tell us about that. >> "life with maxie". a lot it'll long hair chihuahua who came into our home 7-1/2 years ago when we had a big home with a big garden and then had to move to a convent. it is all about "life with maxie". and that move and the impact he has had on our lives. such a special dog. >> what are the changes maxi had become accustomed to? >> for one thing he wouldn't walk on a leash. i had to push him in a stroller before we left the house. i was the one getting all the

exercise. but since we moved to the condo he has finally learned to walk. he has become friendly. he used to it that people and now he is the friendliest of in the world. i could have brought him here tonight and he would have gone up to everybody and allowed them to pet him. >> what inspired you to write about maxi? >> i was speaking out in salt lake city, utah. the publisher heard me speak about maxi and two weeks later he sent me a letter asking me to write a book. what can i say? so i wrote the book and the photographer and we took thousands of photographs and there we are. >> next, biographer ron chernow appeared at the 2010 book fair

international to discuss his one volume biography of george washington. he took questions from the audience following his remarks. this is 45 minutes. >> washington was dignified, stoic, heroic and fiercely devoted but also a slave owner. and unyielding tax master, somewhat vein and a failure at business. unlike his peers, jefferson, madison little hamilton and adams who were college graduates, washington had only the equivalent of a seventh grade education. ron chernow was born in brooklyn and is a graduate of yale and cambridge. he is considered to be one of the most distinguished commentators on politics, business, finance in america today. the st. louis post-dispatch has hail him as one of the most

preeminent biographers of his generation and the new york times calls him, ron chernow is an eloquent architect of monumental histories as we have seen in decades. in 2004 his biography of alexander hamilton won the inaugural george washington book prize for american history. ron chernow brings political perspective to the politics of today. listen to his words. president washington, like president obama, entered the office hoping for reasonable and sensible discourse, hoping to enjoy a a period of non partisan politics. the two party system emerges rapidly from his own cabinet. hamilton and jefferson heading up different wings. 4 two years there seems to be a political honeymoon for washington do to his staff for but once the attacks start in the opposition they are

atrocious and relentless. washington is actually accused of being a british double agent all along during the revolutionary war. sound familiar? ladies and gentlemen, let's hear more about george washington from his biographer. please join me in welcoming mr. ron chernow. [applause] >> thank you for that wonderful introduction. it is always a thrill to be here at the miami book fair. in february 17, '89 two months before george washington was sworn in as first president we receive the fascinating letter from his friend morris reporting for the first time on the sudden madness of king george iii. morris said in the cane's

delirious state, quote, he conceived himself to be no less a personage than george washington watching at the head of the continental army. then morris added facetiously you have apparently done something that sticks most terribly in the king's a stomach. indeed washington had. who is this, uttered george who was a diligent in his own time and ever since that he actually managed to invade the feverish dream world of the deranged royal george? i had this question when i wrote my hamilton biography and one day i was reading a series of letters that hamilton wrote after he had a quarrel late in the war with washington that led to hamilton quitting washington's staff. in these letters, hamilton described through washington's a washington was moody, irritable and temperamental. even something of a powder keg

boss as he informed his father in law with more than a touch of youthful bravado. the great man and i have come to and open rupture. he shall for once recant his bill humor and i remember sitting there stunned. ill humor that hamilton mean to imply that the saintly father of our country was this sulky, volatile boss? needless to say is this was far from the whole truth about george washington and i hope in this book fat idea though lavish and sufficient praise to washington's courage and fortitude, patriotism, integrity and a thousand other wonderful traits. this is not a debunking book. my book is an effort to try to recreate the charisma and magnetism that so excited washington's contemporaries that have gone lost somehow in translation to posterity.

having said that hamilton had perceptive word portraits of people and his comments began to open a window into george washington, the strong and powerful emotions swirling around inside him. needless to say he mentions that he kept in check with formidable self control. i came to learn that george washington was not this kind of where the figure, bland but boring had taken up residence in the american imagination. revolutionaries are not made of such tame stuff. i began to wonder even though there had been so many books about washington weather george washington's seemingly the most familiar figure in american history, the man whose portrait we carry in our wallets had brought him the least familiar figure. and i thought perhaps there were other significant dimensions of his personality that would

enable me as a biographer to bring him to 3-dimensional life that would make him an immediate and comprehensible to people. hy am here to report after six years of intensive work on this book that i found a george washington who was passionate, complex, sensitive, a man of many moods, strong and fiery opinions, first, hard-driving perfectionists who took the force of his personality under that laconic and stoic facade that we know so well. what happened in the course of american history is in our laudable desire to valerie the father of the country we sanded down the rough edges of his personality and turned him into this impossibly stiff and lifeless figure very much like the standard portrait where he is standing with his arms rigidly thrust out. it stands to reason that that

wouldn't figure could never have defeated the british empire, the mightiest military machine of the 18th-century, could never have presided over the constitutional convention, could never have forged the office of the presidency. the man who was able to do all those things must have been a force of nature although he kept that force carefully under wraps. in order to fashion a fresh portrait of washington biographer has to begin by taking up a sharp machetes and hacking his way through a dense jungle of misconceptions about george washington. even very well educated americans's mind are cluttered with all of these tales. let me retire some of the most egregious errors. however trivial they may seem to this highly cultured audience. you have already heard the cherry tree story was pure

invention. it was invented shortly after washington's death by an itinerant book titled nascent rock weems, there was a tremendous hunger for personal stories that would humanize him. he rushed into that vacuum with all these fictitious tables. the cherry tree story has been unfortunate for many reasons. the most obvious it has been used to terrorize american schoolchildren for 200 years now and has also created as we shall see a very misleading image of george washington as this cold and priggish character when he was anything but. another common myth is the wooden teeth. obviously digestive enzymes would rot would in some of. george washington started losing his teeth in his 20s. by the time he became president

he had only one to 4 left in his mouth. a very brave and lonely lower left bicuspid. he had a full set of upper and lower dentures' made. you see a little round hole birdie bicuspid was. they were painful to examine. i can only imagine how painful they were to where. they would have been scraping incessantly against his gums. they were made from elephant or walrus ivory and inserted with human teeth. we now know that in 1784 he bought nine teeth from slave speaker impossibly is shown, where were inserted into these ivory frames. if this sounds ghoulish in the 18th-century it was routine for people to advertise that they were buying tease. white teeth for white people. so washington was doing

something weirdly egalitarian if he had nine teeth from his own slaves. what happened over time as the ivory aged and cracked it developed a grainy look that to the eyes of later generations looked like wood. the most significant thing i discovered about the dentures is they were connected in the back by curved metal springs. the only way that washington could have held them in his mouth was keeping his lips firmly compressed. what this meant was every time he opened his mouth to speak it relaxed the pressure on the springs and there was the all possibility that the teeth would come flying out of his mouth. weather is coincidental or not, he gave a large number of speeches that were only a few paragraphs in length. another comment i find universal is george washington wore a wig so how did he get that very strange and distinctive hair do?

he fluffed out the hair in twin wing on either side. i don't know how he got them to stand out like that. he then sprinkled power on his hair, very common at the time. if you look at some portraits of the time if he was wearing a black belt sushi will see a fine gray dust on his shoulders. the powder had sprinkled down onto his shoulders. most significantly he took the remaining hair which he drew straight over his neck and tied in a black satin bow. that style that we would call a ponytail in the eighteenth century was called the cue. that was a washington's hairstyle, looks to us very quaint and genteel, in the eighteenth century it was considered a manly and military look. anyone see in washington walk down the street would have said there goes a general. everyone repeats ad nauseam that

george washington was 6 ft. 3-1/2. as i looked at that it or rested on a single piece of evidence which was after washington died and he was measured for his casket he measured 6 foot 3-1/2. that would seem to settle the controversy. i want you to do an experiment when you go home tonight. lie down on your back and just relax. you will see that your feet will fall forward. your toes will point out. if rigor mortis set in, it would add 3-1/2 inches to your height. i collected in the course of doing the book about 40 quotations from contemporary letters and diaries of people who commented on washington's height. 35 of them guest and guessed correctly that he was 6 feet tall. then came the real clincher. before the revolutionary war,

washington like most virginia planters ordered his clothing from london. every six months he sat down and gave a very precise description of his physique and how he described himself as a man who was exactly 6 feet tall. we all know the one person you can't lie to about your height unless you want to end up looking like a laughing stock is your taylor. we can consider the case closed. george washington was 6 feet tall which was relatively tall for that time. we tend to associate washington with the revolutionary war but he spent 5-1/2 years fighting in the french and indian war. washington was really so precocious he was kind of a prodigy. by the age of 23 he was a colonel and was put in charge of all but military forces in virginia at a time when virginia was the most populous and powerful state in the union.

his perseverance, his bravery were already the stuff of legend but i warn we going you start reading about young washington is not yet wise paragon of later years. he is crass, dogged even pushy in his pursuit of money, status and power. washington first rebels against the british not for idealistic reasons but for personal reasons. the british deny him the royal commission in the army that he covets. the british sell him a shoddy overpriced goods from london. the british ban settlement west of the allegheny mountains at a time when washington is amassing real-estate there. the british are bad for business. the british are bad for your career. in those early sections, you were in the company of historic greatness, even though there were admirable and extraordinary traits that foreshadow truly

wondrous things to come. the bane of washington's early years was not will george but someone infinitely more formidable. his mother. mary washington was a very difficult woman and a very querulous and self-centered. she took no pride or pleasure in her son's career. we have no comments about her praising the commander-in-chief if she had been still alive when she became president. no evidence she attended the wedding of george and martha washington. no evidence that she ever visited them at mt. vernon volvo she lived in fredericksburg which is not very far away. historic rumor has even tagged her as a possible tory during the war. george's father died when he was 11. george was the eldest son. mary felt that george should be

taking care of her rather than pursuing his career. even in his 20s on the western frontier he suddenly received a letter from his mother saying she urgently needs a new dutch servant and some butter as if he is supposed to drop his regimental duties and go fetch his poor mother some butter. late in the revolutionary war much more bizarre, washington received a letter from the speaker of the virginia assembly to says dear general, something has been going on in the virginia state capitol at richmond and no one has had the courage to tell you about it. your mother has been here for a couple months. she has applied for a special petition for emergency relief claiming poverty and hinting at abandonment by you know who, the commander in chief. washington was a very dutiful son and brought his mother's beautiful house given her a lot of money and that was his

reward. i speculated the books at the first great generals at george washington never had to do battle with was his mother. with this difficult mother to deal with and a father who died when george was 11 is no wonder he doesn't start out as a saint. but what happens is fascinating. in the 1760s with the stamp act and town duties and the boston tea party and intolerable acts, washington begins to realize that all of his personal grievances simply reflect a larger political problem in that the deck has been stacked against the colonists. and suddenly suddenly and gloriously all of his feelings about the british are elevated into these universal principles of freedom and liberty and justice. rather miraculous to behold. and he begins to find his political voice. that political voice is very

strong and very militant. if ever there was a man who was a noble by circumstance, if ever there was a man who was fired by a just and righteous clause that man was george washington who transcends his origins in a way that has few if any parallels in american history. all of us if we know any events in the revolutionary war we know washington crossing the delaware and valley forge. those events are a little bit misleading. washington deserves full credit for crossing the delaware and surprising trenton. but i argue in the book that washington was at best a middling general. he lost more battles than he won. also argue you can't judge this man by the usual scorecard of battles lost and won because this is a rare case in history of what he is doing between battles is arguably more important than what he does on the battlefield.

he is single-handedly holding this ragged army together for 8-1/2 years in the face of constant shortages of men, money, clothing, blanket's be brittle issues and additional muskets and the gun powder. on and on little george washington has the strength and character and clarity of purpose to maintain the cause. you all know about the bleak winter at valley forge. there were many other winters that were just as bleak as valley forge. nobody but washington would have had the courage and stamina of to oldest army together and holding the army together meant holding the cause together meant holding the american nation together. if you don't think there's at least a grain of truth to the great man or great woman theory of history please read this book and write me a letter and tell me who could have stepped in to washington's shoes in this battle.

there were other generals from a strategic standpoint who were his equal but they were jockeying for power, sidetracked by petty disputes. george washington had an inspired simplicity. if you gave him a gold to pursue he would harness all of the energy and fortitude in his nature to achieve it. a focus and discipline and drive that were truly unique. whatever his shortcomings as a politician washington was a genius. whatever shortcomings as a general, as a politician was the genius. i consider this stunning record. he was unanimously elected commander in chief by the continental congress. he was unanimously elected president of the constitutional convention. and he is twice unanimously elected president of the united states by the electoral college. obviously that will never happen again. he does all of these things

without the benefit of a single focus group or poster or political action committee. he is just responding to his own instincts. because he never seemed to be grasping for people -- power people were more anxious to give it to him. the more the country clamored to have him come out of retirement the more he reluctant was to give what people wanted. washington's presence in philadelphia in 1787 was vital. the constitutional convention was held behind closed doors. washington's decision as president of the convention reassures the skittish public outside the doors that no sinister, all is being hatched inside. and of course it is washington's presence, the assumption that washington will be the first president that emboldened the delegates to create a powerful office of the presidency at a time after the revolutionary war weather was a quite understandable fear of access to

the executive power. if you look at the constitution, article i of the constitution by design is about congress. people felt that was the people's branch of government. that should be preeminent. article ii about the presidency is by design very short and fag and general. washington spent eight years dealing with an eternal is squabbling congress, realized no legislature could provide coherent consistent leadership. prius of the president will be fine the political agenda. there's also no mention in the

constitution of a cabinet. washington creates the first cabinet. there were only three members. alexander hamilton people still secretary of the treasury. henry knox, secretary of war and thomas jefferson legal secretary of state. everyone can agree the best cabinet we will ever have by far. he assembles the american all-star team. like all great executives washington was not afraid to hire people who were smarter than he was. although he was very smart he felt fully confident to be able to control these had strong prima donnas. we are all engage in back nostalgically. it is right to do so in terms of the integrity of these people. it was a nasty political period. i did a piece in the wall street journal last summer on the

founders, john adams, benjamin franklin, his entire life is in good decency and manners. franklin said of adams he is always an honest man and wiseman. and absolutely -- for this was a kid stuff compared to adams, he was called the bastard brat of a scotch kettle. hamilton, quote, had a superabundance of secretions to draw off. doesn't get any stronger than that. hamilton gave as good as he got. john adams is as wicked as he is mad. the only man who rises above

partisan and the slinging and was george washington. the two party attacks him. you would think some of the charges today, are preposterous. there are many things that surprise me. one was ambivalent washington felt about his own fame. he was not a good extemporaneous speaker. wherever he went, he gave a few chosen words. you can see when he was president he made a tour of all the states. they would send a delegation of

dignitaries on the outskirts of town. he would arrive an hour or two earlier. he would write in his diaries that dignitaries were supposed to come. i woke up at 5:00 and lasted before they arrived. also the aphrodisiac of power in full force in the eighteenth century. washington had beautiful women swimming around him. when he was doing this he rode every night in his diary. there were ladies of the town. there were delicate ladies in the town and a tiny entourage. there was a nightly head count

of the ladies and, the father of our country. even in the privacy of his home he becomes a form of public property. he is warned after the war that he should get a special expense account to entertain people. he doesn't listen. hundreds and thousands of people descend on that. washington is an impeccably polite man. he houses them. the saddest line in his voluminous correspondence, june 30, '79, dined with only mrs. washington which i believe is the first instance of its since my return from the war. he had been back from the war for year-and-a-half. first time he dined alone with martha and had been away for eight years and only went back to mount vernon wants for three days. i said earlier george washington was not a cold priggish

character of the cherry tree story. nathaniel hawthorne said washington was truly born with his clothes on and with his hair powdered and made a stately ball on his first appearance in the world but there was nothing puritanical about washington and i am not simply referring to his famous infatuation with sally fairfax on the eve of his impatient to mars the. .. fairfax. washington had a friend who remarried at the age of 47. washington considered 47 a comically advanced age to marriage, and he wrote the following letter to a mutual friend. quote: i'm glad to hear that my old acquaintance, colonel ward, is yet under the influence of vigorous passions. the he then went on to suppose that ward had reviewed his strength, his arms and ammunition before he got involved in action. [laughter] wait, it goes on. let me advise him to make the

first onset upon his f >> that the impression may be deep if it cannot be lasting or frequently renewed. [laughter] it's not a line that i'm suggesting for inclusion in the school textbooks,ing but it does give us a different take on george o washington.shin the marriage to martha, i didn't get the feeling it was thelust lustiest of all time, but it wa. a warm, product productive and happy one. she gave him financial security, emotional support. was washington who was rather repressed and needed an emotional confidant, she was immensely skillful, and washington was a cordial host but a rather detached sort.so she gave washington the warm, stable home life that i think he needed to accomplish these monument lal tasks. and i try in the book to give at complete portrait of this of marriage because the two of them made indeviable sacrifices for

their country.lway it's always mentioned in passing that martha visited george in winter quarters during the war. in fact, it turns out she spent a full half of the war, those so-called winter stays would lengthen into the spring and typically lasts five or six months. now, also, to flesh out this private man behind the public facade, i devote a lot of timeev ino the book to george washingtn as slave holder. in earlier generations biographers seemed to think it an inconsequential fact that he owned 300 human beings. washington was deeply conflicted over the whole issue. he opposed shiv ri in theory -- slavery in theory, but he was never able to make an issue of it in public. slavery was the most twicive issue -- devisive issue, and washington knew that this was ak subject that he broached at his peril.

i wanted to write a book in which washington's slaves are not simply faceless names mentioned in passing, but to the extent that the documentary record allows it, really emerge as full-blooded human beings. so, for instance, i talk aboutll his remarkable valet and man servant, billy lee, who was a great hunter and rider and rackd contour and who accompanied washington every single daygton during the rev louis their war and was actually very proud of it, liked to reminisce about the battles. i talk about owner judge who was martha's favorite slave. she was a young seamstress who finally escaped to freedom in new hampshire in later years and most of all the flamboyant hercules who was the master chel at the presidential household it philadelphia who also slippedehl off to freedom in the waning days of washington's second term. slaves constructed every inch on

mount vernon, they formed the basis of washington's fortune,i and i thought they deserved toes have aer central place in his saga. what i love about george washington, this is not the w story of a perfect man. there are plenty of defects as p slave holder and as a businessman, but this was a man who was capable of constantgr growth and constant self-criticism. he's born in the 1730s into ahe world in virginia where slavery is both common place and unquestioned. and his last and, i think, mosta visionary act inry his will, he frees the slaves. s i just want to, you know, close before the q&a with one fascinating story. there were, as i said, about 300 slaves at mount vernon.12 125 were under the direct legal control of george washington. the other approximately 175mate slaves were so-called dower slaves brought to the marriage t by martha and legally pledged to

her children and grandchildren. so it happens in his will, washington says that the slaves should be freed, those 125 slaves he controlled should be freed after martha dies.s. and washington had thought this through in immense detail. he provided a fund to train and educate young slaves who would suddenly be free, he created a fund in order to take care of cr any freed slaves who were too old or infirm to work. wer he thought this through in w immense detail, he justst overlooked one, big, glaring g thing which was that the moment that he died, his will was published, everyone knew the eve terms of the will, and everynd slave at mount vernon knew whether he or she was one of washington's slaves or one of the dower slaves. dow and what it meant was that every time 125 slaves looked at martha washington, they said the seconn that lady is dead, i'm a free person. martha was so unnerved by the situation and really felt thatmt

her life was in be -- danger that she consulled jorming's nephew who was an associate justice of the supreme court,'s and he said you're right to be afraid, and he said just god ahead andca free those slaves nw which is exactly what she did which was a very smart thing to do. so a year after george washington died but a year before martha died, those slaves were freed.d, okay. i'm just touching the surface oy a very rich and eventful history, but no speech on washington should last as long as the revolutionary war, andech i'm sure that you are all brimming with questions. [laughter] so i thank you for coming, and i'm happy to answer questions. thank you.k [applause] thank you n. -- thank you. i think we do have questions. there's a microphone so, please,

line up. >> mr. chernow, did you run across in the archives information regarding washington's view of extending the franchise, and in his later years did you run across any of his feelings on how the results of the revolution turned out?d did he have any misgivings? >> did he try to extend the franchise? no, that was not notable. youfr know, what he did do we kw that at the constitutional con convention that the one point that washington proposed because he was kind of a, you know, neutral arbiter above the fray, the one point that he proposedtt and that passed was that there should with one congressman for every 30,000 people instead of 40,000. he felt that then the house would0. be more numerous and, hence, more responsive to the, to the people. but washington, you know, shareu a certain federalist elitism

that the people should, you know, elect the most intelligent and prosperous members of thembr community who would then look lo out for their, for theirfo interest. there are many different places where washington says that there must have been a special providence not only overseeing the revolutionary war, but theco constitutional convention is and even his presidency that thingse turned out so well. >> excuse me. would you care to comment onge george washington's religious feelings? and while doing that, can you either confirm or dispel the myth of the prayer that was supposedly done during the valley forge winter? the young private writes that he came upon washington and his horse, and washington'sshin kneeling --

>> yes.pr you've all seen the picture of washington praying on his knees and that, unfortunately, was another one of the inventions of the man who invented the cherry tree story.ory. it's an implausible story not because of of washington'sngto relick curiosity, but washington was very private in his devotions, would never ratherrah ostentatiously in public, in full view, possibly, of hispubl soldiers have been praying inf that fashion. in terms of washington's religious view, this, of course, has been a hot controversy about this. washington before the war was an anglican which meant that after the war he was an episcopalian. washington, there were a number of things about washington'sashi christian beliefs and practices that were atypical. he always talked about providence or the supreme author of our being. he only referred to jesus by name two or three times in his entire career.

he would, at church he would prayul standing instead of kneeling, genre constituting the mason story. he never took communion which, for instance, mar that did regularly -- martha did regularly.rtha very significantly, he did notrs call for a minister on his at the time bed which, again, martha did. i had the feeling that washington was deeply religious. there is not a battle in the revolutionary war that washington does not, you know, o claim that divine providence had been looking out for the t country, and so his papers are saturated with references to a prove department that is -- providence that is closelylowi following american events and seemed to be watching over thee fortunes of the country. but it's very hard from a kind of denominational or theologicaa point of view to pin down withon precision exactly what his

religious views were.view >> thank you. >> in alexander hamilton you went to an extent with the march key delafayette's relationship with washington. how did washington take the t french outlook and help in thenh war to the extent there was any, and how did, how did he accepte foreign support or -- >> how did he accept foreign support? you know, with difficulty.ty all these french officers who came over during the revolutionary war, many of them came over for very-int self-interested reasons. you know, they wanted to win battlefield glory, and they felt they would then go back to france and get a promotion.omot and a lot of them couldn't even speak english.sh. and so washington really felt that it was, you know, the bane of his life as commander in chief that he's had to placate

all of these french officers who came over. in fact, the story with lafayette is very interesting because lafayette comes over ate the age of 19. he quips a ship with -- e equips a ship with provisions and munitions.isio he goes to philadelphia armed with a letter from benjamin franklin, and franklin writes to the continental congress, you know, please treat the youngase, marquee rather well because he's very close to louis vi and very well connected at the court of versailles, and he couldat be politically useful.ful. the congress, without consulting washington, makes lafayette a major general, this 19-year-old kid who's just arrived, makes him a major general which was the highest rank below commander in chief. but they did it as an honorary title. lafayette then goes and meets george washington. w washington writes a priceless letter to the congress saying i don't think that the young

marquis understands that theat title is merely hon risk. he's kind of looking, you know,r for a regiment to command. amazingly enough, lafayette becomes such a resourceful and really fearless general, that he becomes one of the major generals in the continental army. and one thing that i found, you know, the historic story about lafayette being a kind of surrogate son of washington turns out to be true. washington, being a very formal man, did not like to be touched. and we have eyewitness accounts that when lafayette would see washington, he would, quote, flow his arms around him -- aro throw his arms around him andhis kiss his face ear to ear.ly a [laughter] only a young frenchman could have gotten away with that with washington. [laughter] >> i was wondering about why>> i martha married george washington

as a rich widow?ma i'm sure she had many suiters sh and, also, that she would bed reticent of men wanting her just for her money.en >> mr. oh, i don't think that it was surprising that she wanted to marry washington at all. you know, you have to remember,e i said he'd been in the french and indian war for five years, he had been the commander of all the military forces in virginia when he was 23. he meets her, i think he was 29 at the time. he was a military hero in virginia, and be he was famous for his bravery. he was starting out, he seemed to be, you know, prosperous and successful young planter. and then he became a member of the virginia house of burgesses for 20 years. he was very closely connecteded with the fairfax family. his brother had married ann fairfax whose father was the agent for something called the northern neck proprietary that controlled five million ache

ores in virginia. the -- acres in virginia.ich the fairfax family is thegton richest in virginia, and george washington is their young protege, and washington was w very, youas know, tall and strapping. you know, we tend to think ofk him from the gilbert stuart pictures as stiff and rigid and craggy. jefferson said he was the greatest horseman of his day, he was legendary as a dancer, he was a great hunter. he was a very, you know, very social and very, you know, genial personality. and so i find it completely understandable that she would haveta been attracted to him. and he was -- and she had two children, and he seemed very eager to have children. >> no cherry tree, huh? >> no cherry tree, sorry.

[laughter] >> i want to thank you so much for coming. this is wonderful. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. i really appreciate it.e it thank you to the fair. >> this event was part of the 2010 miami book fair international. for more information, visit miami book fair.com. >> booktv is now joined by two authors. the book, "seagull one: the amazing true story of brothers to the rescue," lily prellezo in collaboration with jose basulto. lily, what is "brothers to the rescue"? >> guest: it's an organization that was formed by jose and a friend and many pilots of 19 nationalities that rescued the cuban rafters escaping communist cuba in the 1990s.id >> host: why did it have to be

formed, mr. basulto? >> guest: well, when government doesn't provide or doesn't suffice then -- and you have a community-oriented necessity, you have to take action on your own. and this is something that it's called self-help. so i organize a group of pilots to go through the straits of florida and fly missions in mis tandem so that we would locate the rafters coming out from cuba seeking freedom in the united states and fleeing the island. >> host: what was the w governmt policy that set brothers to the rescue in motion?t -- >> guest: well, the government -- there was not really government policy thatset sets them in motion. >> host: what happened that sets this all in motion?>> >> guest: well, it was all a result of cuba's failed government policies, probably, and people were leaving by any means they could possibly comeod up with. and there was a, all of a sudden a surge of rafters leaving cuba, and one day one young raffler,yn

15 years old -- rafter, 15 years old, the coast guard filmed the rescue, and he died in the arms of the coast guard agent. and jose's friend saw it on thee news, and he called him and said, we have to do something about this. and that's how brothers to the rescue got started. >> guest: and as i say, when government doesn't provide ort suffice with what they provide -- it was the coast guard, by the way, that wast extremely helpful to us. without us we wouldn't have been able to do our job.at but to find the rafters, thatit was our job. thaty' was our community's interest, and we implemented t brothers tohe the rescue as a tl to provide for that need. >> host: how did you train the pilots, where did you find thems and what is seagull one? >> guest: okay. seagull one, i'm going to start -- [laughter] it's my call sign as a pilot. i was seagull one when i make the radio calls to the other ot pilots in the formations that we flew to locate the rafters. the other pilots were pilots from 9 nationalities that joined

us -- 19 nationalities that joined us in their interest to help others as a matter of human solidarity, what was involved. they came for brothers. some of them maybe came to gain hours, you know? pilots, believe me, after you flew one or maybe two missions there, either you were hooked with the idea of saving lives, or you simply left. and we're fortunate to have three brothers from around argea which were, to me, the origin original brothers to the rescue. alberto, guillermo and jorge laras. they were the first pilots to help me organize the group and locate the other pilots like themselves who were young men and were part of the community and were pilots already. so what we did was recruit pilots and recruit some observers because in the rear

seats of the plane we used to carry members of the press, and there was no mission that weh didn't carry members of theant press with us because we wanted to document what was happening there to, you know, make everything that was happening in cuba and the reasons that they w were leaving the island so no better image to say that than the image of a rafter, of a person floating in the middle of nowhere in an inner tube. so that's what we were doing. >> host: lily, what about the clinton administration?atio did they not assist brothers to the rescue? >> guest: well, brothers to thee rescue never asked the u.s. goth for any help -- government for e any help. of course, the coast guard was instrumental because they were the ones that would lift the people out of the rafts and save their lives. but the clinton administration, what happened after the exodus of 1994 was that the policy changed, and the wet foot/dry foott came about. and then it was not, no longer n

viable to be rescuing, to be flying missions to rescue people that t were just going to be returned to guantanamo or returned to cue georgia. >> host: -- cuba. >> host: explain, briefly, the wet foot/dry foot policy. >> guest: it means if a cuban leaving cuba wasry land, he would allowed to be pr processed, but if he was intercemented at sea, at first he was returned to guantanamo. >> guest: i want to say that the clinton administration wasrati instrumental in terminating brothers to the rescue. in 1996 three of our airplanes, and i was flying one, flew in a search and rescue mission andba cuba came after us and shot dowo two of the planes, and i survived in the third plane. well, that was known to p the clinton administration. they were perfectly aware that the attack from cuba was going to take place. all they did was document the

attack and what they could have done which was given us a word w of, a notice that this was impending to us. wa all they did was document it. and not only that, they interrupted a regular procedure of the defenses of the south florida in which aircraft from homestead air base would take off to intercept migs coming out from cuba, and what waserat standard operating procedure was interrupted, and it had to have been from the white house. theye were told to stand down battle stations at the precise moment that brothers to the rescue needed those airplanes there to prevent the shootdown. so i am, i'm pointing my finger both at castro for the shootdown, he's our natural enemy of all our life, and tod the clinton administration for having aided and abetted thehe shootdown of the brothers to the rescue planes.ane. >> host: now, were you in

international air space, cuban air space at the time? >> guest: we were in, international air space. and no matter where we would have been, there was no reason for a mig airplane to go after a cessna.. civilian aircraft with civilian pilots, especially when they have been notified that we had a search and rescue mission.nd we had contacted them by radio. they know what we are doing there. we had been doing it for years, and they chose to kill us atto that time. and the u.s. government having previous knowledge of what wasvi coming to us did nothing to prevent it. >> host: now, there was a flight over cuba, is that correct? >> guest: there have has been -e took flights over cuba probablyr three or four occasions in the past. one time the previous year i flew over havana during a flotilla that was taking place in solidarity for the cuban c people. but that day nothing. we

and we were, we have dropped leaflets from international airn space to cuba. this might be hard to comprehend for somebody that is not an engineer or a pilot, but when the air in favorable conditions and you identify those conditions, you can put leaflets on the other side of cuba if you want from international air space on this side of the island.ll >> guest: lily -- >> host: lily, how did you find this story? is. >> guest: well, the story was always there, it's how the stora found me is how it happened. fri a mutual friend introduced me to jose, and i found out he hadante been looking for someone to write the story, but he had never felt comfortable withble anyone. so i feel really honored that i was chosen to write this story,e and t i interviewed over 100 people to try to tell theirpeop version of what it was like to b be a brother or a sister to the rescue. >> host: how many people were lost in this rescue operation? >> guest: wow.

you mean -- >> host: brothers to the rescue personally. >> guest: oh.e well, four people were murdered when the planes were shot down, so four men lost their lives. >> host: and what about the rafters? how many rafters do you estimate that you helped?>> >> guest: well, by 1994 we had already rescued 4,200 rafters running our missions. and then after that we helped in the rescue of 30 some thousand more. by assisting the coast guard when the boat, when the 1994 exodus from cuba came about. but from our own efforts, i'd say 4,200 were saved by thebrot efforts of brothers to the ret rescue. >> host: were they returned tooe cuba? >> guest: those 4,200, no. and the 30 some thousand that we assisted later, most of them the weren't. and, but then from then on the policy changed to the wet

foot/dry foot policy, and they were started, the government started repatriating them back to cuba, renamed them migrants. they were, they were refugees actually because conditions in cuba made them refugees. but it was convenient, the situation was handled with semantics as usual, and migrants they became and migrants that went back. sys that was very sad because the united states had been involved in many of the circumstances that made it necessary for those people to come back, to come from, to come to the united states. on 1962 i think it was, '63,63 lyndon johnson, the president then, proclaimed the law of -- i'm forgetting the -- which made it for the cubans possible to stay here if they arrived to the united states, and the law had

not been repealed or anything. it w was just a mandate by themi clintonni administration to retc them which has made, so far, the return of the cuban refugees possible back to the island. >> host: you know, mr. basulto, tell us your history.when when did, when were you porn in cuba -- born in cuba, what's been your involvement in,nvol essentially, fighting the current cuban government? >> >> i was born in cuba, and as a young man or i was recruited by, by the cia, if you may, because we were working at the time with a, the, an internal organization in cuba called the mrr. and the cia promised to us that they t were going to give us all the help we needed to change the government of cuba into a democratic government.ose those were only words. that ended up and was known

later as bay of pigs. >> host: you were involved in that. >> guest: yes. i am number 22 of the bay of pigs invasion. i was sent back into cuba as a radio operator to send back information, in other words, intelligence to the u.s. on what was going on before thethe invasion.be and everything that theyhey promised and said was going tos be done on our behalf was simply betrayed. that included the invasion. >> host: now, what did your family do in cuba prior to your coming over to the states? >> guest: my father used to work for a company, sugar sales, they were a u.s. company in cuba that, you know, was in the sugar industry.ug in the island he was vice president of that company, andel fidel castro coming to power was something that we didn't like at all. >> host: lily prellezo, tell us your background.our >> guest: well, i was also born in cuba, and i came to the

united states when i was 4 years old. and it's an interesting story because my father was involved inin the counterrevolution, so v brothers and sisters, my older brothers and sisters had already come here, but my mother wantedd to get me and my little sister s out, so she e actually put us on a plane by ourselves. i was 4 years old, and she was 2 -- t >> host: was that the peter pan? >> guest: no, this was beforeth peter pan, this was in 1960. but it was so urgent, the need to get us out of there, that she found she had to do that, andth she put us on a plane. of course, it's only a 90-minute flight, but, you know -- >> host: when's the next time you saw your mother? >> guest: i think a few months after that.? >> host: she managed to get over? >> guest: yes. they would come back and forth, my father and her. >> host: how strong is the cuban-american community now in south florida? is it still loyal to the overthrow of fidel castro, or have generations succeeded that it's less, less in that vein? >> gue