>> there's another coffee mug in case you might have broken an earlier one. but check you lieutenant dan on line, u2, plenty of personal -- personnel are thrilled. i notice that --

[inaudible] [laughter] >> is that the end? >> that's not what i plan. that's not what i planned. as if on cue. but it can stay on the floor. i noticed very offer you're out there with the sunlight beating down on you. i thought lieutenant anything national press club had while he performs. [applause] how about a round of applause for guest speaker today? [applause]

>> former secretary of state lawrence eagleburger passed away in june after suffering a short illness. he served in the state department of the reagan administration, became secretary of state under president george h. w. bush. secretary of state hillary clinton and former secretary of state henry kissinger and a number of other state department officials made remarks during his memorial service at fort myer, virginia. this lasts about an hour. >> i'm artistic on the up of the rank-and-file of the state department of foreign service, and a particular those with a great privilege of serving under secretary eagleburger ensuring the magic of his company. i worked for him from 1989 until 1993. over the years came to feel a part of his family. still, i always called him mr. eagleburger. what has he had multiple names for me. early on my name was foley

farley, as in foley farley, would've your name is, get in here. i was in mortal fear of him when i started out. but it didn't take long to figure out that his was the ferocious part of the deeply kind and good hearted man. and the bark was an astonishing sense of humor that just would not quit under almost any conceivable circumstance. those were momentous times in american foreign policy but i can't recall a single day when he didn't have us in stitches. the work was hard but he made it fun. it was serious but he never took himself seriously. working for him was pure joy and there was nothing we wouldn't do for him. he was often to the point of complete recklessness. in the car he and his driver, lee young, more like a couple of construction workers of liddy rating the balance of political correctness. swearing in ceremonies in the state department were roads.

when a sending off mike to caracas he called the marathon poker sessions on the plane ride down and back from a general assembly. and declined outrageously that might wish to be ambassador to venezuela was the stakes will reach the last half. he could also take as well as he gave. we were in a war zone once, i think it was in panama, soldiers warned us to keep our heads down. i said i'll just walk behind the secretary. quickly added, and the rest of the delegation. too late, jim, was his reply. his quick wit was legendary. once in august 1992 he told me to accompany him to the white house to discuss the foreign policy speech i was suddenly expected to write to help with president bush's reelection. i was than what he would've called an f. as 92. deeply troubled, i gathered up my courage in the car and finally said to him, sir, i'm

not sure i can do this since i don't know if i'm going to vote for him. he almost tore my head off. [laughter] belding, i don't know if i'm going to vote for him either, just shut up and do your f'ing job. [laughter] four months later the president formally elevated mr. eagleburger to the position of secretary of state. this was a surprise swearing in ceremony. eagleburger was lured for a meeting with general scowcroft while the family and staff were assembled in the oval office. when he was summoned to the oval, he froze halfway through the door when he saw standing together the president of the united states, justice scalia, and his wife holding a bible. the president said, larry, we decided to finally make illegal. without missing a beat he said marlene, i thought we were already married.

[laughter] and we learned from his other unique traits as well, one was his really surprising modesty. although he was supremely self-confident he did not need or seek kudos or the limelight. it's no accident he never wrote a memoir. the flip side is he was incredibly thick-skinned. criticisms just did not bother him. he was willing to give critics there do. and to admit mistakes, but that is when we could get him to read the newspapers, which he systematically did not do. he simply would not let the media are what he called the armchair generals and strategists deflect them from doing his job or to disturb his peace of mind. another trait was his toughness, mental and physical. your courage and the capacity that defy belief to absorb pain and sickness without complaint. he was best known for his candor, and rightly so. i spoke the other day who was

the last foreign minister of yugoslavia who knew mr. eagleburger productive. he told me mr. eagleburger's bluntness could be jarring, and was at variance with normal diplomatic practice, it wasn't rescinded because of his integrity and, of course, his great intellect. how did he get away with it? it had a lot to do with his willingness to turn the candor on himself and admit what he didn't know, admit the weaknesses of his position. he was extremely courteous and respectful of his interlocutors. he put himself i in the shoes. he articulated both sides of the question and he invariably identified common ground or a way forward and supported our goals and let the other guy feeling that he got his way, too. far from being that a typical diplomat as he's often labeled, he took the art to its highest form. and what made him especially unique among foreign service officers was his ability to

speak diplomacy and the link to the american people. mr. eagleburger love to make fun of the state department wormer i'll was always said to be sinking. and the foreign service for what he called navelgazing tendencies. but his exasperation was rooted in reference for both institutions, and his lofty conception of what an episode was supposed to be. he taught us, he taught all of us that cuts and loyalty were the two highest virtues. first the willingness to give your superiors, be they presidents, secretaries of state, members of congress, your honest assessment, no matter how unwelcome, no matter the risk to promotion, assignment and career. and secondly, the willingness to support their decisions and to serve them and country without condition or complaint. none of us surely we can claim to meet that standard, by god,

he did and his example will ennoble foreign service for generations to come. finally, in our office, mr. eagleburger's personal secretaries really knew him the best. and one day he passed by your desk and he could tell she was really unusually stressed out so he went back into his office. e. buster on the intercom and he said saunder, did i tell you today that i love you? she said no, mr. eagleburger. and he said i love you, saunder. we love you, mr. eagleburger. >> it's a great honor, privilege, an act of love for me

to celebrate with you the life of larry eagleburger, and his enrichment of our own lives. president george herbert walker bush has asked me to read his own message to larry's family, and all of his friends. larry eagleburger was one of the most capable and respected diplomats our foreign service ever produced, and i will always be grateful for his wise, no-nonsense council during a time of historic change in our world. during one of the tensest moments of the cold war, when saddam hussein began attacking israel with scud missiles, we sent larry to preserve our coalition. it was an enormously complex and sensitive task, and his performance was nothing short of heroic. larry was the real deal, a

tireless patriot, principle to the court, selflessly devoted to america, and his duty. he was my good, wonderful friend. and i will miss him very much. to larry's family who loved him most of all, barbara and i send our most sincere condolences. i know firsthand that president bush had a very special place in his heart for larry. very much like the rest of us. and then there will be many stories today about larry. he did many great things, one of which president bush has just described. above and beyond those historic accomplishments for me though, i believe that larry, in his own innumerable grouchy way made the system work. larry was a study in contrast,

and, therefore, unendingly refreshing. he was aggressively independent, yet fiercely loyal. he was comprehensively intellectual, yet deeply patriotic. he was irascible to no end, yet more than apple. he had a wicked irreverent sense of humor, but without bite. and a true friend one could not have. larry and i had a special, perhaps unique, relationship. it was at heart based on the fact that we both had served in yugoslavia. this by the time i met him

before he was turned to ambassador. we both spoke -- that in itself may this unique. we first met when henry kissinger was preparing to become secretary of state. while retaining his position as national security advisor. he brought larry back to help him, and i was henry's deputy at the nsc. that was an intricate and complicated set of relationships to work out, and larry and i were in daily, frequently hourly, contact making that unusual relationship a successful operation. when we left office -- excuse me. during 1974 when henry took his shuttle diplomacy to the middle

east, president nixon wanted daily reports of henry's travels and meetings. security communications at that time between washington and the middle east were insignificant to nonexistent. so larry and i used to discuss the daily activities and croatian so that they could not be intercepted. and this was a serbo-croatian, not even a native yugoslav would have comprehended. but it was a daily affair. out of office in 1977, larry and i continued our close contact, helping hendry said of his consulting business. and then when president bush organized his own administration in 1988, lo and behold jim baker asked larry to be his deputy at stake. stake. so larry and i essentially picked up where we left off at the end of the ford

administration, four more years of data exchanges, strategizing, trying to make the system work a little bit better. larry eagleburger was my soulmate for over 20 years. i will forever miss him, and i thank you, larry, for so enriching our lives. thank you.

>> my friends, larry's friends, to his family, i extend our sympathy, but i would remark on our admiration, which i'm sure is shared in a particular way by everyone here. madam secretary, i'm happy you're here. mr. secretary, i'm glad you are. henry kissinger, i once said it should be ordained as permanent serving secretary. and jim baker has prospered notwithstanding the similarity of our names. but my friends, i am hard put to

give you insight into my admiration for larry eagleburg eagleburger. i could tell you that he was a distinguished public servant, as he was, that he had a keen understanding of the importance of public service, and the diplomatic corps, which he did. i could tell you as well that he was genuine. by path, i mean he knew exactly who he was. whether it was secretary of state, as a trusted advisor, he was comfortable with that. he was happy in his own skin. i also recall that he traveled

well. i traveled with him on occasion. i was always struck by the universal appeal that he had and respect, and he richly deserves it. it was illustrated best in one experience when i was traveling with larry in china, and we stayed at the grand hotel. and when we left, the management of the hotel had raised an honor guard of attendance. i was mortified. i was embarrassed. i was unsure of what to do, but larry was not. he had a cane.

he stood erect and upright. he looked differentially to either side, and marched down the aisle. carrying the grandeur of his position and the dignity of his office. but mostly, caring the bearings of a great man. he traveled well, of course. traveled with some of my colleagues here. he often remarked that he is pleased to speak to the president and the country in a foreign land. but i always suspected what he meant was that he spoke for the

president, but mostly no one understood, he spoke for himself. and, indeed, he did, which is part of his persona, part of being. larry eagleburger. when he traveled to the middle east, and negotiated with the warring partners, he succeeded in ending that conflict, contributed vitally to the effort. when he came home, he did something near and dear to those of us in congress. prevailed the participants to pay their share, which he did not usually characterize.

larry usually did not characterize, but it was true, nonetheless, that it is perhaps the only war, the only conflict the united states ever had that made a profit. [laughter] i think he was proud of that, and we were proud of that. i had the opportunity and the pleasure of working with larry on many occasions, in many roles. as distinguished state department official, as secretary of state when i was majority leader of the senate, i called upon him for advice and insight. i knew i could trust him absolutely, free of partisan taint, he would give me his views. sometimes i didn't want to hear his views, that nonetheless i

appreciated them. so, my friends, as we go about the business of bidding him goodbye, to larry eagleburger, i expressed my admiration and my affection and my respect for what he's done for his country, for diplomacy, and for the grandeur of our nation. he deserves our accolades, and he richly deserves your presence here today.

>> it is my privilege to read high flight by john gillespie magee junior. all, i slipped the certainly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter to silver wings. sunward i've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun spill at clouds, and done 100 things you have not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence, hovering there, i've chased the shouting wind along, and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. up, up the long, delirious burning blue i've topped the windswept heights with easy grace where never lark, or even

eagle flew. and while with silent, lifting mind i've trod, the high contrast the sanctity of space. put out my hand, and touched the face of god. ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ we've no less days to sing god's praise than when we've first begun.♪ >> scott, andrew, jason, other members of the eagleburger family, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, you know, some folks who come to washington are legends in their own mind, but not larry eagleburger. larry king to our nation's capital filled with more than hopes of fame and glory.

he had a higher purpose. and that purpose was to serve his country. along the way he did such a wonderful job in achieving his goal there he became a legend really in the minds of everyone who knew him. this son of a wisconsin doctor and his schoolteacher wife, this one time u.s. army tenant became quite simply a superb american diplomat. when it was first suggested to me that larry might be a perfect deputy, i had some serious reservations. after all, larry was a walking medical miracle walk who relied on the assistance of keynes, and they put a cigarette smoke always seemed to follow him wherever he went. he was rumpled, and i liked button-down. in addition, he was known as henry's man, and i needed my own person to watch my back. and, of course, history was

against me. only one of the foreign service officer had ever risen to deputy secretary of state. still, larry came highly recommended for having a mind filled with institutional knowledge, and a briefcase loaded with good ideas. larry knew how to anticipate problems and how to solve them before they happen. he appreciated the bureaucratic dirty work that other people found a way to avoid. and nobody ever accused him of having his own agenda. even richard nixon spoken admiring of larry, telling me very proudly that larry was utterly loyal, won't have his own agenda, and was as smart as an outhouse rat. [laughter] that latter phrase of course was, in fact, high praise from nixon. [laughter] and so after he came to houston

and we visited, i made one of the very wisest personnel decisions i have ever made. i hired him. i soon learned that everything i'd heard of that larry was true. he was one-of-a-kind who drove a red corvette, and who smoked in no smoking buildings. all the while using that in his or of his to counter the effects of the smoke. he was clearheaded and he was blunt. he spoke the truth as he viewed it. a rare commodity in this town. and he was absolutely fearless when it came to accepting difficult jobs. you know, deputies in cabinet departments get all the work, and none of the credit. and that was certainly true at foggy bottom. as my number two, larry was the sheriff about the day-to-day responsibility of making sure that things ran smoothly. blood pressures rose in the offices of ambassadors and other

state department officials when the word came in that eagleburger was on his way. and even more so, when they heard that the eagle has landed. [laughter] but larry was even more than that. he was in a stupid diplomat who always rose to the occasion. when we needed someone to represent the state department during discussions with chinese officials and aftermath of tiananmen square, larry eagleburger was the man. when we need someone to travel to panama off in the aftermath of the u.s. invasion in 1989, larry eagleburger was the man. and as brent has mentioned to you, when we needed someone to persuade prime minister itzhak shamir not to return fire against iraq during desert storm when saddam hussein was sending scuds into israel, larry

eagleburger was the man. .. >> as expected, larry came with a solution unique by washington standards; he took the fall. and he told shamir that this was his idea, not his higher-ups. his cable to me said, if my solution does not meet with your approval and i am fired, please, wait until i get back, i need the plane to come back on.

[laughter] but his approach worked. israel kept her powder dry. i was very fortunate to have had first rate deputies during my time here at washington whether it was at the white house, at treasury or at state. but of all of them, ladies and gentlemen, larry eagleburger stands out. and so i think i can imagine the scene when larry arrived at the pearly gates. st. peter was there. after greeting larry, he announced to the multitudes in heaven in a booming voice: the eagle has landed. larry, it was a privilege to be your friend and your colleague. we miss you, we love you, indeed, we honor your service to our country, and we will see you on the other side.

[background sounds] >> members of the eagleburger family, distinguished guests, who of his associates can ever forget larry at work? in short sleeves, asthma inhaler in one hand, cigarette, cigarette in the other, cough drops in front of him, a telephone squeezed between shoulder and ear and very loud opera music blaring from his recorder. larry was indispensable as an associate and a friend, a designer and executer of

policies and as our conscious. larry lifted our spirits, ennobled our perspective and helped a succession of administrations to fulfill america's aspirations. the only foreign service officer ever to reach the office of secretary of state, larry incarnated the values of continuity, wisdom, loyalty and experience of one of our country's great institutions. at the same time, the foreign service cannot always overcome its suspicion that secretaries of state are in sore need of instruction. [laughter] because they probably could not have passed the foreign service examination. [laughter]

so in the period we worked together, larry had a dual job; to manage the foreign service for the secretary and to manage the secretary. [laughter] for the foreign service. [laughter] he carried out both tasks wither rev represent aplomb -- irreverent aplomb. he would sum up his travails in epic tales of vicissitudes overcome by heroic fortitude, accounts which he was prepared to share with mankind at the slightest encouragement. [laughter] and if truth be told, even without it. [laughter] a letter larry wrote me shortly after i left office can serve as

an example. it describes a scene in the moscow state guest house as the ceasefire ending the 1973 middle east war wassing with negotiated -- was being negotiated. now, this is larry. i recall sitting at a desk in a fairly large room yelling over the phone at the communications people in the embassy. i was yelling because of the bad telephone connection, not because i thought it would help move the cables faster. unlike certain secretaries of state, i never believed that a loud voice had much impact on inanimate objects. [laughter] there were some 20 to 30 people

in the room, all talking, and i was more or less hidden from view. unbeknownst to me, you walk in at the moment and, obviously, heard what i was saying. there was a bellow along the lines of, what? the cables respect out yet? -- aren't out yet? i looked up to find you standing in the middle of the room with smoke issuing through nose, eyes and ears and no one else in sight. all 20 or 30 people had exited with a speed and facility that would have put houdini to shame. [laughter] the single exception was winston lord who was huddle inside a corner prepared to hang around for the pyrotechnics and to clean up my blood when it was

all over. [laughter] larry's variations on that theme were inexhaustible. as, for example, his tale of my reaction to a fax machine that had just, that had swallowed a just-reedited version of my maiden speech to the u.n. at the precise moment i was leaving to deliver it. [laughter] in damascus when after a night-long negotiation i had barely gone to bed when the faithful were called to prayer from a loudspeaker seemingly placed right outside my window. [laughter] reacting to what i treated as one harassment too many, i knocked on larry's door convinced that he was my solution to every problem, and

he insisted that he put an immediate end to the noise. larry, in underwear, knew the foreign service procedure for dealing with an overwrought secretary. he picked up his ubiquitous pad and said, and to whom, mr. secretary, would you like me to address that message? [laughter] not that larry was infallible. in the mid 1970s, we were engaged in a secret negotiation led by larry with cuban officials. it had been agreed that when the cubans had something to communicate, they should call larry's home and ask for

mr. henderson. this strategy would probably not have passed muster at langley. at any rate, larry had neglected to tell marlene about it. [laughter] when the occasion arose, marlene told the caller repeatedly and with growing exasperation that he had reached the wrong number. [laughter] until the emissary gave up and finally asked for larry by name and stated his business, blowing the operation. [laughter] but i cannot part from our gallant friend without a

personal word. lucky are those who in their journey through life encounter someone of total reliability, absolute unselfishness and a devotion that its magnitude can never be deserved. larry played such a role in my life. his friendship was a gift, not a claim. he occasionally honored me by describing me as his mentor. he was, in turn, one of the buttresses of my existence. when i called him the day before he left us, i tried to tell him how much he meant to me. he wanted to talk about a letter

he had sent me about a recent book i had written. he wanted to make sure i understood that he had read every page of it. it will be a lonely world without him. but for those who shared larry's life and loved him, he will never leave us. we will recall his courage, his dedication, his patriotism, the dignity with which he bore his many afflictions. it will be our lasting honor to have been larry's contemporary.

>> i'd like to thank the eagleburger family and especially scott and drew and jason for giving me the honor of saying a few words about larry. secretary eagleburger's professional accomplishments and his singular contribution to american national security are well chronicled and have been described here today. and his extraordinary reputation is entirely warranted. but too often on occasions like this, the person gets obscured by the professional accolades. so i would just like to say a few personal words about my friend larry. because what i remember most fondly about larry was his sense of humor, his independence and his orneriness. like declaring his office as deputy secretary of state as the only place in the entire federal

government exempt from the smoking rule. [laughter] or the presidential trip where an early baggage call led to his packing error, producing the unforgettable sight of larry emerging with aplomb from his hotel room impeccably dress inside a three-piece suit and tie but missing his shirt and socks. [laughter] or having lunch with larry. if you ate too slowly, larry would finish his meal and then without a word begin to share yours. [laughter] or my favorite professional memory of larry when president george h.w. bush sent larry and me on two secret missions to consult with our principle european allies about u.s. military draw dons in europe, we always started with prime minister thatcher figuring if we could get past her, the rest would be a breeze.

the second time around she greeted us in her parlor at number 10 and said frostily, won't you take your accustomed seats. [laughter] later, as she was walking us out, she smiled warmly and said you two are always welcome in my house. her face then froze, and she continued: but never again on this subject. [laughter] in a conversation shortly thereafter with president bush, she referred to the two of us as tweed l dumb and tweedledee. [laughter] larry and i would argue for years about who was which. [laughter] that same trip we meant with chancellor cole, and we sat on the patio of his official residence in bonn looking out at the rhine, and i watched in yaw as cole and larry between them devoured an entire platter of huge german pastries and making some history as they did so. the only person even more

independent-minded than larry was marlene, and i'll never forget him telling me that mrs. reagan frowned on marlene wearing pantsuits, however elegant, to white house dinners. you can only imagine both larry's and marlene's reaction to that. [laughter] for all the wit and foibles that were so endearing, larry was a brilliant, blunt-spoken, hard-headed realist and a lifelong defender of our country and its breasts. interests. america will miss the dip plo mat and the national security legend. larry's friends will forever miss the man. >> i want to thank the eagleburger family, scott, andrew, jason, for the

invitation to share some observations about an extraordinary diplomat not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of the men and women of the state department. when i first was asked to be secretary of state by president obama, i figured i should call all of my esteemed predecessors to ask for any words of advice. and i had met secretary eagleburger, but i cannot claim to have been a friend or a colleague. so when i called and i said i would very much appreciate any advice, he kept saying keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole. and i said, excuse me? [laughter] he said, well, exactly. and then i look on the back of this program with this wonderful

picture of larry and marlene, and there is the favorite saying about keeping you eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole. every time i saw him since, he said are you keeping your eye on the doughnut? and i said, well, larry, if i could find the doughnut, i'd keep my eye on it for sure. [laughter] i last saw larry a month ago. he came to the state department to join in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the operations center which truly is the nerve center of the state department. we met with many of the young watch officers who work grueling hours to keep what we call ops -- and as all of my predecessors know -- running around the clock. this turned out to be the kind of event that larry loved.

and i so appreciated him because he rarely passed up an invitation to speak with the next generation of the united states foreign and civil service. now, on this occasion larry was not in the best of health. and drew was there with him and others. he had two canes at the time. and he sat on the stage with the rest of us who were going to be speaking, and i was a little worried because he didn't look well. but that disappeared as soon as he stood up and he got to that podium. the moment he took the microphone he had everyone in that room in the palm of his happened. and he spoke with such great gusto, without a note and, as usual, with no qualms whatsoever

about saying exactly what was on his mind. i think in the years since larry eagleburger was secretary this town and many of us have become much more edited. so it was quite a treat for me to be sitting where i was sitting looking at the faces of all of these young men and women turning to each other and saying, did he really say that? [laughter] he shared a story that encapsulated a great deal of what made him so special. he told all these young foreign service officers that one of his earliest jobs in the foreign service was with inr, the intelligence bureau. and his beat was cuba. one morning in 1961 he came to work early and discovered that something big had happened in

cuba overnight. what we now know was the start of the bay of pigs invasion. and larry thought it was his job to try to report on what was happening insofar as he could figure it out. so he collected up all the facts available, and he wrote up his analysis. someone, he wrote, was trying to overthrow the castro government, and they were going to fail. [laughter] a few hours later he discovered who was supporting the the invasion, senior officials in the united states government. and he discovered how they felt about his analysis. [laughter] he was summoned to the white house, and for several hours he was chewed out by one big shot after another. now, larry was in his own words a junior, junior, junior officer.

and plenty of people in those circumstances would have softened or moderated or even reversed their position. but not larry. he just kept explaining his point of view repeatedly, never backing down. and eventually he was issued a warning never to cross paths with the kennedy administration again. and he was sent back to the state department bloody but unbowed. that was larry then, and that was larry a month ago in the state department. unimpressed by all of the pomp and circumstance, unafraid to put forth an unpopular opinion if he was convinced he was right. andoften, as with the bay of pigs and on many other occasions, he was right. listening to secretary eagleburger tell stories at the

state department last month was not only a treat for the young foreign service officers, but for all the rest of us. it was thrilling to hear him, and it meant so much to those young men and women and just watching them happening -- hang on his every word was worth it to me. because to them larry was kind of a demigod although i'm sure he would take issue with the prefects. [laughter] the only fso ever to serve as secretary. you know, it takes a special commitment to join the foreign service, a willingness to live and work in far-off places, to learn languages by serbo-crowuation, and it's a commitment not only by officers, but to their families. and i'm very grateful to larry's

family for their support during his long service to our country. he served in difficult places including the former yugoslavia, he served in tumult white house times, and he constantly raised the bar for everyone else. through it all he served with integrity. he was devoted to the state department and believed that his devotion meant being honest both about its strengths and it weaknesses. and he pushed everyone, his staff, his superiors, the entire bureaucracy to be better, more effective and more strategic. now, the state department is called the building, and it seems to have a life of it own. it's like this creature from somewhere that is never tamed and can only be slightly known, understood and occasionally managed. but for larry, he loved every

part of it. but he always expected more than people even thought they were capable of delivering. and he wasn't always, even as america's top diplomat, very diplomatic. when as tenty secretary -- deputy secretary he saw his renovated office for the first time, he said he thought it looked like a moroccan whorehouse. [laughter] and that comment prompted a complaint from the moroccan ambassador. [laughter] i was also told about that trip to israel when president bush sent him. he and the other members of the american delegation there in 1991 were told that they would be participating in a drill, and they would all have to wear gas masks. now, of course, you know the story. everyone dutifully put on his or her gas mask except larry.

he lit a cigarette instead. [laughter] and when his colleagues protested, he pointed out they could not claim that the smoke was bothering them with their gas masks on. [laughter] so larry was by no means a typical diplomat, and in a department and certainly in a town that can be preoccupied with protocol and hierarchy, he didn't have much use for either. and as anyone who enjoyed a conversation with him knows, he could be, shall we say, somewhat profane but always funny and always clear about what it is we were trying to achieve together. i also heard stories that day about he, his kindness to everyone who worked around him. once at the end of a long day of official travel in vienna, he

stopped to chat with the people staffing the control room which was his custom. he told some jokes, he made conversation, and then he headed off for bed. and as he left, a young woman turned to larry's staff and said, you know, when they sent me over here, they said i would never see anyone important, but that was the deputy secretary of state. he knew those small gestures of friendship meant the world to fs,, s, so -- fsos and civil servants because he'd been there. he didn't parachute his way in from somewhere else, he worked his way up to all the positions we have now described him as holding. and he knew that the work that people like those of us who have had the privilege of spending today do can only succeed because of the talents of those around us who are doing the constant back-up work and the support that makes it possible

for the rest of us to make that speech, to attend that negotiation, to go to that conference. and so for this and all other reasons, he was the pride of the state department. and, too, larry's sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren, thank you for sharing this great and good man with all the rest of us. and thanks, too, to your mother and grandmother, marlene, as well. she's remembered with great pondness at the -- fondness at the state department for being a warm and wonderful partner to larry throughout his years at state. and on a personal note, for wearing pant suits. [laughter] last month when it came time for larry to finish his remarks at the state department, he did so in the typical fashion saying, someone just said that 50 years

from now the work of the ops center will continue. well, i don't know how he or anybody else would know that because none of us will be around then. everyone burst out laughing. and then he said, thank you and god bless you, and went on his way. fifty years from now many of us will no longer be here, but at the state department i am confident people will still be telling stories about lawrence eagleburger, the foreign service officer who rose all the way to the seventh floor as secretary of state. the diplomat who helped presidents and secretaries and america lead through times of crisis. the man who traveled with briefcases full of cartons of cigarettes, but who always made time to talk with the junior officers.

his time as secretary was brief, but his service was long, and his impact will endure. thank you, secretary eagleburger, and god bless you. >> and now, four days of booktv. nonfiction authors and books from now until 8 eastern monday morning. for a complete schedule, visit booktv.org. >> next on booktv, candace millard recounts the assassination of america's 20th president, james garfield. ms. millard speaks at the james a. garfield national historic site in mentor, ohio. >> my great pleasure to introduce to you tonight our speaker, candace millard is an excellent writer formerly of "national geographic" magazine,

and now we're very excited to have her here to talk about her second book. the first book was "river of doubt," and we're very, very pleased here that she's chosen to tackle another interesting presidential subject, that being the assassination of president james a. garfield. i believe this is her third or fourth trip here to the site between research and other things she's done here with us, and it's really a great pleasure to welcome her here tonight. please, make her feel welcome, candace millard. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for that introduction, todd, and thank you all for coming. it is a real pleasure to be here, and it is a great honor to be able to speak at the james a. garfield national historic site. and, um, i also wanted to say a particular thank you to the garfield family as well, um, which has been incredibly kind and generous and helpful to me throughout this whole process.

so thank you so much. at heart this book is not about politics or science or even the shooting of a president. it's about an extraordinary drama that took place inside the white house over more than two months. in the 130 years since garfield's death, his story has been largely forgotten. but even at the time, each though the entire -- even though the entire nation, the entire world was watching, no one really understood what was happening. what began as a shooting became a incredible struggle for power and ambition. the result was the brutal death of one of our most promising leaders at the hands of his own physicians.

this is an intimate, heartbreaking story of ignorance versus science, greed can versus hear rowism -- her row im. james garfield was not, as he has often been remembered to be, just a brand, bearded, 19th century politician. on the contrary, that's the wrong picture. i'm not sure what went up. on the contrary, he was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. although he was born into desperate poverty, he became a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages when he was just a sophomore in college. by the time he was 26 years old, he was a college president. he knew the entire -- [inaudible] by heart in latin. while he was in congress he

wrote an original proof of the pythagorean theorum. to me, though, what is more inspirational and more astonishing even than garfield's brilliance was his decency. you know, i wrote a book about theodore roosevelt, and i have great admiration for him. he was a fireband, he was -- firebrand, he was a hero, the center of every drama. that's not garfield. garfield was the calmest, wisest man in the room. he was a good, kind, honest man who was just trying his best. he was a real person not consumed by ego and ambition, someone who was simply trying to do the right thing. even after 17 years in congress in one of the most ruthless, vicious eras of machine politics, garfield never

changed. his friends used to marvel at his patience and forbearance even in the face of the most brutal personal attacks. but garfield was ip capable of holding -- incapable of holding a grudge. he used to just shrug and say i'm a poor hater. although garfield took his presidency very seriously, he had never had what he called presidential fever. in fact, he never really ran for any office. people asked him to run, and he did, but he would never even campaign. he always made it clear that he was going to follow his own conscious and convictions, and if people didn't agree with him, they shouldn't vote for him. when garfield went to the republican convention in the summer of 1880, not only was he not a candidate, he didn't even want to be one. he had gone there to give a speech, and he was kicking

himself because he wasn't prepared. he wrote a letter home telling his wife that he was just sick about the fact that he hadn't written a speech before the convention, and now he wouldn't have time. the convention was an enormous hall in chicago. there were 15,000 people there, and the favorite to win by far was ulysses s. grant who was trying for a third term in the white house. in the midst of this chaos and noise, thousands of people, garfield got up to speak, and his speech was so powerful and so eloquent and, again, largely extemporaneous that the hall slowly fell silent until the only thing you could hear was garfield's voice. and everyone was just rivetted. they were spellbound. and at one point garfield said, and so, gentlemen, i ask you, what do we want?

and someone shouted, we want garfield! and the entire hall just went crazy, and when the balloting began, delegates began casting their ballots for garfield even though, again, he wasn't even a candidate. and he stood up, and he objected, but the votes kept coming. and he couldn't stop what was happening and what was a trickle became a stream, became a river and then, finally, a flood of votes. and before garfield knew it, he was the republican nominee for president of the united states. what i found again and again and again while i was researching this book was that not only was garfield's life and nomination and brief presidency full of incredible stories, but the people who surrounded him were also unbelievable. you just couldn't make them up. first, of course, charles

guiteau, garfield's would-be assassin. he was intelligent and highly articulate. if you read nearly any other account of garfield's assassination, guiteu is described as a disgrunt led office keeper. he was the product of this country at that time. a time when there was a lot of play in the joints and no one to really understand what he was up to and hold him to account for it. guiteau was a self-made madman. he was smart and sap by, he was a clever opportunist, and he probably would have been very successful if he hadn't been

insane. he had tried everything and failed at everything. he had tried law, evangelism, even a free love commune in the 1800s, and he had failed even at that. the women in the might be nicknamed him charles get out. [laughter] but he survived on sheer audacity. he traveled all over the country by train, never bought a ticket. he took great pride in moving from boarding house to boarding house, slipping out when with represent was due. and each when he occasionally worked as a bill collector, he would just keep whatever he managed to collect. at the republican convention, guiteau became obsessed with garfield, and immediately after the election he began to stalk the president. at one point he even walked into the president's office while the president was in it. he even attended a reception and introduced himself to garfield's

wife. he shook her happened, he gave her -- her hand, he gave her his card, and he slowly pronounced his name so she wouldn't forget him. it's like a hitchcock movie. it's incredibly creepy and absolutely terrifying. finally, guiteau had what he believed was a define inspiration: god wanted him to kill the president. it was nothing perm, he would later say, simply god's will. as strange and fascinating and nearly as dangerous as guiteau was senator rosco congressling, and that's chester arthur. we skipped a pingture -- picture. [laughter] he was a vain politician who appointed himself garfield's endmy. he wore, there's conkling.

he wore canary yellow waistcoats, he had, as you can see, this great spit curl on his forehead, and he recoiled at the slightest touch. his sapty was famously ridiculed by another congressman on the floor of congress. but conkling was no joke, he was extremely powerful. he controlled the new york customs house which was the largest federal office in the united states and controlled 70% of the country's customs revenue. conkling tightly controlled patronage within his state, and he expected complete and unquestioning loyalty. in fact, his apartment in new york was known as the morgue. conkling was enraged when his candidate, former president grant, didn't get the nomination. but he was apoplectic when he realized that he couldn't control forwardfield.

to conkling, the attempt on garfield's life was his ticket back into power. but for the first time in conkling's life, nothing turned out as he planned. chester arthur was garfield's vice president, but he was completely conkling's creation. the only other political office he had held was as the collector of the new york customs house, a position that conkling through president grant had given to him. he made as much money as the president, and he never showed up for work before noon. arthur preferred a life of leisure. he liked fine clothes, old wine, late dipper parties, and -- dinner parties, and he was nearly as preening as conkling. in fact, he even moved his birth date back a year to appear more youthful. even within the republican party

arthur's nomination was considered a ridiculous burlesque. after the election arthur continued to make it clear where his loyalties lay. he went on vacations with conkling, he even lived with him for a time in d.c., and he took every opportunity to publicly criticize the president. and then, suddenly, everything changed. after garfield was shot, arthur made a transformation so stunning and complete that no one could believe it. the entire country was horrified by the thought that chester arthur might be president. but unlike conkling, arthur was sickened and grief stricken by the shooting. the last thing he wanted was for garfield to die. he hid himself from public view, he refused even to go to washington for fear that it would look like he was waiting in the wings, and he cut himself off from conkling.

finally, after turning his back on the man who had made him, arthur found moral strength in the most unlikely of places, the letters of a young, invalid woman named julia sand. sand believed in arthur when no one else did, when he didn't even believe in himself. after the shooting sand wrote to arthur, if there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. faith in your better nature forces me to write to you, but not to ask you to resign. do what is more difficult and more brave; reform. and to everyone's amazement, not least of all arthur's, he did. he changed dramatically, and he tried to be the president garfield would have been had he lived. he became an honest and respected leader, and he never forgot julia sand. not only did he keep her

letters, he wrote her back, and he even went to visit her. one day after sunday dinner sand was at her brother's house, and a highly-polished carriage pulled up in front of the house. and to sand's astonishment, president arthur stepped out. he had come to thank her in person for her help. the reason arthur became president was not guiteau's madness or even conkling's political maneuverings, but the ambition, ignorance and dangerous arrogance of the man who assumed control of garfield's medical care, dr. doctor willard bliss. that's right, his first name was doctor. [laughter] his parents had named him doctor. bliss was a well-known surgeon with a profitable practice. in fact, he'd even been one of the doctors at abraham lincoln's bedside, but he had far from a

sterling reputation. he had enthusiastically sold something which was supposed to cure cancer, syphilis, ulcers, chronic blood diseases, you name it. bliss had even been disgraced for taking bribes, and he had spent a small amount of time in prison. when lincoln's son, robert todd lincoln, who was garfield's secretary of war, sat for bliss after the shooting, bliss saw in this national tram -- tragedy saw a once in a lifetime opportunity for power. he immediately took charge of the president's medical care each though no one had given him the authority. he just took it. he dismissed the other doctors, and he completely isolated garfield in a sick room in the white house. he wouldn't even let him see his secretary of state. and what happened in that room inside the white house is nothing short of horrifying.

bliss and the few surgeons he had hand picked to help him inserted unsterilized fingers and instruments in garfield's back again and again, day after day searching for guiteau's bullet. the last thing bliss wanted was for garfield to die. he had too much at stake. but his own arrogance and ignorance were slowly and excruciatingly killing the president. the only hope for garfield was to find the bullet and end the search, but this was 14 years before the invention of the medical x-ray. what happened next is nothing short of incredible. only the most brazen novelist would make it up. none other than alexander graham bell stepped forward to help. bell, a young, restless genius, had invented the telephone just five years earlier when he was only 29 years old.

by 1881 the telephone had earned him some money and a lot of fame, but he wanted nothing to do with the company that had grown up around it. he said it was hateful to him at all times, and that it fettered him as an inventor. worse even than the business were the lawsuits against the telephone. therethere were 600 lawsuits agt it, five of which went to the united states supreme court. finally, bell had had enough. he said he was sick of the telephone, and he quit the bell telephone company. bell just wanted to help people. he had lost both of his brothers to superb low sis before he was -- tuberculosis before he was 24 years old, both his wife and his mother were deaf, and he knew he could make life better for people, maybe even save lives. but he worked so hard that his participants and his wife -- parents and his wife were terrified that he would literally work himself to death.

when he was working, he wouldn't stop to eat or rest. his only respite was to play the piano deep into the night, but even then he played with such an intensity that his mother, who had taught him to play, called it a musical fever. when garfield was shot, bell turned his life upside down to help him. it sickened him to think of garfield's doctors blindly searching for the bullet. science, he thought, should be able to do better than that. bell abandoned everything he was doing and spent today and night inventing called an induction balance which was, basically, a metal detector that he hooked up to a telephone receiver and which he slowly ran over the president's body listening for a telltale buzzing that would tell him where the bullet was lodged. in the end, bell and science were defeated, but not because the invention didn't work.

it did work. in fact, it went on to save countless lives before the invention of the med cl x-ray. -- medical x-ray. alexander graham bell was defeated by the arrogance and ignorance of the president's own doctors. as i began my research for this book, the question that kept coming to me was how could this have happened. what i found was, first of all, the presidency in 1881 was very different from the presidency today. first of all, secret service. this is 16 years after the assassination of abraham lincoln, and there's still no secret service protection for the presidency. garfield had only his 24-year-old private secretary and an aging policeman. not only was the president not protected from the public, but he was expected to interact with them one-on-one, face to face on

a daily basis. you have to remember that this is the height of the spoiled system, and many americans believe that they were entitled to government jobs even if they had no training or credentials for them. more than that, they insisted on making their case directly to the president himself. garfield was forced to meet with office seekers from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day. and the situation made him desperate. he longed for time to work and think, and he wondered why anyone would ever want to be president. but while he found office seekers tiresome, even maddening, he never considered them to be dangerous. he said that assassination can no more be guarded against than death by lightning, and it's best not to worry about either. he walked all around the city by himself all the time. in fact, one night he left the

white house, he walked down the street to his secretary of state's house. they walked alone together through the streets of washington with guiteau following them the entire way holding a loaded gun. in fact, by the time -- by that time guiteau had been stalking the president for weeks. he had even followed him to church and had considered shooting him in church. finally, he made his decision. the president, he knew, would be at the baltimore and potomac train station in washington, d.c. on the morning of july 2nd, 1881. and guiteau would be waiting. the moment garfield walked into the station that morning, guitea u stepped out of the shadows and so shot him twice. the first bullet went into his arm, the second ripped through his back. by an incredible stroke of luck,

garfield was only wounded. the bullet that tore through his back didn't hit his spinal cord, it didn't hit any vital organs. today he would have spent a few nights in the hospital. even if he had just been left alone, he almost certainly would have survived. unfortunately for forwardfield and the nation -- garfield and the nation, dr. bliss stepped in. bliss took advantage of the fear and chaos that followed the shooting to assume control of garfield's medical care. but he was not only ambitious and arrogant, he adhered to the most traditional medical methods of the time. bliss gave garfield a -- a gunshot victim, rich foods and alcohol. he took great satisfaction in what he called the healthy pus issuing from the president's infected wound, and he avoided any treatment he considered to be new and radical, including antisepsis.

the renowned british surgeon joseph blister had discovered the prevention of infection by destroying germs 16 years earlier. the death rate if his surgical -- in his surgical ward had plummeted, and he had traveled all around begging doctors to sterilize their hands and instruments and warning them if they didn't, they ran the very real risk of killing their patients. by 1881 antisepsis was widely accepted in europe, but the most experienced and respected doctor cans in the united states -- doctors in the united states still dismissed it as useless, even dangerous. some still didn't even really believe in germs. they laughingly referred to them as invisible germs, and they certainly didn't want to go to all the trouble that antisepsis required to kill them. they took great pride in what they called the good, old surgical stink. they would not change or wash their surgical aprons because

they believed that the more blood and pus that was encrusted on them, the more experience it showed. even those who tried antis&p sis had lit -- antiaccept sit had little success for reasons that today seem painfully clear. they would sterilize their knives, but if they dropped them during surgery, they would just pick them up and continue using them. if they needed both of their hands during surgery, they would hold the knife in their teeth and then use it. even alexander graham bell could not outrace the infection that was coarsing through garfield's body. the story, however, doesn't end there. garfield's death brought about tremendous changes, changes in medicine, in politics, in the fabric of our nation. as soon as garfield's autopsy was released, the american people understood that their president didn't have to die, and they understood why he did.

bliss was publicly disgraced, and antisepsis was adopted across the country. americans turned their rage and their grief on the political system that had encouraged a mad match like guiteau. chester arthur himself who owed his entire career to patronage signed the pend lton act which was the beginning of the end of the spoil system. garfield's death also brought the country together in a way that had not been seen since the civil war. lincoln's assassination had only deepened that divide, but garfield's had been the first president who was accepted by the south since the civil war. he was accepted as the leader of the whole country, north and south, immigrant and pioneer, freed men and former slave other than. his death was their loss, and their common grief brought them together. above all, garfield's death changed the presidency itself.

you could argue that this really marked the end of the ideal listic or perhaps naive concept of the president alone meeting with office seekers, personally making appointments at every level of government. it was, obviously, an unworkable system for many reasons. it was open to corruption, it was completely inefficient, and it was personally dangerous. it would never have worked as the united states grew into a major world power, and it's good that it's gone. but at the same time these changes also make it almost impossible to ever again elect someone like garfield. the presidency today is not about a single perp, but about -- single person, but about a large, complex institution. the president may be our greatest political celebrity, but his personal powers bounded by and filter through many

layers. he's surrounded by elaborate security, his contact with the public is carefully controlled, and he operates in this level of secret service officers, high officials and the press. it is very unlikely that what happened to garfield could happen today. but by the same token, even if we could find someone like garfield, we couldn't elect him. the presidency is too big and too distant for americans to be able to choose someone who isn't even trying to be elected. it seems to be open only to people who are willing to sacrifice almost anything to become president. we have, hopefully, outgrown the day when a madman could just walk into the oval office and an incompetent doctor could seize control of the white house for nearly three months, murdering the president in the process. but we likely have also outgrown the day when americans could

recognize the promise of a fine, honest man, a man with no financial support, no political machine, nothing but the strength of his own words and ideas and, in a shining moment of democracy, make him our leader. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> happy to take questions. >> if you would, if you're going to ask a question, please, just approach the microphone here and speak into the microphone, please. thank you. >> marvelous presentation. >> thank you very much. >> were there any among garfield's family, friends or subordinates who championed

bell's machine or blister's methods? and if so, i mean, how did that play out? >> well, bell himself offered, offered his help. you know, he, um, he, as i said, had quit the bell telephone company, and he had opened a small laboratory in d.c. and as soon as the president was shot, he knew that he could help him. and he offered his help to bliss. and by that time although bliss' public face was that everything's going great, the president's doing very well, he had become desperate. and so he accepted bell's help. um, and, and interestingly, although as i said really the most respected and most experienced doctors in the united states dismissed blister's methods, there were some young doctors who had been studying his methods in europe and who watched this with growing horror but didn't feel they could stand up to these well-known doctors.

.. >> a very controversial election when hayes was given the presidency. i am not sure how much of a role garfield played in that but it is interesting in that everyone is closely watching the election of 1880 because of that.

and everyone except for barfield. and doing experiments with a boil and he was not asked to campaign which was considered different at that time. >> thank you very much. it is fascinating that three of presidents or cuddly towards african-american that all assassinated, our calendar this year is the same as 1881 and was on this date on a thursday and tomorrow garfield's body lay in state in the nation's capital. of wood thank you for coming on this date to our home town. [applause] >> my honor. >> what do you think about the

fact that garfield quit being a general win the silver work -- civil war was still raging to go into politics? what is your response about garfield the politician? >> garfield -- abraham lincoln asked him to come back. he needed him back in congress and garfield understood that. it was difficult for him. he loved his regiment in which many of him from boys from the western side. it was a difficult decision for him and he felt passionately about the civil war. not only in keeping the country together and bring in about abolition. he was a fierce abolitionist and a national hero because of his work in the civil war. >> thank you very much for an excellent presentation. at an end of your presentation use of the last paragraph was

dr. bliss -- you don't include any malice. utter incompetence. a little about your background. i am curious how you got interested in the subject? >> you are absolutely right. the last thing. wanted was for garfield to die. he wrote a letter to a friend saying i can't afford to have him die underlining each word. he worked night and day and lost his health and his practice. but he was incredibly arrogant. he was willfully ignorant. he knew about antiseptics. you have to judge him on that. the other question was how i got interested. to be honest i didn't even know -- grow up in a while. didn't know much about garfield.

except he had been assassinated. i got interested in writing about another president -- i was researching alexander graham bell and stumbled upon this story of bell trying to help save garfield after he was shot and i was stunned because i had never heard this story and secondly i couldn't understand why dell, who really was at the height of his power, would turn his life upside-down. he had a family in boston, his wife and children. his wife was pregnant and they had been planning on going -- he had just left them and spent all his time, night and day, working on this. made me wonder why would he do that? what was garfield like? when i started to research garfield i was completely captivated and i knew i had to

tell this story. high. good to see you. >> i want to go to the same theme. i know that you are from a small town in ohio and a product of public education. how did you become a writer? >> great question. i didn't ever think i would be a writer. i was a reader. how was a voracious reader levin to read and thought i would probably teach. i got an undergraduate master's degree in literature. to be honest i hated literary criticism. i realized i really wanted to right. it was a process. it was little bundle. i moved home, moved in with my parents, open the yellow pages calling every publisher in town looking for a job and hot had

all these little magazine jobs and worked for a magazine for veterinarians and never even had a pet. i knew nothing. figuring out -- finally got my dream job. i was 28 years old working at national geographic. i was a research editor the first year but they had this terrific blind tests for riding position on the magazine. and i applied along with 300 other people and got the job. it was the best thing that ever happened to be up to that point. i did that for 60 years. and i got the idea for my first book. it has been a journey but wonderful. >> woodworking on garfield why didn't mrs. garfield tell the doctor to stop working on garfield? >> wonderful question. it was a time of chaos and

confusion and fear and bliss came forward confidently and wrote a letter to other doctors saying the president and of thank you for your help and concern and your efforts won't be necessary any longer even though garfield never had given him that authority. lucretia, even though most doctors knew about antiseptics she didn't and didn't understand what was happening but she did keep on her doctor. she had a female doctor, very rare at that time who they called mrs. dr. edison because there were so uncomfortable with a woman doctor. dr. edson refused to go away when bliss -- to his great annoyance, but you can--not as a doctor, only as a nurse but she stayed and did what she could. >> what town are you from and can i find the book in the

library by now? >> great question. i am originally born in marion, of ohio and grew up in lexington, of ohio which is close to mansfield. it probably is in the library by now. thank you. hope you read it. >> what is it like to be an author and what is your next book going to be about? >> it is really fun to be an author. i would recommend it highly. the best part for me is in the research because you get to do all these incredible things. when i wrote my first book about this unmapped river in the amazon that the roosevelt went down and got to go to that river so incredibly remote, i hired a pilot and a small plane and look for hours over absolutely unbroken jungle from horizon to verizon and i met this isolated

group of tribessmen whose parents and great-grandparents' had fallen and attacked roosevelt's expedition and they remembered it and all these stories. you get these incredible experiences researching this book, it was interesting the difference between researching -- it was difficult logistically planning all this stuff. this was difficult emotionally because i became very attached to garfield. i really cared about him. it was difficult to see what was happening. i kept wanting -- over the span of 130 years, stop. somebody stop these men. reading his wife's diary and his children's diaries, seeing there was a section of garfield -- it was used during the trial and the remains in a drawer with the remains of john wilkes booth.

there is a jar containing a piece of his brain that was sent around the country after he was executed to study any physical evidence of insanity. it is a very interesting job and a real privilege to do this. i am working on my next book. i can't get into details because it is really early but it is going to be about the future. thank you very much. >> i remember hearing about the story of alexander graham bell and what he was doing and i heard that the thing he did for the president did work but it went off all the time. seemed like it was all over the place but what they didn't realize it worked because it was the king of the metal bedsprings under the president and that is why he had a hard time finding the bullet.

>> one of the reasons. isn't that astonishing? he actually asked them -- because it was a very new and very rare thing to have a mattress with metal springs and it. they said no. in fact he was. that will affect a metal detector. the other reason it didn't find the bullet is bliss believed and publicly stated that it was on the president's right side. so he would only let bell run the balance over the president's right side and the blue was on the left. >> the other one is i was curious about the old cliche ignorance is bliss. is this where comes from? >> i have that in the book. very perceptive of you. after the autopsy results bliss's disgrace in newspapers

and medical journals everybody understands and one of the doctors says this proves ignorance is bliss. it comes from a poem from the 1700s. very apropos unfortunately. >> did you write any fiction books? >> i haven't written fiction. fiction and nonfiction writing is very different. i read a lot of fiction and i love it and have gone to a lot of fiction writers and i always marvel at myself because they will say what is your process like? they say i could have let the story lead me and i follow and to me that is a nightmare. i know exactly -- i spent three years writing the book. the first year is foundational research, then the second year i

spent going through that research and outlining and outlining and always outlining. really important. i work on structure the entire year and only then do and start writing. throughout i will find holes in my research and go back and add more. >> that is what my teacher said. >> she is right. she is right. you can skip the outline. sorry. >> i would like to know what is the term political machine mean? >> it is incredibly corrupt and power mongering, sort of the panicle example of that kind -- i am sure you heard of -- in the gilded age when mark twain -- it

was a time of corruption and -- bullying and the spoils system and things obviously are not perfect now. if you compare them to that time we are better off. >> you do your research were you able to use the diary or letters and stuff like that? how do you go about obtaining that? get permission from the family or wherever? >> a lot of garfield's papers and presidential papers at the library of congress. anybody can see them. you needed driver's license or gay reader id card. they are very strict with their rules which they should be. these are national treasures. i will give you a story here. i am a good person and carefully follow the rules but you are only allowed to have one card at

a time. you can only have one book on your desk and one folder out of that been. following all the rules i open a folder and there's an envelope in the folder and it is not sealed and the face of it is facing the table. stalin open it up and out comes all this hair. i turn it and it says clipped from president garfield on his deathbed. i am desperately trying to get it -- my career is over. they're going to kick me out. you never know what you are going to find. thank you. >> you mentioned lucretia garfield's letters and diaries. are those published? >> garfield kept a diary for many years and lucretius's diary is at the back of the last volume of garfield's diary.

yes, there is this wonderful volume of letters between lucretia and james. they spent five months together in the first five years of their marriage because it is either gone fighting during the civil war or he was in washington and she was an ohio. to her credit she kept all those letters. at an end of his life car field questions if he would have much of a legacy because he had been president for such a brief time but lucretius understood who he was and he would. even though many of those were very painful because the early marriage was very difficult. she kept all of them. they are beautiful and as brilliant as he was, she was his equal intellectually. i would highly recommend this book on the letters.

>> thank you for a very enjoyable evening. i have one question. you talk about james garfield being a multifaceted multi talented man. how do you rank him with the others? >> to me personally and i am obviously biased, hy believe he would have been one of our great presidents. it is impossible to know because he was in office such a short time. i am a great admirer of jefferson, great admirer of lincoln but i honestly thing garfield had a mind like jefferson and a heart like lincoln. >> i agree. thank you. >> is it hard to find the research on him? >> it is like being a detective

kind of. it is really fun in that way. when i began i passed a wide net. i looked everywhere. you look obviously -- hy went to the college where he was a student, teacher and president and went to the library of congress. i found a like the new york bar, letters which are just incredible. little universities have bits and pieces here and there. it is a lot of fun. >> i just have one question. the thing about dr. bliss. was there any government action taken against him? did they ever investigate his

ineptness? >> they didn't. the country was heartbroken and enraged and focusing on charles bhutto and his trial. he had the insanity defense and they were terrified he was going to get off. that is where the focus was. also bliss never admitted he had done anything wrong. he insisted he had done the best medical care to the president. he sent congress a very expensive bill for his work and was outraged when congress refused to pay it. >> thank you. >> i have several small questions. first of all have you ever talked to hiram college about this? >> i have done research at hiram college. quite a bit of research in their library. >> do you think this would make a good book for a movie?

>> yes! [laughter and applause] >> i think it would make an excellent book. i can hardly wait to see it come out. my father was an ordained minister at the same church garfield -- and i heard somebody say that he rode a horse from here over to the franklin christian church which is the disciples of christ church. do you know if that is true? >> i don't know that story. i would love to hear it but i don't know it. >> that is what i heard. thank you very much. excellent. >> thank you, everyone. really enjoyed it. thanks very much. [applause] >> go right to the table. >> can i make one comment?

>> go ahead. >> as the an elected -- the senior member in this part of the country are trade some of those years but it won't work. i want to thank you for an absolutely extraordinary undertaking that you took on and you humanized someone who is a ghost in the past to many people who didn't even know the ghost was there. there have been things written about him, about the family in the past. nothing begins to compare with what you have done so thank you very much. [applause] >> this event was hosted by the james garfield natural historic site in mentor, ohio.

visit and nps.gov/jaga. >> the court issue just to pan out a little bit is how do you get young people into the workforce? in this case specifically into the white collar workforce? how do you move students is specially from sight 101 classrooms in a building like this into the office jobs where they will probably be in the economy? what is that process? what is the best way to do that? the most humane way to do that and what is the way that ensures the highest level of social justice as possible in terms of making the equitable process? i essentially find this current haphazard unregulated free-for-all system of internships that has grown up to be inadequate. to sort of failed our test of

what would be a rational, humane and even efficient way of getting people from point a to point be. to see it on a very accurate level. anyway, internships originate -- the turn in turn from french for several hundred years, in french hospitals as a term for jr. dr. apprentice dr.. comes to the states probably in the nineteenth century. the word itself at that time still spelled with any at the end. it essentially means a young doctor who is in turned within the four walls of a hospital for a year or so, usually a couple years forming jr. sort of tasks,

bloodletting and applying leaches at that point or whatever was, grisly things. probably overworked and possibly with some resemblance to today's in turns. in any case, working with a hospital before they become a full medical practitioner. and i think this is more speculative, but probably a number of workplace practices you can trace to fields like medicine and law because these prestigious fields that other fields want to copy and that is certainly the case with internships. you see it become common practice in the medical profession in the 20th century at the time medical profession is rationalizing and modernizing itself, shutting down -- the country used to be full of substandard medical schools producing people--doctors of

highly varied in quality and the american medical association stepped in and said we need to get rid of the quarks and have certification, accreditation and all these things are rising in nearly 20th century and lots of different areas but in medicine one of the results is the internship as a period of applied postgraduate as it were kind of learning. transition period between your school years in medical school and your work as a medical practitioner. those are the origins. it takes a long time especially not until it takes several decades not until the 1930s or 40s you see other fields and other industries looking to this internship model and are windward and as near as i can tell, people may yet find other examples in the 1930s you see the field of public administration going through the

same process, city governments, new york and los angeles and detroit in the 1930s establishing internship programs essentially just at the time when no surprise governments are vastly expanding in the new deal and various social programs. and there's a push to rationalize public administration and one of the things you rationalize when you do your standardization and rationalization of the field is the process by which people enter. internships fill that role. it seems like public administration really, not politics, not what you think of capitol hill internships which is an species intuits of the public administration in the first place after madison you see adopting entering ship model and after world war ii it begins to go much more general and you see corporate america looking to

the internship. you see the growth of human-resources in the firm's such that any firm of any size like human-resources department which is tasked with having a rational means of recruiting and bringing in new employees and they establish internship programs. you see it in insurance companies, large companies like general electric, at&t and these kinds of countries. at that time these are mostly paid situations. they are paid, training based, seems to be about recruitment. it is about going to the local college and universities especially and bringing in the best and brightest and paying them while you are training them and sort of drawing them into the corporate culture and they will work for you. we take a certain number of in

france each year. these are very structured programs based around ideas about structured training. a new threat kind of vendors in the 1960s and 70s. as near as i can tell this is where the academy becomes more interested in internships as a kind of applied learning learning beyond the classroom. it is not the first example of the experience of education. ideas about applied learning going back 100 years but the specific model of internship, sociology department in the 60s and 70s they begin to contact city planning department in new york and say can you take a few students each year, each semester to showed them our a city planning office work