so he says his friend in a boat saying did explore india, go find out stuff for me, and he comes back and talks about the radio that -- reed that gives honey though there are no bees. why do you describe it the reed that gives honey though there are no bees? >> because it was sweet. >> yes, and why else? >> you'll get a chance. >> because the honey, bees usually produce the honey, and with sugar cane they didn't need bees. >> wildfire people knew -- before people knew about sugar cane, how did people sweeten their food? what ways would people have used to sweeten their foods?

>> sweet fruits, honey, and sap from a maple tree. >> no north and south america, there were no bees, they department have honey, they had maple syrup, the agave cactus, and in the rest of the world they had honey, so we've had sugar used in magical ceremonies, and sugar is spreading and people are starting to learn about it. >> one thing we want to mention when you say they used, let's say honey or fruit is sugar or sweetness at this time is not the way we think about it where you have a chocolate bar or a cookie. it is just a taste. it is a spice. it is something you use in your meal to get one of the flavors. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

up next on booktv from the museum here in washington, we recall the near assassination of ronald reagan. the president code name raw hide was fired on after delivering a lunchtime speech. he's joined by the agent who hushed him into awaiting limo and the surgeon who operated on the president. >> i'm delighted to be here. i'm a trustee of the museum and of the freedom forum, and it just gives me great pleasure to be part of this remarkable program. as everybody knows, there's a lot going on now. it's not as if the world is quiet. it would take something pretty extraordinary to pull together a crowd like you to come to an event, and i can tell you knowing what these gentlemen

have to share with us tonight, you're in for an extraordinary hour to come. as everybody knows, we are nearing the 30th anniversary, as hard as it is to believe on that assassination attempt on ronald reagan. i'll begin with the gentleman in the middle here who is the former united states secret service agent jerry parr. he protected four vice presidents and special agent in charge for two presidents, jimmy carter and ronald reagan. before retiring from the secret service, he was an assistant director, and since retiring, he's become an ordained minister which raises entirely another set of questions that perhaps we can touch on this evening. [laughter] please welcome jerry parr.

[applause] >> next to your right is dr. joseph giordane. he is a special interest in vac cue lar disease, the founder and director of the trauma team at george washington medical center, the team that saved president reagan's life. he spent an unprecedented 42 years at gw before retiring june of last year and now spends his time volunteering for partners for surgery, a nonprofit group dedicated to providing medical care to impoverished got guatemalans. please join me in welcoming him. [applause] you heard about the author sitting here, dell quentin wilbe

with the "washington post". before joining the post, what, seven years ago? del reported for the "baltimore sun" through his reel -- relatively brief career and covered law enforcement and sensitive security issues and was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. please welcome del qeuntin wiber. [applause] i was invited to moderate this discussion because i was there on the afternoon of march 30, 1981 when john tried to assassinate president reagan. i was a white house correspondent at the time for nbc news, part of the so-called travel pool of reporters who stay with the president. we take turns mong reporters,

print, and television reporters following the president wherever he goes. as the television network pool correspondent that day, i road to the washington hotel early on month march 30, one of two vans carrying reporters, photographers, and a television camera crew. i watched the president's speech inside the hilton to a group part of the afl-cio, and then i rushed back outside to be in a position to watch him exit the hotel and to try to ask him a question before he would then climb into his limo, and i would then jump into the van, and we would all rush back to the white house, but of course i didn't get the question, jump back into the van, and the motorcade didn't go back to the white house. to set the scene, i'll go back

to you, doctor, tell us what was going on at the hospital that afternoon before this all began? >> well, it was a typical day at the hospital. i had a couple cases in the morning. the or's were full, and i went upstairs to the sixth floor to help out with a vac cue lar diagnostic. i got a page over the -- >> i won't let you go any further. the trauma team, what's that mean that you brought them to the state-of-the-art place that it is. >> i was hired to go to gw to work. the chairman of surgery said to me just as a off-hand comment, oh, by the way, recessation trama is a mess. fix it. i didn't think it was bad because i finished my training three years before that, and i

read about it, and things were happening. physicians were returning from vietnam and had seen what a concentrated approach the trama cases would result in, and that wasn't happening in 99% of the hospitals throughout the country, and having read more about it, i spent the month at shock trauma in baltimore, and my goal was to bring that number down at gw. >> you made changes. >> yes. >> that later go on to make a difference. >> right. >> jerry parr, how was your day before this happened? >> it was a nice day. [laughter] >> you were with the president. this was his only outing of the day; right? >> right. before i -- actually i wasn't supposed to work that day. johnny guy, another agent assistant to me was supposed to ride with him. it was such a routine trip, and i wanted to go with him so i

could get to know him a little bit better because even though i was participating in the inaugural ceremonies with him, and the 80-81 inaugural situation, i went to do something many -- in the secret service they try to give you management courses, and in the first two to three weeks, i didn't see him much. i wanted a simple ordinary trip, ride with him there, and then talk to him on the way back with mike beaver in the back see about things going on in the white house. there's various problems, and that's one of the things you have to do there is to make sure everything works smooth and everything is between the staff is all, you know, always problems and always issues, they have to be ironed out. well, that's the reason i decided to replace johnny guy, and so i go there and we arrive, and, of course, john hinkley is

in the crowd. we stopped 40-50 feet from him. i didn't know that at the time. >> this is at the arrival? >> yes. he goes through the vip entrance built for that. the agents go down the stairwell, and we go to a holding room and introduced to the presidential ballroom, we go there. >> makes a brief speech and left. >> del, you talked to over 150 people about this. jerry mengessed john. >> he was a troubled 25-year-old from colorado who had an infamous obsession with jodi foster after which he saw taxi

driver. she left hollywood to go to yale, he goes to yale too, and it was an interesting experience researching the book. he called her numerous times trying to get her in a relationship. he feels bad when the roommates laugh at him, and his life a falling apart the whole time. the obsession is going out of control. if i kill the president of the united states, he believes i can impress the woman. he stalks jimmy carter in october 1980. he goes to a dayton rally for carter, and he is literally arms reach at one point from carter. he had guns. he has an obsession with guns and had taken target practice, but it was a test run, and he left his guns in the luggage at the bus depot. he was two to three feet away

from you right now. his life is just -- he just arrived the day before from a cross country trip from l.a. on the bus and is going through chiian and other the other towns in the west. i'm going to kill foster, myself, and that's what is in his mind. he stops in -- >> kill foster? >> right. he was stalking reagan and carter, and now decided i'll kill myself, foster, and all these things. i'm stopping briefly in washington, go on my way to new hairch, connecticut. he goes out to get breakfast, and since been torn down, and he eats the meal, goes back and picks up on the newspaper.

there's the president's schedule. see it, doesn't think about it, and then showers and then he thinks maybe i should take my little gun i have with me and go to the hillton and see how close i can get. little did we know, he gets within 15 feet. >> you come out the door with president reagan. >> we come out the door, turn left, and we walked down the sidewalk and some walked down the road. the reason we parked that car there was the quickest way to get away from the hotel and make a right turn. >> it's a curve -- >> we didn't want to get back in the cul-de-sac. that's what we didn't want to do. it's a rapey day, opens the -- rainy day and opens the door at

the last second. when we're five feet from the door, i hear two quick shots, and then four more, and it's over. i grabbed the president's left shoulder with my hand, and i grabbed him by the head, and i start pushing him down and twisting him so he can go in the car. he knows what i'm doing. there's not a sound from him, but we're very rough with him because we've got to move fast. that's what our training told us to do. cover and evacuate. there's a lot of agents out there tonight that know what that means. you cover first and leave second. that's what we did that day. >> i was standing, i mean, i can tell you i was 15-20 feet on the other side of the limo next to one the press vans, thought i could yell a question, but realized there was no point because he was hurried to the car. i heard the pop and didn't know that was -- i mean, you knew it was a gun, but you didn't want

to believe it was gun, and everything happened very quickly. you got him in the car, and it pulled away. >> right. >> tell us what happened on the way. you were headed to the white house. >> yes. well, first thing i did was i after ray shut the door, the shift leader and shut the door, we didn't open it anymore. to open it, you make it vulnerable to anybody across the street if there was anybody over there, so there's much unknown stuff going on, but i did see as we pulled away, three bodies on the sidewalk, and then as we make the turn to go south on connecticut avenue there at tea street, i begin to examine him because obviously bull eel hole in the window and three bodies on the sidewalk is an

assassination check. i ran my hands under his coat, back of the belt area, up his armpit area, back, head, and everything. there was no blood on my hands. that's when i radioed back to my shift leader that raw hide is okay. i assumed he was okay because i had no blood on my hands. he wasn't feeling too bad then, but between that location there on connecticut avenue and dupont circle, he said i think i caught the inside of my mouth, he took out a napkin, wiped his mouth, and it was bright red blood. i knew that was oxygenated blood. there was a lot of it in his mouth, a lot of it, spilling out on him and my coat. i said we're going to the hospital.

that's what i told the driver, and so that was why i made the decision was i thought it was life threatening. >> over the span of joust a few blocks when the decision changed. >> yeah, it was quick. >> about where to go. >> yeah, it was a quick decision. it was me with half kneeling and half standing upright in front of him because it's a large car. it was a jump seat and that gave me space to look him over. i felt he was in a bad way. i don't know how he felt, but he didn't feel too god either. >> the car headed to gw. >> we just had to make a right turn. >> meanwhile, what's going on at the white house? >> they are just hearing about what's going on. at this time, in fact, they don't know. the white house officials are going about their normal day, and they are eventually, over time, they hear that, you know,

the president's been shot and diverted. in fact, there's a wonderful scene where some aids rush into ed meiss, one the three top advisers, and there's a great scene where ed is in his office and one of his lower aids runs in and says something happened. there's a computerized board tracking the president's movement and it says en route to gw hospital. in the 30 seconds and 50 seconds that took place, he shoot sixes shots in 1.7 seconds. he takes out jim brady and tom and the dc police officer. the way is clear, shoves him into the car. third shot is high, 4th hits mccarthy, and the sixth cracks across the driveway. no one knows where the sixth shot went. it went through the door we

learned later. he had an effective range of 20-30 feet at stationary target. if he doesn't make the car to go to the hospital, we later learn how dire the situation would have been. you know, getting that out of him was a lot of interviews. [laughter] >> by the way -- [applause] by the way, at when it happened, it wasn't clear there was just one shooter because it sounded like someone got off a lot of shots. i was one of the reporters wondering if there was more than one shooter. confirm for us how much difference did it make that jerry parr turned the car to the hospital? >> the critical decision of the day. he insisted on walking into gw.

he got just passed the front door and collapsed. even a young healthy person that's pretty serious, you can last that a few minutes before you have irreversible changes, and the president is 70 years old, a healthy 70-year-old. just think of it, you go to the white house, pull him out of the car, bring him over, put him back in the car and realize there's a problem, take him to gw, that's 10-15 minutes. i think that would have made a huge difference. i don't think he would have survived it to be honest. >> you arrived just in the time frame. the shooting happened at 2:27 approximately, six shots in less than two seconds. how long before the hospital was dealing with this? just a matter of minutes? >> right. he came to the hospital, walked, collapsed, recessation area. we are notified that a trama

patient is coming, and they assemble. there was little time to do that, but they were there. put him on a gearny, took the clothes off, examined him, iv's, all the right thing. flawless. >> jerry parr and jerry tries to help, and reagan says no. he wants to be a cow bioi guess -- cowboy, you know. he hitched up his participant, and his aid says, oh, yeah, i think he's going to be okay. the others don't think so. ronald reagan viewed his role as president as a role to play. he's not getting carried often stage. he walked in, 15 feet, collapses like a rock. there's a paramedic i interviewed who was right there. he's a source, i shouldn't have said that too loud.

he provides information to me on the dc police beat. he sees how sick reagan is and thinking he's code city. code city means he's going to die. the other nurses are shaking, having nightmare thoughts of the president is going to die. he looked that bad. >> what did you think, jerry, when he collapsed? >> well, i thought he was going to die too. for the first three or four minutes because he looked so terrible, and one of the first nurses said no blood pressure, but it was low blood pressure and faint heart beat. i did think he was going, but he kept living on and living on, and they kept doing the right things to him. >> doctor, let's go wac to the page you -- back to the page you got. >> i had mobile, and usually

they page me, but i was surprised to hear a stat page over the public address system, and it was unusual so i went downstairs, walked into the emergency room and saw a lot of strange people. you know, young people with ear phones and tiny things in their ear. i didn't know what was going on, and when i went back, there he was lying on a stretcher, totally naked, and the president of the united states, my residents were there. >> did you know right away it was president? >> how did you know? >> i just saw him. it was the president. >> you had never seen him naked though. >> no. [laughter] >> i just looked at his face i can promise you that. [laughter] they were doing an excellent job resuscitating him and all the things that we train to do. they all spent time in the shock trama unit in baltimore for

three months, and they were experienced in managing the patients, and when i got there, he was improving already. he was lying down, that improves blood pressure, secondly, fluid was going into him. he was alert, had a concerned look on his face. he asked how he was doing and what's going on. he said short of breath and had pain. we saw the entrance wound and bullet and looked at the other side to see if it came out. it did not. >> you knew it was a shot? >> yeah, we had the information, it was a small hole under his axilla, and things move quickly. there was six to seven people around and people from the outside looking at it think it's very chaotic event, but it's not. everybody has a job to do and move very quickly to get the job done, and within a relatively short period of time the blood pressure came back up.

there was loss blood and the bullet wound was in the chest that he had bleeding into his left cavity. >> how long before surgery to remove the bullet? >> first thing is a chest tube. how you treat most of the patients and most successfully this way is a chest tube. the idea is to put the tube in the cavity, draw out the blood in the air, and then the lung reexpands. lung is a low pressure system, not like material systems, it's a low pressure system. it usually stops 85% of the time. this time it did not. >> there's that preliminary, but by 3:30 he was under? >> he was in the emergency room about 40 minutes. four units of blood, saline, put the tubes in, and what you do is you watch the blood come out of the tube. initially there's a rush of

blood, and then once that's out, you hope that blood loss is starting to get less and less, and this did not happen. to the contrary, it got more, and that's when i called dr. ben aaron, the chief of surgery, he came down, and he took over the care of that patient. >> that's when you knew how seriously involved the lung was. >> right. there was something like three liters of blood in the chest tube vacuum by the time he had this surgery. >> okay. remind everybody, this is precable news, preinternet, so the way information was getting around was different than today. we're going to show you now two clips. the first one, here is some of what the american people were saying. this is part of an abc news special breaking into their regular daytime afternoon programming. i think it was probably around three o'clock or 2:30.

we don't know what time, and the anchor was frapping reynolds. >> the president who was the target of this assassination attempt was not hit today. we'll have more details as quickly as it becomes available. >> this is a bulletin from abc news washington. we now return to our regular programming schedule. >> the senators are reacting. here, we have our report that the -- [inaudible] the president was not wounded. meanwhile -- the president was

hit. he is disabled and all this information -- [laughter] [inaudible] he was hit in the chest according to this, but is in stable condition, and the information i have is okay. speak up. [laughter] the president was hit. [laughter] [inaudible] the information i first told you was incorrect. [laughter] the president was hit today. he was hit in the left chest, but we are told he is all right. he is at george washington university hospital. he was taken to gw hospital. >> that's a remarkable piece of unusually remarkable piece of network fftion at that point. that's precable and everything to that point was packaged and

prepared. this was live, and the media didn't get it right to begin with, did we, del? [laughter] >> you did, judy. [laughter] >> but seriously in that situation, they were getting information that was incomplete. >> the entire thing was incomplete. at the white house they didn't understand what was going on. they sent people to the hospital and getting reports back, and media was getting reports, and through my research he was in the operating room 15 minutes earlier. i don't know why he didn't say he was in surgery yet. there's all kinds of misinformation to this day. at one point jim brady died. there was a beautiful moment where his brain surgeon is operating on him because he's

not going to make it. he's operating anyway and listening to the speakers overhead, and hear this report that jim brady died. he is a firey speaker, and he is known for some strong language, and said, i'm not going to say it because i'll get sued by somebody, but said, what are we operating on here? a corpse? it was amazing that reality at the hospital and the reality people saw at home. ..

>> so the surgeon can try to find the bullet. they don't know that. >> and these are -- i mean, i am understand what he said, dr. joseph giordano. it's not chaotic. everybody knows their part. having said that, this scenario, the scene had to be something that people, the secret service does not rehearse for something like this, or do you, jerry? >> no, we didn't rehearse for that. we knew that the president was in the best policy to be. so what we did, we simply got posts outside the room. other agents.

mcintosh and i were in there. he knew we were there. i was the only friendly face. he didn't know a living soul in the hospital. i think it was a comfort for the agents to be close by. in fact, at the hospital the only change i made on the posting assignment. as head of what an agent at the foot of his bed every day, every night while he's here in this hospital. so for 14 days there was always an agent at the end of his bed. yes, we didn't prepare for that, but, you know, you have to sometimes do things on the fly, and that's what we get the hospital. we didn't have an agent ahead of time like normally we would have. have posts. we just set the posts up as we arrive. set up a perimeter. he said it up. >> what was going through your mind when he was in surgery? >> well, you know, i could see the monitor.

i see his blood pressure. his heartbeat. at but it is better than mine. i thought he was an excellent condition. and did know much about the surgery.

he told the bullet in the line itself. usually we don't remove bullets. really the men, especially if it's not near a vital organ. been kept feeling it. he decided to remove it. it didn't go off thankfully in this particular case. i can't imagine what would have happened -- maybe i can. the bullet was left then. he was recovering. we find out. what are we going to do. that was a tough decision. happily we did not have to make that decision. >> that bullet had hit the door on the reinforced door on the president's limousine before it hit him. >> the bullet actually hit the back court panel of the car. i have the photograph. it's really cool.

>> another, a split second slower. you track the trajectory of the bullet. it would have hit reagan in the head. >> this will they can down to a matter of inches and a matter of seconds. >> meanwhile, i just quickly want to remind everybody that there were three of the people. jim brady seriously severely wounded. hit in the head. the divested a bullet in his case did explode. and then there was the secret service agent. the d.c. policeman, mr. dillon county, were they getting care of their own? how was that working? >> the resuscitation area had to base and it. brady was in the second day, and he was cared for very rapidly by another team.

tim mccarthy had a gunshot wound to the abdomen which actually traverses liver as we found out later. and he was put -- pretty stable the whole time. three is about the maximum we could have handled without straining our resources. della hunt went to the hospital center. he was taking care of there. so that all went pretty well. brady was in the operating room by the cross from reagan. he was being operated on. >> and very quickly, meanwhile john hinckley had been taken to wear? >> he had been taken to d.c. police headquarters where he was immediately questioned by a grizzled homicide detective named eddie meyers who recently -- he had seen everything on d.c. streets, but never anything like john hinkley. he is as flat the fact, this boyish, fractured air. piercing, blue eyes. he was just as, as can be.

one point he's not talking and he wants a lawyer. meyers was typing his report like you could imagine a d.c. police officer what type of report with two fingers. he turns to dennis mccarthy and says, how did you spell the word assassinate. hinkley spell that and spell it correctly. and so, you know, that is what hinkley was. eventually hinkley this gives the washington field office. the city service agents and fbi agents questioned him. there is a wonderful moment. people said this was a loner. another surprising thing about this story. full of surprises. the guys investigating the case were not convinced that hinkley was a loner until about 7:00 or 730 that night. there is a moment where a veteran fbi agent questions and. he has to figure out if there are other assassins in the city. people some aside and said, john, i need to know, were you acting alone? heatley just looked at him and

said, aha, i was acting alone. meanwhile, steve cole will corsica service agents had been brought into question. very experienced in talking to people at the white house. he got called to the white house to question guys the tinfoil hats. so he had experience with people who have mental illness. he pulls up and is questioning hinkley. he is eventually not getting anywhere and he realizes he remembers his wallet and they're being pictures of a girl. a phone number written down on a piece of paper as if he had gotten the phone number from a woman at a bar. is this going to affect of the people? like a girlfriend or friend? i'm paraphrasing. hinkley says, yeah, like that kind of. he elicits more. who is this woman? jodie foster, the actress. when you find my hotel room you rediscover the tapes i made of these phone calls. he said it's kind of a one-sided

relationship. that is when he realized that this was over a movie star. and think about it. the president of it the united states comes within an inch of his life from of a star. >> still stunning. there was so much going on in different places. the book captures it so well. this is a report that i filed that night for the nbc nightly news which aired about 630. the president was probably in surgery. the surgery lasted about three hours. we will show you this. we will come to you for questions. >> in the press party which accompanied mrs. reagan. she was there when the shots were fired. but the president had gone to the washington hilton hotel to make the first speech of his presidency. he talked for about 20 minutes be making the case for his economic renewal package.

>> if we do nothing else in this administration we are going to convince this city that the power, the money, and the responsibility of this country begins and ends with the people and not let some cinder block building in washington d.c. [applause] >> afterwards mr. reagan showed hands and can't out to the san dirty it came in. fifteen are 20 feet away on the other side of his limousine and the president came out the door, it was a matter of seconds before returning -- heard shots fired. the people who had been shot were left lying on the sidewalk. a gunman surrendered. a camera man was standing next to the gunman. he had noticed the man earlier. >> representatives.

there were people. [inaudible] >> after the incident was over the police were checking for evidence. the gunman the but suppose to be reserved for the press and only the press. [inaudible] >> jerry. [applause] the questions, the question, of course, was, how did it happen. you had to be already thinking about that during the day. how much did everything changed after that? in terms of security. >> that's a good question.

it probably happened for a combination of reasons. one of the things is that it was the 110th time that we had taken the president to the washington hilton in at time of about nine years. that meant presidents nixon, ford, carter, and reagan had been there. so, we had sort of a permanent kind of arrangement with the hotel because they went there all the time. we had a number of agents posted inside and outside. we thought it was adequate. what we've failed to note was the fact that the crowd was building over the time that we had gone there and come back over the years. it's got to be a habit. president carter, what he would do, he could not be seen behind the car because of his sight. he will stand upon the edge of

the car and with the crowd. the crowd got used to the fact that the president is going to do that. we get used letting him do it. so it caught us by surprise when the gunfire was sounding. we also did not have a covered departure site. we have that back there now. if you go there now there is an armored building that was built later. and in washington whenever you did it change, a major chains like that to build the building you have to have some dramatic incident occurred. that was the dramatic incident that made it occurred. but clearly the preparation for the a rival site could have been better. i said, well, it was my call to

make. bill green, did it just like he was supposed to. reported it in detail in his book. he did everything he was supposed to do. have a safe arrival and departure. we thought we did that. you know, the thing was the secret service went from a reactive posture, always wear protective if something happened. we went to almost immediately blank check crystalized thing that happens all over the service. we decided to go pro-active after that. things really changed rapidly after that. and i think it paid off because we have not had anything happen in the last 30 years, not a major attempt up close in your face. >> knock on wood. we all knock on wood. >> indeed. >> so much to talk about. more at the white house, more on the hospital. but i want to let those of you

in the audience ask a question. we do have microphones here and here. come forward. if you have a question, i have plenty more questions of my own, but i want to give you all a chance as well. while we are waiting for somebody to ask a question in the audience, what about the white house situation that has done so much attention, the al haig statement, secretary of state and said in essence i'm in charge. that was really just the tip of the iceberg. >> i was very fortunate in researching rawhide down. i was able. national security adviser, the situation room is where they all went to process reports of government and make plans. the situation room is about the most secure room in the entire country or one of the most secure rooms. dick allen, national security adviser does in the room, brings his tipper court, puts it on the table, and its record.

he let me listen to the four and a half hours of running tape and commentary. on it you hear that al haig really does want to be in control and at one point he tell the guys in this room constitutionally gentleman until the vice president gets back i'm in charge. he was completely confused. al haig, bless his soul, was of a long time soldier, commander of nato, nixon's chief of staff, went through watergate, the transfer of power to jerry ford. he knew something happened. he was so intent on controlling the situation and wanting to control the situation. what amazed me most the fight this barring between he and the defense secretary because at one point russian submarines are two men's closer to being able to launch a nuclear warhead on washington the normal. there is a disconnected. they put bombers on alert. you know, al does not want that to happen because he doesn't want the soviets to ratchet up their alert.

he looks up at the television screen and sees questions being answered. it's not like -- deputy press secretary. deputy press secretary as a reporter you know this. grilling him. you don't want to be on the other side of was installed. she kept going after him. the questions are getting more into who is running the government. it wasn't that he was deflecting the answers. a good spokesman deflect commentary, the flight. he just didn't know. you have to ask yourself what's worse, the government didn't know or he was caught trying to deflect the answers. he sees this on tv. he leaves. they go up. there is this moment. dick allen is next to him. in his mind he is going, he just had heart surgery and he looked pretty bad. sweat pouring down. you can hear his west point bring clacking on the podium. dick allen is going in his mind,

all right. if he collapses right now to a carry him off or do i kind of shovel him aside and continue the briefing? folks, that is a national security adviser for the united states of america thinking this. this is a crisis, the worst president to crisis since kennedy had been killed. sorry. >> questions. >> i have worked for the old washington star for 20 years. you know how things sort of become legendary. the story now that i hear is that president reagan leaving the hilton was going to the washington star building for lunch. is there any truth in that? >> jerry would know. >> going back to the white house. >> okay. >> that's how it grows. >> i never heard that one either. >> thank you all for an amazing discussion tonight. >> speak of a bit closer to the microphone.

>> thank you for such an amazing discussion. i have a question. i wondered whether either from dell, from your perspective from our research perspective or the other members of the panel, can you share anything about what the first lady's life was like on that day and in the ensuing days? >> i can tell you of the bit about it. i will let all three of the gentleman. i interviewed mrs. reagan last year extensively for a documentary that i did about her. she was in the white house. tell bites about this. she had come back from summer and was going about her business. she was seeing a decorator. they were about to make some changes. her agent, her secret service agent got word that something had happened. they did not think the president was shot, but there was a shooting. he felt he had to tell her just to let her know and thought, we'll just stay here at the white house until we know more.

as soon as she heard that there was a shooting she said of want to go. against the first word was he was coming to the white house. as soon as she heard the president was going to the hospital even though they didn't think he had been shot she said i'm going. >> and did he had the way to tell a this, he knows he has to control the situation. you read a lot about mrs. reagan, not easy to control. here is this aged thinking he is going up the ramp going, i have to break this news. how do i do it in no way that she doesn't run to the hospital. he tells her and she is already booking toward the stairs. she says, i'm going. you have to get the car. there in the car, then the fed hospital. it's only six blocks. they get stuck in traffic because of all the traffic at the washington circle. mrs. reagan crabs the shoulders and starts shaking him and says, i'm getting out of the car and walking. i'm going to go now. there were very close to rid of

all the people who knew reagan, the senate not to so many people. the one person you really knew him was nancy reagan. there is a moment which is walking into the hospital. their top aide close it to anybody. mike, they have to let me see him. they don't know about us. >> and we can talk about this in a minute. this would go on to change his presidency because she would never feel safe when he was not in her sight from then on. whenever it left the building she had a completely different attitude going forward and it affected the presidency and the scheduling. what was your encounter? >> twice at a time when it was during surgery. just as you're willing to take the president out of the emergency room rebut her and bowed. but she was concerned, but very composed. looked up and said, honey, i think.

we will then back. up in the second floor, the administrative area. in the middle of the case of went up to the second floor to talk to her and give a rundown. all very positive. again, she was concerned but very strong. very composed. and i could see how she was that way after. can i follow up? he mentioned honey, i forgot to duck. one of the things i hope the readers are people watching take away from this, is this shooting, as judy will tell you, reid calibrated the entire presidency and the fact that people start hearing one of his aides is in there and has a hospital record which i got to see from the hoover institution. he's jotting down of the famous one-liners. honey, i forgot to duck. who is minding the store? and this is as a chest tube is in his side. another moment he is in the

operating room and looks up. he takes off and says, i hope you are all republicans to which just says, were all republican. now, two things quickly. when the american people heard this, you know, they liked reagan almost immediately. researching the book and did not realize that ronald reagan had the lowest approval rating of any president at that time in his first term. two influential columnists have written a column that ran that very day that said the honeymoon is over. after the american people hear this we had a long string of very unsuccessful presidents. we had jfk killed, lyndon johnson did not seek a full second term because of vietnam. richard nixon resigned. ford made it three years. carter under malaise. return to a former actor at the inauguration. the the country. here he is shot. the last four presidents have been shot and died.

here he is cracking jokes in the face of death. what that did was it allowed him and the country to separate the man from his politics. it formed this pond that though his approval ratings would debt. of course like ever-present he had his troubles, but it build this bond with the american public that allowed them and him to sustain a lot of problems later and kind of also made him a mythic figure. the political columnist for the washington post, a very astute man. this is the day that made reagan a mythic figure. i think that is important. >> and at think it was important that the white house put those lines out. a media adviser to the president, longtime political strategist for the president when he was back in california knew it was important to get that kind of detail out, not only to reassure the public but, frankly, to him to humanize the situation.

>> how would like to ask if he has in the memories of that day in south. >> no. >> i don't think you were born. >> foggy. >> grade school. >> i was six years old living in long meadow massachusetts and i have no recollection. my parents were here somewhere. probably kept me away from the television. i honestly got the idea for the book because somebody popped again into my hand. i have to look into this more. he talked to this guy for 15 minutes over our most beef sandwich. roast beef sandwich. this guy has a story to tell. judge you're down and talking. the history of this day, you know, full of surprises. >> thank you all for coming. i was wondering if you could talk about the secret service code name reagan has, rawhide, and also the presidential limousine being referred to as stagecoach and also. >> what is the question? >> how he got the names and also if the secret service code names

are agreed upon with the protect the? do they have a say? >> good question. >> reagan actually get the secret service code name in 1976. i tracked down the military master sergeant who comes up with the list, the white house communications agency came up with a list of ten names. you remembered reagan had been an actor in westerns. reagan did not get to acting as many as he wanted jack warner. always putting me in a suit and not a cowboy hat with the six shooter. he was very disappointed, but he did have this mentality. picked rawhide. the secret service chose the name. reagan liked it so much he made them keep it for the 1980 campaign and when he was president. >> how much say this the individual have over what their secret service payments? >> well, as far as i know in the years i was over there we never had any arguments with them.

we chose for president carter deacon. he had this biblical think. and for -- think we had lancer for kennedy. we tried appropriate names. as far as i know no one ever argued about it. >> and the car. >> stagecoach, i don't know how that the started. >> that makes sense. >> i don't know. cowboy, stagecoach. >> how was the president's blood type determined? to the hospital have that on file? >> yes. the hospital physician was there and knew the blood type. they always have that, by the way. the hospital has it. they know the president could get to the hospital. they are then notified. >> yes. go ahead. >> i have two questions. the first is for del. did you try and were you successful at all in interviewing jodie foster?

the second, did you get the sense -- i remember this. i was a freshman in college. three months after john lennon was killed. there was such an bio, no, not again feeling right away. >> jodie foster, no, i did not try. she has given very few interviews about it. a transition to a figure to the book. and in terms of john lennon, it's interesting you raised that. john hinckley was a massive john lennon fan. he was actually stalking reagan at the warehouse and he was present that day when he learned that john lennon died and raised the vigils in new york, and it almost destroyed in learning that his great hero had died. >> you know, we talked about -- i'm sorry, there was a second. that was it. i was going to say, we talked about the mistakes that were

made, the media certainly made mistakes. they were heroes that day. we talked about a few, and we talked about jerry. who were the other heroes? i want to leave the audience with these thoughts. >> i always say jerry was, and i also talk about dan. there is such a thing as of vips and from. wealthy people are prominent people to are affected the some kind of medical problem want to get out of the local system and go get some expert and so forth to come in and take care of them. that is usually not the best way to do it. during the resuscitation of the up and saw this very distinguished gentleman. i knew he was not a secret service agent because he was older and he did not have an earpiece. he kept looking at me, and i kept looking at him. before you know when he came over to see. he said i and the president's physician. i am here to provide any information you may need about

the president. i want you to know he is your patient and you take care of him like you would any other. and that is the vip syndrome. al say he was one of the unsung heroes he did the right thing at the right time. >> did not insist on a certain thing being done. >> right. >> well, for me it was tim mccarthy. if he is not standing there with his big average body and facing down john hinckley i get hit on the president gets hit. it clear that he blocked one of those shots. so, i am always marveling at him staying up right. he got hit, one shot that really bound ten off his feet. he stood there and ticket. he did what every agent is trained to do. no one knows whether they will really do it. the driver was over there, ran the roots ahead of time. they were all heroes in my book.

they get in their fast. >> right. and we want to remember jim brady. >> maryann gordon. >> i don't mean remember in that sense. still alive. >> gordon is a great one, female secret service agent to be the first female agent ever to drive the president of the united states. one of the handful. must've been a tough job to be a female six service agent. she is in the league scout car, police car. there is a shooting. she runs back to check the scene. the limousine goes. she jumps into despair limousine. the white house position is in preachy hurdles over the front seat and says let's go. they take off. they finally catch up. we have all been in washington. the presidential motorcade holds you up in traffic. there has just been a shooting right now for that 30 or 40 seconds the presidential limousine is alone on connecticut avenue. imagine that.

the driver and the president alone on connecticut avenue. closed to traffic. marion gordon catches up. they did a makeshift motorcade. the cops don't know they are diverting to the hospital. gordon had the presence of mind to order this pear number z in front of the presidential limousine to act as a battering ram. so she is one. two, the nurses. i think that in my research for the book they are the first ones who treated reagan. the first ones there, and they were the ones who held his hand all night. there is a wonderful story. ten years later there is a ceremony. she is a nurse in the recovery room. reagan famously scribble all these notes. a constant entertainer. literally all and all i would rather be in philadelphia. send me to l.a. where i can see the air i'm breeding. somewhere deep questions and some were not. you know, a famous nurse who

held reagan's hand for many hours that night. ten years later bear was a ceremony. renaming the emergency room and reagan's honor. she is there. the press pass. don't get to talk much. a funny joke. this nancy know about us? innocent flirtatious former movie star. you know, and they'd make a joke about this at the ceremony. denise whatever. a few days later another arrives from the former president of the united states. for my ill-timed joke, i hope i didn't offend you. that is what reagan was. he also said your handclaps that that meant more to me than anything during my entire stay. so i think businesses deserve a hand. and adding some are here. [applause] absolutely.

the nurses never get the credit they deserve. >> this is true. so much more that we could talk about, but i think we have come to the end of our our. i want to think this extraordinary panel. this amazing book. i have been privileged to be part of this conversation. thank you all for coming to be part of this conversation. good night. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> del quintin wilber discussing the assassination attempt on president ronald reagan with jerry parr, the secret service agent who pushed the president into a waiting limo and dr. joseph giordano, the surgeon who operated on the president.

if you would like to find out more visit the books website rawhide down dot com. >> grace elizabeth hail, in your book and nation of outsiders you devote an whole chapter to j.d. salinger and the catcher in the right. >> well, salinger was interesting because his character is really the first extremely popular rebel character who comes from an elite upper-middle-class background in this post war time. he is not alienated because of his race or because of his class background or because he has decided to be a bohemian. a prep school dropout. a resident of a fairly nice new york apartment. this is really the dawning of a new kind of trouble. >> what was the affect of that book in 1951? >> it was really huge. the book's style was very different from a lot of

published fiction at the time. it was kind of slimy, almost ready dialogue that really caught the eye of young people, people of all ages, but especially younger people. the book really made quite an impression on readers at the time. really throughout the 50's and into the 60's, today as well. >> subtitle of your book. how the white middle class fell in love with rebellion. besides j.d. salinger, kutcher in the right, what other rebellious figures are out there? >> well, in the initial post or time white middle-class folks were really attracted to a host of different figures. they experienced mostly through popular culture, television, magazine, breathing, life magazine especially to be the source of venues. also the movies. particularly in the 50's

rock-and-roll, the birth of what control, it looks like elvis presley, certainly a huge favorite of young people. older folks as well who really made a name for himself acting. very deliberately putting on a performance of blackness, black styles, black dress styles, but musical styles though he was, of course, white. of the figures followed him. rock and roll would be one place that people fell in love. also youth movies. james dean, rebel without a cause became a kind of catch phrase for the rebels of the era. that phrase was certainly applying to holden caulfield. folks don't have a political problem, cost problem, but they are alienated all the same. all of the mollen brando, many of his early movies, the wild ones where he makes that wonderful line. young waitress asked him what he is rebelling against.

he says, what to you have. those are places you see rebels. also bohemia becomes more popular. but life magazine does a great job of bringing people from the fringes into middle-class homes across the country. people are able to pick up the life magazine and look at pictures of beatniks. look at of on guard writers like jackson pollock and folks at the probably would not have known that much about unless they happened to be interested in the art world or poetry specifically. most middle-class white americans would not have known. >> william f. buckley, the ultimate outsider. >> wow, buckley is an interesting figure because he goes to yale. no late 40's. he is at yale. he would not have been an outsider mostly. but he believed feels very much that he is at yale because he believes that the liberal

liberalism up professors really dominates not just the campus but the academic offerings. there is a kind of intellectual orthodoxy that is constructed by these liberal professors. you really don't have much room to stray outside that. he comes to school from of very conservative family, a family that half of that has risen the deep south. the other half not, but they're very conservative, catholic, white family with a very conservative politics. so he brings those politics with him to yale and feels very much that he is the rebel against that jail ivy league liberal culture. >> we have been talking quite a bit now about the 50's. what is the effect of all this? this white rebellion. >> it really begins to grow in the 60's and people begin to make the leap from being interested in people they see as

different or rebels into imagining themselves as rebels or outsiders. you see folks making that leap, particularly young white college students to the book music revival. a very important venue for that kind of thinking. people start of listening to the kingston trio or even harry belafonte. before you know it they graduated to the library of congress, the scratchy library of congress recordings and other field recordings to read before you know it they are picking up signs in their bedroom thinking about how they can cast themselves as a folk music hero. you know, the ultimate example of that would be bob dylan. there are many other folks you don't become famous but to take their guitars to washington square park and sort of put on and enjoy the music. you know, try to find a way to play it in what they think of as an authentic manner.

this needs a lot of kids into new left politics. >> to on the new white? >> well, i use that term because at the time in the 50's and 60's it is rarely used pejoratively buying at southern traditionalists and segregationist. they call anybody who is interested, who is white and interested in supporting the civil rights struggles of southern blacks, there were often called white negros. seven sheriff's yelled that at white activists, those type of epitaphs are used. according to the student nonviolent coordinating committee folks, folks sinners like pete seeger kids hate mail calling him a white negro. winemaker. so i used that phrase to describe those mostly middle-class folks to take an interest in black culture and black politics really starting with rock-and-roll and then moving to the folk music revival

and then some of them and to support for civil right organizing. >> well, if we are a nation of outsiders, who are the insiders? >> this would be the ultimate outsiders. the people who never actually planned the center would, perhaps, not a very large crowd, but would, perhaps, be the ultimate outsiders. if you think about it it's so popular. i think that we are really a nation that thinks about difference these days. that's one of the things, the dramatization of outsiders helped to change. in the mid 20th century there is really a very powerful sense of white middle-class culture as universal. white middle-class way of life as the way that almost all americans live or the norm, the way that we should live. this love of outsiders rarely has a positive effect of helping people to see difference and recognized difference. it may be goes overboard. by the time you have george w. bush running as an outsider for

president, a man who went to an elite prep school in new england, harvard and yale, a graduate of both, sun of a president and yet he runs a very effectively as an outsider. so one of the things that i wanted to highlight is how much that means our understanding of outside and inside has changed if we can see somebody like george w. bush as an outsider. >> to do you consider to be outsiders today? >> well, i don't try to think of it in terms of who i think of as an outsider. i am interested in why people see themselves as outsiders and why they position themselves that way in public. i think it is interesting that obama is one of the recent presidential candidates who really has not pushed himself or constructed in narrative of himself as that much of an outsider, especially in his more recent writings and his performance during the campaign. i think race has a lot to do with that.

trying to downplay his difference as an african-american and thus as one of the more recent successful kendis for president who really didn't push through a narrative of himself as an outsider. bill clinton absolutely ran as an outsider. we already mentioned george bush. a group that is really very much working the outsider shtick today would be the tea party. very, very energized by the absence of opposition to a kind of corrupt mainstream america that has gone astray. >> how did you grow up? >> white middle-class. >> were you attracted to outside causes? >> i think it is really hard to beat agon person in america this the 50's especially since the era of holden caulfield and not see yourself as an outsider. certainly i was attracted to that.