There have been few who had a better bird's eye view of the events that have shaped modern

American history than William Van Denhovel.

As a young State Department official working for General William Wildbill Donovan, he was

in Vietnam in 1954 when Tian Bien Fu fell to the communists, resulting in the end of French

colonial rule and the start of the Americanization of the war.

He was on the Austrian Hungarian border in 1956, helping to coordinate the resettlement

of refugees fleeing the brutal Soviet crackdown in Budapest.

He was an aide to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the Justice Department, assigned

to ensure the desegregation of schools in Virginia, and later served as a key adviser to Kennedy

during his run for the presidency, a campaign cut short by his assassination.

A friend and trusted confidant of everybody from Eleanor Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter and Edward

Kennedy, Van Denhovel was a champion of American liberalism.

From the liberal ideals of a commitment to equality of opportunity at home and multilateral

alliances abroad, reign supreme.

They are ideals very much out of favor now in Donald Trump's Washington, a subject that

has dismayed Van Denhovel to no end as he makes clear in his new book, Hope in History,

a memoir of tumultuous times.

It's a book that recounts a lifetime of buried treasures, making him the perfect guest

for this episode of buried treasure.

Because people have got to know whether or not they're presidents of croc, well I'm

not a croc.

I told the American people I did not trade arms for hospitals.

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