way. >> host: was the to cool given the tumultuous events of the last two years? >> guest: you can, but the focus has been recently on those candidates for the midterm elections. and i think once that's over and people see just how difficult the problems of unemployment and foreclosure and if the congress wrestling with that, whether it's under new civilization or not. ..

>> guest: he rescued the times from anarchy thanks to the trade unions in great britain and in a sense did a great serviceo journalism, but then proved to be, i think, a really awful newspaper, and i think the way he has operated his communications empire. i suppose you could call him a

thief of the media. it had really terrible effects particularly in flaming parties. i think he's a man of no deep social responsibility, and i think to use somebody like roger ails who was a master of dirty tricks and that kind of approach to election year i think is a very, very sad commentary, but yeah, i still feel very on optimistic about it. democracy is pretty well. there's not much that is actually better, and when you travel abroad and you see other countries having to deal with high unemployment and with a great deal less freedom of thought.

>> host: on the bigraphical level, what was the biggest surprise to you in the course of writing this book? >> guest: i think most of all, the life of ronald reagan. i think, you know, the story of the attempted assassination in 1981, yeah, it's almost impossible to believe a man 70 years old, you know, somebody shoots a bullet, a .22 devastating one, an extraordinary bull eel and -- bullet and pierces a couple millimeters within his heart and wn minutes -- within minutes to george washington university, and we joke with his nurses. i think hollywood could not have written such a script.

>> host: between the assassination attempt and the air traffic controller strike a couple weeks later, i think that's the birth of the larger than life reagan. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: it's hard to believe we're almost out of time. >> guest: oh, no. >> host: this has been fascinating. the book is called "american caesars: wives of the president" highly hemmedded and -- recommended and thank you so much. >> guest: it's been a pleasure. >> former secretary of state, condolence lee disa rice recalls her childhood in the 1960s. she discusses her memoir and advancement project at the hotel

in los angeles. the program runs close to run hour. >> well, first we're going to deconflict for people. we are not sisters. we are cousins. we are related because our fathers are first cousins and absolutely very, very close both as children and as adults, and indeed, connie and i did not meet until i was cohosted at stanford, and she was speaking at stanford law school. i had met her father many, many times as a little girl, but when we visited, connie was already in college, so we didn't meet, but i knew of connie because the time would always come when someone would say, you know, i saw you on a program from los angeles, and you were expected viewing and i would have not associated with your republican party, and i would think, oh,

there goes my cousin begin. [laughter] i would get stopped outside of post offices, and the one time i got confused with you which was interesting and this lady said, you know, you're a dead ringer for that girl who's related to that sister in the white house, and i don't know either of your names, but she's important. [laughter] so it's been a pleasure though to get to know each other better over the last several years and spent more time together in the last ten years or so, and what's really wonderful about getting to share this particular stage with connie is to talk about extraordinary ordinary people because the book first or second chapter is the rices and the raise, and it's a book really about our families and how they were educational evangelists and people who believe very much in social justice, so that's something we share.

>> slotly. this is a wonderful try butte not -- try -- tributo to your family and thank you for doing it. this thing that's so moving about it is going through your early life you're showing that you lived in sort of the last chapter of that jim crow era, and it was important for you to share that with the world, and it hasn't petitioned for today. why does it start there? >> when i was living government, you might imagine, what am i going to say now after eight years, and i was going to write and am still writing the secretary of state's memoirs of the last eight years and here's what we did in foreign policy, but i'm asked the question that i decided i want to answer. how did you get to be who you

are? i said in order to do that you had to know john and angela rice, and my parents were in many ways ordinary people. my mom was high school teacher, first an english teacher, one of her first children was willie mays that she taught at the industrial high school. she says she told him, son, you're going to be a ballplayer, so if you need to leave class a little bit early, you go right ahead and do that. [laughter] she knew talent when she saw it. she taught school. she was an elegant lady who was a musician, loved to bring the arts to her students particularly, her students in this very poor high school that she taught in birmingham. they had productions, and she was an elegant lady, but an ordinary person, a schoolteacher.

my dad was an ordinary person as a minister, high school guidance counselor, and later on a university administrator. he was an athlete and a big sports fan. in fact, my parents had a deal, conny, that may relate to you. our names are almost the same. my parents had a deal. had i been born a boy, i was going to be named john, and my father bought a football for john that was going to be an all-american line backer. when he got a girl, my mother named her condolee,ezza. they made more than $60,000 between them in their entire life, but there was no opportunity, educational opportunity that i didn't have, and the extraordinary part comes from the circumstances that you mentioned. i grew up in birmingham,

alabama. i was born in 1954. i'm 55, so you don't have to start counting. [laughter] 56 next month, and my parents there in birmingham, alabama, thoroughly segregated. i didn't have a white classmate until we moved to denver when i was 1. -- 12. you couldn't go to a hotel or a movie theater, and yet, my parents and the people in our community through this little enclave in birmingham in this community i grew up in, this middle class community had the kids convinced we mite not have a hamburger, but we could be president of the united states if we wanted to be, and so that's the extraordinary part because they believed very strongly that if you couldn't control your circumstances, which you certainly couldn't in segregated birmingham, you could certainly control your future.

>> that's the extraordinary part of this because being ordinary, if you were african-american, it meant you had to have an extraordinary capacity to rise above the jim crow suppression, and the lessons for that today i feel like they still apply, but there's a way to rise above it without getting bitter, and that's what our family taught us was how to transcend it and face indignity with grace. john, and angelina, and my parents are great parents born slaves, we share great grandparents, and they were 12 and 13 when they were freed. we're just -- we're four generations out of slavery, conde, and yet, who is left behind? i know we share a passion for the kids who are still at the bottom of the well, and i'm so

glad you can help us get back and get that heavy lifting down. >> well, i do think there's lessons today. first of all, if you don't consider yourself a victim, and if you're not given to bitterness, and if you really do believe that as my parents and your parents taught as well, you might have to be twice as good, and they said that just as a statement. >> it was a given. >> it was a given, and then you can overcome whatever is in front of you, but we were very fortunate. we had parents who were there for us. we had teachers who were there for us. we grew up in communities where our parents were educated and knew how to deliver on that imagine, and what i worry about today is that the kids who are trapped in that witch's brew that is poverty and race. for them, there is no way out if

they cannot be educated, and when i can look at your zip code and tell whether or not you're getting an education, and i can look at your zip code and tell, then we're doing something very, very wrong. we were fortunate that our grandparents were able to give to our parents the pobilityd of education -- possibility of education. in fact, my grandfather who would have been your grand uncle, is particularly interesting case. his name was john wesley wright senior. they worked others land in utah. that's eutaw, alabama. i'm not kidding. when he was 19 years old, he decided that he wanted to get book writing in a college, so he asked people coming through how a colored man could get educated, and they told him about little stillman college a

presbyterian school. he saved up and went to college. his first year went great. after the first year, they asked how he would pay for his second year. he said i'm out of cotton, and they said you're out of luck. they said, they want to be presbyterian ministers, and they have what's called a scholarship. my grandfather said, you know, that's what i wanted to be too. that's exactly what i had in mind. [laughter] my family has been presbyterian and college educated ever since. [laughter] they were very industry yows people and a little bit ingenious in getting education. >> the political politics and the party of lincoln, you can't say it stayed that way, but we're pretty much republican.

>> we're pretty much republican. >> except for me. >> except for you. [laughter] >> there's no party that would accept me. >> well, in fact, my father was the republican for a totally instrumental reason at the beginning. he -- conny mentioned the horses themselves, and birmingham was the most segregated big city in america, and when my -- it was 1952, my parents were actually not married yet, but courting. they went to go get registered to vote. this is what you would have sued for, conny. [laughter] this person asks questions, and if you passed the question, you can register. my mother, who was very fair skinned, long hair, the man said to her, so, what job do you have? she said i'm a schoolteacher, and he said, then you probably

know who the first president of the united states was. she said oh, yes, george washington. he said, fine, go register. he looked at my father, a big impulsing man, six, two, built like a football player. he said, so, how many beans are in that jar? there were hundreds of beans in the jar. he couldn't answer it. he said, well, you failed the poll test. my father was very unhappy, went back and talked to mr. frank hunter, an old man in the church. he said, don't worry, i'll show you how to get registered. there's a courted there, and she's a republican, and she's trying to build a republican party. she will register anybody who will say they are a republican. [laughter] now, you didn't register by party, but i suspect this womanfuls telling -- woman was telling her to register republican.

he kept his word, registered republican, and stayed republican the rest of his life, a proud republican, but he came to it because it was a way to vote. >> when my grandfather put the goldwater president for sign, my grandmother made him sleep in the other room. [laughter] connie, one of the most moving parts of the book that really came through so loud and clear is you felt the fear. i mean, you were not watching it on television, and so it was the first -- it was the first terrorism. african-americans experienced american terrorism before we knew whatth international tornado watch was about. it's the white sue prem cyst clan, and you had direct contact with that. i think about the kids who now live in fear of a different kind of terrorism, not from the clan, but from the gangs, and i wanted you to kind of harken back to

that and tie it up to today. >> well, terrorists have something in common whether it's the clan or the way that gangs terrorize a community or the terrorism that we seed that we -- see that we experienced on september 11th and continue to fight. they want not just to fight. they want to terrorize to the point that they can humiliate and control, and in fact, they want to send a message, don't cross us, and indeed, that was what was going on in birmingham in 1962 and 1963. now, birmingham had been segregated and there was incidents from time to time, but one thing i wanted to do in the book was to show that as a family in birmingham, you still get up every day, go to school,

go to church, have a piano lesson and ballet lesson, it's not in every moment of every day. people lead normal lives, but in 1962-63 that was shattered, and birmingham became known as bombingham because bombs were going off in birmingham all the time. i was driving back from any grandparents house and a loud explosion driving up to the house, and in 1962 you knew a bomb went off in birmingham. my father turned the car around and started driving. he said, i'm going to the police. she said, # they probably set it off. what do you mean you're going to the police? because there was no such thing as protection for black families from the authorities in birmingham. eugene bull o'connor was the

gist of seg gracious, and he was going to enforce it by whatever means necessary. now, when this reached its culmination was in september of 1963 after a violent summer of water hoses and marchs and so forth. dr. king had realized that they were not getting the response that they wanted, and so then it was the children's march in may of 1963 where these children had been sent right into the teeth of o'connor's henchmen, but on september 1963, september 15, we had just gotten to church, at my father's church, and there was, again, a loud thud, and everybody assumed it was in our community, but it had been two miles away, and pretty soon the phone calls started, and they said they are bombing 16th street baptist church and then

they said four little girls had been killed in the basement getting ready for sundays school, and a few little while later they said the main, suddenly we realized little denise mcnair whom i had known, there's a picture in the book of my father giving her her kindle gar tenser tiff cat, and these girls were killed. i was thinking that people must have a lot of hatred to kill four little girls, and i was frightened. my dad sat on the porch that evening with a shotgun on his lap, and that next day, they organized a neighborhood watch of he and his friends to patrol with their guns, and they would go to the head of the community and they would fire into the air

to scare off night riders. they never shot anybody, but they would have if someone had come into the community. >> you know, when that was happening, i was no london, and my dad talked about it and that bombing made headlines. what country kills little girls? that was a turning point, and the way you tie it up with the determination to keep the community together and to bridge with our allies in the white community because you talk about the whites and you had a lot of allies in that abolition and in the civil rights revolutions, and so one of the things that struck me about the book is how you tie together the reliances. there was alliances, cross racial, cross class, and we marched together to get birmingham into the 21st century, and so today we seem to

be fraying along some fault lines, and i wanted to get your thoughts, what were lessons then that can be applied. we have to pull together. >> we do. i think when it comes to issues of race, we have to be very careful in the united states in how we throw around titles like your a racist or lines like you're a racist. it's a very deep set of words. we have the first defect called slavery, and it is a wound that is so deep that i think the worse thing you can say about somebody, really, is you're a racist. now, the volume has gotten awfully high about race these days, and we would do well to turn down the volume, step back, give each other the benefit of

the dawght and try to work again on the common problems that are affecting us all. i don't care what color you are, they are affecting us all. the interesting thing about segregation in birmingham is that, of course, it affected most dramatically and most directly black people, but it also affected white people in birmingham in a negative way. it took birmingham a long time -- it's still trying to overcome a lot of those scars of having been known as bombingham an known as the most rayist city in the united states. it still -- it finally has overcome some of the impetus things. the fact is the racism had a very negative effect on the white community too, and there were few whites who were trying to break out of it. i tell the story of a doctor, my mother of had very bad

infection. my father had a mentor who was a white director of guidance counseling for the schools in birmingham, and my father went to him and said, my wife has this terrible infection, can you recommend a doctor. he recommended dr. carmichael, a white doctor. first time we showed up, i was 7. we went in and the waiting room for blacks was a horrible paint peeling above the pharmacy straight up and hard benches to sit on. after he saw my mother that saturday, he said, now, rev ranted rice, the next time you bring angelina, you bring her after five o'clock. we came after five o'clock, and his white patients were gone. we were able to sit up in the front waiting room where there were magazines and letter chairs

and the whole thing. pretty soon over time, the doctor integrated his own waiting room because i think for him it was humiliating to have to treat someone like my father that way because of race, so racism and segregation hurt not just the black community, it hurt also the white community, and today, when we know that joblessness and homelessness and gang violence on which you're working on and the violence that comes with that, we know that poor schools that are not preparing kids so that the united states of america is both becoming more inward looking, more fearful, less likely to lead, these are scars that hurt not just black kids caught in poverty or hispanics, but they hurt us all. maybe one thing to learn from

that period is bridging those divides is not really a matter of charity. it's not a matter of reaching out and trying to help somebody, it is essential to who we are as a people and essential to our national security. >> and essential to us getting prosperity back for the kids coming behind us. is there -- you talk about having to be twice as good, and you and i both know that we're constantly compensating the sexes and compensate for color, race, language barriers, i mean, that's the human interpros, and we take it for granted. is part of the problem we haven't done our homework? we have not done the hard work and just want to gloss over it and don't want to unpack the

suitcase to get rid of the baggage. there's a lot of work to be done and stop swinging the labels and doing drive by labeling and debate, but look at our joint history and roles in it and then to get back -- one of the questions i ask is your dad and my dad used to ride around and for the families that couldn't get it together, couldn't get the wood chopped or crops picked, they would deliver wood to families not holding it together, and when we left, when we moved up and out, moved on up, that kind of fell apart. how do we make up for that? >> that's kind of the, you know, ever bad system has -- every bad system has something that's not cubed about it -- so bad about it. the black community had integrity in segregated birmingham. the middle class in birmingham lived not too far from the

working classes and underclasses. my dad had a youth fellowship group, and he was a pres tierian so he could have dances unlike the baptists. his youth fellowship was really, really popular. [laughter] behind the church there was a government project called wattman's village, and the kids in that were part of his fellowship. he would go door-to-door like my grandfather and say your child is smart, and she ought to go to college, and i have a scholarship for her, or i got a scholarship for her at stillman, not even asking the parents do you want to your child to go to college. he insisted. now, my father is very middle class church. this was not always popular, and one of the things, i tell the story, my father had a picnic for hides kids, and unfortunately some of the kids

were out teaching the church children how to shoot crack. the elders said they were not ready. my father said there was no class barriers in making sure that kids were educated, families were taken care of, but when the middle class moved out as we all did, that -- the people who were left in that witch's brew of poverty and race are the most damaged in our community, and how we get that back now i think is one child at a time. now, i had parents. i had teachers, but i don't care if it's a teacher or parent, if it's a community leader, if it's a men steer, every -- minister, every child has to have some adult advocating for them. >> and at the other end is institutions doing what they are supposed to do. >> that's right. are we going to do a few

questions? >> we can't let you off the stage without talking about carmichael. >> that was connie -- i'm just kidding. [laughter] >> the one to be shemented to be confused. >> it's a name out of the late 60s and 70s. he was the fire brand leader of the student nonviolent coordinating committee. he was one of the original black power people and my dad who was a conservative republican presbyterian minister invited him to speak at stillman college in 1966 and 1967, much to the dismay of the power elites that thought it was going to start a riot. my dad really was attracted in a funny way to the radical end of black politics, and i've tried to understand why that is because he was a conservative man. he loved the united states of

america, but i always felt that he admired the pride. he admired the dignity with which these radicals confronted racism rather than taking it with the quietness. he was not, for instance, willing to march in 1962 and 1963. i remember standing myself in the hallway and hearing my parents in the living room saying they want us to be nonviolent, but if they come after me with a club, meaning the police, i'll try to kill them, and then my daughter will be an or fan. i think he was attracted to people, and i did say in the book when he resolved to talk about the radicals around the then senator obama, i thought i hope they don't know anyone at our dinner table because there were quite a few of them. [laughter] >> congratulations, it's a

wonderful, wonderful book. >> thank you. [applause] if you all remember to -- well, should be on. it's on. if you all remember just to wait for the microphone when you're chosen to ask a question, we'd appreciate it. thank you. please raise your hands if you have a question. >> i'm pastor charles patrick, and i was born in birmingham, alabama. before you -- a little before you. [laughter] what you said sharing the experience of what happened in all of that is absolutely true. my dad experienced the same thing, and one of the reasons we came out to california was

because he was almost run out of town. the naacp said he may have been killed. it's in the book i gave you earlier. god bless you. it encouraged me. for a long period of time i harbored the anger my dad went through when he was beaten back in birmingham, alabama. i'm familiar with the area and my mom went to tukskeegee. i'm excited about your book. we're excited about it and i hope to talk with you sometime. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. oh, one question -- [laughter] my question is who was your hero when you grew up? who was your hero? >> that's a good question. you know, i think for all of us there were several. my family loves -- we may have been republican, but we loved the kennedys. we loved president john f.

kennedy, and we adored bobby kennedy, and i remember very well going to hear after the university of alabama integrated, going to hear bobby kennedy in one of their features and just being completely taken with him and being totally devastated when he was assassinated here in los angeles, so the kennedys were huge. another person that i talk about in the book, reverend who was the local leader in birmingham who really brought about race consciousness in birmingham, founded the early groups, had to leave and go to cincinnati because he was so much under threat. i don't think he got his due compared to the great national leaders for all he did, and he was a family friend and also a great hero.

>> there's a lady white over here in the white -- >> i'm edwards, and i like you, grew up in florida which a lot of my friends in georgia say is not the real south. i pretty much grew up in an all-white community all of my life, but i never really experienced a lot of racism until i moved to northern florida, and actually once i moved out here, what you talked about letting go and not harboring the resentment, what would be some of the things that you can encourage the younger kids of today to hold on to and remember to help them to tran send that -- transcend that anger and resentment? myself, i had to learn to let it go and move past it and not use it as a crutch and an excuse.

>> yes, it's a really good question because fortunately, my parents and in some ways growing up in segregated birmingham was a bit of an advantage in this regard. if you were in a totally segregated school, segregated principal black, teachers are black, students are black, then when the teacher said to you, that's just not good enough, there was no racial overtone, and so people could be actually fairly tough in terms of insisting on achievement and insisting on excellence without racial overtones of somehow there being rayist. -- racist. one of the interesting things that happened when i was at stanford, i suddenly realized there is a subtle -- president bush called it the south bigotry of low expectations that creeps in when people see black students, and

all of the sudden, we're all, you know, trave had a touch -- they've had a tough time, or maybe i shouldn't say anything about that, and i'll tell you it's related in the book, so i'll relate it to you. i noticed i went to my first fhi beta kappa ceremony, and in this group, there was one black student. i thought, well, in is really odd, and so i started kind of looking at it and thinking about it, and we formed a little group called partners in academic excellence, and we asked black graduate students to meet with black freshmen and to read their papers in our introduction to humanities course, and these black graduate sphiewnts said to the black freshmen, how did you get an a on this paper? it's an a. south bigotry, low expectations,

and by the time the students were in tough classes, they were not prepared for tough judgments. sometimes racism shows itself in very unexpected ways, and it shows itself in just not holding that person as quite equal to yourself, but wanting the best for them, and wanting to help them, and basically patronizing them. i think one of the deepest problems we have in the schools right now is that we aren't expecting enough of every child, and kids read it. they know when you don't expect much of them, and they underperform, and so one of my answers to kids who are feeling bitterness or anger or whatever is put it aside. it's their problem, not your problem. if you let it become your problem, then you will think of yourself as a victim, and the

next thing you will be is aggrieved and the twin's brother of aggrievement is entitlement, and now you owe me, i don't have to work for it, and now you're on a bad road to nowhere, and there are plenty of people, plenty of people who will play to that sense of aggrievement, and that sense of victimhood and that sense of entitlement, and you still won't have a job, and so i really think kids have got to find a way to be tougher with people who underestimate them. those are the most racist people in the world. >> hi, i'm lane, and your book talked about you were given every educational opportunity by your parents, and you had a busy childhood and woke up at 4:30 to ice skate and then go to school and then ice skate. was there a time you didn't want to get up in the morning that

early -- [laughter] and if so, what was the extraordinary motivation to get out of bed and do all of that? was it your parents, you're? when did it become your internal motivation? >> well, our parents -- [laughter] we're good at -- we'll, you're the one who wanted lesson, what do you mean you don't want to get up? no, i think i was pretty self-motivated with skating, unfortunately i was bad at it. i'm five foot eight, and my legs are five foot ten. i picked up tennis later and asked my father why he didn't put a racket in my hands instead of states on my feet? i was motivated because part of what i learned from that is it was hard for me. i learned more from overcoming something that was hard for me

than was easy. i'm a natural pianist, and it's easy for me. when i was 10 years old, i've been playing since i was 3. i read music before i could read. when i was 10, i wanted to quit. i said, mother, i want to question. she said, you're not old enough or good enough to make that decision. [laughter] you know, years later when i was playing, i was really glad that she didn't let me quit. [laughter] part of it was self-motivation, part of it was pairnltds -- parents pushing a little bit, saying you wanted to do this, and participant of it was is we -- part of it was we didn't want to di appoint -- disappoint our parents. we knew how much they put into it, and i just didn't want to disappoint them either. >> thank you for joining us, boapt of you. i grew up in the washington,

d.c. area, born and raised there, a graduate of notre dame, go io riesh. >> there's a little work to do on the go irish. >> yeah, a lot of work. [laughter] my question is going to get political, but i'm actually very interested in what you think obama is doing really well, one of those -- there's a long list, but what you think he's doing well, but more importantly you think he should be doing a lot better. >> well, you know, look, i said when i left government and i feel pretty strongly about it that when you're in office, it's a whole lot harder than when you are sitting out here, and it's really hard when people are chirping at you from the outside, and think, well, why didn't you do that when you were in here because it's easier out there. with -- just as president bush said, i felt that frankly i owe the

president and secretary clinton and others my silence. if i disagree withing? they are doing, -- if i disagree with what they are doing, i will tell them. i know them well enough, if there's something i want to say, i'll call up and say, particularly bob gates, secretary clinton and others. i think that we are very, very tough on our presidents. i'm going to make two separate statements here. one just about the presidency in general, and then one on politics. i think we're tough on presidents. the day they are inaugurated they are the smartest most amazing human beings we've seen, and a year later, how did we ever elect him? [laughter] i've watched it happen over and over and over again. it's the loneliest job in the world. it doesn't get duffer than being -- tougher than being president of the united states. i do think that the people that we elect to that office are

elected for they is taken office for the right reason trying to do the right things, and sometimes i disagree, and sometimes i agree, but i'll tell you something that i think is going on in politics quite apart from the administration, and that is that what you're seeing in these grass root movements, and look, i am not one that agrees with everything being said in the tea party. i'm more proimmigration and free trade, but i will tell you this. people are saying in the grass roots movements is the conversation in washington and the conversation out here in the country is not the same conversation, and they are saying it across the board to washington, d.c., and i frankly think that that is a healthy development because what concerns me about the united states at this point is that we've lost our confidence and we've lost our optimism as a people. americans are the most

optimistic people on the face of the earth. trust me. i've been across the earth, and we are the most optimistic people on it, but only when we are confident, and when we have deficits roaring, and when we can't get joblessness down, and when we can't get comprehensive immigration reform so we are battle each other and our educational system is not delivering, we are not very confident. that's what people are saying to whoever is president. >> hi, i'm from modelu and i was just wondering if when you were a kid, did you really just know that you were going to be this big and had a lot of -- [laughter] >> thank you for asking that question. >> have a lot of people just like, you always have that state

of mind that you were going to do better, make something out of your life, and you knew you were going to aspire young black women and like to do more? did you have that state of mind? >> what's your name? >> beth marie. >> okay. i had no idea that i was going to end up as national security adviser and secretary of state, no idea. in fact, how old are you? >> 16. >> 16, all right. when i was 16, i was going to be a great concert pianist, all right? i had studied piano from the age of 3 and i knew music. i went to something called the aspen music festival school and there were prodigies there who could play from sight what it had taken me all year to learn. i thought i'm going to teach

13-year-olds to murder both hoven for a living. i had the following conversation with my parents when i got home. remember this. mom and dad, i'm changing my major. what do, dear? i don't know. you don't know what you want to do with your life? well, it's my life. well, it's our money, find a major, all right? [laughter] i tried english literature, hated it. i tried state and local government. my little project there was to interview the city water manager of denver. the sing the most boring man. [laughter] okay, that's not it. i wondered into a course on politic. he taught me about diplomacy and things international and soviet union and all the sudden, i knew

what i wanted to do. i told my parents, i want to be a soviet specialist. they didn't say what's a nice black girl from birmingham talking about being a sowfiest -- soviet specialist? they just said go for it. there's lessons in there for young folks like you. first of all, nobody is so confident that they at your age or even older that they are just sure that they're going to be great and turn out to be terrific at what they do. when people are that confident, there are something wrong with them, all right? [laughter] secondly, you need to find what you're passionate about, not just what you like, but what you are passion is. what's interesting to you? you have a long time to do that. you have a couple years of high school, and then you got college. you have some time to find out. what's that?

>> you -- i graduate next year. >> you're ahead of the game then. i was a junior in college before i knew. go to college, take some classes, try hard things for you, not easy for you. if you are good at math, learn to write. if you can write, take math, and you will find what it is that really interests you. >> when you was a kid did you have a mind set? >> no, i'm not sure you do know what you want to do. at your age, i knew, but it's not what i'm doing. my point is take your time, don't plan every step. get good at what you do, and then when you've done that, and when you're doing something great, you'll realize that it came because you gave yourself a little time to find out what it was you were passionat about doing. it may not be something that people say you ought to do

that. there's no way i should have been a soviet specialist from alabama. okay? you're welcome. >> anymore questions? over here. >> hi, i'm hannah and my question is are you going to plan to run for office again? [laughter] >> no. i actually never was even in my high school student counsel. were you on student counsel? >> yeah. >> you won the presidency twice. i knew it. [laughter] i didn't run for anything and probably want. i love public service. i'm very involved in k-12 education, the boys and girls

clubs, probe will get more involved with my cousin in the work she's doing because i care a lot about those issues and about the state of california and where we are going, but that's all for public service. there's no better job in government. that's enough. >> ladies and gentlemen, please help me thank the absolutely wonderful, codoleezza rice? [applause] [applause] >> she served at the united states secretary of state from 2005 until 2009 and as the national security adviser from 2001 to 2005. she's currently a senior fellow at the hoover constitution. for more information visit hoover.org. >> herald is the author of the

arts of politics and science. how did you come up with the title of that book? >> well, i knew a book that was simply given a sipe tisk tight -- scientific title and be attractive, and i know that science has artistic features, and it's linked to politics. my own life has been engaged not only in science, but in the arts and in the politics of doing science, so what is interesting to most people about what i do is the way in which science is conducted and the way in which the political process influences science, and those are topics i'm engaged in and thought the public would enjoy reading about. >> you were an english major. describe your transference from english to science. >> it's a complicated thing, but i was originally intending to be a doctor. went to college, fell in love with literature. started graduate school, got

disenchanted with that. went to medical school and at 28 i was compelled by the vietnam war to provide government service which i did at the national institute of health where i learned that research is more exciting than medicine, and then devoted my life to science after that. >> what will fans of science learn about politics in reading your book and fans of politics learn about science? >> well, that's a good question. i think people who simply admire the scientific process will begin to realize how important, interesting, and difficult the interface between science and the public that cares about it and pays for it and cang that oversees it can be. those who are interested in politics will see that political action influences the scientific process. science was dependent on wealth people, it still depends on that to a certain extent, but extends on the way the government

supports and pays for science, and that's a political process we have to encounter directly all the time whether it's stem cell research or thinking about how to improve nation's health or simply providing funds for scientists of the nih or national science foundation or other to do their work. >> your book is in four parts, becoming a scientist, doing singes, a political science, and continuing controversies. tell us, why did you lay your book out that way? >> well, i thought the things that people would care about would be first of all, you know, why are you a scientist? in fact, what i'm trying to point out in that section is you don't have to think you're a scientist from the third grade. you can have, you know, america is forgiving. it allows a prolonged adolescence, and i think people need to understand you can become a scientist in your late 20s as i did. i wanted to devote -- the trickiest part is how much to say about the science i've done. it's complicated, and i didn't

want to insult the audience by watering it down, but i wanted to take a thread, follow it, looking at one aspect of my career that was frankly important because it led to the nobel prize and genes that are important in cancer, a disease people care about. i wanted to trace my activities of science and link that to a very important social problem, mainly cancer, and then because there was a chronology to this, that is i did most of the scientific work, but not all of it before i became a government leader, i wanted to talk about what it was like to be the director of the nih, run a large agency in the government to do science with the public's money, and explain what the conflicts are between society and science and how they get resolved. in the last section, the reason i moved those issues out is because i wanted to spend some time talking about how we publish our work, how the stem

cell controversy arose, how we are approaching the development of science and better health in poor countries, and those you'll were sectored out as essays that address in greater depth and could have done in a narrative about myself issues that all scientists must think about. >> your moment had breast -- your mom had breast cancer, how did that influence you? >> there was an inflawns working on genetics of bacteria. it's where i learned that model organisms like bacteria teaches us about disease, but as a doctor and a son with a mother battling this disease, i wanted to feel my research was more connected to a problem. now, i don't think that it was the only reason to do work about cancer, but i saw an opportunity in my thinking about cancer as a

problem, namely, we didn't understand how a normal cell became a cancer cell, and there was some new tools having to do with how we measure dna and rna or viruses in cancer in animals that led me to believe this huge medical problem that affected my family like every other family would be amendable to solutions by taking advantages of these new opportunities to do interesting science. >> this book is based on a series of lectures you gave back in 2004 as the new york public library. tell us about those lectures and how did they mori much into the -- mar of into the book? >> that's a fun question. i was asked to give lectures, and i didn't read the fine print. it said it sounded good and then i saw ww norton spoon toring the lectures had signed a contract with me, and i had to turn the lectures into a book. okay, we just publish the lectures. as anybody finds out turning lek

lectures into a book, three lectures don't make a book. i labored away, i was not a fairly busy guy then, but i found the time after four years to take the lectures as starting points and write more and go into depth about interesting issues. the process was good. you know, it was hard on me at times, but i'm very glad now that i was given this, the contract which i signed without fully appreciating its implications. >> the book is called "the art and politics of science" the author has been talking with us. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> pulitzer prize winner appeared at the texas book festival in austin to talk about his book, "disintegrate" he talks about the african-american population in the u.s. has four communities