administration each in a completely different way. ellen wilson whose childhood sweetheart kind of got into the white house. she died in office. after his stroke edith wilson helped him stay in the white house, so they were very powerful women in their own day. >> tell me what the two women have most in common personality wise? >> they had very little in common except they were both completely devoted to woodrow wilson and what he needed and wanted. >> was there anything surprising that you found in your research while riding? >> well, here are friend too. and as theodore roosevelt memorably said, who would have thought the man was a romeo? he looked like the druggists apprenticed. >> did he have a girlfriend with each wife are just during one? >> just during one. the first wife really believe that it could harm him politically so shia it did as

though the girlfriends were a family friends and basically co-opted her. the second wife did not have any intention of sharing him with anybody and the relationship really had come to an and before she came on the scene. >> how did either of those influences politics and his policies? >> i wouldn't say either of them influence his policies. he was a very deep thinker. he not only was a professor at princeton but the president of trends in. he had written a number of books. he was a very intellectual president but his first wife really help him write his speeches. she knew a great deal of poetry. she could teach his speeches. she contributed a great deal to his thinking over all. the second wife really had not had that kind of education but she works very very closely with him all during his presidency.

.. [applause] >> we are just thrilled to have these folks here. the author of the kennedy detail, one of the special agents here in dallas at the time and writer lisa is the one who put all these stories together and those of many of

the others. welcome to dallas and to the sixth floor museum. >> thank you. >> i need to remind folks we need you to turn yourself off, not just on silent but turned them off. there's a lot of radio interference in the area and will to make sure the recordings come out well. there are two cameras, those are for c-span. the program is being recorded for c-span, and the all broadcast this in the next week or two. we don't have an air date yet. stephen commodores as the curator is recording also for the oral history program which now totals over 800 people. while we are chatting, the biographies of our guests will appear on the screens behind us and also some photographs. the ones of the kennedys come from the national archives and white house photographers and the photographs of the kennedys that you will see in dallas come from the sixth floor museum collections. let's see here. we also have a q&a session.

many of you fill out forms already. if you don't have a pencil or pen to write with, put your hand and people will come around. i have some prepared questions obviously but i know i can't cover everything and we will see what we can. toward the end of the program we will get into the q&a session. let's get acquainted first. we like to get in these programs. let's raise your hand if you remember the kennedy assassination program. raise your hand if you are here in dallas at the time. fascinating. fascinating. all right. let's see. i wanted to make one point we are here because of a very sad event, but we don't want to make this a sad occasion. i would like to pass on a story that came to me when i was halfway through the book. didn't occur to me until i read a passage in the book. let me take you back to denver colorado in both jury and clint worked in the office of the

secret service but not at this time. in 1963i think it was, i saw president kennedy, and at the time we lived next door to one of the top executives at the local lincoln-mercury dealer and he can go for one day and told my dad and i said president kennedy's coming to town and you're going to serve as his limousine. we are in the east-west street and i know when they are coming by. atingua on the sixth avenue you will be able to see them and waved to them. so i went out there and there is no one else because the rules that he was taking from the air force base to the downtown denver wasn't published. i'm the only one out there and i saw the flashing lights here comes the big limousine and they went right by. he had his head down and was reading something. it occurred to me reading this book that there were secret service agents in the car wondering how did he know?

[laughter] who else knows? [laughter] there's probably something in the finals that says find out about that kid. [laughter] your book, the kennedy detail, is getting an awful lot of attention. one of the story is that has been talked about a lot is the moment that you, gerry, almost gone down the brand new president of the united states, lyndon johnson. you were at the white house committee get from there. what happened? >> well, i wasn't at the white house, this was about 2:15 in the morning after the assassination and we were all kennedy he tell agents standing watch, and president kennedy, if he came outside, he would notify the security command post and get the word around the president was out moving to the

vice president before he became president usually only had about two agents with him. one would be inside and it may be the other one out so he had no idea what the protocol, and i hadn't slept in about 40 hours as i was hallucinating and when i believed the agent he was still just emotionally wrought from dallas said he pointed to the thompson machine gun that we had on post and so we placed them there and not knowing whether it was a conspiracy or not, we were pretty much homage. when i heard the noise coming from around the house and all of a son and i had my within to my shoulder, the finger on the

trigger you can recognize lyndon johnson's profile. so fortunately, i notified or noticed that right away. but it was close. i had nightmares over that for a long time afterwards. >> those of you that have been here before know where we are that of course the c-span viewers might not know. we are actually on the seventh floor of what used to be the texas school book depository building now owned by dallas county, the dallas county administration, the museum has exhibits on the sixth floor and the seventh floor and we are in a separate area. it is a saturday afternoon. in today's it will have been 47 years since president kennedy was killed right outside of these windows. gerald and lisa, where has this book and and why has it taken so long for the story from you guys to come out? >> let me start with the mode of based first. when i retired, i started

looking on the internet and started reading stories about agents we served if that were accused of being a part of the conspiracy. the driver turning around and shooting president kennedy also if you look closely it would have had to shoot mrs. kennedy in the back of the head in order to get to the president at that time stories defaming the people, and so, i read the story that in involved where i had conducted and i went back and looked at my records and i said it's time to set the record straight. there are not many of us left and we are all gray hair and we will be along very long so we wanted to leave a record. to find somebody i must have written probably about seven

books to tell the story but to find somebody that could put the heart and soul of the book, lisa, who wasn't even born at a time of the assassination, but joyce, my wife and i were friends with her parents, and she graduated with my son from high school. so lisa in the course of this became an agent, and i think i will let her discussed her feelings as she put this together with me. >> do you want me to talk about that? >> sure. >> well, first of all it has been an honor and privilege to have been involved in this project. i feel extremely lucky somehow the stars aligned and gerald and i have known each other for all these years and it was just the right time and we came together to work on this project. it has been just fascinating for me because i was born and

january of 1964 and in history class it seems like when you take u.s. history in your junior year of high school you get to about world war ii, and its may and things are winding down and i never studied at the kennedy assassination, you know, of course i knew of it, but i didn't know much about it. but i knew is when i used to go to the palace for christmas eve they always had a great christmas eve party down in their basement. they had agreed photographs of gerry with lyndon johnson and eisenhower and kennedy and i was always fascinated by that, but being 12-years-old at that time or 16-years-old, i didn't ever feel comfortable asking about it, so working on this book i feel like i got a window into history like no one else has. >> is this your first book? i know you've been a journalist much of your professional life.

>> guest: >> this is my first published book. >> as i read through the book, i could tell where you were leaving me and sometimes when you read books like that you don't -- it's kind of annoying. but with your book i enjoy getting there. the i knew what you were leading to at an emotional moment and it was enjoyable to follow along with how that the trail went aground. how did you decide to write the book the way you did? >> as gerry said he spent many years putting stories together and he had contacted a lot of the agents already, so i had a lot of material to work with in terms of all of the various idea together of how to put the story together to me what was really fascinating and was important in this book was to show these men as human beings, not just nameless baseless men in dark sunglasses.

to be the secret service agents were always mysterious creatures and, you know, as i got to know that i realized, i mean, the argentines, and the stories that i read from the jury is agents and as i started interviewing the agents were so poignant that to me it was important to make the reader understand who these men were and to love them and understand the close relationship they had with the kennedys so that you know what's going to happen in the book. everybody knows what is going to happen, but you kind of want to know we're coming to know, now you start caring about gerry blaine and where he's going to happen. so what kind of build that into it. >> clint come you are somewhat reluctant to get involved. you have appeared very few times over the years or so and the other agents but how did you get involved in this book and how did gerry talk you into it?

>> i've known gerry since 1959. he replaced me when i got transferred into the white house, and he called me one day and asked me if i would be willing to contribute to a book he was writing and he told me what was going to be about. i wasn't enthusiastic about it, i was appeared on television, various things and i just didn't want to do it. so then he told me that this book was going to be factual, no salacious information, no gossip. the information would be coming material that they had and then he said i could check it. once he said that the nine agreed to contribute as long as i could check it before it was published which i did and i know what's in it and its factual, not fiction. >> host: you mentioned salacious material and some of

the kennedy legacy is the talk about his personal life and there isn't a whole lot of that in your book. why is that? >> we in the secret service give the president and his family as much privacy as we can. when they get to the second floor of the white house, that's where they live. we stay out of it unless have to go there or are requested to go there. what happens on the second floor same thing goes with an environment they could safely but they live their lives as they want to live them. we don't interfere and we don't talk about the use them for several months following the assassination you continue with your assignment which was jackie kennedy and at some point we came up to you like after that life magazine came out with frames from the superior film where they could see you running

up to the car do they come up to you and say are you that done? does that happen? >> really because i try to make sure nobody knew who i was. [laughter] i stayed with mrs. kennedy for the full year after the assassination until november, 1964, and then i was returned to the white house. >> did that make it easier or harder to deal with what happened in the personal relationship with jackie? >> it made it more difficult because i had to go through the grieving process with the family with he and the children, christmas of 64 was an absolute horror because here you are with these two young children who just lost their father and the widow lost her husband and try to make it very christmas but it's impossible. >> did you stay in touch after that? >> after 1964 they threw a going away party for me in new york where she was looking at the time and had moved to new york

and i lived in a hotel room in new york and if they wished me well. they thought for sure they would never let me back. i saw her in 1968 for the funeral center of robert kennedy and talk to her a few times on the telephone because the children and that was the extent of it. >> all three of you i assume spoke with the current and former agents at the time about this project. how do those conversations and what kind of response do you get especially from those who wouldn't speak or participate in this project? >> i started off early by calling jerry's wife and he was our agent in charge and i talked with her and told her i was

thinking of doing that. the second person i touch base with is floyd surprising probably too many we never discuss the assassination of each other after the is essential occurred there was never trauma counseling. there was to some awful lot of work to do. so we were left to do the work and our working life was 60 hours a month over on average. i think i calculated it out we made about a dollar 80 cents an hour we just were constantly working the only we could relax is take an hour or two after you got off and you're drowning down the agency were working with,

and so we just somehow kind of swallow for our emotions and we got wrapped up in the new president we had no impact it was going to have on us the rest of your life, but there were two agents that i talk to but they told me they didn't want to participate. one was jack reed and i have a great deal of empathy for iraq because he was on the president's side of the automobile and when he heard the first report he talked about where the shock came from and the plan as the explain later his honest and over and he noticed the president's hands go to his throat and so clint took off immediately and jack then turned around and for all of his

life he wanted to jump off the car but the follow-up car and driver pulled over and jack even attempted to make it. but in the was a movie in hollywood has played a big impact on all of this. in the line of fire the end clint eastwood's figure pasted where jack was on the follow-up car. and the theme of the movies he failed miserably in his job and that is of the theme of the movie. i'm speculating but i think that is what impacted jack. he's emotionally he couldn't participate. a second agent, john, who was assigned to the departure in dallas and we were so stripped down of agents on this strip

that will probably be another question but don was a senior agent and needed a senior agent to handle that, the departure and was left behind. you may have seen the movies that some of the theorists say he was being told to stand down. don was just getting his term to run by the car and he knew he was going to have to stay there. not being able to be with the president in dallas that the really impacted him. >> one of the things that comes out very clearly in the book is the day-to-day routine of the agents. a day in and day out of just standing and watching. how do you do the job like that? >> you're looking off into

blackwater saying white and i raced for years going to college? the rest of the time our agents were pre-technology. we've used hand signals with each other. we have no radio communication. we had three by five cards with photographs of people who had threatened the president and on the back of the three by five card we had their biography and so forth and we would memorize those pictures and then people would always ask us why we wore sunglasses because behind the sunglasses your eyes can look right and left and so if you see one of the individuals, then you've been on the side of the car and the agents to that and you do a quick turn over that way they've got there on him and if you feel a threat is there

than you notify the driver to move on, but that was our technology. >> is it okay for the general public to know that now? [laughter] >> we had a budget i think in 1963 of 4.5 million. i don't think we had that much, but we had probably 330 agents. there were 44 of us on the white house detail there were two agents on the first play and today they have a budget called a conservative 1.4 million they have somewhere in the neighborhood 3500 agents 7,000 employees. it is altogether different game today but the weaponry is much better, too when you get sniper rifles they can do hit shots at a mile away and some of the

other technologies and larger groups did you steal with a serious problem. the have the same heart and soul though. >> the business is a much more complicated now that makes me wonder did you have to show the manuscript before it went to the publisher? >> they didn't have to receive approval from the settle for the secret service, however, we had, jerry about the ticket and talk to the director mark sullivan about it and he read the book and he called me up and he was very enthusiastic about the book and he invited us to come to his office and have a luncheon with him last monday, which is

treated, and he indicated that he thought the book should be read by every new agent in the service because he would help them understand exactly what had happened in the past and they could use that information with what you're doing today. >> and i might add to that point were writing the book. he wanted to let him know that it was being done, and at first what did he say? >> no, not another book. [laughter] >> but then he said he found out clint was involved and he said if clinton is involved we don't have a problem with it. we know it is going to be worthy of trust and confidence. >> can't get much better than that. >> after you left the service, you did mostly security work but you left for a wild cheer in the dallas area. were you here when the word

first got out that there was going to be a museum about the kennedy assassination here in town? >> nope. i worked for ibm for 27 years. i search -- i left in july of 1964 and i ended up working on law enforcement and intelligence assistance and helped design the wallet system for the cia and mobile terminals, fingerprint scanners. my frustration and i think one of the reasons i left is that it's almost seemed like a feudal job unless we had the type of equipment needed, so i worked quite a while on that and so i made a call on the secret service because the fbi system could check and we had no way of keeping track of where these

potential threat cases were and so they had a new data processing manager to the secret service and so i said why don't you just type the end of the national information center and run the ann curry through and if you get ahead at least you will know where they are and they said gee, that will be an invasion of privacy and after going through the assassination i just couldn't take that so i went into the security side of ibm and i work for the international and you already have the museum up and running pretty well. >> clinton coming to stay with the service for a while but then you are retired and dealt with the personal situation. what kept you busy since then?

>> the other businesses don't work i kept busy with my family to feed that is about the other thing i can do recently. but i did stay with the surface. i was returned to the white house key to 1964 and was assigned to president johnson, president johnson went to his ranch while in texas and i was down there and one day i was walking between the house and the security room and president johnson salami. he recognized me as having been on the kennedy detail. i had met him personally and new york when he had come to visit mrs. kennedy one day at the carlyle hotel. he knew who i was and as soon as he called the veto was he talked he wanted me to be removed immediately, didn't want me to be assigned to the deal for him because of a hidden with of the

kennedys and was a loyalist, so he went in and talked and after about 30 minutes he convinced him that i should stay, so i stayed and eventually within three years i became the agent in charge and when he left office he asked me if i would be willing to come down to his ranch and from his detail and i told him i didn't take my letter out of the river so [laughter] he accepted my denial going down to take that job and i went on it moved to the headquarters and eventually the system director for the protection and i was in charge in 1975. ..

he has to a lot about that appearance and what did you tell him about that moment? >> well they do ask me about it because it is one of those situations where i completely broke emotionally. 60 minutes actually did the taping twice. the first time a they taped it everything went fine. when i got back to new york apparently don hewitt didn't like the way they did it because they didn't get into my emotions enough, and so mike wallace called me up and said hey we

have some technical problems with that we are going to have to shoot it again so i met him for lunch at a hotel in washington and they shut it again. this time the questions were quite different than they were the first time and he got right into my emotional baggage, and i broke on camera. many times people have asked me about that and if i recovered and yes i can say i have. but actually it was cathartic that happened and i'm glad it happened away did because that was the first time i ever really let loose a penny of that emotional baggage that i had stored inside of me. >> you have another moment when you and your wife came back to d. lee plaza. >> in 1990, the agents have an organization called the association of former agents and u.s. secret service. they held a conference in san antonio and my wife and i decided to go to that. i decided that since we were in the dallas area i didn't tell

anybody this but we were going to go to dallas to the plaza. it not been there since the assassination in 1963, so we came to the plaza and i spent some time walking from houston, observing all the angles, looking at all the trees, how much they had grown in the difference between 1963 and 1990, looking at the situation, the way the schoolbook depository was situated in relation to the street. came up into the sixth floor and it had just opened as a museum at that time and looked out the window to see what the view was and realized how close it was. it was a very easy shot. we came away realizing that i did what i could that day. i couldn't have done anymore and it was a sense of relief to me to know that i have done everything i could. >> you heard three shots.

>> three shots all came from the same location. >> evenly spaced or different? >> i didn't hear the second shot so i only heard two shots. the first shot came from my right rear and i was looking to the left, to the grassy area on the left-hand side of the street when i heard the shots my vision to me to the right toward that shot. in so doing my eyes went across the back of the president's car. i saw him grab his throat and he started to lurch to his left. he didn't move too far but he started going to his left and i knew something was wrong. so i jumped off the car and started to run to the presidential car trying to get up on top to cover. what we try to do was cover and evacuate, trying to get there to cover up so nobody could do any further damage to the president or to mrs. kennedy. about the time i got to the car, just as they got there the third shot i heard and i fell because it hit the president head just above his right here, right up in here and blood and brain

matter were spewing all over the place, including i may. about that time mrs. kennedy came out of her seat. she was trying to retrieve something that had come off the president head and went to the right rear. i slipped at first trying to get onto the car because the driver accelerated the car. i gained my footing again and got up on the car and back into the seat. when i did that the president fell over to his left into her lap and i could see the upper right ocean of his head, and large hole about the size of my palm. it looked like somebody had taken a screw and remained -- removed brain matter. there was blood in brain particles all over the car. his eyes were fixed. i was quite sure it was a fatal wound. i turned and let them know it was a dire situation. the driver accelerated the car and we were going towards the freeway. we got up alongside and pass the

lead car which was being driven by chief curry. the chief of the dallas police. the agent was in the car with him and we were screaming to get us to a hospital. he did that and got in front of the card and let us to the nearest hospital which turned out to be parkland. >> from the book and from some of the interviews that i have seen, you were convinced that there were three shots. one-hit the president, one hit governor connelly and the third shot hit and killed president kennedy. >> that is correct. >> now you know that is contradicted by the warren commission. they concluded that for shot hit kennedy and connelly and the second shot missed, struck a bystander in the third shot killed in. >> i recognize that the two of us believe that the second shot hit governor, and the other person who was sitting right beside them when he was hit, so i think i am pretty good company in believing the second shot hit the governor and the shirt --

third shot was a fatal into the president. >> there were two mistakes the warren commission made that they did not call sam kinney who was the driver of the follow-up car or amory roberts a shift leader, sam kinney had to keep his eye constantly on the presidential limousine and sam saw all three shots behind their mark. emery saw all three shots behind their mark. unfortunately they board asked to testify. >> we said must have been amazingly difficult, keeping up with facts like these and trying to separate fact from some of the silly stories that are out there. how did you do it? >> a lot of long days. jerry and i talked about this a lot because we would read

something or read reports and i would say jerry this contradicts what you are telling me and i came to realize that these were the guys that were there and their memories are so vivid and so clear and as i would talk to other regions they would corroborate the stories and i realized that this is the truth. and the other people that are writing, these other reports and all these researchers that have studied this endlessly, they warrant their, and you know so you can take some of what is written but what i believe is what these men have told me to be through. >> i promised we would do a q&a. i have got a bunch of questions already if you still need to fill out one of the cards, please do so. if you need something to write

with hold up your hand at our people will come by. here is an interesting one. this is a tough one. basis for jerry. you are spending so much time promoting the book, so how is your golf game coming? [laughter] >> about the same as it was before i started the book. it is not that good. >> a few folks are 99% certain that there was no conspiracy, what would the 1% be? >> well, no i would say 100%. i think any good investigator realizes that a conspiracy where one or more people or two or more people participate in a crime if last probably 60 days at most. it has been 47 years and there has been no evidence whatsoever of a conspiracy that has been

proven, no proven facts. there is a lot of speculation but then they just ignore the facts. i have gone through all the volumes of the warren commission and have read through it. i have not found anything. i felt a real injustice was made when the house select committee on assassination studied and investigated a number of the conspiracies and they finally said, well we can find no evidence of a conspiracy. however, we feel there was a conspiracy now. if that isn't a befuddling solution i don't know what is. >> here is a question that we get here at the museum a lot. why wasn't the building, meaning the book depository, why wasn't

it secured in which building posed a bigger threat? that really goes to the heart of how you guys did your job in the public reception for. >> the agent that did the advance, think everybody on the detail agrees that there would have been no better agent that lend. he was very specific but we go back to 34 agents and pick the the -- have got 11 experienced agents leaving too much prior to the assassination. so we had to take all of our experienced agents and put them off in advance. toby had to go to the secret service pool and walt cochran was in miami and then he went to san antonio, so we had all of our resources out. usually, there were only about five agents with the president at any time other than if there

were another function we were going to. and then one of the agents, say the 4:00 to 12:00 agent shift, would cover for the day shift agents that he would probably have 10 there. but with five agents, our job wasn't to go after an assassination -- an assassin. our job was to cover the president and evacuate him from the area. i have got a comment on the ability that day. the vehicle was going 11 miles an hour. there were 85 feet to catch up with. he ran basically about 50 miles an hour to reach the presidential car and he got there after the third shot hit. there was no way anybody could have done anything to save john that day. >> this question was just handed to me.

it is part of one that has troubled me as one who has questions about some of the events of that day. the question is written, where were secret service people positioned in daily plaza? not talking about the motorcade. where were they in the plaza? >> we had no agents in the plaza whatsoever. everybody said this was the ideal place because of this isolated building but the county jail and courthouse across the way, the other buildings, there was nothing unusual about this area. and, you know there wasn't always air-conditioning at that time so all of the windows were open and people were hanging out of it. we didn't have the resources. we did most of the advance himself and then dave grand cayman to help him finish the last three days so you have to

rely on local law enforcement and local law enforcement did not have the resources. i mean we all knew that the moving platform, which by the way, the president rode with the top off by preference everywhere he went. it was only if it rained or if the wind was blowing and mrs. kennedy was accompanying without a hat. that was the only time the top was not on so we knew we had that isolation or that problem of exposure. eve in the night before, president kennedy talked with kenny o'donnell and mrs. kennedy and she would ask questions about protection. and he said, you know it would be very easy to kill the president just by taking a shot out of a window, but this is a democracy. we didn't have the resources

then. the resources in fact were the same that they had after the blair house shooting and we had no threats whatsoever or attempts against president eisenhower. >> so that is one of the things that changed as a result of dallas. >> don't write in open cars, yes that's right. i had an opportunity at our lunch and to take a look at president obama's car. i hardly had the energy to open the door. [laughter] >> the secret service car prepared for the united states who happens to be president obama. [laughter] >> glad you were going to add something. >> this particular building, why wasn't the building secured or the windows open or close? we came down main street.

every building down main street people were hanging out the windows, people on balconies, people on rooftops. which building should we have secured on main street or the corner of houston in town if you are owing -- only going to have a building secure how about the rest of them? we just couldn't do at. >> is that true though that the public reception is that you guys checked all windows but in reality you don't. there was no way. >> at that time we were unable to. today it is different. there are ways they did major checks on various areas. of course they don't ride in an open car either. >> excellent question. how well are not well developed the agencies work together to share information at that time? [laughter] that is probably the answer right there. >> we had pretty good cooperation.

i won't say anything bad about the bureau. they did the best job that they could. there was a lack of exchange of information sometimes but for the most part, there was good cooperation between the secret service, the f. d. i, the cia whatever, nsa, all of them. we all were in this together and we all helped each other. the problem this case as best i understand is that oswald was not really on anybody's list. he had no history of violence and just because he didn't like some of kennedy's policies which he freely a spouse doesn't put anyone on a list. >> the fbi talk with him about his detection but he really didn't have the kind of record that would cause them to notify the secret service that he might be a threat. >> one of the questions that comes up a lot is, was the

limousine driving too slow, was there a minimum speed that you had to stay above? is there some regulation if they can't make a tight turn like the ones off of houston onto elm street? are those all in the manual and the guide took? >> no, no. there are no guidelines like that. that has been one of the misconceptions. that was a difficult turn that they made out here and i have heard comments of witnesses that say the car stopped. i think one of the big mistakes, if you watch this at gruder found going at natural speed, you will see how fast this happen. it happened less than six seconds. the first sound which sounded different to build greer and roy kellerman in the front seat, bill wondered if he had had a

blowout, so he tapped the pedal real quick to see if there was stability in the car, but if you watch this at gruder film you don't even see a slowing down of the car. >> it is a was difficult making the term because it was greater than a 90-degree turn. you will notice on houston turning onto him is a pretty sharp turn and that is a pretty good-sized car. car. a dozen of the great turning range, so we had to slow down considerably so much so that the motorcycle rider had a difficult time keeping their bikes upright as they made the turn. and when we got going, he was driving it up to 11 to 12 miles an hour which is what we were running when we came down main street. they had to slow down even more but that is generally what we were running. >> kennedy's driver had not driven the route before. but he needs -- new to follow

chief curry in the front because currie obviously would know the real. >> that was his instructions. >> lisa, is this your first time in dealey class and what did you think the first time he did get here? >> the first time i came was in january of 2009, is that right? or was it this year? it was this year, 2010. we were in the middle of writing the book and i said to jerry i have never been to dallas and i think i probably need to go. so, jerry and his wife joyce and i came here and it was really invaluable. my comments were the same as everybody else. wow, it is a lot smaller than i ever imagined it was. and then to go up to the museum on the sixth floor and just see

like clint said the shots and how easy it was and how close everything was. now the trees are taller, quite a bit taller and more mature than they were in 1963. it just gave me a great perspective on just -- you had to describe the situation and tried to give the reader a feel of what it was like are those people who haven't been here as i would guess most readers haven't so they feel like they are seeing everything as the agent saw it. as has been mentioned, this was their first time on this route and you know they didn't know what buildings were around the corner. only the advance agents have been here and knew the lay of the land. >> we have got a question here and it refers in a way to something that has bothered me. if i could come if i could ask these gentlemen to speculate. one of the really interesting stories is that within a minute

after the shooting, a dallas police officer, job marshall smith, ran toward the parking lot toward the grassy noll and stockade area and he encountered a man and smith had his gun drawn. he encountered a man who identified himself and flash some credentials that he was secret service. and yet there were no secret servicemen on the ground. any idea who that person could have been? clearly he would have identification that would look official to the officer. any idea what that could have been? >> i have no idea. >> i'm going to have to keep digging, aren't i? >> i wasn't a secret service agent. >> that you can be sure to to go other than on the motorcade. >> there is a story out, somebody pass the story that somebody had lost their

identification and so the secret service reissued the 64 new commission books. that is absolutely false. >> president kennedy's car was stripped down to the frame and rebuilt and i was, i assume will approve for release bullet resistant and it was used a president johnson. did he ever comment about having to write in that car? >> not to me. i wrote in the front seat and he was in the back so he never said anything to me. >> how did you feel in that that car? >> it was a little bit emotional to know that this was the car that the assassination had occurred but like you said they had stripped it down and was now armored. i can't recall exactly what the strength of the armor was but it was sufficient. that was the first time -- after

the assassination the secret service tried to locate an armored car to be used by the president and the only one they could find was the one being used by j. edgar hoover. [laughter] >> who happen to belong to al capone. >> the car had been used by al capone. [laughter] we got the car and we called that -- was a member on the car but it barely could stop handgun but it least it had some resistance. >> as you prepare this book and search through your minds to come up with the information in the stories, has it been helpful or was it painful to go through all of this? >> well, painful from the aspect of i operated mainly on the internet and i found out, i

really wasn't touching on the items. so i started using the telephone and you know five minutes for one question would go to one hour and 15 minute telephone conversation. and all of a sudden i started detecting the emotions. the difficult thing was bringing the emotions out to people who carried that burden all the years. it was very very deep inside and i found out with the trauma counseling everybody handled this differently but it surely had an impact on their lives. >> what do you hope people take from this book? >> what i want is it balance of history. lisa ran into an article in "usa today" that said that they young between the ages of 18 and 29,

82% leaved it was a conspiracy and, you know, i realized that people don't like to think that a president can die at the whim of one individual but there were some circumstances they came through. i think one of them slowing the zach ritter filmed down because everybody created a history but this is what i call a lame society, because people come up with a theory and then they blame that lousy right wing or that lousy left-wing or it was that blacks or the hispanics or cuba or russia or organized crime. it is a sad tribute. you know when you look at something like in chile where the miners were trapped, they didn't ask to hang the mine owner or bring a government

agency and. they said let's get these people out of there. that is the way we used to operate and i think when president kennedy was assassinated, it was the end of the age of innocence. >> you asked the question what do we want to do with this book? first and foremost with jerry just said was the most important point but for me, i just felt that it was a heartbreaking and heartwarming story of people. they were a band of robbers and they have all said to me that all of these guys, they were a very small group of men and they spent more time with each other and with the kennedy family than they did with their own families. they ate together, they slept together, they played together, work together and they were a band of brothers. to me that was a very important point to get in the book. >> another question here, some

folks are wondering if the book is going to be turned into a film. >> actually there is a tv special. >> yes, the discovery channel has filmed a documentary based on the book and we actually filmed it here in dallas in june of this year. it was a reunion of seven of the agents on "the kennedy detail". two of which are in the audience, toby chandler and walt coplan, and it was the first first time these agents had ever come together and talked about this incident so it is a very compelling film and i hope you all watch it. it is airing december 2 at 9:00 p.m. eastern. >> it was originally scheduled for this monday night that it has been moved. >> it has been moved to december 2 i would love their to be a film. i think the book cries out for a film so if they're in any film producers in the audience come talk to us.

>> this note here is from diana who writes i am glad you are here. thank you. you did all you could. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> jerry and cleanse and lisa will be here for a book signing. you are welcome to stop by. lets see i have a note here. what else am i supposed to say? discovery channel show, and mentioned that. thank you so much for coming here to the sixth floor museum and enjoying the program. >> for more information about the book visit kennedy detail.com. visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here on line. type the author or book title in

the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live on line for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> we we are here at the national press club with sam barry and kathi kamen goldmark to talk about their new book "write that book already!." tell us what this book is about. speak it is a book about how to get published and how to keep going as an author, how to get your career up and running so we do encourage people how to write but it is not so much the craft as the business of being an author. >> what are some of -- what is on the advice you have? >> your book will not get finished unless you started. you have to apply your