his diaphragm gave out and he could not breathe. that ended his story. . . and left the survey in a little tag baird on one of the pipe

stuck in the ground so that you can orient yourself to the house and to where the death took place. that is all that is left. that is a piece of those's-- which wound up in the hands of the schoolteacher that had cared for booth while he was dying on the porch and it dissented from her to a neighbor friend, girl and pass down. it is now, it is now treated kind of like a piece of the true cross. people want to come up and touch it. i don't know why, but every time you take a large group of people down there on a tour, you pass around that clutch and everybody wants to hold it. i mean, it is strange. they put up banners of john wilkes-booth all around washington d.c.. can you imagine them putting up banners of lee harvey oswald. he had become a folk hero.

i will just say a word about the book that i am here for. there are i think 564 pages, 640 different entries. the entries ranged all the way from individuals, of which there are many, because this assassination reaches very far and wide. this man is william e. doster and. do you know who he is? anyone? shame on you. he is the attorney but he is born and bred in bedlam and he rose to become brigadier general he is provost marshal port to yours and washington d.c.. next slide. that is his grave in the ski hill cemetery. so i put him in there. quite an interesting story about him and the lost confession that

was found in his papers. we don't have time for that. places. that is tudor hall, the home of john wilkes-booth. still exists, owned by the haynes in bel air, maryland. events, the hanging. next. i also put in several essays throughout the book on the escape route, the roundup and capture, on the hanging, on the trial, the military tribunals, on the gathering of the evidence by the government and so forth. so, it has got several essays in it, which told tells those specific stories. and something that i put in at the last minute that thought was really probably very, very useful is a timeline or chronology beginning on lincoln's election come november 8, 1816 and running through to july 25, 1865, the

day that samuel mud back and samuel arnold and spangler stepped off the boat into port jefferson to begin serving their prison sentences. is there anything else? no. that is it. thank you very much for your attention. [applause] thank you. sorry it took me so long to get started. >> that is okay. i made up for a doctor steers, don't worry about that. >> you sure did. [laughter] >> we did promise this wonderful audience today that we would be taking some questions and i believe the first question, the museum curator last night said to me, you you note show i havea question i need to ask dr. steers away for a museum curator can stand up to the

microphone. this way you can see how it is going to be done. can you stand up to the microphone, the museum curator. >> thank you first of all, thank you so much dr. steers. that was really enjoyable and informative and we are absolutely delighted you are here today. >> thank you. >> my question is, you touched on very sderot a bit, and so i thought maybe you could elaborate a little bit about what actually her involvement in the whole thing, and whether or not you really think that she was guilty or not, and if you do think she was guilty, what is your opinion about her being hangs because i believe she was also the first woman to be hanged. am i correct on that? >> close. >> close, okay. thanks. >> that is a common question, a very common question. everybody is interested in that. yeah, she was guilty, number

one. i don't think she should have been hanged under the circumstances, given her pardon. these are things i think that complicated with the general public. and i have been around and around with the mudd family on this. oh yes they knew all about the capture and kidnap that they had nothing to do with the assassination and do nothing about it. so they got tried for the wrong crime. that simply doesn't wash. it was a conspiracy, okay? same people, same plot, basically the same results. so the conspiracy to capture-- if you set out to capture the president of the united states, don't you think someone might get killed in the process somewhere along the line? i mean, this is crazy. secondly, if they had no intention of killing, why were they carrying guns?

so it falls under the conspiracy laws. law. if you go into 7-eleven to shoplift and unbeknownst to you your buddy pulls out a gun and shoots and kills the clerk, you are going to charged with murder just like terry got charged with murder when timothy mcveigh will left the oklahoma building. it is called vicarious liability and here is what the law says. if you had gone to a law-enforcement officer and told them about the plot, such that it prevented it from happening there would have been no crime. so for your part of the crime. mary knew there was a kidnapping plot. she participated in it. she did carry the message down to them that night, i am sure thinking it was a kidnap plot, not thinking it was in an

assassination but it did not matter. so she is culpable and she is guilty. in fact neither to five of the nine judges. because five of them, it takes six out of the nine to hang, it must be unanimous. she got the sixth, the hanging, but five of them then wrote a clemency plea to president johnson, saying commute the sentence to life in prison. don't hang her and that is what the controversy now. johnson said he never showed it to me. the prosecutor said oh yes i showed it to him but he ignored it. that did not help mary. either way, she was hanged. so she is culpable, she knew. she could have prevented it. she didn't. she probably should have gotten life. dr. mudd should have hanged. he is the guy that got off.

five votes. he was found guilty by all, but he was voted to hang him 5-4. he missed by one vote and if they knew then what we know now they surely would have voted to hang him. >> i have a question of curiosity. is samuel arnold by any chance related to the arnold baker's of baltimore? >> samuel arnold's father owned the samuel arnold baking company in baltimore. but to tell you the truth, i don't think they are related. >> okay. thank you. >> is there anyone who would like to ask. >> i can repeat it if they would speed things are. >> we need to get a line back there. maybe that is the best way. let's started line back here and then you can sort of just come up and ask your question

quickly. we are trying to accommodate as many people as possible. >> by the way, while they are lining lighting up that may save the escape route is run by the sderot party, three in the spring, three in the fall and they go to all of the places that i briefly mentioned to you. they run about 752 or so for just about 10,000 people. included in that comment i have been on many of these when i used to guided tours, virtually all of the people related to the people that were involved, the booz's, sderot's, spangler's arnold's, they are all around everywhere. yes, sir. >> tomball is here. i am from lehigh valley. question, how much did the confederacy know about this conspiracy?

>> the 64,000-dollar question that causes all of the trouble. how much did jefferson and that leadership no? there is one group of historians who say it went right to the top and in jefferson davis new. i don't know that that is true but i can tell you this. all along that line that were being aided and helped from top to bottom by confederate agents, in my opinion, the confederate secret service was well involved in the plot, almost from the very beginning and certainly aided and escape all the way through. the confederacy had his hands deep into it. there is no doubt about it. whether or not jefferson davis and benjamin knew it is arguable that let me ask you this. do you think these confederate agents up and down the line were acting as rogue agents on their own, taking actions like

kidnapping the president of the united states without informing the president of the confederacy we were going to do this? >> my feelings articulated. >> i seriously doubt it. go especially jefferson davis who was a very controlling man and had his finger on everything. >> thank you. >> we are going to move it along. >> at the conspirators trial who provided the most surprising or unexpected testimony? >> that is not going to move things quickly. [laughter] >> i guess the most surprising was godfrey himes, who figured the people in montréal canada as being involved with boot and helping him set up. the kidnapping conspiracy. he gave excellent detailed testimony that at the time was

basically dismissed or not taken all that seriously because he was jewish. and anti-semitism was very strong, but it turned out everything you said was 100% true. and you won't find it in many of the history books on this ss omission. >> john from little ferry new jersey. those that assisted booth directly and escape to the garrett house, were any of them go to trial or did they receive--? >> a good question. after-the-fact, virtually all of them were arrested and taken into custody, and then eventually released. because no evidence and they didn't know when they didn't find out. a couple of these guys wrote books later on in their lives, like kidney 1890s like nixon and watergate but at the time

the government did no. had they known of course these guys would have been put on trial in some of them hangs but yes, most all of them were arrested, taken into custody but then were released. >> thank you. >> we have time for one more questions. dr. steers will be signing books out in the atrium so we are going to take one more question. we are really under the gun for time. julie teal t. have a question question question and? >> as a civil war reenactors come i thank you for all your books because they are my bibles and i use them almost daily for some type of research. my question was just answered, so i'm going to think of something really quick. what happened or what recognition was given to the federal agent who captured him? the reward money. there was $100,000 report put out and the government eventually awarded 500,000.

they did a fairly good job. you can imagine the shenanigans that went on to get ahold of that money and at first political pressures came in and politicians got chunks of it, who did nothing. but what it was all sorted out at the end it was rather fairly distributed. i can tell you that 26 troopers that finally wound up at the garrett place got $1653 each. it went all the way up to $15,000 if i remember quickly-- correctly to everton conger, the ranking detective who was with them. multiply that now by 18 and that is about what it is in current dollars, okay so someone like conger got a little over $230,000. thank you all very much.

i appreciate your time. [applause] >> for more about ed steers and his work, go to steers.com. robin stone, who was gerald boyd? >> gerald boyd was many people. he was a complicated man, having grown up in st. louis and poverty, race by his grandmother after his mother died and his father left for better parts of

new york city. he came up in poverty, and worked his way up. he decided he wanted to be a newspaperman early on in his teenage years, and in the 11th grade. and he pursued after a scholarship at the university of missouri, working at the post dispatch in st. louis, his hometown. very early on he thought, i want to be a journalist and i want to be good enough to work at the "new york times." it was that great in that tenacity that enabled him to overcome all the barriers that he faced, so he was a mix of those people as well as a young man who was mentored by the jewish shopowners and his neighborhood, so he had some influence from the coopers as well as a rabble-rouser on campus at the university of missouri. he walked around with a big

afro-talking about power to the people, while all of that was gerald lloyd, including the manager who eventually ended up at the "new york times," rising in the ranks, having covered reagan and the white house and bush in the white house, as a reporter. >> for the "new york times." >> for the "new york times" and is a reporter for the st. louis post-dispatch as well. so he was all of these many facets that made up gerald lloyd. >> and your husband. >> and my husband. >> how long we married? >> we were married 10 years. there is a love story that is about journalism. is about the "new york times." there is some juicy stuff about the times but ultimately, i'd call this book a success story because it is about this man do as a young man was on a mission and he ultimately achieve that mission. but he was also in search of not

just professional excellence, but a family, the family he had lost as a child, and he wanted that so much. there is this personal growth story as well as this professional growth story. i was fortunate to be a part of both, because at one point he was my boss as well. he recruited me and hired me at the "new york times," so i worked for him for a while. >> wended gerald boyd die, what was his final position at the "new york times" and why did he leave? >> gerald died in 2006, november, thanksgiving day actually, a very rainy thanksgiving day. >> unexpected? >> now, he had cancer, lung cancer. he was a smoker. he had been diagnosed at february so it can quickly. he died three years after leaving the "new york times" in the wake of the jason blair

plagiarism scandal. when i go to universities and i talk about gerald voigt to journalism students i ask, how many people have heard of jason blair and i see a lot of pants and i asked, before you heard me coming here, how many people heard of gerald boyd. very few hands and that is one of the reasons i am telling his story, because it is a fascinating tale, an american tail but also a tale about journalism in many respects. so, he was managing editor at the times. under howell raines. he and howell were past six days before 9/11 to read the paper-- so we are all hit with this tragedy, international terrorism, so they are thrown into covering the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the wars in

afghanistan, the wars in iraq and they are pushing to establish their mandate on the paper and put their people in place and the staff was hired and pushed and pulled in and all kinds of directions. and i called that the kindling of the situation and the environment there and then they are along comes jason blair, this young reporter who plagiarized, stole from other people's stories and made some of it up out of whole cloth. he was discovered and i call that the match that lit the fire that ignited all of the unrest and uneasiness in helping-- unhappiness ultimately how and gerald were asked to leave the times. >> the fact that jason was african-american, was that a--? >> absolutely. it was important how the story played out. i don't think it was important

in the fact that he was a plagiarist. jason blair was troubled and he acknowledged that he had emotional difficulties, and that all played out at the "new york times." but the fact that he was black led some people to assume that gerald, an african-american man, who promoted diversity in the newsroom, was in some way aiding and abetting this journalistic criminal, when that was not the case, and in fact, jason did not like gerald, as he wrote in his own book, and because he could not get the support that he needed from gerald. so gerald did not hire jason. he did not supervise him directly and they certainly did not mentor ham, but the assumption was that there was a connection between the two. and i think that affected gerald's end of his tenure quite significantly.

>> your husband died in 2006? four years later, you are publishing a book with his name on it, and an introduction by you. >> my times in black and white is gerald's book. after he left the times, he wrote a draft. he wrote to droughts actually. the first one was 800 some odd pages and i remember telling him, nobody cares about the kids from the old neighborhood, take some of that stuff out or khomeini wrote a shorter version, 250 pages. i felt it was too truncated. it started with and mentoring the newsroom. i said wait, what about the rest of the story? i married the two. after he died i gathered myself together. i knew that this was a story that needed to be told, so i married the two versions and put on my reporters out and interviewed some folks, sidney cooper the jewish store owner from back in the neighborhood

interview him first. aunt laura and and rose, who are no longer with this, to fill in the gap i've interviewed his first wife to get some color for their-- help fill in some of the blanks and also to describe anna, who was the woman who gerald left, his first wife, sheila for. sheila put on her journalist having graciously answered my questions. so i did a little work, but it was for the most part gerald's book. these are his words and it is his story. >> it sounds a little tricky there. some of the interviews you had to do. >> they were a challenge but on the name of good journalism. >> tell us about yourself, robin stone. >> well, i'm a journalist first 20 some odd years in the business and gerald is to say i couldn't keep a job. i worked at several newspapers, including the "new york times," the "boston globe", the detroit

free press, magazines including essence magazine and health magazine, developed a web site so i have done a number of things. i am an author myself. no secrets, no lies, how black families can heal from sexual abuse which came out in 2004 and now i am an editor of my late husband's book. and i am looking forward to doing more good journalism in the future. >> what should people know or remember about gerald boyd? >> i think they should come away from his story with a true sense of the depths depth of his character, and of his humanity, that he came from next to nothing, growing up so poor that they couldn't afford lunch. they had breakfast and dinner and bought incredible odds to do what i call social justice through journalism, eliminating

the situations that people lived in, eliminating what is happening on a national level and also that he cared about ethics, about diversifying and he preached something called diversity of thought. not just people of different colors around the table, but people who came from different backgrounds, people who grew up poor like he did, people who had jewish mentors but who connected with people across different ethnic and racial boundaries. that was all but he was about and i hope people get a true sense of the man and his character and his humanity. >> some viewers are going to hear the word social justice through journalism and have an adverse reaction. >> well, and he would have probably never described that way, but that is what i saw in the stories that he was

intimately involved in, and that he was most passionate about. the series how race is lived in america for which the times won a pulitzer, one of nine pulitzers with which gerald was connected in his 20 year tenure at the time. that was a series that describes what gerald-- inter-racial relationships that lead to misunderstandings and frustrations and anger, and he you know, his colleague led the reporters and editors that explained and illuminated the dynamics and racial interaction. so, in that sense i call that an act of social justice, to get in there and to explain. children of the shadows, the series that illuminated children growing up in poverty across the country, and that wasn't a black or white story about how her

poor kids living, how are they making it, who was serving in who is failing them? again, this was something he was intimately familiar with, having grown up the way he did but he also he wanted to shed light on that. in my mind, that is an act of social justice, using journalism to make people aware. >> did the sulzberger's or howell raines participate at all and you are editing of this book? >> no. >> gerald boyd is the original author of my times in black and white, race and power the "new york times." his widow, robin stone is the editor and e author of the afterworld. >> former first lady laura bush discusses her memoir with cokie roberts. from george washington university. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> good evening everyone. i am richard, the undersecretary

for history, art and culture at the smithsonian institution. it is my pleasure to welcome all of you, and it really is all of you, a nice crowd here tonight, for this program this evening with the former first lady of the united united states, laura, on occasion of the publication of her memoirs, laura bush, "spoken from the heart." which the "new york times" called a deeply felt, keenly observed account, adding mrs. bush conjures her hometown with enormous detail, lyricism and feeling. tonight, mrs. bush will be interviewed by cokie roberts and we are all divided to welcome her back to the smithsonian associates event. copies of mrs. bush's book, which she has already signed, are available in the lobby. because of her schedule, there will not be any personalization of the books after the program.

and before we begin, i would like to remind all of you to have your cell phones or electronic devices silenced and i had better do that with mine too. [laughter] additionally, no photos are allowed during the program from cell phone cameras or any other camera. we appreciate your corporation on both of these items. as i mentioned we are pleased to have cokie roberts here in conversation with mrs. bush. cokie is the senior news analyst for an npr news, where she was a congressional correspondent for more than 10 years. additionally, she is a political commentator for abc news, a winner of countless awards for more than 40 years in broadcasting. she has been inducted into the broadcasting and cable hall of fame and the american women in radio and television cited her as one of the 50 greatest women in broadcast history. cokie is the author of several books, including we are our

mothers daughters, an account of women's roles and relationships throughout american history and certainly an appropriate topic for tonight's program. i can tell you how proud i am to have worked with cokie's mom who is here with us today. she was of course a member of congress, distinguished member of congress and a member of the smithsonian board of regents in and the stalwart promoter and supporter of america's cultural heritage both in new orleans and louisiana and indeed across the nation. welcome lindy boggs. [applause] it is a distinct honor and privilege to introduce ms. laura bush. center eight years as first lady of the united states, mrs. bush has continued her active involvement in key issues including education, health care and human rights. she recently hosted a global conference on the needs of

afghan women at the newly opened george w. bush institute in dallas where she directs her global and women's initiative project. mrs. bush's early career as a teacher and librarian and i am occasionally-- particularly partial to that. baran career as a teacher and librarian helped shape her lifelong interest in literacy and education. during her tenure in the white white house he focused on her early childhood development and is an enthusiastic for moment of teacher recruitment program such as teach for america, the new teacher program. as a first lady she helped launch the popular first national book festival 2001, which continues every year and attracts hundreds of thousands of people to the mall every september. in 2006, she took her passion opal hoping-- helping leaders for a special summit to address

the worldwide literacy crisis, where nearly -3/4 of a billion adults cannot read. she is currently unesco's honorary ambassador for the u.n. decade and a 2005 she made a historic trip to afghanistan visiting the newly opened women's teacher training institute in kabul that she helped to establish. as first lady she made three trips to afghanistan, five to africa where she championed the aids treatment and malaria eradication and also visited the thai burma border. she's been an advocate for women's and human rights around the globe. among her many other accomplishments, mrs. bush has been an active participant in campaigns to raise awareness for breast cancer and heart disease, both in the united states and around the world. i have known mrs. bush is a great friend to the smithsonian. she showed a variety of collections in the white house and hosted events at the american art museum using it as a venue to greet foreign

leaders. she dedicated her portrait with president bush at the national portrait gallery in tip grandson trips to the national museum of american history and the hewitt national design museum in new york or cushy hosted the national design awards the white house and quite memorable to me was that she graciously loaned the white house copy of the gettysburg address, which usually resides in the lincoln bedroom in the white house. she loaned it to the smithsonian for the opening of the american history museum so millions of americans could have access to the wonderful document. now she serves on the board of the national museum of african-american history and culture scheduled to open on the mall in 2015. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ms. cokie roberts and ms. miss laura bush. [applause] >> thank you dairy, very much.

[applause] thank you all, thanks so much. thanks everybody. thank you all. thanks a lot. [applause] thank you dr. curran, thank you very much. i did really love to visit all the smithsonian museums and institutions. they were our neighborhood museums, and they are so wonderful. there is such a huge asset to the united states. so i am thrilled to be here at the invitation of the smithsonian institution. i am very happy to be in washington and to see so many friends. thank you all very very much for coming out tonight. i know that there are a lot of people who have worked in the administration. i think there are volunteers here that have volunteered to

open all those letters and help us to enter those letters. thank you offer all for everything you did for us in the years i've lived here in thank you so much for coming out to welcome me tonight. i am thrilled to be back in thrilled to see all of you. you may not know that i actually have lived in washington twice before george and i moved into the white house. george and i lived in washington in 1987 and 88, when george was working on his dad's campaign. my first day in washington was during the summer of 1969 when one of my good friends from southern methodist university and i headed east to see what life outside texas would be like. we ended up in washington. she got a job at the garfinkle department store and i decided to try my luck at getting a job on capitol hill.

i set up with an interview with congressman george may honk, who was the congressman from my home district of midland, and he had represented actually the district of midland, texas is in for as long as the district had been a district. yet been there almost 35 years. the congressman invited me for an interview. he looked over my resume and then he asked if i could type or take shorthand. [laughter] i said no. [laughter] i had taken a quick course in typing and summer school and high school but i hadn't really paid a lot of attention. congressman my hahn then asked me if he thought my father, if i thought my father would consider sending me to secretarial school. and i thought about what my father had just spent to send me to smu, and i said no again. [laughter] congressman gently suggested

that without being able to type or take shorthand, i wasn't qualified for a position in his office. had i been a typist however, in the summer of 1969, i might very well have become a congressional staffer in washington. instead, i returned to texas in the public school teaching and was very happy. had i stayed in washington, i might never have met george w. bush. so in retrospect, i am grateful that i was turned down by capitol hill. [applause] and i would like to take just a few minutes to share with you something from my talk about how george and i met in midland, texas and how we both without realizing it, began our journey to washington d.c..

for at least a year now my friends jan donnelly's, husband, joey o'neil had been telling me he wanted to introduce me to one of his friends. jan had gone to a high high school and lived with me in houston at the château deshawn. after spending a few years in san francisco, jan and joey had come home to live in midland. choi was working in his dad's oil business and a childhood friend, george bush, was working as an oilman, scouring county courthouse records for land that might be leased for drilling wells. joey talked up george every time i stopped by to visit chan. i was in no rush. i had have a vague memory of george from the seventh grade, almost 20 years before. i knew that his dad had run for senate and lost in the 1970s when i first moved to houston

and i assume that george would be very interested in politics. while i was not. it was late july, one of those high heat days when comes desk, the son as will will it have the road, left behind it a spent and exhausted world. i put on a blue sun dress, drove the car around the corner and walked up to the door of jan angelia's brown brick townhouse. even the ref was a cedar shake ground. the cicadas were droning and overlaying their vibrating wings was the steady horror of air conditioners to keep the baking hot house is cool. joey was at the grill. it was not some elaborate party. it was just the four of us, jan, joey, george and me. sitting out back eating hamburgers. we laughed and talked until it was nearly midnight burke of the next day the phone rang. it was george saying, let's go play miniature golf.

so we did with janet joey as our chaperones. [laughter] the minute-- miniature golf course was one of the prettiest places in midland. it was built among a veritable forest of old oak trees which had grown tall and graceful in the west texas grounds. we played golf under this guards and laughed again. then i went back to austin and george started visiting on the weekends. sometimes he would fly over on a friday night or he would drive, but he came every weekend, except for the very end of august when he left for maine to see his family. laura bush loves to tell the story that george spent exactly one day day in kennebunkport summer. when he called my apartment she says, some guy answered and the race for the plane and flew right back down. [laughter] i returned to the library at dawson elementary and worked all through september.

by the end of the month, george had asked me to marry him. we had been dating only six or seven weeks, but our childhoods overlapped so completely and our worlds were so intertwined, it was as if we had known each other our whole lives. i loved how he made me laugh and his steadfastness. i knew in my heart that he was the one. i looked at him and said yes. at sunday night, when george arrived in midland, he headed to humble avenue to speak to my parents. a week later, early on a sunday morning, george and i drove to houston to meet his parents. he introduced me with the news that we were getting married. after lunch at the bush's home, george's dad pulled out his pocket calendar and looked over each weekend that fall. in a few minutes, we picked a wedding date.

november 5, 1977, 1 day after my birthday and one day before the anniversary of that awful accident. and only about three weeks away. there was no time even to order wedding invitations. my mother wrote in a draft all of our invitations by hand. far more never studied that the bride or groom were jan and joey o'neil. joey and jan had dated for years before they got married. neither of them dreamed that their invitation to dinner would lead us to the altar in a mere three months. [laughter] and perhaps it wouldn't have if joey had introduced us when we were growing up in midland or when george and i've lived on the opposite sides of the sprawling château deshawn in houston or in almost any other moment prior to that night. but at that particular moment, on that warm summer night, both

of us were hoping to find someone. we were not looking for someone to date, but for someone with whom to share a life, for the rest of our lives. we both wanted children. we were ready to build an enduring future. those were the backs of our lives, when we went to dinner that night. it was the right timing for both of us. of course, not everyone in midland agreed. as i was packing to leave boston, reagan and nelly were selling their house. a week before the wedding the mother of a friend of mine from midland came to see reagan and milli's house. she was thinking of dying if for her daughter. she didn't recognize reagan but reagan recognized her and said, we are going to be in midland next weekend. we are going to lauren george's wedding and without a second hesitation, this woman said to reagan, yes, can you imagine the most eligible bachelor in midland bearing the old native

midland? [laughter] reagan was speechless. but i thought it was funny. after all, i am four months last two days younger than george. the movers loaded up my few things. after the last box was stowed, my cat, dewey, and i began that drive that i had never quite imagined making, back to live in midland. right outside of santangelo i came upon a few scattered trees lining the edge of the road. now on the verge of november, the frost had already settled on the land, and their leaves had fallen and blown away. trunks and branches did dark and empty against this guy. suddenly, from one tree, a great massive winged birds lifted up, feathers pulsing, air swirling as they rose. i slowed and watched in silence

as they beat their migratory way south. then i glance back at the unremarkable trees that had extended its branches for rest and refuge. this site was like a beautiful wedding gift on the long ride toward home. we were married on a saturday morning at the first methodist church in midland, the church i had gone to all of my childhood, where i was baptized as a baby, where i had learned to sing in the choir and where my mother still went every sunday. methodist weddings are brief, and ours was especially so. there were no bridesmaids to add a few extra minutes as they walked down the aisle. it was perfect for the old maid and the eligible bachelor. [laughter] the rehearsal dinner had been held the night before in the windowless basement ballroom of the new hilton hotel.

laura and george bush had hosted it and the menu with was chicken and rice. when dinner was served, my mother blanched, our wedding reception was to be a post ceremony luncheon at the midland racquet club the next day and mother and the caterer had settled on chicken and rice. [laughter] mother had never thought to compare one menus. the next morning mother called the caterer at the crack of dawn to see if something could be changed. pasta instead of rice, anything. but the meal was already in motion, so our guess a chicken and rice all over again. the morning after my 31st birthday, i stepped into the chapel on my father's arm. george was waiting for me at the altar. the night before, when george stood up to give his toast, he had wept. george and his father are deeply sentimental men.

in years to come, to others, the cool remove of television would frequently up scare the depths of their caring, how much and how deeply their own hearts opened. george herbert walker bush didn't even try to give a toast. barbour spoke for the family. [laughter] that morning, the stained-glass stained glass windows sparkled with light, casting pretty patterns over the simple wooden chapel pews. it was i later learned exactly 31 steps down the aisle into the rest rest of my life. [applause] >> thank you all. thank you all very much.

thank you to cokie. >> as you know, i should reveal to everybody else, i am an enormous laura bush fan. [applause] >> thank you. i have written about u.n. has admired your work, but this book is a delightful book four one of the nice things about that passage you read as well as it being charming and enlightening, is it gives a couple of things that i think are that i wanted to talk to you about any way. you are a voracious reader and as i was reading particularly as you get into your descriptions of texas in your childhood where you are there in the open plains of midland, was there somebody who style you had in mind? >> it was not really a specific

writer who style i had in mind but i did want this to be a literary memoir. i do love to read. i love to read every kind of book that especially literature, so i did want this to be that way. so there was not a specific style but i wanted to be able to paint the pictures that i saw, for instance when those birds lifted off that tree outside of st. angelo. >> and you do it so good. your sentence structure even, all that's. >> i do write really playing it. that is what appeals to me, the kind that is just straight and spare and maybe that is also that effective growing up someplace i was so plain and spare. >> you, in addition to talking about your meeting your husband,

talk about reagan and millay. break-in occurs alter your book. you were good friends. it struck me, and it struck me the whole time you were here, these girlfriends from your childhood have remained you are really close friends. how important has that been to your life into your success? >> all of our friends have been very supportive both of george and me and they were a very big support in politics. reagan was in the second grade with george and i matter when we were in the fourth grade. her mother, and in this-- this is in the book, married seven times, only to three different men. [laughter] but because of that, reagan moved from school to school. every time martha would divorce she would move into another house and reagan would move into another school district. she went to school with george at the first couple of years at

sam houston and then transferred over to james lilley, which is where i was. i am very fortunate in georgia's too to have this long history of friendship with all those friends we had in midland. jan and joey had introduced us to many others, the women in hyde park, every year women i've i have known since then. we still see those same friends and george loves to tell the story that the midland, the first time that it came up and they took-- he taken to the oval office and the first time they would say gosh bush, i can't believe we are here. and then they would look at him. [laughter] >> that is good. >> the one thing about her a long history of friendship like that is, they have known as their whole lives. they know everything about us. they were our friends long before politics and they are still our friends and they are great emotional support.

>> reagan's mother was one that. >> my mother's mother married three times in her philosophy was all of life is one big date. [laughter] and when you are married, you have to date the man you are married to. before and after him you are free to do what you please. >> find someone else come exactly. >> you talk about knowing your friends and a horrible accident and you have written about that in the book four. >> i did write about that and i had to write about that. obviously that was the largest tragedy by far in my life, and in the life of obviously the family. and also all of our friends because mike was a friend of all of us. he is actually david ragan.

he was one of my best friends. he and i talked on the phone every night for years, and it was just a terrible tragedy, not seeing the stop sign. just by some very, very odd chance of coin since i guess, is -- happen to be coming on the other road. i didn't know obviously that i had hit his car. when i got out of the car, this girl, my friend that was with me and the car was-- she was able to get out and walk to the side. than when i got out and i could walk to the my. i had broken ankle but i didn't know it for a few days. she said another card came up in a man got out of that car and went over to the person lying on the ground, who was mike and we did note at the time.

my friend judy said, i think that is the person's father. i said no, that is jack kinsey. that is mr. douglas. and then, when we were taken to the hospital of course we were in a room with the cloth draped separating us. judy and i weren't really injured. no one was there with us, and then i could hear mr. douglas crying on the other side of the curtain. then when i got home, i was told it was michael but i had arty sort of figured that out. that was a huge tragedy and a life lesson that is a very hard lesson to learn that i learned early and that is things happen to you or you cause things to happen that you would never, if you could take it back you would, but there is never anything you can ever do about

it. it is just a fact and you just have to accept it with whatever grace you can accept it with. >> but you hadn't talked about it before now. >> now, had really talked about it. i had, when it came out in the newspapers i was asked about it several times. i just reread an article that oprah did in her own magazine, right after we moved to the white house. she asked me about it. but i was never asked about it that often so of course i never really talked about it four people knew because i would get letters from family members of someone who had been, a young person who had been involved in a car accident where there was a death. i would get letters from teachers or parents or aunts and uncles, and they would ask me to write to the young person, words of encouragement. so i did of course and i was always suggesting that they get

some kind of counseling, that they talk to a pastor or get a counselor or find some sort of a help. i didn't do that and no one ever suggested it. it was the times. we didn't know-- no one really talked about it. it. reagan and i talked about it but it was just something you swallowed and didn't talk about at. >> but the whole town new. >> course they did. >> did that in some way do you think help when you met george bush, that he knew and you didn't have to talk about it? >> that might have although we did talk about it and he knew because i wanted him to know. i didn't know that he was ever going to run for office but i wanted him to know that for sure in case i would ever in some way affect his political run if he wanted to run. >> and it was an important thing about you. >> that is right, very important thing about may. >> suppose your daughters had married someone they had just met. >> i would think that was really reckless.

[laughter] but i will say, my parents were thrilled and i think they were very glad we had found somebody. they were hoping for grandchildren. i was 31 the night before we got married, so i think they were really happy about it. we had the same background and we in the same time. we actually just blocks from each other but he went to sam houston. we lived in the same apartment complex in houston without ever really running into each other. it really was like we had known each other whole lives. and we knew all the same people. but there weren't any surprises really. from either one of those. >> ever? >> there wasn't something in our background that the other didn't know about. [laughter] >> among the things that might be a surprise, the minute you got home from getting married he

was running for congress. >> that is right. that was really fun. it was very fun. he was running for congress in bush's seat, the congressman i had interviewed with. [applause] >> he had taught us all where to sit on the subway at the capitol and not to get your hair blonde. [laughter] but anyway, he was retiring in 1978, so george thought, what the heck, why not try to run for it? it was a seed that it only been held by congressman bush for as long as the district had been a district. so that is what he did and we traveled up and down the panhandle of texas. it was a big district, from midland on the south to herbert on the north and end that included laveck, the big town and odessa for the two oil towns in the district and the rest was