A series of professors and historians look at the presidential tape recordings of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon B. Johnson, focusing on what these tapes reveal about the presidents' decisions and roles during the Vietnam War. The panel also discusses the significance of such recordings in general—to memory, to the press, to historians—and what they reveal about the character of individual presidents.

Audio and video options are available.

A series of historians pays tribute to Arthur Schlesinger, special assistant to John F. Kennedy and Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian and biographer. Schlesinger is a guest on the panel.

Professor Priscilla McMillan examines the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist and director of the Manhattan Project. McMillan focuses particularly on his post-World-War-II opposition to development of the hydrogen bomb, the 1954 trial in which his security clearance was revoked, and the context of these events at the beginning of the USSR-U.S. arms race.

Professor and author Howard Zinn traces the evocation of divine right and approval as a force in U.S. politics, looking at how it has been used to support economic and military interests. He focuses particularly on how it has been used to justify war and violent action, both in the past and today, in the Middle East.

Professor Eric Foner traces the development of the concept of "freedom" in the U.S., beginning with the nation's founding and continuing up to 2005 (the present day at the time of the lecture). He focuses on race relations and fights by minorities for civil liberties as focus points for the definition of freedom.

Professors John W. Dower and Charles S. Maier contrast previous U.S. foreign policy events and relations with the current situation in Iraq, focusing on the U.S. occupation of Japan following World War II and the Marshall Plan designed to stop the spread of Communism in Western Europe.

Professors Ngo Ving Long and Noam Chomsky detail the U.S.'s oppression and killing of civilians in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, arguing that the U.S. public today has not learned from the war and does not remember it clearly and objectively.

According to the SpyCast website:

"Today Peter converses with Dino Brugioni, a pioneer of the art of photo interpretation and a living legend of the US Intelligence Community. Dino shares his personal experiences briefing Presidents and describes the role that he and overhead photography played in such seminal Cold War events as the 'missile gap' and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dino Brugioni has looked inside the most secret places on earth…from above."