthere's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywherenear the pentagon and the only piecesleft that you can see are small enough that youcan pick up in your hand.

(d. griffin)shortly after thestrike, government agents picked up debris andcarried it off. the entire lawn was coveredwith dirt and gravel so that any remaining forensicevidence was literally covered up. the videos from securitycameras which would show what really hit the pentagonwere immediately confiscated by agents of the fbi and the department of justice has tothis day refused to release them. if these videos would prove that thepentagon was really hit by a 757

most of us would assume thegovernment would release them. [request denied] shanksville - it looks like there's nothing thereexcept for a hole in the ground. - basically that's right, the onlything you could see from where we were was a big gouge in the earthand some broken trees. you could see some people working,walking around in the area but from where we could seethere wasn't much left. - any large pieces of debris at all?- no, there was nothing.

nothing that you could distinguishthat a plane had crashed there. commercial planecrash in nigeria flight 93 "crash" in shanksville the fbi and state police here haveconfirmed that they have cordoned off a second area about 6 to 8 milesaway from the crater here. this is apparentlyanother debris site. why would debris belocated 6 miles away? could that have blown that far away?seems highly unlikely. world trade towers 1, 2 & 7

(d. griffin)pancake theory,according to which the fires while not melting the steel,heated it up sufficiently to cause the floors weakenedby the airplane strikes to break loose from the steel columnsand this started a chain reaction. - so, you would expect then from thattheory, which is the official theory to see a whole stack of floorspiled up on top of each other and then a spindle of corecolumns standing too. - the core of each of the twin towersconsisted of 47 massive steel columns. if the floors had broken loosefrom them, these columns

would have still been sticking upinto the air, a thousand feet. the plane did not cutall those core columns. we designed the buildings to takethe impact of the boeing 707 hitting the buildingat any location. the building probably could sustainmultiple impacts of jetliners. - ...that the plane flew straight into the building.- straight through, right. - so you're saying that the buildingwas actually designed to cope with a hole like that and then still survive?- yes, it was. - if you would drop,say a billiard ball

from the top of the world tradecenter, 110 floors up there it would have taken 8 to 10seconds to hit the ground encountering noresistance whatsoever. (d. avery)the twin towers camedown in nearly free fall speed. 200,000 tons of steel shatters andexplodes outwards over 500 feet. - this means that floorsshattered at an average rate of about ten floors per second. - there is no scenario for a pancakeeffect of buildings falling that allows them to fallat a rate of free fall.

now what can do that?what can move mass out of the way? explosives. 47 huge steel columns going up thecore that are interconnected. how do you get them to failsimultaneously so the core disappeared? it looks like thosecore columns were cut. (controlled demolition expert)we do this by cutting the beam at an angle. world trade center corecolumn after the collapse. notice the 'cut' shape and the melted...or 'molten metal'.

(s. jones)i started lookingat the molten metal. all three buildings, both towers inthe rubble, in the basement areas and building 7, there werethese pools of molten metal. for well over 6 weeksafter the collapse hot spots of 2000â°f weredocumented in the debris. that is 500â°f hotterthan jet fuel can burn in the most controlledconditions. you'd get down below andyou'd see molten steel molten steel runningdown the channel rails

like you were in a foundry like lava of a volcano. (d. avery)the molten steel wasfound 3, 4 and 5 weeks later when the rubble wasbeing removed. he said that molten steel was alsofound underneath world trade center 7. so i'm looking through the official reports.what do they say about the molten metal?they say nothing. wait a minute.this is important evidence. where did that come from?

(s. jones)thermite is so hot thatit will just cut through steel through structural steel, for example,like a knife through butter. the products are molteniron and aluminum oxide which goes offprimarily as a dust. you know, thoseenormous dust clouds? you can imagine, when you assemblethese chemicals on a large scale. - so, professor niels harrit,you examined the rubble that came from the world trade center.what did you find in it? - in there, we find remains

of what we characterizeas a thermitic material. this is very energetic material which can be usedeither for melting iron or it can be designedas an explosive. the evidence for controlleddemolition is overwhelming. i told you that the thermitereaction produced molten iron. molten iron was in pools ofmolten iron in the rubble and the point is that thethermite kept on reacting. this was the witches' brewof thermite chemistry.

molten metal pools under bothtowers after they collapsed and building 7, whichwasn't even hit by a jet. (reporter)part of theproblem is that most people simply don't knowmuch about building 7 due to the extraordinary secrecysurrounding this collapse. (reporter)this was a47-story skyscraper. this building fell at 5:25. (d. griffin)it was not hitby a plane. this building had fireson only 2 or 3 floors.

- ... and it was brought down by whatwe know was a controlled demolition. - demolitions look just likethat, kink in the middle and then that building just comesstraight down almost at free fall speed. in 2005, the national instituteof standards and technology released its reporton wtc towers 1 & 2. the 10,000 page report does notaddress the actual collapse. in 2008, the national instituteof standards and technology released its reporton wtc tower 7. they did not analyzeone piece of steel

or test a controlleddemolition hypothesis. rather, they built a computermodel with a predisposition that it was a'fire-induced' collapse. the parameters usedhave not been released. while admitting there was a period of'free fall' for 2.25 sec (8 floors) they provide no explanationas to how this is possible since their 'progressivecollapse' theory is based on systemic collisionsand triggered failures. the law of conservation ofmomentum simply cannot allow

for a 'progressive'movement through resistance at the rate of 'free fall'. did we review thesub-basement explosions which occurred momentsbefore the first plane hit? our office was on the b1 level.as i was talking to a supervisor at 8.46 and all of a sudden we hear- boom! (william rodriguez, 20year employee of the wtc) an explosion so hardthat pushed us upwards. and it came from the basement, betweenthe b2 level and the b3 level.

and when i went to verbalize, we hear- boom! the impact of theplane on the top. (reporter)it would appear as if there'smore smoke coming from the ground... i was down at the basement, came down,all of a sudden the elevator blew up. and as we were coming out, we passed a lobby.there was no lobby so i believe the bombhit the lobby first and couple of seconds,then the first plane hit. as i'm walking by the main freightcar of the building in the corridor that's when i got blown.

i mean, the impact of theexplosion threw me to the floor and that's when everythingstarted happening. all of a sudden a bigimpact happened again and all the ceiling tiles andlight fixtures were falling down. you have to go clear across thehall from 1 to 2 world trade center and then all of a sudden ithappened all over again. something else hit us to the floor.right in the basement, you felt it. walls were caving in,everything that was going on... i know people that gotkilled in the basement.

i know people that gotbroken legs in the basement. people got reconstructive surgerybecause the walls hit them in the face. norad (north americanaerospace defense command) according to standard operatingprocedure, if an faa flight control notices anything thatsuggests a possible hijacking controllers are to contact their superior.if the problem cannot be fixed within about a minute, thesuperior should ask norad the north american aerospacecommand to send up or scramble jet fighters tofind out what is going on.

norad then issuesa scramble order to the nearest air forcebase with fighters on alert. although interceptions usuallyoccur within 10 or so minutes in this case 80 or sominutes had elapsed before fighterswere even airborne. (reporter)it's amind-bending anomaly. not a single us air force interceptorturns a wheel until it's too late. there are no jets at all. what if they were so confused, andhad been so deliberately confused

that they couldn't respond? the reason that they didn't know where togo was because a number of conflicting and overlapping war gameexercises were taking place that involved the insertionof false radar blips on the radar screens in thenorth-east air defense sector. (faa)"hi, boston center tmu,we have a problem here. we have a hijacked aircraftheaded towards new york we need someone to scramble some f-16sor something up there to help us out." (norad)"is this realworld or exercise?"

there was another exercise,"vigilant warrior" which was in fact accordingto a norad source a live-fly hijack drill beingconducted at the same time. with only 8 availablefighter aircraft and they have to bedispatched in pairs they were dealing with as many as 22possible hijacks on the day of 9/11 and they couldn't separate the war gameexercises from the actual hijacks. in 2000, norad had 67 intercepts.100% accuracy. on 9/11 they failed4 times in one day.

in at least one of the many wargames going on the morning of 9/11 planes being flown intobuildings was a scenario. 9/11 commission page 172: "the us governmenthas not been able to determine the origin of the moneyused for the 9/11 attacks. ultimately, the question is oflittle practical significance." the american authoritieshave not managed to trace the source of the fundingand then the most amazingly disingenuous statement: "ultimately,is it of little consequence".

it is of massive consequence! doesn't it matterwho paid for 9/11? (d. griffin)the collapse ofbuilding 7 has been recognized as especiallydifficult to explain. the 9/11 commission report implicitlyadmitted that it could not explain the collapse of this buildingby not even mentioning it. - mr. president, why are you andthe vice president insisting on appearing together beforethe 9/11 commission? - because the 9/11 commissionwants to ask us questions.

that's why we are meeting and ilook forward to meeting with them and answering their questions. - the question was, why are you appearingtogether rather than separately which was their request? - because it's a good chance forboth of us to answer questions that the 9/11 commission islooking forward to asking us and i am looking forward toanswering them. let's see. - do you think they should be able tostand up and speak their own words? - they should go under oath.in public!

when bush and cheney met with the9/11 commission, they did so only on their own terms:they appeared together. they were not under oath. no press or family memberswere allowed to attend. no recording of anykind was allowed. - don't you think that the familiesdeserve to have a transcript or to be able to see...- adam, you asked me that question yesterday and got the same answer. - the final report wasa unanimous report.

that means that if there was a singlecommissioner who had any objection about anything, that fact wouldbe dropped from the report. - we have found out that he notonly served on the transition team of the bush administration that he was a personwho wrote a draft memo for the setup of the bush administration'snational security council that he was an individual whowrote the preemptive war strategy that was eventually usedfor the war on iraq that he's a close friendof condoleezza rice's.

we want him to resign. there is literally nothingin the 9/11 report that the bush administrationdid not approve of. (d. griffin)we can understandtherefore why the commission under zelikow's leadership wouldhave ignored all the evidence that would point to the truth that 9/11 was a falseflag operation intended to authorizethe doctrines and funds needed for a new level ofimperial mobilization.

terrorism terrorism: 1) systematicuse of terror manifesting itself in violence orintimidation, for generating fear. armed with knives. armed with chemical,biological and nuclear weapons. fanatics. terrorists. september 11th.september 11th. killers. september 11th. terrorists.al qaeda, terrorists. nuclear weapons. terror.9/11. terror. evil. september 11th. september 11th.the terrorists. war and danger. september 11th. terrorism.global terrorism. terrorism. terrorist

terrorist. (repeated 5 times) terrorists. terrorism.september 11th. global terrorism. terrorism. terrorism. terrorists.september 11th. world terrorism. terrorism. september 11th.global terrorism. september the 11th. terrorist.terrorist. terrorist. terrorist. weapons of mass destruction.september 11th. september the 11th. the evil terrorists.terrorists. terrorists know! (journalist)terrorism.the words are hypnotically repeated: terrorism. terrorists.terrorist threat.

and of course, "believedto be linked to al-qaeda". but, it's the so-called'war on terrorism' that's in our facespractically 24/7 as the inescapable focusof our existence. (d. rumsfeld)one day our grandchildrenwill look back on this time and ask "how was the war on terror won?" the entire us rulingclass, ruling elite comes to see terrorismas the preferred means indeed the only means toprovide social cohesion

to provide an enemy image for thesociety, to keep it together. according to neocon theory fromcarl schmitt, you have to have an enemy image in orderto have a society. a very dangerous thing because now itmeans that the entire social order the political parties, intellectuallife, politics in general are all based on amonstrous myth. [echoed: monstrous myth] terrorism: 2) techniqueused by governments to manipulate public opinionin order to further an agenda.

look, what the cia hasdone in this country what they have done tous is unbelievable. look at the terroristacts that have occurred. the cia is behind mostif not all of them. we had the marine barracks,their embassy in kenya. we had pan am 103.we had the uss cole. we had oklahoma city.we had the world trade center in 1993. ...that helped the terrorists to blow upthe world trade center the first time. they built the bomb.they got the driver's license.

the informer emad a. salem, a 43-year-oldformer egyptian army officer was given the assignmentto put the bomb together and he went to hisfbi supervisor and he said "we're going to puta dummy bomb in here, right?" and the fbi supervisor said "no,we're going to put a real bomb." (journalist)fbi agents mighthave been able to prevent last february's deadly explosionat new york's world trade center. they discussed secretly substitutingharmless powder for the explosives but they didn't, according to thefbi's own informant emad salem.

unbeknownst to thefbi at the time salem recorded many of hisconversations with his handlers. unfortunately for them, therewere only six people killed not enough to passthe legislation. so, what happenedis two years later april 19, 1995 downcomes oklahoma city the murrah building,168 people killed. one year later, the anti-terrorlegislation, which takes away many of our constitutional rightsand civil liberties, is passed.

madrid, 2004 7/7/2005 london: 3 trains and a buswere bombed, killing 56 people. that morning, an "anti-terrorexercise" just happened to be taking place aswell, dealing with... the exact same bombing scenario at the exact same train stations at the exact same time. - ... because at half past 9 this morning,we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand peoplein london based on simultaneous bombs

going off precisely at the railwaystations where it happened this morning so i still have the hairs on theback of my neck standing upright! - to get this straight, you were runningan exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while youwere running the exercise? - precisely! yeah... that's right. the exact samebombing at the exact same train stations at virtually the same time. [we're] supposed to believe itwas some kind of coincidence that there was also an anti-terroristdrill going on on 7/7. and again, just like on 9/11

they were talking aboutattacks on the same targets the same kind of tube stationsat exactly the same time as the actual attack happened providing some kind ofcover for what must be operations orchestratedin some way by the state. (j. maxwell)i amabsolutely appalled at how much people in thiscountry do not think. we are given to understand that a guy out thereup in the mountains

financed the most elaborateattack on this country. (a. jones)do you thinksome people in a cave were able to havenorad stand down? do you think thatpeople in a cave were able to haveall of this happen? (j. maxwell)and when i thinkabout how many americans were killed in new york city and believing as i do thatthis thing was a set-up job this is a textbookoperation that nazis used

and they've used itover and over again. america has been suckeredin one more time. ("network" 1976)i don't haveto tell you things are bad. everybody knows things are bad. the dollar buys a nickel's worth.banks are going bust. shopkeepers keep a gununder the counter. punks are running wild in the street.there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to doand there's no end to it. we know the air is unfit to breatheand our food is unfit to eat.

we sit watching our tvs whilesome local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicidesand 63 violent crimes as if that's the way it's supposed to be!we know things are bad. worse than bad, they're crazy! it's like everything everywhere is goingcrazy, so we don't go out anymore. we sit in the house and slowly the worldwe're living in is getting smaller and all we say is "please, at leastleave us alone in our living rooms. let me have my toaster and mytv, my steel-belted radials and i won't say anything.just leave us alone!"

well i'm not going to leave you alone.i want you to get mad! i don't want you to protest,i don't want you to riot. i don't want you to write to yourcongressman because i wouldn't know what to tell you to write.i don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the russiansand the crime in the street. all i know is that firstyou've got to get mad! you've got to say "i'm ahuman being, goddamn it! my life has value!" (man on phone)there's smoke, real bad!105, two tower.

it's real bad, it'sblack, it's arid. my wife thinks i'm all right.i called and said i was leaving the building. i was fine, and then bang! three of us - twobroken windows. oh god! (charles lindbergh, 1941)when hostilitiescommenced in europe in 1939 it was realized that the american peoplehad no intention of entering the war. but they believed that this countrycould be enticed into the war in very much the same way that itwas enticed into the last one.

they planned, first, to preparethe united states for foreign war under the guise ofamerican defense. second, to involve us in the war step by step, withoutour realization. third, to create aseries of incidents which would force us intothe actual conflict. these plans were, of course,to be covered and assisted by the full power oftheir propaganda. our theaters soon becamefilled with plays

portraying the glory of war. news reels lost allsemblance of objectivity and they have used the war to justify the restrictionof congressional power and the assumption ofdictatorial procedures on the part of the presidentand his appointees. a fear campaign was inaugurated. we cannot allow the naturalpassions and prejudices of other peoples, to leadour country to destruction.

part iii: don't mind the menbehind the curtain "behind the ostensible government sitsenthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance andacknowledging no responsibility to the people."- theodore roosevelt "the real menace of our republicis the invisible government... the little coterie of powerful internationalbankers virtually runs the us government for their own selfish purposes." john f. hylan "the real truth of the matter is that afinancial element in the large centers

has owned the government since the days of andrew jackson."- franklin d. roosevelt (p. joseph)1775, the americanrevolutionary war began as the american coloniessought to detach from england and its oppressive monarchy. though many reasons arecited for the revolution one in particular sticksout as a prime cause: that king george lliof england outlawed the interest-freeindependent currency the colonies wereproducing themselves

in turn forcing them to borrow moneyfrom the central bank of england immediately creating economichardship and despair. in the words of peter cooper,former vice-president of the new york board of currency:"after franklin had explained to the british government asthe real cause of prosperity they immediately passed laws forbiddingthe payment of taxes in that money. this produced such great inconvenienceand misery to the people that it was the principalcause of the revolution." in 1783, america won itsindependence from england.

however, its battle againstthe central bank concept and the corrupt, power-hungrymentality associated with it had just begun. so what is a central bank?a central bank is an institution that issues and regulates thecurrency of an entire nation. based on historical precedent,the typical powers inherent in central banking practice includethe control of interest rates and the expansion and contractionof the money supply itself. the central bank does not simplyissue money to the government.

it loans it to themwith interest. then, through the mechanisms of increasingand decreasing the supply of money the central bank essentially regulatesthe value of the currency issued. it is critical to understand thatthe entire structure of this system can only produce one thingin the long run: debt. it doesn't take a lot of ingenuityto figure this scam out for nearly every single dollarproduced by both the central bank and its regulated commercialbanks is loaned at interest. that means every dollarproduced is actually the dollar

plus a certain percentage ofdebt based on that dollar. and since the banking system hasthe monopoly of the production of the currency and theyloan each dollar out with an immediatedebt attached to it where does the money to payfor the debt come from? it can only comefrom the banks again which means the banking systemhas to perpetually increase its money supply to temporarilycover the outstanding debt created which in turn, since that newmoney is loaned out at interest

creates even more debt! the end result of this systemis essentially slavery for it is technically impossible fora government and thus the public to ever come out of theself-generating debt. "and i sincerely believe...that banking establishments are more dangerous thanstanding armies; and that the principle of spendingmoney to be paid by posterity under the name of funding, is butswindling futurity on a large scale" letter from thomas jeffersonto john taylor (may 28, 1816)

"banking was conceived ininiquity and was born in sin. the bankers own the earth...if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery,let them continue to create money." sir josiah stamp, universityof texas speech, 1927 by the early 20th century, the ushad already implemented and removed a few central banking systems,which were maneuvered into place by ruthless banking interests. at this time, the dominant familiesin the banking and business world were the rockefellers, the morgans,the warburgs, the rothschilds.

in the early 1900's, theysought to push once again legislation to createanother central bank. however, they knew thegovernment and public were very weary ofsuch an institution. they needed to create an incidentto affect public opinion. jp morgan, publicly considered afinancial luminary at the time exploited his mass influenceby reportedly creating rumors that prominent banks in new yorkwere insolvent, or bankrupt. morgan knew this would trigger masshysteria and a systemic crisis.

and it did. the public, infear of losing their deposits immediately beganmass withdrawals. consequently, the banks wereforced to call in their loans causing the recipientsto sell their property and thus a spiral of bankruptcies,repossessions, and turmoil emerged. putting the pieces together years later,congressman charles lindbergh wrote: "the king bankers put in motion,in 1907, a great scheme. they had gambled andspeculated on wall street until so many watered stocks andbonds had been manufactured...

the king bankers knew thecondition and informed the favored of theirfriends what was to come. there was to be a panic in the fallof 1907 that would be advertised as the result of our badbanking and currency laws." the panic of 1907 led to acongressional investigation headed by senator nelson aldrich who had intimate tiesto the financial powers and later became part of rockefellerfamily through marriage. the commission led by aldrichrecommended a central bank

should be implemented so a paniclike 1907 could never happen again. this was the spark that the bankersneeded to initiate their plan and in 1910 a secret meetingwas held at jp morgan estate on jekyll island offthe coast of georgia. it was there where thecentral banking bill called 'the federalreserve act' was written. this legislation was writtenby bankers, not lawmakers. this meeting was so secretive,so concealed from government and public knowledge that mostof the figures who attended

disguised their names whenin route to the island. after this bill was constructed,it was then handed over to their political frontman, senatornelson aldrich, to push through congress. in 1913, with heavy politicalsponsorship by the bankers woodrow wilson became president,having already agreed to sign the federal reserve act inexchange for campaign support. a few days before christmas,when much of congress was at home with their families, thefederal reserve act was voted in and wilson made it law.

the night before its passage,congressman charles lindbergh pleaded: "this act establishes the mostgigantic trust on earth... when the president signs thisact, the invisible government by the money powerwill be legalized." the public was told thatthe federal reserve system was an economic stabilizer andinflation and economic crisis were a thing of the past. as history has shown, nothingwas further from the truth. the fact is the bankers nowhad a streamlined machine

for economic manipulation. (from the movie 'frankenstein',1931) it's alive! for example, from 1914 to 1919, the fedsubstantially increased the money supply resulting in extensive loansto small banks and the public. then in 1920, the fed deliberatelycontracted credit in an extreme way thus resulting in banks having tocall in large numbers of loans and just like 1907, bank runs, bankruptcyand systemic collapse occurred. numerous competitive banks outside ofthe federal reserve system collapsed further consolidating the monopolyof the money trust cartel.

privy to this scheme, congressmancharles lindbergh pronounced: "under the federal reserve act,panics are scientifically created. the present panic is the firstscientifically created one worked out as we figure amathematical equation." however, the panic of1920 was just a warm-up. from 1921 to 1929 the fed againincreased the money supply resulting once again in extensiveloans to the public and banks. there was also a fairly new typeof loan in the stock market: the broker call loan.very simply

this loan allowed an investorto put down only a fraction of the stock's value, with therest being loaned from the broker. this method was very popularin the roaring '20s as everyone seemed to bemaking money in the market. however, there was acatch to this loan. it could be called in at any time,and had to be paid within 24 hours. and the typical result was the sellingof the stock purchased with that loan. a few months beforeoctober in 1929 jd rockefeller, bernardbaruck, and other insiders

quietly exited the market, knowing thebubble created was about to burst. on october 24th, 1929, the financierswho furnished the call loans started callingthem in, in mass. this sparked an instantaneous massivesell-off in the already inflated market as sell orders and margin callswere systemically triggered. that then lead to mass bank runs,eventually collapsing thousands of banks enabling the large banks to buy upthe now failed ones at a discount. but it didn't stop there. rather than expanding the moneysupply in order to recover

from this economic collapse,the fed actually contracted it fueling one of the largestdepressions in american history. outraged, congressman louismcfadden then chairman of the house banking committeefiled petition for impeachment against the federalreserve board, stating: "mr. chairman, wehave in this country one of the most corrupt institutionsthe world has ever known. i refer to the federal reserve boardand the federal reserve banks. this evil institution hasimpoverished and ruined the people

of the united states...and has practically bankrupted our government. it has done this through the defectsof the law under which it operates. through the maladministration of thatlaw by the federal reserve board and through the corrupt practices ofthe moneyed vultures who control it." having reduced thesociety to squalor it was then decided that thegold standard should be removed. in order to do this, they needed toacquire the remaining gold in the system. under the pretense of helpingto end the depression came the 1933 gold seizure.

under the threat of imprisonmentfor 10 years, everyone in america was required to turn in allgold bullion to the treasury essentially robbing the public of whatlittle real wealth they had left. at the end of 1933, the goldstandard was abolished. if you look at a dollar bill before1933, it says it is redeemable in gold. you look at the dollar bill today,it says it is legal tender which means it is backedby absolutely nothing. the only thing that gives ourmoney value is the public faith and how much of itis in circulation.

therefore, the power toregulate the money supply is also the power toregulate its value which is also the power to manipulateand control entire economies. "whoever controls the volumeof money in any country is absolute master of allindustry and commerce." james a. garfield, 20thpresident of the united states it is important toclearly understand: the federal reserve isa private corporation. it is about as 'federal'as federal express.

it makes its own policies andis under little regulation by the us government.it is a private bank that loans all the currencyat interest to the government completely consistent withthe central banking model that the country sought to escapefrom when it declared independence in the americanrevolutionary war. going back to 1913, the federalreserve act was not the only bill pushed through congress for thevested financial interests. they also pushed its partner:the federal income tax.

first of all, the federal incometax is completely unconstitutional as it is a direct,unapportioned tax. and the required number ofstates needed in order to ratify the amendment to allow theincome tax was never legally met and this has even been citedin modern court cases. "if you were to go back and try tofind and review the ratification of the 16th amendment...you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment."- us district court judge jc fox, 2003 second, at the present day, roughly25% of the average worker's income

is taken from them via this tax. that means you work 3 monthsout of the year to fulfill this tax obligation andwhere does that money go? according to the gracecommission report of the '80s: "100% of what is collected isabsorbed solely by interest on the federal debt and byfederal government contributions to transfer payments. in other words,all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickelis spent on the services which taxpayers expectfrom their government."

today, the money americans makeworking 3 months out of the year goes almost entirelyto the interest fees charged for thedebt-based fiat currency. the fact is, the federal income taxexists to feed the federal reserve federal government money machine making sure the interestpayments are always there. and 3) even with the government claimas to the legality of the income tax there is evidentlyno clear statute. no law in existence thatrequires you to pay this tax.

(former irs agent)i really expectedthat of course there's a law that you can pointto in the law book a code, that requires you to file tax return.of course there is! i was at that point where icouldn't find the statute that clearly madea person liable at least not me andmost people i know and i had no choice in mymind except to resign. based on the research that idid throughout the year 2000 and that i'm still doing, ihave not found that law!

i've asked congress, we've askeda lot of people in the irs the irs commissioners' helpers.they can't answer because if they answer, theamerican people are going to know that this wholething is a fraud. i haven't filed a federalincome tax return since i left. i have not filed a taxreturn since 1999. (joseph)now, the control of the economyand the manipulation of society for the vested financial powers isonly a part of the game being played. another level is thebusiness of war.

since the inception of thefederal reserve in 1913 a number of large and smallwars have commenced. the three most pronouncedmight be world war i world war 2 and vietnam. world war 1: in 1914european wars broke out centered aroundengland and germany. the american public wantednothing to do with the war. in turn, president woodrow wilsonpublicly declared neutrality. however, under the surface,evidence now shows

that the financial powersbehind the administration were looking for any excuseit could to enter it. it is important to understand thatone of the most lucrative things that can happen forthe bankers is war for it forces the country toborrow even more money at interest not to mention the profits generated throughthe financing of military productions. in the words of two-timecongressional medal of honor winner smedley d. butler "war is a racket.it always has been. it is possibly the oldest,easily the most profitable

and surely the most vicious.it is the only one international in scope and it is the only one in which theprofits are reckoned in dollars and the losses of lives." woodrow wilson's top adviser andmentor was colonel edward house a man found to haveintimate connections with the financialinterests of the time. in a conversation betweencolonel house, wilson's adviser and sir edward grey, theforeign secretary of england regarding america andthe war, grey inquired:

"what will america do ifgermans sink an ocean liner with american passengers on board?" house responded: "i believe that a flame of indignationwould sweep the united states and that by itself would besufficient to carry us into war." on may 7th 1915, a shipcalled the 'lusitania' was sent where german militaryvessels were known to be. as likely expected, germanu-boats torpedoed the ship exploding stored munitions,killing 1200 people. to further understand the obviousanticipation of this setup

the german embassy actually putadvertisements in the new york times telling people that if they boarded thelusitania they did so at their own risk as such a ship sailing from americato england through the war zone would be liable to destruction. in turn and as anticipated,the sinking of the lusitania created a wave of anger amongthe american population and america entered thewar a short time after. major general smedley d. butler summarizes the monetary realityof world war i:

"looking back, woodrow wilson wasre-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war".yet, five months later he asked congress to declare war on germany...the 4 million young men who put on uniforms and marchedor sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to goforth to suffer and die. then what caused our government tochange its mind so suddenly? money. an allied commission...came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the president, whosummoned a group of advisers. the head of the commission spoke.stripped of its diplomatic language

this is what he told the presidentand his group: "there is no use kidding ourselves any longer.the cause of the allies is lost. we now owe you american bankers,american munitions makers american manufacturers, americanspeculators, american exporters 5 or so billion dollars.if we lose (and without the help of the us we must lose), we,england, france and italy cannot pay back this money...and germany won't." it has been estimated by statisticians,economists and researchers that the war yielded $16 billion in profits.that is how the 21,000 billionaires

and millionaires got that way.this $16 billion profits is not to be sneezed at. it is quite a tidy sum.and it went to very few." world war ii on december 7th 1941, japan attackedthe american fleet at pearl harbor triggering us entryinto that war. president franklin d.roosevelt declared the attack was: 'a day that will live in infamy'.a day of infamy indeed but not because of the allegedsurprise attack on pearl harbor. after 60 years of surfacinginformation it is clear

that not only was the attackknown well in advance it was outrightwanted and provoked. in a journal entry by roosevelt'ssecretary of war henry stimson dated november 25th, 1941,he documented a conversation he had with roosevelt: "the questionwas how we should maneuver them into firing the first shot..." and in congressional testimony he later added: "it wasdesirable to make sure the japanese be the ones to do thisso that there should remain no doubt as to who were the aggressors."

in the months leading up tothe attack on pearl harbor roosevelt had done almosteverything in his power to anger the japanese, showinga posture of aggression. he halted all of japan'simports of american petroleum. he froze all the japaneseassets in the united states. he made public loans to nationalistchina and supplied military aid to the british, both enemiesof japan in the war which, by the way, was in completeviolation of international war rules. with numerous japanesecodes broken in advance

revealing the plan to attack,on december 7th 1941 japan was allowed to attack pearlharbor killing 2400 soldiers. before pearl harbor, 83% of theamerican public wanted nothing to do with the war. after pearl harbor one million menvolunteered for that war. it is important to note, nazi germany'swar effort was largely supported by two organizations, one ofwhich was called ig farben. ig farben produced 84%of germany's explosives. one of the unspokenpartners of ig farben

was jd rockefeller's standardoil company in america. the german air force could notoperate without a special additive patented by rockefeller'sstandard oil. the drastic bombing of londonby nazi germany for example was made possible by a $20 millionsale of fuel to ig farben by the rockefeller'sstandard oil company. this is just one small point on thetopic of how american businesses funded both sidesof world war ii. one other treasonousorganization worth mentioning

is the union bankingcorporation of new york city. not only did they finance numerousaspects of hitler's rise to power along with actualmaterials during the war it was also a nazi money launderingbank, which was eventually exposed for having millions of dollarsof nazi money in its vaults. the union banking corporation ofnew york was eventually seized for violations of thetrading with the enemy act. guess who the director and vicepresident of the union bank was? prescott bush, the father andgrandfather of former us president

george w.bush and george hw bush. vietnam: united states officialescalation and entry in the vietnam war came after an alleged incidentinvolving two us destroyers being attacked by north vietnamesept boats in the gulf of tonkin. this was known as thegulf of tonkin incident. this situation was the catalysticpretext for massive troop deployment and full fledged warfare.one problem, however the attack on the us destroyersby vietnamese pt boats never happened.

former secretary of defense robertmcnamara stated years later that the gulf of tonkinincident was a 'mistake' while declassified documentsreleased years later show that it was a farce, manipulatedfor the purposes of war and once in the war, itwas business as usual. in october 1966, president lyndonjohnson lifted trade restrictions on the soviet block knowingfull well that the soviets were providing upwards of 80% ofnorth vietnam's war supplies. consequently, the rockefellerinterests financed factories

in the soviet union, which thesoviets used to manufacture military equipment andsend it to north vietnam. however, the funding ofboth sides in this conflict was only one side of the coin. in 1985, vietnam's rules ofengagement were declassified. this detailed what american troops wereand were not allow to do in the war. it included such absurdities as: northvietnamese anti-aircraft missile systems could not be bombed until they wereknown to be fully operational. no enemy could be pursuedonce they crossed

the border of laos or cambodia. most revealing of all, the mostcritical strategic targets were not allow to be attacked, unlessinitiated by high military officials. apart from these illogical limitations,north vietnam was informed of these restrictions and thereforecould base entire strategies around the limitationsof the american forces. this is why the war went on for solong and the bottom line is this: the vietnam war was never meantto be won, just sustained. this war for profit and resourcesresulted in 58,000 american deaths

and 3 million dead vietnamese. where are we now? september 11th was the jump-startfor a hegemonic agenda enabling the possibility ofconstant global warfare. it was a staged war pretext no differentthan the sinking of the lusitania the provoking of pearl harborand the gulf of tonkin lie. if 9/11 wasn't aplanned war pretext it would be anexception to the rule. it has been used to launchtwo unprovoked illegal wars:

one against iraq and oneagainst afghanistan. however, 9/11 was the pretextfor another war as well. the war against you.the patriot act homeland security, themilitary tribunals act and other legislations areall completely designed to destroy your civil libertiesand protect those in power. currently in the united states,unannounced to most americans your home can be searched without awarrant, without you being home. you can in turn be detained indefinitelywith no charges revealed to you

no access to a lawyerand legally tortured. all under the suspicion thatyou might be a 'terrorist'. if you need a painted pictureof what is happening let's recognize howhistory repeats itself. in february 1933, hitlerstaged the false flag attack burning down his own germanparliament building the reichstag blaming it oncommunist terrorists. within the next few weekshe passed the enabling act which completely eradicatedthe german constitution

destroying people's liberties. he then led a series of preemptivewars, all justified as necessary to maintaining'homeland security'. an evil exists that threatensevery man, woman and child of this great nation.we must take steps to ensure our domestic security andprotect our homeland. george w. bush? adolf hitler when announcing thegestapo to the people.

on the matter of communismand its front organizations should not obscure the issues! our enemy is a radicalnetwork of terrorists and every governmentthat supports them. (p.joseph)it's time to wake up. the people in power go outof their way to make sure you are perpetuallymislead and manipulated. the majorities'perception of reality especially in the politicalarena is not their own.

it is shrewdly imposed upon themwithout them even knowing it. for example, the public at largenow believes the invasions of iraq and the middle east, alongwith the resulting instability are the consequences of politicaland military mistakes. what the public fails to see is thatthe destabilization of the middle east is exactly what thewestern interests want. this war is to be sustained, sothe region can be divided up domination of the oil maintained,continual profits reaped for defense contractors,and most obviously

permanent military bases establishedto be used as a launching pads against other oil bearing,non-conforming countries, such as iran. for further implication that themiddle east destabilization is purely intentional, in 2005,two elite british sas officers were arrested by iraqi policeafter being caught driving around in their car shooting at civilianswhile dressed up as arabs. after being arrested andtaken to a jail in basra the british army immediatelydemanded the release of these men. when the basra governmentrefused, british tanks came in

and physically broke out themen from the basra prison. (l. larouche)if you wish todestroy an area, how do you do it? there are two ways: you cango in there and bomb it but that is not very efficient. what you do is you try to get thepeople in that area to kill each other and to destroy there ownterritory, their own farms. and that's what hasbeen done in that area. the way in which you destroyan opponent is by getting him to destroy himself by dividinghis ranks against one another.

then you feed both sides, youhave agents feeding both sides inflaming both sides.and they kill each other off. it's time that some of uswoke up to this reality. to understand that people who try tomaintain empires and create empires do it by manipulating the peoplethey are trying to conquer. (p. joseph)you might want to askyourself why the entire culture is utterly saturated with massmedia entertainment from all sides while the educationalsystem in america continues its stupefying downward slide

since the us governmentdecided to take over and subsidize thepublic school system. (j. maxwell)what yourgovernment pays for, it gets. when we understand that, thenwe look at government financed institutions of education andsee the kind of students and the kind of educationthat is being turned out by these government-financedschools logic will tell you that if what isbeing turned out in those schools was not in accord with what the stateand the federal government wanted

then it would change it. the bottom line is that the governmentis getting what they have ordered. they do not want yourchildren to be educated. they do not want youto think too much. that is why ourcountry and our world has become so proliferatedwith entertainments mass media, television shows amusement parks, drugs, alcohol and every kind of entertainment, tokeep the human mind entertained.

so that you don't get in theway of important people by doing too much thinking. you had better wake up andunderstand that there are people who are guiding your lifeand you don't even know it. we are in a lot of trouble! because you people and 62 million other americansare listening to me right now. because less than 3 percentof you people read books. because less than 15 percentof you read newspapers.

because the only truth you knowis what you get over this tube. right now there is a whole, an entiregeneration that never knew anything that didn't comeout of this tube. this tube is the gospel,the ultimate revelation. this tube can make or breakpresidents, popes, prime ministers. this tube is the most awesome goddamnforce in the whole godless world and woe is us if it ever falls inthe hands of the wrong people. and when the largestcompany in the world controls the most awesomegoddamn propaganda force

in the whole godless worldwho knows what shit will be peddled fortruth on this network. so you listen to me.listen to me: television is not the truth. television is a goddamnedamusement park. television is a circus, a carnival,a traveling troop of acrobats story tellers, dancers, singers,jugglers, sideshow freaks lion tamers andfootball players. we are in the boredomkilling business!

but you people sit there dayafter day, night after night all ages, colors, creeds...we are all you know! you're beginning to believe theillusions we are spinning here. you are beginning to thinkthe tube is reality and that your ownlives are unreal. you do whatever the tube tells you.you dress like the tube eat like the tube, raiseyour children like the tube you even think like the tube.this is mass madness, you maniacs! in god's name you peopleare the real thing.

we are the illusion! (p. joseph)the last thing thepower establishment wants is a conscious informed publiccapable of critical thinking. this is why a continuallyfraudulent zeitgeist is output via religion, the mass media,and the educational system. it is in their interest to keepyou in a distracted naive bubble. and they are doing adamn good job of it. this is aaron russo, a filmmakerand former politician. to his left is nicholas rockefellerof the council on foreign relations.

after maintaining a close friendshipwith nicholas rockefeller aaron eventually ended the relationship,appalled by what he had learned. (a. russo)i got a call one dayfrom an attorney woman i knew and she said "would you like tomeet one of the rockefellers?" and i said "sure, i'd love to." and we became friends and he began to divulgea lot of things to me so he said to me one night: "there's going to be an event,aaron, and out of that event

you're going to see, we'regoing to go into afghanistan so we can run pipelines from the caspian sea.we are going to go into iraq to take the oil and establisha base in the middle east and we are going to go intovenezuela and get rid of chavez." the first two they have accomplished,chavez they didn't accomplish. and he said "you are goingto see guys going into caves looking for people they arenever going to find. " he was laughing about the factthat you have this war on terror and there is no real enemy,he was talking about

how by having this war onterror you can never win it because it is an eternal war. so you can always keep takingpeoples liberties away. and i said "how are you going toconvince people that this war is real?" and he said "by the media, which canconvince everybody that it's real. " you just keep talking about things, youkeep saying them over and over again and eventuallypeople believe it. you created the federalreserve in 1913 through lies. you create 9/11, whichis another lie.

through 9/11, then you arefighting a war on terror and all the sudden you go intoiraq, which was another lie and now they aregoing to do iran. it's all one thing leading toanother, leading to another... i would say to him "what are you doing this for?what's the point of this thing? you have all the moneyyou would ever want. you have all the power. you're hurting people.it's not a good thing." and he would say "what do youcare about the people for? take care of yourself andtake care of your family."

and then i said "so what arethe ultimate goals here?" he said "the ultimate goal isto get everyone in this world chipped with an rfid chip. and have all money be on those chipsand everything on those chips and if anybody wants to protestwhat we do, or violate what we want we just turn off their chip." (p. joseph)how far willthe sickness of power go? to what lengths willthose in control go in order to maintain andpreserve their positions?

we have a florida family who arereally pioneers in a brave new world. they have volunteeredto be the first ever to have microchip identificationdevices implanted into their bodies. after 9/11, i was really concernedwith the security of my family. i wouldn't mind having somethingplanted permanently in my arm that would identify me. (p. joseph)george orwell in his famed andpossibly prophetic work '1984', stated: "power is not a means,it is an end. the object of persecutionis persecution.

the object of torture is torture.the object of power is power." today, symptoms of a surveillancesociety continue to grow as irrational fearsof invisible enemies coupled with rising economicinstability spread across the globe. it is under this guise of securitythat we can foreshadow a world where everyone is tracked,everyone is on camera and everyone is subordinated. the most incredibleaspect of all: such totalitarianism would likelynot be forced upon the people.

rather, the peoplewill demand it. for the social manipulation of societythrough the generation of fear and division has completelyinhibited the culture. religion, patriotism,race, wealth class and every other form ofarbitrary separatist identification and thus conceit has served tocreate a controlled population utterly malleable inthe hands of the few. 'divide and conquer'is the motto and as long as people continueto see themselves as separate

from everything else, they lendthemselves to being completely enslaved. however, if the people ever realized thetruth of their relationship to nature and the truth of their personalpower to affect change the entire manufacturedzeitgeist that's preyed upon would collapse likea house of cards. (r. alpert)the wholesystem that we live in drills into us that we'repowerless, that we're weak that our society is evil,that it's crime ridden, etc. it's all a big, fat lie!

we are powerful, beautiful,extraordinary. there is no reason why we cannotunderstand who we truly are where we are going.there is no reason why the average individual cannot be fully empowered, weare incredibly powerful beings. - i think i spent30 years of my life the first 30, trying to become something.i wanted to become good at things i wanted to become good attennis, school and grades and everything i viewedin that perspective: i'm not ok the way i am, butif i got good at things...

i realized that ihad the game wrong. the game was to find outwhat i already was. (r. albert)now, in ourculture we have been trained for individual differencesto stand out. you look at each personand the immediate hit is: brighter, dumber, older,younger, richer, poorer and we make all thesedimensional distinctions put them into categoriesand treat them that way. and we get so that we only seeothers as separate from ourselves

in the ways in whichthey are separate. and one of the dramaticcharacteristics of experience is being with anotherperson and suddenly seeing the ways in which they are likeyou, not different from you. and experiencing the fact,that which is essence in you and which is essencein me, is indeed one. the understanding that there is no other.it is all one. i wasn't born richard albert, iwas just born as a human being and then i learned thiswhole business of who i am

and whether i'm good orbad, achieving or not all that's learnedalong the way. "when the power of loveovercomes the love of power the world will know peace."- sri chinmoy ghose (c. sagan)the old appeals to racial,sexual and religious chauvinism to rabid nationalist fervor,are beginning not to work. a new consciousness isdeveloping which sees the earth as a single organismand recognizes that an organism at warwith itself is doomed.

- bill hicks used to finishhis shows with this: "life's like a ridein an amusement park and when you go on ityou think it's real because that's howpowerful our minds are. the ride goes up anddown and round and round it has thrills and chills andit's very brightly colored. and it's very loud andit's fun for a while. some have been on the ride for a longtime and they begin to question: is this real?or is this just a ride?

and other people have rememberedand they come back to us and they say: 'hey, don'tworry, don't be afraid ever because this is just a ride." and we kill those people. shut him up i have got a lotinvested in this ride, shut him up! look at my furrows of worry... look at my big bank account and my family.this has to be real. it's just a ride. but we will kill thosegood guys who try and tell us that. have you ever notice that?and let the demons run amok...

but it doesn't matter,because it is just a ride and we can changeit anytime we want. it is only a choice. no effort, nowork, no job, no savings of money. just a choice right now. between fear and love. the revolution is now for detailed sources, explanationsand further information regarding the content in thisfilm, please download the free "companion source guide" from www.zeitgeistthefilm.com

property house history

>> david ferriero: good evening.[applause] i'm not tim gunn. i'm david ferriero, thearchivist of tfhe united states. welcome to the william g. mcgowan theater at the nationalarchives here in washington, d.c. for a look back at the holidays at the white house. whetheryou're here in the theater or watching live through our youtube channel or on c-span,we're glad you could be with us tonight to relive white house holiday decorations ofpast decades and the present day. the president's house is a historic site,a public building and a home. and the annual holiday decorations and special tours touchall of these roles. we've got an impressive roster of guests who will share their insightsand expertise starting with our moderator

tim gunn along with lynda johnson robb, daughterof president lyndon johnson, genevieve gorder, host of hgtv's "white house christmas," formerwhite house chief usher gary walters, and coleen christian burke, author of "christmaswith the first ladies." i also want to extend our thanks to our partnerfor tonight's program, the white house historical association and its president, stewart mclaurin,who you will hear from soon. before we begin, i'd like to tell you abouttwo other programs coming up soon in this theater. on tuesday, december 16 at noon wewill show a compelling film of the chronicle -- that chronicles the battle of the bulgeon the 70th anniversary that the battle began that includes newsreel footage and film fromgerman and american archives. and next month,

wednesday, january 14, 7:00 p.m., we willpresent "moana with sound," a documentary film pioneer robert flaherty released, silentfilm in 1926. his daughter returned to samoa to create a soundtrack for her parents' film.the curator bruce posner, who recently digitally restored the film, will introduce the screeningwhich is presented in partnership with the national gallery of art.to learn more about these and all of our programs, consult our program of public -- our calendar-- our monthly calendar of events. they're in the lobby, as well as a signup sheet whereyou can receive it physically or virtually. and you will also find information about otherprograms and activities. another way to get more involved in the nationalarchives is to become a member of the foundation

for the national archives. the foundationsupports all of our education and outreach activities. and there are applications formembership in the lobby. just over two months ago we were delightedto have tim gunn here to moderate a discussion of first ladies' fashions. those of you whoknow of tim gunn only through "project runway" may have wondered why he is our host tonight.lynda johnson robb, of course, lived through several white house christmases during herfather's years as president. former chief usher gary walters saw more than 30 holidayseasons at the white house. but what is tim gunn's connection to christmas at the whitehouse? i'm going to let tim tell you that story during the program.the photos and even the tree decorations are

preserved in our presidential libraries whichstand the administrations of herbert hoover through george w. bush. as a special treat,we have a selection of ornaments from the l.b.j. library on the stage with us. and atthe conclusion of the program i invite you to come up on the stage and take a look atthese real live white house ornaments. the national archives shares this interestin white house christmases with our partner for tonight's program, the white house historicalassociation. to get us started, please welcome the president of the association.[applause] >> stewart mclaurin: thank you very much.it's an honor for us to be here with our partner, the national archives, for this terrific programthat is planned for you this evening about

holidays, christmas, in the white house overthe years. we partner with these programs with the national archives from time to timeand have had the privilege and pleasure of working with the archivist going back almost20 years. it's wonderful to have this opportunity to continue in this format.the white house historical association is a nonprofit non-partisan organization foundedby mrs.kennedy in 1961. and our mission is very simple. it's to be the private partnerto the public white house to provide the financial resources to make possible the preservation,restoration, the conservation of the state rooms of the white house, those rooms thatare open to the public, and to provide funds to the acquisition of furnishings and decorativearts to the permanent white house collection.

we're privileged to do that as the privatepartner to the white house. and over the past 53 years we've had the opportunity to contributeover $42 millieon to that work. we're privately funded. we're non-partisan. we raise thatmoney principally by our famous little white house christmas ornament. and we're very happythat our friends of the archives are making these available through your wonderful shophere. get them quickly because this year we're going to sell out before christmas.we've done these for 33 years. they're made by this wonderful american company in rhodeisland. this is the ornament that honors president harding. we honor presidents in sequence.so we're in our trifecta of interesting presidents. we have harding, coolidge, and hoover. buti promise you that next year's ornament is

going to be the most exciting ornament yet.the national archives is a wonderful organization. they are truly the source, a great source,for american history not only in the nation's capital but, as the archivist mentioned, inthese wonderful network of presidential libraries from coast-to-coast. and we have the opportunityto partner with many of them and work closely with them.as our panelists come out tonight, i'd like to reiterate who is going to be with us. wehave tim gunn, who's been a good friend of the archives and a good friend to the whitehouse historical association. he is a native washingtonian. and he is -- he has had hisown personal experience of decorating the white house that he'll tell us about.lynda johnson robb is the daughter of the

president and mrs. johnson. and mrs. johnsonwas actually, herself, an extraordinary contributor to the preservation and restoration of thewhite house following mrs. kennedy. and mrs.johnson is due a great deal of credit and respectfor her contributions to the white house as first lady. and i'm interested to hear aboutthe wedding of the robbs. we have senator robb with us tonight. took place in the christmasseason a few years ago. gary walters is a great american public servant.gary served in the white house for 37 years and was the chief usher. and for those ofyou who don't know, the chief usher in the white house is sort of like the orchestraconductor that makes everything happen and makes everything harmonious, or tries to,that happens in the white house. and gary,

in full disclosure, is a member of the whitehouse historical association board of directors. he's a great man and has wonderful insightsinto the operations of the white house as well as this behind-the-scenes wizard of ozlook as to what goes on behind the scenes when christmas is prepared for.genevieve gorder, as you know, has been host since 2009 when hgtv took over again the broadcastof the white house christmas special and has up-close, personal views of the white houseand its decorations for christmas these past five years and particularly this season. andthat program, i believe, airs on hgtv on december 14. i was at the white house today and thisyear's decorations are absolutely extraordinary. and finally, coleen christian burke, authorof "christmas with the first ladies" and has

participated in decorating the white househerself so we have a wonderful panel. they can maketheir way out. on behalf of the national archives and the white house historical association,we would like to wish each and every one of you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday seasonand all the best in 2015. thank you very much. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> tim gunn: wow. we have a packed house. thank you for coming, everyone. how festiveand fun is this? let's look at the white house.

it's great to share the holidays with allof you. i'm sure some of you are wondering: what is tim gunn doing here? well, you'llfind out a little later. and it may surprise all of you. we have a lot of visual informationfor you. we have a lot of historical information for you. we have a preview of things to come.and it's going to be a very exciting night. so welcome.we should get going with -- we have our first slide which is quite spectacular looking.the white house looks fabulous. does it not? this could not happen -- how many volunteersare there? >> depending on the year, this year i thinkit was like 106? >> yeah. we had a little over 100 this year.a lot of christmas elves.

>> i feel like there had been years wherethere were almost 300. it was swarming volunteers. >> usually about 100>> it's a beehive. >> tim gunn: gary, in your experience as chiefusher, do you have to conduct the volunteers as well?>> well, i was very fortunate to have a young woman who worked for me for a number of years.her name was nancy clark. she was both right-brained and left-brained. she could put together computersfrom scratch and she could be this incredible designer. and she was the one that kind oforchestrated getting the volunteers together in association with the first ladies throughthe years and the first ladies staff.there's normally about 100 to 150 people dependingon the circumstances each year. they come

from various walks of life. most of them havesome affiliation, one form or the other, with florists, florist deliveries or studying,school. it's a wonderful group of people. they're dedicated.what's not known is in addition to the three days that it takes to decorate the white house-- >> tim gunn: it happens in three days?>> three days. usually over a weekend. >> tim gunn: good heavens.>> it closes down on friday. it usually happens saturday, sunday, monday with the first eventbeing monday evening. >> tim gunn: a real deadline. people are coming.>> it is. most volunteers come from a week to 10 days in advance and work at a remotesite, national park service site, where all

the decorations are held until they're needed.and they work for that period of time putting the decorations together. and they're labeled.when they come into the white house from the trucks -- you see them on hgtv, i'm sure.they're labeled, marked where they go. it's an ant hill for a while.>> it is like a military event. it is so organized. you wish your house ran like this. and everyvolunteer knows exactly where they're going with their box, written with what decorationit is. and they're in charge of what room and working with them.>> tim gunn: and genevieve, you know firsthand because you're hosting a special, "white housechristmas" which airs sunday. we have a preview for you. you want to set it up for us?>> it's being cut as we speak because we just

filmed this -- coleen and i just went therethis year, the day after thanksgiving. so it is the quickest edited show. so what we'regoing to see i just caught a glimpse prior to you getting here. it's very fragment. considerit top secret. >> tim gunn: top secret.>> and really cool and not mapy and weird. ok?>> tim gunn: let's see the clip. we promise there's a clip. here it comes. we're staring.we have a monitor. >> thank you for saying that.>> didn't realize we were all looking at it. >> it's very, very top secret.>> yeah. are we going to see it? >> little pine cones here and there.>> everything's smooth.

>> that's one bit.[laughter] here's another.>> on my bucket list. first time. it's wonderful. >> two.[laughter] >> it's really pretty.>> this particular shape, which is a vintage -->> reflects, really elegant. >> and i think that might be it. no? one more.>> tim gunn: no, there's more. >> hi.>> hi. >> how many?>> there's 3,200 total. >> there's no color. and this is like stealingthe show.

>> do we start from the bottom and go up ortop down? >> top down.>> top down? >> the overall plan in a nutshell?>> tim gunn: all right. [applause]>> i promise, the show actually connects together. i don't know how we got that feed but justconsider it cool. all right. >> tim gunn: the show is about the process.>> it really is. i think most of the country is unaware that this is something that theycan volunteer to do. and i can't tell you -- i've been doing it for six years now. everyyear i go the volunteers all approach me saying this is how we found out that we could dothis, watching the show.

>> tim gunn: oh, great.>> so i'm glad that we could be a part of bringing everyone into the party and celebratingthis beautiful event that happens every year. it is quite stunning.>> that's how i found out about it. >> tim gunn: coleen, you were chosen to bethe 2014 design partner. >> yes. so i first -- nancy clark was niceenough to bring me in 2008. and then i kind of got hooked on the first ladies. i wantedto know what all of their styles were. and i ended up writing a book about it, "christmaswith the first ladies." not very original. >> tim gunn: it's to the point.>> it's to the point. i just wanted you to know what it was about. and the amazing thingwas that mrs. obama invited me back and this

year they asked me to be the design partner.>> tim gunn: what does that involve? it sounds like a heavy responsibility.>> i got to keep the secret longer. so i started working in march on the decorations and gotto hear what the first lady's initial ideas were going to be. and i got to see the processreally inside. it was just amazing. and the outcome, as we all know, is just really beautifulin fact, i see one of the gals who was on my team, susan, in the audience. an amazingvolunteer. >> i remember you.[laughter] i think you were in the clip.>> she was in the clip. but we had a great time. so this year's theme is children's winterwonderland. and just to see all of the elements

come together and how many layers, like genevievementioned, just all of the thought and the process that goes into it from the first ladydown is amazing. >> one of the things in that third clip there,the gentleman, jim, he's been there for 28 years, coming back year after year. he runsa design school. he also designs ornaments. and he comes every year and spends his timehelping first ladies with their designs for the white house.>> tim gunn: that's wonderful. gary, can we ask you, where do all of these trees comefrom? >> the trees are purchased from across thecountry. we found a gentleman up in pennsylvania who had a tree farm. the national christmastree growers association holds a biannual

meeting. it was actually at that meeting thatthey choose both this year's winner and the next year's winner. and they are by the christmastree growers association given the honor of presenting the blue ribbon tree to the whitehouse. this started in the johnson administration, the association with the national christmastree association. they also provide a tree at their giving desire for the first familyfor their own personal tree up on the second floor of the residence.but we also have this gentleman, as i said before, in pennsylvania who was growing trees.he and his father planted their first batch of christmas trees in the late 1930s. he calledthis one field that they literally abandoned a number of years ago the white house fieldbecause the white house wanted trees that

were 18 feet, six inches. that's the floor-to-ceilingmeasurement in the blue room of the white house. and we couldn't find christmas treegrowers because christmas tree growers grow trees for your homes. and how many peoplehave 18-foot ceilings? there aren't many. so it has to be tied off. the top whirl ofthe tree is tide off on the chandelier support so that the tree won't fall over. and thebottom has a very substantial standing that holds it in place and also allows us to waterthe tree. the tree is not cut until very late in the season, usually in late november, andallows it to come into the white house being very fresh.>> how do you water it? >> with a very long hose.[laughter]

i'm serious. it's a garden hose, about eight-footlong. the gardener at the white house, whose name was irv williams, been there 50 years,devised the system that the hose -- he had a tank that they held up in the air, thisvery long hose that allowed it to go into a container that contained about 15 to 20gallons of water. and irv's mantra as far as preserving the christmas tree was don'tput any additives in the water, a little clorox -->> tim gunn: yes. >> to keep the germs down. and extremely hotwater. >> tim gunn: oh.>> that keeps the capillaries of the tree open and allows it to take up the water.>> tim gunn: interesting.

>> now you know how to preserve your tree.the white house tree goes up the first week of december and stays up till new year's.and there are sometimes as many as 3,000 ornaments on the tree. and they have to support thatweight. as i'm sure others can testify, quite frequently the limbs are held together bywires from limb to limb to limb all the way to the top.>> if you have that hole in your tree -- i just learned that this year. it was so genius.they just zip tie the lower branch to the upper branch and all the trees are perfect.you can do this. >> tim gunn: what i want to point out is thescaffolding. how many of you look at this and are terrified? i am. and how many of ushave been on that scaffolding?

[laughter]the three of us? linda? they never made you? >> never let me.[laughter] >> the secret is out.>> tim gunn: and gary? >> actually, there were a group of peoplethat were dedicated as supervisors because they all had specific jobs. the people standingaround the bottom would get the ornaments that are supposed to go on the tree at variouslevels and they would put them in little baskets. then the person on the top would pull thebasket up and then put the ornaments on. now that we have so many ornaments given byvolunteers from around the country when they come to the white house, they want to knowwhere their ornament is. so we devised a system

where we put ribbons on the tree on each corner,north, south, east, and west. and we kept track of every five feet so that we couldtell mr. smith when he came in or mrs. jones that your ornament is in the west side ofthe tree, one-third of the way down. it's up to you to find exactly where it is butat least we give you a general area. >> tim gunn: but that degree of detail isremarkable. really remarkable. let's go back. this is 1902. we're lookingat the grover cleveland christmas tree in the yellow oval room. lynda, that's the secondfloor? >> yes.>> tim gunn: so not on the main level. >> it's right above the blue room.>> tim gunn: and here we see teddy roosevelt's

son, archie. he actually smuggled a smalltree into the white house and hid it in a closet in the upstairs sewing room. i don'tknow -- why did he have to smuggle it in? >> his father was a staunch conservative.at that time they did not grow trees as a crop. they grew trees in the woods. peoplewent out in the forest and cut trees and brought them home. and the president being a staunchconservative, he decided that he didn't want a tree in the house because that didn't fithis thinking on cutting down trees. >> tim gunn: he sounds like a grump.>> bah, humbug. >> grump is better than grinch when talkingabout the president. >> he made great parks, though.>> tim gunn: and here we have franklin roosevelt

and his family. and more of the rooseveltwhite house at christmas time. >> that's the east room.>> tim gunn: that's the east room? >> yeah.>> tim gunn: it looks like a bottom-heavy tree.[laughter] >> they look like heavy chandeliers.>> tim gunn: very much so. and the eisenhower white house. and we see a lot of tinsel.>> wow. [laughter]>> tim gunn: it looks tinsel heavy. >> on the top.>> that was pre-theme. [laughter]>> the theme of tinsel.

>> tim gunn: yeah. that was the theme, tinsel.they did a great job of it. then we get to the kennedy white house. andthings change here. coleen and gary, can you talk about that, about what happened at thattime? >> well, mrs. kennedy was the first firstlady who said we should have a theme. i guess if you're going to have 100,000 people overfor the holidays, you should have a theme. you should think about it. it should be unified.and the very first theme was "the nutcracker". so it was "the nutcracker" christmas.i believe that's crepe paper on the tree. >> tim gunn: it looks like it.>> i looked at it and looked at it. >> it was supposed to be ribbon. i think theyran out of ribbon and used crepe paper.

>> tim gunn: it's more affordable. i'll saythat about it. and can you tell us anything about the crechethat we see on the right? >> you want to take it?>> ok. mrs. kennedy decided that she wanted to have it in the white house.>> tim gunn: was that approved? >> and on public display. well, the familieshad private -- this was on the state floor. so she wanted to have one. she borrowed oneto be on display at the white house. and that started the tradition of the creche in thewhite house, which is on display constantly now to remind people that the white houseis a home. >> tim gunn: very nice. and more of "the nutcracker"ornaments.

>> and caroline, you have to notice how preciousshe looks in that picture. >> tim gunn: and "the nutcracker" legacy waspicked up again by the bushes in 1990. >> i think those are a little scary.[laughter] i'm just saying. they're horrifying.>> they don't have eyes. >> tim gunn: we ran through the slides earlier.the incredibly depth and skillful individual who helped pull these images said she wasbeing kind. this is actually a nice picture compared to the way some of the other ornamentslooked, that they were rather terrifying. gary, you were there.>> actually what it was is we bought the faces. they are just faces.>> tim gunn: what?

>> they are blank porcelain faces. and thedecorators, the white house florist and people from around the country, they came in, actuallyput the different dolls together. they wanted to paint the mustaches to replicate europeansoldiers at the time. and they were throughout the house. those were on the tree in the blueroom. but on each one of the vignette -- we had a vignette on each one of the tables andthe mantel pieces throughout the house that replicated "the nutcracker", different scenesfrom "the nutcracker". but those were all built specifically, all the dolls, were builtat the white house by the florist. there were six people in the florist shop.>> tim gunn: i don't know whether that makes it better or worse.[laughter]

and then in 1996 president and mrs. clintonbring back "the nutcracker" theme again. >> and the amazing thing there was chelseawas dancing in "the nutcracker" the year that they chose that as the theme.>> tim gunn: oh. well, this looks more cheerful i'm happy to say.>> evolved. >> tim gunn: and now lynda, this is your territory.here we are. >> absolutely. well, first you have to recognizethat we didn't decorate the house until december 22 because, of course, for a month you mournedthe president. so all over the white house we had all of this black crepe, you know,over the mirrors, over everything. and so then on december 22, which happens to be mymother's birthday, they tore off the crepe

and started putting everything together.for our years my father was very fiscally conservative. he said we would use the samedecorations every year. so they were like your home might be. they were old-time thingsthat everybody could have, popcorn and cranberries. after the first year we learned that cranberriesshould not be on the tree -- >> tim gunn: what happens?>> they can't take 30 days or whatever it is. they're mushy. so after that we had tohave fake cranberries or fake berries. but we had popcorn on string.>> we're wondering who strung all of that. >> oh.>> tim gunn: did you participate, lynda? >> no. i did not participate. 50 years agois so long ago. i don't remember that. but

if you got the archives bulletin, you willsee that little baby -- lucinda, stand up. >> tim gunn: there she is.[laughter] lucinda was almost 2 months old.>> tim gunn: i'm going to fast forward. >> you have it? another time?>> tim gunn: let's fast forward. >> oh, well.>> tim gunn: there we are. >> there she is. but you can see a littlemore. this one has lucinda's first cousin, lucy's son. and then one of my first cousin'schildren who came to be with us. but we really didn't spend every christmas at the whitehouse. the only christmas we really spent there was our last christmas.every year we would have two particular special

parties. one of them was for the embassy children.they would come in costume -- i shouldn't say costume. come in what they wore in theircountry. for us it looked like costumes. and then we would have a party for -- i don'tknow if they were orphan children but there were particular homes. and the children wouldcome. we would set up little bitty tables and they would all have a christmas soda orwhatever. so that was very special. and that's what the second picture is there.i'm actually in the picture with daddy but you can't see me because -- only half of me.i'm wearing that pink outfit. but you can see the children loving the tree. that wasvery special. >> tim gunn: and you had cookies within reach.>> oh, yes. these were all ornaments -- well,

these are the ornaments, some of the ornamentsover here. i don't know if any of you can see them.>> tim gunn: you can come up afterwards and take a closer look.>> they were very simple. they were ones that we could have on our tree. and that was ourtheme, everybody's christmas. i'm going to read you a little piece. december22, 1968, my father wrote this note to my mother. "to claudia alta taylor johnson,"her whole name. "my dearest, upon your return to the white house arrangements will be madeto pay for the christmas tree decorations so you will own them and enjoy them againin the years ahead." and then he goes on, "here is another birthday present i've beentold you would enjoy. all my love."

and daddy, his next-to-last year -- can wego back to the wedding? this is the most important part.>> tim gunn: forward. >> forward. ok. we'll get to it.>> tim gunn: there we go. >> we were married, stand up.[laughter] chuck and i were married 47 and two days ago.[applause] >> tim gunn: bravo.>> we had the most beautiful decorations. and, again, this is the way to save money.you just recycle them. you do them for the wedding and then you just keep on doing it.so that year -- talk about trouble. can you imagine this? we had wonderful, gorgeous treesmade out of poinsettias. they were all around.

and then we got married on the 9th. and immediatelythe next day they -- now we can start on christmas, on the 10th of december.the beautiful creche that you will see, which was given by the engelhard's, was right wherewe got married in the east room. so it didn't get to go up until we got out. but you willsee a picture of that. here's part of it, neapolitan creche. it was a gift to the whitehouse. every year they put it up. i've been back -- for many of the first years,i would go back and take a picture of it with my children or whoever was available and sendthe picture to mrs. engelhard just to let them know that it was really still there andloved and everything. it was a special, special time.but we got married. and then they had to start

doing the decorations. and, of course, youcan imagine we received our guests in the blue room so you couldn't have that big treein the blue room. so they had to do all of that starting on the 10th of december. i don'tknow how they did it. and then we went off on our honeymoon andmy father went around the world. he was the first president to go around the world. hetook off and went to the funeral of the prime minister of australia, went around to vietnamto see our troops, flew in to the vatican city to see the pope. he did the full worldand then came back on christmas eve. that was really wonderful. and we came back fromthe honeymoon so we could all be together for that christmas. that's when you see thesepictures of lucinda and me. it was wonderful.

and then all of us sitting upstairs in thefamily quarters. here we go. >> was that your family christmas picturethat you guys would take every year? >> well, we always did have to do a familyhorror show picture. trying to gather - i don't know about y'all, but it is one of theleast fun things that we do every year to try to get everybody together, everybody smiling;the two lyndons both being, you know, smiling. we have a 2-month-old baby, a dog that isvery active. so trying to get everybody. but that is upstairs in the family quarters. andthat's the tree there which was wonderful. and lucinda insisted that i bring this. doyou know this? lynda bird on it. everybody? a very special bag. now, this is where i wishwe had a picture. i don't think you have a

picture of the upstairs other than this one.but we hung up stockings. and this year we had special stockings made for us.>> tim gunn: good heavens. that is elaborate. >> mine. and this is university of texas wherei went to school. mystic, my camp. "mccall's" magazine. there i am on the front. i workedfor mccall. there's the ranch, all in beautiful -- just spectacular. christmas tree, texashistory, the white house, my sorority. and a little book which i should have writtensomething wonderful in but i don't think i did.>> tim gunn: there's still time. >> oh yes. but we have hung this up for 46years i guess. might have been 47. i guess it was because we have one for you, too, chuck.don't we?

[laughter]it could have been 68. it shows you when you get to my age, what is a year or two. anyway.oh, it had to be 68 because we have one for lucinda.>> tim gunn: where is yours? >> i told her to bring mine.[laughter] >> so we have them hanging up. and then afterthey hung at the l.b.j. ranch after we left washington. and they hung up and everythingwas just gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful. and we added grandchildren. so that meant themother had to go make us new stockings. and none are going to be as elegant as this becausethe lady had unfortunately died, was not available to make new stockings.>> tim gunn: actually, this -- [inaudible]

>> i wouldn't want to tell you everything.on chuck's, he has a marine, beautiful, wonderful, all in jewels. every one is different. daddy'swas fantastic. mother's was great. and then when mother died, we couldn't goback to the ranch and hang our stockings up anymore. each family decided to take theirstockings back. so i hung these up a week ago or so and just took it off the mantelpieceto bring it here tonight because lucinda told me to.>> thank you, lucinda. >> tim gunn: thank you.[applause] talk about something special. genevieve, doesthe crafts person in you approve? >> i'm just taken away with this. this isso beautiful. it's not too much. this could

be sold at anthropology in two seconds.>> actually -- this was the fanciest thing we did. our tree is homespun. the only thingis we did put - every year we would put fresh cookies on it. and the little children wouldcome and we would know that it was appreciated because we would see little bite holes outof every cookie. [laughter]we had to make sure that we put the cookies, the real cookie, down towards the bottom.we didn't want any child to break their tooth on them. even with these we had the problemof if we put candy in them, you have to really hope that the chocolate is not still therenext year. >> tim gunn: actually to underscore what youwere saying about recycling, we may think

at first glance that this is the same tree.they are two different trees, different years. >> and even today i think especially withthe obama administration everything is repurposed and reused. you'll see some sparkle on anornament that was a different color last year, which is nice because there are so many ornaments.it's nice they keep reusing them. >> tim gunn: when i talk about my experience,it was a different time. oh lynda, what is that under the tree?>> yes. [laughter]>> tim gunn: any speculation around here? >> it looks like one of those afghan dogs.[laughter] >> they were white painted twigs.>> tim gunn: oh.

>> it was meant to replicate snow under thetree. >> tim gunn: i see.>> if i could just one quick thing. >> tim gunn: oh, yes. we want you to.>> when it was the center in mrs. robb's, i think it was the 30th or 31st wedding anniversary,i received a call from mrs. robb. she said: do you think it would be possible for chuckand i to come down to the white house? i know it's awfully busy at christmas time but itis our anniversary. as it turned out, on that specific date the events for that eveningwere over at 7:00. and i knew that everybody would be gone about 8:00 or 8:30. so i madearrangements for the senator and mrs. robb to come to the white house unbeknownst toanybody other than the secret service. the

butlers and i placed a bottle of champagnein the east room for them so that they do have a little bit of private time in the roomwhere they were married. i think it was a very moving occasion. andit also points out what the white house really is. it's a home. people flow through, butthey always have a tie to the white house. we try and represent that. it's somethingwe feel very strongly about. the white house is the president's home.>> tim gunn: that's lovely. thank you. >> it was a wonderful thing. it made us feelso good. we're still together, 47 years. [laughter]>> which is astonishing. [applause]>> white house weddings do not have many long

weddings. we feel very blessed.>> tim gunn: here we have christmas with the nixons.>> i wanted to point out this ornament that mrs. nixon is holding. these are referredto as the state flower balls. you can see more of them on this other picture. thesewere ornaments, one was made for each state. they were made by handicapped individuals.they were kind of a combination of felt and some artificial flowers. and these ornamentswere actually left behind. mrs. nixon left her ornaments behind whereas most first ladiesmake arrangements, like your mom and dad did, take them for their presidential libraries.so i had heard that these were around. i wanted to see them when i was researching my book.and no one could tell me exactly where they

were. we were working in the warehouse. asyou mentioned, there's a lot of boxes. we came across the box that was unceremoniouslymarked "pat's balls." [laughter]that's the raunchy part of the segment. and there they were inside. they've actually beenused. they've been used by mrs. reagan, mrs. obama. they've been brought out. they havemoved into the category of a national treasure now because of their age and what they represent.that's my story. >> tim gunn: that's quite a story.and this is more from the nixon's. >> yes. she loved this gold garland.>> tim gunn: where is that tree? >> that was in the grand foyer that year.right? is there had been years where it's

been in the grand foyer.>> tim gunn: i see. so it's not always in the blue room.>> recently i think. for the last many years it's been in the blue room. but there wasa point -- >> i think the last time the principle treewas in the kennedy administration. every year since then it's -- the principle tree withthe theme on it has been in the blue room. although there are many years where thereare trees all over. >> yeah. every year i've been there, thereare so many. >> tim gunn: there was a new tradition establishedunder the nixons, the gingerbread house. here are two of them.>> we've come a long way.

>> tim gunn: they're startlingly different.>> i can give you a little bit of background. >> tim gunn: we'd love to hear it.>> the traditional gingerbread house is german. and that was because hans raffert, an americancitizen, born in germany, received his training there, came to the white house in the johnsonadministration and when mrs. nixon came in, he went to her one day and said the whitehouse ought to have a tradition from around the world and i'd like to create a gingerbreadhouse. >> tim gunn: he was the chef.>> chef to the white house. not the pastry chef but a chef in the white house. but that'sa traditional german gingerbread house. and through the years it has morphed.>> tim gunn: considerably.

>> considerably. and a pastry chef, he said,the pastry chef will create the gingerbread house.>> tim gunn: so this is 2009. >> yeah. it has electricity now and water.and mechanized ice skaters this year. >> tim gunn: it's incredible. remarkable.>> they work -- they work from architectural plans to get everything correct, the measurements,proportions and everything. >> tim gunn: i can see why.>> each year the chefs try and update it. there's about 400 pounds of gingerbread andicing in those. that's on a base there that's on a table in the state dining room. carryit in, it takes eight people. and it has to be taken from the pastry shop, which is atemporary facility that's created in the ground

floor of the executive residence, actuallywhere the china is kept. and they put it together down there because they need a big area. andthen it's very ceremoniously taken out the south doors, where the president goes in andout to the helicopters, loaded onto a truck driven at 2 miles an hour to the north porticowhere it's ceremoniously carried in and placed on the state dining room table. the end table,i should say. it stays there throughout entire the christmas season. and at the end of thechristmas season it's taken out and thrown in the dumpster. unfortunately it's been therefor 30 days. do you want to eat gingerbread that's been there for 30 days?>> you don't want to eat it anyway. but has it ever broken in the transfer? this is oneof my favorite parts of the show every year.

>> i'm not aware of it.>> i did see one year, i believe it was two years ago. we brought it up -- "we." i watched.>> you did the whole thing. there was someone who licked the house.>> tim gunn: really? >> was it you?>> it was not me. but it was a wonderful moment. >> tim gunn: if it were to break, it wouldbe a "make it work" moment. >> yes.>> tim gunn: so now we are with the fords at the white house for christmas. coleen?>> well, mrs. ford loved this calico fabric. that year was going to be a frugal christmas.she was going to be very conscientious about the spending. it turned out that that fabricwas quite costly and she ended up spending

not just on the fabric but the whole thingwas $1,600. >> tim gunn: for the whole tree?>> for all the decorations that year. >> tim gunn: all right.>> and the press were merciless with her. because that was more than the previous threeadministrations had spent. so it kind of backfired on her. can you imagine? it seems like nothingtoday. >> tim gunn: that's remarkably little.>> how many trees do they decorate? just that one?>> they had this one but i believe they just had some smaller trees, smaller table-toptrees. they used some greens in the hallways but nothing like we see today.and mrs. ford also liked to wrap her packages

with fabric. that was something unusual thatshe did. >> tim gunn: and this was more of the fordwhite house. >> yup. we see more calico. there's that fabric.she really loved it. >> tim gunn: i understood that she broughtin a rather masterful quilter. >> yes.>> tim gunn: to work on these decorations. >> yes. this was the style. one of the reasonsthat i had loved researching this topic was just this glimpse back in time of how thingshave changed, just how charming that was and understated. and maybe something we wouldnot repeat. i'm not certain. >> tim gunn: it's a matter of taste.>> once again, looking back at the historical

context, at the time president ford took officethere was what they referred to as runaway inflation, which was about 6%. and presidentford and his staff came up with the idea of the win, with inflation now, program. andthey were trying to be as frugal as possible. so a lot of the ornaments were natural material.>> tim gunn: this looks quite grand. this is the state floor cross hall.>> that was the following year. >> tim gunn: yes. 1974.>> and that's boxwoods cut up, the branches cut up. and the angels, with the trumpets.i think there were 12 of them entirely on the state floor.>> tim gunn: they're beautiful. >> there was a bit of a problem with the angels.they were supposed to be -- there were supposed

to be more. and in transit to the white housethey were broken. so they scaled them back. >> tim gunn: well, now i bring you to me.this is 1979. i was teaching at the corcoran school of art, now part of george washingtonuniversity. and we were called two weeks in advance. so we were given a lot of notice.and told that we were decorating, making ornaments for and decorating the white house christmastree in the blue room. we were all hugely excited. in fact, the woman standing nextto mrs. carter was my boss. she was chair of the fine arts department. she was makingcertain everything was all right. mrs. carter established the theme. i learnedtonight that she established the theme. for some reason i thought we established it.[laughter]

it was american folk art. so we decided uponroughly 12 templates. we needed to create a lot of ornaments. and we did a lot of researchinto american folk art and we had a santa's workshop going. we were cutting wood, painting.>> every ornament you guys made? >> every one we made by hand. this was nosleep for two weeks. and we did the installation. to give you the idea of the sense of scale,that's how big the ornaments are. actually, i made that noah's ark.[laughter] i didn't know there was a picture of it untiltonight. and i made that white house. two ornaments. it's roughly the same size as thenoah's ark. so you can see how small these look on the tree. they're big. as we know,it's a huge tree.

but i have to tell you what happens. we arrived-- we had five days, which i now know is a luxury. we're up on the teetering scaffolding.and because we made these ornaments to look antique, they were all subdued hues, distressed.once they got on the tree, they disappeared. it was like a weird camouflage. it was horrifying.and we found out about it, of course, the very first day of the installation.i had been at sears, which i don't know whether it's still on wisconsin avenue anymore, butit was then. i had been there buying sandpaper, dozens of tools for the students. we had alot of work to do. and once we were at the white house doing this installation, i rememberedpassing a display of red lacquered styrofoam apples. you can see one on the tree. it'stwo inches in diameter. i thought, our savior.

i'm going to buy as many of these apples asi possibly can. so i ran up there. they were in boxes of adozen. i said, "i need 100." and the salesperson said, "you need 100 of these apples?" i said,"no, i need 100 boxes of a dozen." so i returned with 1,200 of these apples and the tree cameto life. it really did. thankfully. the students who were majoring in ceramicmade the packages, the presents that you see. everything's clay. everything's fired clay.it was ambitious. but we didn't care about those clay packages. we cared about what washappening on the tree. >> and was the need for secrecy as much thenas today? were you telling people what you were doing?>> tim gunn: you know, i remember boasting

about it. maybe i was a security breach. butwe were all so thrilled and ecstatic. we were at the white house. we were eating in thecommissary, in in the basement every day for lunch. it was thrilling.>> i know here they're described as colonial. >> tim gunn: oh. really?[laughter] >> "decorations made in a colonial style bycontemporary artists." >> tim gunn: well, they were contemporaryartisans. >> "by the corcoran school of arts and designto make over 500 ornaments in mixed media. one of those students was our own panel moderator.">> tim gunn: i had graduated by then. i was then teaching. but i will tell you, initiallyit was 10 people. once we saw how daunting

the size of the tree was, i went running backto the school and said, "anyone standing, we need your help." but it was a huge amountof fun. >> i'll confirm with my notes i have herethat i ahead -- i made -- it was the american folk art on a douglas fur tree that came fromwest virginia. >> tim gunn: one other brief anecdote. wewere all so thrilled to have our photographs taken with mrs. carter. and something happenedthat would never happen today. when we followed up to ask where are the photographs, it wasafter about a month, we were told there was no film in the camera.>> really? >> tim gunn: and that story has been corroboratedby the national archives. there was no film

in the camera.actually, coleen and gary, i want to ask you this, too. when we took the tree down, tookthe ornaments down, we took them all back. so was that unusual?>> no. at that time it wasn't. >> tim gunn: ok.>> because they were a donation from the corcoran school.>> tim gunn: yes. >> they went back to the corcoran school withthe understanding that they wouldn't be sold. >> tim gunn: they were not sold.>> i know. [laughter]that was how they got back. at least as far as we can tell that didn't happen.>> tim gunn: no.

>> and i know this year there are some ornamentsthat we made arrangements to take back, too. one of the ornaments in the east room thisyear, we took books that were going to be thrown away and we have them open on a treewith paper popup art coming out of it. we just knew they would be crushed in transit.so -- going back to the warehouse. so we made arrangements that we're going to take thoseand return them to the artist. >> tim gunn: so case by case.>> in more recent years all the ornaments have become property of white house becausethe government paid for them. >> tim gunn: i see.>> they become property of the white house and remain such until the national archives,the wonderful people here at the national

archives, take possession of them.we've had some discussions over the years. some of the natural things that have beenon the trees, after they've been in boxes for a couple of years until the end of anadministration, like cookies and things, the national archives isn't too interested ingetting those kinds of things in with the rest of the archival material. so there havebeen some good discussions over the years. but all of the ornaments now go to the nationalarchives. >> tim gunn: wait a minute. is this a surprise?>> mrs. carter was very disappointed she wasn't able to join us tonight. she has fond memoriesof her time with you. >> tim gunn: i'm going to burst into tears.[laughter]

[applause]>> tim gunn: you're kidding? thank you. >> you're welcome.>> tim gunn: i'm farklempt. this is the loveliest thing ever.>> thank you for solving the problem. we had been tearing the place apart looking for theornaments. [laughter]>> tim gunn: that is so lovely. i don't know what to do with it now. i'm putting it nextto lynda's stocking. what an incredible surprise. how did you sneak that in? i went throughthe slides earlier. >> two sets of slides.>> tim gunn: you are sneaky. i'm deeply, deeply touched. i'm thrilled and honored. thank you.all right. we are moving ahead. oops. we're

going backwards. see? farklempt.i have a question. who was holding mrs. reagan's legs in this photograph?>> gary! [applause]>> at least i was holding the ladder. >> tim gunn: coleen, the reagan years.>> well, i described them as a little bit of hollywood glitz because nancy had a lot-- mrs. reagan, had a lot of gold, gold snowflakes. one of the things she did -- do you remember"just say no," the campaign against drugs? >> tim gunn: yeah.>> she put her money where her mouth was. the decorators for several years during thereagan administration were recovering young drug addicts who came and decorated the whitehouse. and many of them -- i've gone back

and researched. there are many letters ofthese young people saying how much that meant to them that the first lady would bring theminto the most important house in our land and really entrust them with such a job. ifound that to be a very touching story. >> tim gunn: i agree. i've never heard itbefore. >> i don't know if you can see it so well,but nancy had these shoes she loved to wear with little red pompoms. they were in a lotof her christmas pictures. i guess they were her christmas shoes. not these.[laughter] and then mrs. reagan was also known for bringinga little bit of celebrity to the white house. there were secret santas. some of them werewell-known from hollywood. we might see one.

that's her husband. that was supposedly asurprise. >> tim gunn: there's one.>> there's one. [laughter]>> this should have been leaked years ago. >> tim gunn: that's a classic photographer.>> this was actually done at the press preview. mr. t. of the multi-gold necklaces, came downthe grand staircase. she had this set up in front of the press. so it did see the lightof day early on. >> i love that he's giving out his dolls tothe children. [laughter]>> tim gunn: if this were today, i would say this didn't happen; it was photo shopped.>> oh, it happened.

>> tim gunn: it really happened. remarkable.i would have failed this multiple choice test. and now we are to -->> if i can back up a second. >> tim gunn: yes, of course.>> the idea of those trees. you go to the trees there. the idea of those trees startedin the third year of the reagan administration. the trees with the snow.>> tim gunn: on the right. >> the designer, mrs. reagan's designer, fromcalifornia, the second year of the administration we flocked the trees with baby's breath putin amongst the branches of the trees. mrs. reagan said let's do lots of trees. we had27 trees. >> tim gunn: 27?>> yeah. one on each corner of the east room,

one on either side of the creche, cross hall,grand foyer. and then nancy clark, the chief floral designer, went to new york on a shoppingspree to try and get some decorations and red apples i think was on her list.[laughter] and she ran across the place called the studio56 in new york. and they had a product that was called real fake snow. and what it waswas white terrafin run through a machine. it was filmy and thin. we got this productand tried it on a small table-top tree. i think we did it in the summer. it was crazy.but we did it in the summer. and ted graber, we were putting little handfuls on the tree.he said, "no, that's not the way snow falls." he walked over and grabbed a box of snow andturned it upside down on the tree. and that's

the way -- it looked like it was natural.sowhat we did was we put the scaffoldings up, we'd go to the top of the tree and take boxesof this real fake snow and just literally throw it up in the air and let it fall downon the tree. and it gave this wonderful look, as you can see.>> tim gunn: it does. >> but in the grand foyer when the touristscame up from the ground floor, up the stairs, they made a left-hand turn and went into thegrand foyer, these trees, multiple stacks of trees, and you could visibly see them shiveras they walked in because it seemed like it was so cold. they looked real.at the parties, the kids used to love to run and slide up under the trees like they werein the snow drifts.

>> tim gunn: did this become a tradition?>> well, different first ladies used it. the next slide, with the bushes.>> tim gunn: yes. >> mrs. bush said, i've gone through six yearsof snow at the white house and i don't want it to stop. she said it's a wonderful traditionthat nancy started. and that's why the snow. and you can see here in the foyer on the right-handside as you're looking at it, how it looks like it's been in a snowstorm.>> tim gunn: it's very beautiful. so here we are with the bushes. what are we lookingat on the right? >> mrs. bush favored literacy. so they actuallyhung books on the trees. they were some of the ornaments. they were part of the table-topdecor as well. you're always looking for big

things. you were looking for apples, but otherpeople are looking for big stuff to put on the tree to take up space. and books servedthat purpose. these i think were all literary characters one year.>> this was another year. i don't know how many of you are familiar with annabelle dolls?they're collectibles out of pennsylvania. we went, once again, nancy clark went up andmet with the people at the company. we bought the basic structures of these ornaments andanimals. and then they brought them back and hand-painted them in the florist shop andput -- created the animal's cape, clothing for the dolls. that went on the trees andalso on the mantels throughout the house. >> tim gunn: they're much merrier and morecheerful than those nutcrackers.

>> they became better artists.>> tim gunn: we have more needlepoint. >> this one blows me away. i think this isthe year of the needlepoint where all the blue room ornaments were done by needlepoint.>> tim gunn: this sounds like some sort of torture treatment.>> also they did a whole needlepoint village, like a train village under one of the trees.i interviewed one of the people who worked on these. she said, "we were panic-strickenthat we weren't going to get these finished because they were so time intensive and neededso many of them." >> tim gunn: can i ask a question about theneedlepoint? why? [laughter]>> barbra bush loves to needlepoint.

>> tim gunn: well, let her.[laughter] >> she wanted to share. i'll let you takethat up with her. >> you will get a very ardent person. shedid her needlepoint when she picked it up, was when the president was the ambassadorto china. she needed an activity flying back and forth.>> tim gunn: she took up a good one. >> actually when she started doing needlepoint,her church got together and did a needlepoint creche. they presented to she and the presidentwhen they were at the vice president's residence so they would have a creche in their homeat the vice president's residence. when she came to the white house, she brought thatand decided why not do a needlepoint, the

guild all over the country. that was a continuationof an effort that's going on today. that's an outreach across the country to use differentgroups. i've gotten in more trouble than i can tellyou. when a new first lady comes into the white house and after trying to go throughthe campaign, go through the thank yous, parties after inaugural, then the chief usher comesup to the first lady two weeks later and says we need to start thinking about christmas.and all the first ladies have said: i haven't even picked a staff yet and you're askingme to think about christmas? she picked that up very quickly.>> tim gunn: how many of these needlepoint ornaments were there?>> hundreds i think.

>> over 600. and some of them were like thehouse here, were done -- >> three dimensional.>> done not on canvas but on the plastic mesh. that's how they got the houses to stand together.my daughter ended up doing millie's dog house. tended up as part of the decorations. theywere on the mantelpieces once again. storybook characters. it was an amazing christmas.you don't like the needlepoint, tim? >> tim gunn: it pains me because i know howlabor intensive it is. it makes the folk art tree seem like a walk in the park.>> i told you you had a lot of time. >> tim gunn: yeah.>> i believe that that millie ornament, the first lady made herself of the dog. she participated.she made ornaments as well that year.

>> tim gunn: as well she should.[laughter] and now we have mrs. clinton. this is herfirst tree? 1995. the theme is "twas the night before christmas.">> which was fun because they did a couple of things that were interesting. they reachedout to architecture schools to create different ornaments for the house in the night beforechristmas and i believe they reached out to culinary schools to represent the night beforechristmas. and that was i believe a sugar mantel if i'm right, gary, in the green roomthere. >> yes. it created a great bit of consternation.>> tim gunn: why is that? >> well, it was a pastry. and it was sittingon a mantel against french silk. and there's

also a fireplace under it which was lit everyevening. i believe her name was collette. >> it was.>> we had long discussions. you can't see it there in the photograph, but we ended upwith the piece of plexiglas behind the pastry to shield the cloth and the front where thegreenery hides an insulation shield which kept the heat from melting the pastry work.>> tim gunn: it's a "make it work" moment. and you did.>> that ended up being my job. i ended up being more of a person that says, "you wantto do what?" let's talk about this for a minute, with the garlands hung on the top, throughoutthe house. >> tim gunn: it's beautiful.>> there was a lot of negotiation on how decorations

would go up.>> so they had snowmen one year. this i always liked. this was all pastry, right, gary?>> yes. >> this christmas tree here. this is all sugarwork. and another sugar fireplace. just really amazing, intricate work.>> beautiful. >> that was in the grand foyer. on that table,the marble, white martial top table, was part of the purchase after the white house wasburnt in the war of 1812. it was purchased by president monroe for the blue room. itnow resides in the grand foyer of the white house, just inside the north portico door.it becomes a prop for the decoration. once again a lot of talk about how to preserve.make sure we didn't do anything either to

the mirror, the gold gild or anything. buti think it works out well. >> that was one of my favorite pieces in thehouse. i didn't know that. >> tim gunn: what is this? the world's mostelaborate chandelier? good heavens. >> what happened was -- we had a course ofwork to repair the three chandeliers in the east room. we worked it out in such a waythat one at the north end had been done, one at the south end had been done, the one inthe middle was left open >> this wreath was done to take the placeof the chandelier. it was a monstrous undertaking with a number of national park service, engineers,and architects. there's an architect on my staff making sure it wasn't too heavy forthe support. that support actually goes up

in the floor of the queen's bedroom above.there's an access hatch that allows you to get to that support.>> tim gunn: i still don't know that i'd have the courage to stand under it.>> you could have danced under it. it happened many a night.>> tim gunn: i don't know, gary. it is beautiful. >> it says here that it's -- i see, "complementingthe gold of the east room creche with a 600-point gold and silver advent wreath." goodness gracious.>> tim gunn: it's scary. >> yes.>> tim gunn: what are we looking at on the right?>> i think the first lady was honoring historic places and homes.>> tim gunn: yes.

>> i think a lot of buildings here. the otherthing i was going to point out, the clintons used the same tree skirt every year in theblue room. there's a patch from each state on the left that was quilted on. so that wasone of the things that remained constant through the clinton administration. but these aremore i think of the historic homes that we were honoring across america.>> a little bit of a funny story. >> tim gunn: sure.>> over the summer we were looking at photos. we were thinking about the decorations forthis year. i said i've seen this photo from the clinton administration. there's a beautifulwreath. we started looking into if it was available to use again. and i had the pictureson our kitchen table. and my son said, "oh,

you're putting up an o for obama?" [laughter]and i quick called and said we might want to rethink the o.but the other thing was we found out that it had been repurposed as a halloween wreathas some point. so it no longer existed for us anyway. i just thought, you know, throughthe eyes of kids, that was pretty funny. >> tim gunn: and the next bush white house.yes, we get it. [laughter]>> i think this year was "home for the holidays" might have been the theme. they recreatedall of the presidential homes in miniature dollhouse forms. i've seen these in the warehouse.they still exist. they're really quite lovely. >> tim gunn: they're wonderful.>> they invited me to come and see the one

-- the texas white house. they had the beagledogs. >> it was accurate?>> oh, the beagle dogs are not there. we never decorated like that.>> designer's license. >> of course, we never had that kind of tree.>> once again, the chief floral designer went to the national park service and went to allthe sites and got the architecturally drawings. and the white house carpenter shop createdeach and every one of these homes to scale. >> tim gunn: beautiful.>> and, again, literary characters we're going to see popping up. "alice in wonderland.">> tim gunn: great. >> so this year -- well, that was -- theirlast christmas was a patriotic christmas.

this was the year that nancy clark was niceenough to bring me in. the funny thing is we were creating this snow again. so we weregiven this instruction to make it look like a beautiful snowy scene. so we worked veryhard. first lady, mrs. bush would often walk through. and we got notes. and the notes were,"oh, dear, there's too much snow." we thought, ok, we can regroup. we would start takingthe snow away. they'd say, "oh, dear, now there's too little snow." so we'd go throughthis process a couple of times. we'd say can we have a little more feedback. and nancyclark says envision that there's been a fresh snowfall and then it's three days later andthe snow has melted and reset. i said, "all right. i'm from jersey. you do not want snowthe third day after it's on the ground."

>> tim gunn: no. you want a fresh snowfall.>> that was the only time i spoke up. the rest of the time i behaved. the point wasthe first lady had a vision. and she knew what it was. and we were really there justto make it happen, to make it work for her. and when we finally got the finished product,it really was beautiful. and it was worth all the give and take.>> is cleanup just the worst with that stuff? >> that was just the cotton that you wouldlike -- i don't know where they bought it. >> the real fake stuff?>> we just took the trees down, let it fall on the floor wherever it was and i went outand had carpenters buy plastic snow shovels. that's how we got it off marble floors.>> tim gunn: and now to the present day. the

obama white house.>> one of the things that mrs. obama always does is the first holiday activity of theseason is with children of military personnel serving in active service. in that way shehonors them. i think this year they were making some type of -- i'm sure low-cal, low-sugartreats. >> tim gunn: and tasty, also.>> yes. >> that's the state dining room.that hawaii ball that you saw, they were supposedly underneath as a very unattractive gold plasticball that was recycled. they decorated over them. and i think -- was this america thebeautiful or america the brave? the blue room tree -- i think that might be this year. thisis i think this year's blue room tree.

>> tim gunn: it is.>> the blue room tree under mrs. obama has always had some type of military significancehonoring our men and women who are serving or who have served.>> tim gunn: it pays tribute to our armed forces through the eyes of children.>> all in this tree are very humble, too. burlap ribbons, piece of log. all of thesemediums that are super available and approachable to everyone everywhere else. these are gorgeous.that's this year. >> this is the room which the volunteers nicknamedthe vermouth room. >> what's happening?>> you just go crazy. really beautiful dress form. so the first lady had this idea whichi thought was just so neat given her take

on fashion. we were so lucky that two volunteersshowed up in our mix. one was a teacher at parsons. the other was a dress maker. theywere really able to take the lead on this for us.>> tim gunn: they're beautiful. >> the one on the left has a fabric undergarment,like a hoop skirt. it kept getting weighted down by all of the bows. you need a lot ofevergreen to cover those skirts. >> tim gunn: absolutely. wire instead of cloth.>> yes. the other was out of wire. it worked a lot quicker.>> i think the ornament on the left, we had the white house held an ornament contest thisyear to make a 3d ornament. i believe this was the winner or one of the winners on theleft.

>> a lot of blues this year throughout thewhite house, which i thought was a very non-traditional christmas color that just looked gorgeouswith the traditional reds and greens. it's kind of that antique gray blue.>> tim gunn:it is beautiful. >> and i can tell a secret. if you go backto the picture -- you tell it. >> no, you go ahead.>> so jim marvin, who we mentioned earlier, who has come back for many, many years anddid the state room this year, you may see that the volunteers hung a j and an m on thetree in honor of him. yup, the j and the m for jim marvin.>> tim gunn: very nice. >> did you think i was going to tell a differentsecret?

>> yeah.>> yeah, i'm not telling that. that one i'm not telling.>> there's a number of things that go on, like i said, of putting decorations up andhow they go up. like the garland over top of the fireplace in the state dining room.it has to be supported. and the mantels in there dates back from the early years of thewhite house. there's not a whole lot of support. so it has to be very closely engineered. andthis year there was a small failure. the garland came crashing down. luckily no damage occurredto the portrait of president lincoln. it's one of those things that happens just likein your home. if you have a cat and it runs up the tree and the dog chases it, over goesthe tree.

>> tim gunn: and the delivery of the tree.this looks like quite a production. >> once again, this is process of deliveringthe tree to the white house started in the johnson administration with the national christmastree association. this is the way the tree is delivered. it actually comes from differentparts of the country. i had an opportunity to go to washington and oregon and wisconsinand north carolina, and just about every state in the union where the christmas trees camefrom. they get transported sometimes by national guard, sometimes they come by private truck.it's all done by donation from the christmas tree growers association. when it gets tothe pennsylvania avenue gate, it's offloaded from the trucks and placed on this wagon andthen the horse-drawn carriage brings it up

to the north portico. i think this year mrs.obama commented about how big the tree was and it was going to be difficult to get in.you know the story about that. >> no, i'm going to let you tell it.>> i think they had to take the doors off their hinges.>> they did. >> tree trouble. there was some tree trouble.>> it's not first time that's happened. back about 25 years ago we got a tree that we literallycould not get in the doors. we ended up taking the doors on the south down and used a craneto crane it through the south portico, over the railing and in through the south side.it was seven inches wider at the door at the south side than the north.>> and that's on your shoulders, right? if

the tree doesn't fit, you take the blame?>> yeah. [laughter]>> tim gunn: the limbs are malleable, are they not?>> it depends on the temperature. >> tim gunn: ok.>> when they wrap the tree. once they're wrapped -- you can see the heavy ropes on the treeto pull it tight. if it's too -- >> tim gunn: it's brought in wrapped.>> yeah. if it's too cold when they transport it, if they pull it too tightly, all the limbssnap. i can't say that that hasn't occurred in past years. we had to go out and get anothertree at the last second. >> tim gunn: what's the story of the cranberrytree?

>> i think mrs. ford started the cranberrytree. it's a colonial decoration, topiary. and for many, many years it was done justlike this. two little old ladies would painstakingly dip their pen in elmer's glue and then putit on to the styrofoam form. i believe the story is they always made two.one would stay in refrigeration and one would be out. half way through the season they wouldswap them. then mrs. obama has reinterpreted this. her first year in office there was acranberry mantel instead of the tree. >> tim gunn: we have the picture.>> this is the reinterpretation. they've done a couple of different things. so the cranberrytree has transformed. and you can hot glue them.>> peppercorns one year, too. really beautiful.

>> for years nancy clark and i had a runningargument about that cranberry tree. she wanted to do away with it because it took two volunteersover two days 10 hours a day. each one was done individually. about a third of the cranberriesthat they used didn't hold up when they were trying to put them in. i said it was a traditionthat i personally liked and therefore we would continue it. it wasn't until after i leftthat nancy found another way. >> and the white house historical associationornaments. how long has this been a tradition? >> 33rd year.>> tim gunn: the 33rd year. they're incredibly beautiful. it's a remarkable legacy to have.>> it also helps the white house historical association support the educational programabout the white house and the families that

live there. it is the main source of fundsfor that purpose. and through the years it has grown. for a while there it was exponentialgrowth. now it's pretty much topped out. although it is continuing to grow. and the ornaments-- the people that get the first set -- i had neighbors across the street. i gave themthe first set, the first four years. they said if you decide to move away and don'tgive us the ornament, we'll never talk to you again. so once you get the set started,i think 81 was the first year, then if people want to keep the set going forever.>> tim gunn: and it's holiday time. so we have hanukkah in the white house as well.coleen? >> we've also had the obamas recognize kwanzaa.i believe president nixon may have been the

first to have a menorah in the white house.president bush was the first to have it i guess in the west wing. there's been representationof other religions through the year. i think a conscious effort in the last couple of yearshas been made to include others. >> tim gunn: very good. and we have whitehouse pets. >> whenever your approval rating goes down,the white house pet is a good thing to have. >> tim gunn: it is a good thing to have. sowe had the nixon family pets on the left. and the bush's dog, millie, on the right.and we had the cat. and buddy. >> i think under the bush -- under georgew. they started the barney cam. is that right? the internet videos that were all the rageof the first pets going around. they wore

little cameras. you could see the decorationsfrom their point of view. >> tim gunn: i loved that.>> you can still go back and look at it. it's the barney cam.>> tim gunn: yes. yes. exactly. >> and sunny and bo are really big and popular.literally they're really big. like this year i think a mile ribbon was used on each ofthe animals. the children love them. >> tim gunn: and that was caroline kennedy'spony, macaroni. >> there they are.>> tim gunn: and behind bo is a four-foot statue made out of 40,000 pipe cleaners.>> yes. >> tim gunn: maybe they should have made boout of cranberries.

[laughter]>> i think this year they are both mechanized, bo and sonny.>> tim gunn: is that right? >> they call them bobots.>> tim gunn: this is our last slide. >> this is represents what the white houseis all about at christmas. these military people represent obviously our military. theywere just at the end of the evening, a long evening, standing in front of the fireplace,enjoying the decoration and the camaraderie that goes along with being at the white house.but all the visitors that come to the white house at some point have a moment like thiswhere they can enjoy the decorations, and enjoy what is the white house home.>> tim gunn: beautiful. we want to thank all

of you. we ran longer than planned. we hada lot of information to convey. thank you all so much.we're going to open the floor for just a couple of questions. then we'll let everybody run.if you have any questions. and then afterwards, coleen is signing her book. thank you forthat. it's a treat if you haven't seen it. a lot of content.>> and no questions. we covered everything. >> tim gunn: any questions?>> up here. >> tim gunn: there's a microphone. yes. we'rehigh-tech here. >> thank you. this was a lot of fun and greatfor the christmas spirit. >> tim gunn: thank you.>> everybody loves all the ornaments and decorations.

but then you got to take them down. so doall the volunteers come back to help take them down or is it white house staff? what'sthe process? >> tim gunn: they just shake the tree.>> a portion of the volunteers come back to take -- they do all of this at their own expense.there's no government expense associated with this. the decorators come at their own expense.a portion of the decorators that come back, those who are very good workers. because wetake the decorations down in less than one day.>> tim gunn: easier to take them down than put them up.>> it is. but each decoration has to come down and be cataloged just like when it wentup.

>> tim gunn: to account for.>> the national archives would like us to have some record of what we have.>> where they are. >> tim gunn: yes?>> hi. thank you so much. this is a great program. do you guys know what happened tothe corcoran ornaments now that it is closing and going into g.w.?>> tim gunn: i know. they all came back with us. the individuals who made them took themback. i took great pride in giving away white house christmas tree candy-colored styrofoamornaments for years, for years. because we paid for everything.>> so they're floating around ebay somewhere right now.>> tim gunn: they may very well be. i honestly

don't know what happened to my two ornaments.i don't know. thank you, mrs. carter. >> i think if they're on ebay, the price justwent up. gary, a question for you. my mom was a volunteerat the white house under george w. bush. she just always enjoyed when you came and spoketo the volunteers and appreciated all the hard work that they did. but rumor had ityou were going to write a book. where is that book you were going to write?>> it's a good rumor. i've just personally decided that for the time being, you know,we're a little further away from when i retired, but i had the opportunity and the pleasureto serve some great families. they were always very nice to me and very kind. a lot of whati know and the questions that come out are

very personal and i'd prefer to keep themto myself. >> tim gunn: well done.>> thank you. >> tim gunn: we thank you. and one last question.>> how does one become a volunteer and how early in the year do you need to apply forthat? >> now.>> one other quick question. i saw on the 1999 ornament i think it was lincoln, theyhad hinges. i was wondering if it opened. >> it does. it articulates. i can't remember.>> was it abe lincoln? >> thank you.>> tim gunn: thank you all very much. thank you, lynda, genevieve, gary, and coleen. wonderful.thank you so much.

[applause]and coleen, thank you again for agreeing to a book signing. have a great holiday, everyone.