that we would work -- requires. so given this drought, this very severe drought, the worst in living memory it is really one of the only crops that economically is viable for farmers in afghanistan. so it occurred to me that along with all of the religious reasons one might have for joining the taliban or all the ethnic reasons one might have for joining the taliban there was an economic motivation as well which was linked to climate change because in the war there were two positions on poppy. the nato in the afghan government at posted and attack it. frequently more often than not in rhetoric is there so much corruption that people can buy their way out of the humanities and programs but that does not mean eradication is not a threat. the other side, the taliban, defend the farmers try to grow poppy. so in facing this drought and adapting to the poppy farmers have this economic motivation to

support the taliban because that is the side of the conflict that will defend their right to grow the one crop that is as unlikely viable. >> you can watch this and other programs on line at booktv.org. >> next, sara fitzgerald recalls a political career of former republican senator elly peterson. ms. fitzgerald reports the first female chair of the michigan republican party grew distant from her colleague says she provided equal rights amendment and contested phyllis schlafly's interest in republican women. this is a little under an hour. >> good evening. my name is bill ballenger. i'm editor of the newsletter inside michigan politics. i am a charter member i believe of the michigan political history society. this august group assembled here this evening, which has been the

repository for so many great speakers over the past few years. tonight we are really lucky. we have a native daughter of michigan, born and brought up in my hometown, flint, michigan, home of the flintstones. [laughter] she was born in the old women's hospital by former lieutenant governor jim berkley and like me. women's hospitals don't exist anymore, but sara went to school part of her youth at bentley school, and then unfortunately, her father who worked for gm was transferred several times and places to rochester new york and to the bloomfield hills area but sara's older sister sue fitzgerald is a graduate of flint central high school, so there's a big michigan connection there. the big thing about our speaker tonight, our author, is that

sara fitzgerald was the first female editor in chief of the michigan daily. that was really something. so she was a pioneer in journalism for women as an undergraduate in college and it kind of fits right into what i think she sensed when she first saw elly peterson and if i'm not mistaken i think it was on tv in 1964 during the republican national convention in sara was just a 13-year-old schoolgirl, bloomfield healed -- hills and she was awed to see a prominent woman on the national political scene, a woman from michigan, a republican, elly peterson, because in those days, you didn't see that very often and in fact you never saw that. alley peterson was first at just about everything she did.

for the republican party and for women in politics in michigan, and sara fitzgerald was kind of there at the very beginning when elly peterson was just hitting her stride and sara fitzgerald one on two a very illustrious career in journalism herself at "the washington post" and a number of other newspapers, and she took on the assignment of writing a book i think that is very very important. and that is a biography of elly peterson who was somebody who came out of nowhere in the mid-50s, a secretary and an office in eatontown the adjacent to lansing and onward and upward over the next 10 or 12 years became a national republican here. sara fitzgerald has re-created all of this in her book. she has done a great job and we

are so honored and happy to have her with us this evening to talk about it. i know you have got a lot of questions. i will just give one little quote of elly's that will steal sara's thunder little but although do so well-known i'm not going to be giving anything away. the introduction that elly peterson always had to put up with and i heard it with my own ears back in the 60s by governor george romney at that time was, elly peterson looks like a woman, thinks like a man and works like a dog. and elly peterson had to listen to that over and over and over again. now can you imagine george's son met running for president today introducing a woman that way? i don't think so. thank you very much and sara fitzgerald. [applause] >> thank you bill for the night his introduction. is a great privilege and pleasure for me to be with you

tonight. first i want to take the linda for help in setting up as a band and i want to commend the michigan political history society for your commitment to preserving this part of the history of our stay. in the course of writing my book i was able to make use of several of the videotaped oral histories in your james blanchard collection including of course the interview that no ballenger did on elly peterson and 95. these are data gets not only to historians but to future generations of michiganders. it's gratifying for me to be speaking here tonight but it's also also a little bit daunting. it is not sing because i'm talking about a woman who was by all accounts i reviewed a very good public speaker. joyce brickley, her close friend and political protége described elly peterson speeches this way. she dealt in reality but had a way of may gain an audience laugh along the way but in the end she really came back on point and slammed an audience. she wasn't a delegate type.

i think this made her likeness followed by powerful instruction all the more powerful. everyone who knew peterson called her elly. that is, they didn't call her mother. the headline writers in the michigan newspapers in the mid-60s that elly did this and elly did that and their readers knew exactly who they were talking about. while i'm sure many of you knew her as alley i don't think for a minute she would mind if i called her that, i'm not going to use that diminutive familiar form tonight because i think elly peterson deserves to be taken very seriously. now you would never say that peterson was guilty of taking herself too seriously. she was introduced as a speaker so many times during her career that at the end of it, she had developed a set speech built largely on amusing anecdotes about the ways in which she had been introduced. at one woman's club while the president turned to her and asked, elly do you want to speak now or let them enjoy their

lunch and a little longer? at a meeting of the young republicans club, the membership chairman christina peterson's speech was a rousing sales pitch that concluded, and if we get more members we could get better speakers. at a rotary club the district chairman summed up by saying, there isn't is isn't a man in this audience who isn't familiar with her services. in kansas and mc wanda by saying, and they give you the biggest woman in the republican party, elly peterson. in recent weeks, i wondered whether chris christie has ever heard that one. a favorite introduction was provided by her good friend, wendell hobbs a republican leader from ann arbor. he said, there goes one of the finest women that ever walked the streets. the audience laughed and hobbs apologize. peterson was quick to reply that it's the nicest thing said about me lately. she actually incorporated the quote into the subtitle of the

memoir she later wrote and published for family members. there were other times when it was probably more challenging for peterson to keep smiling as she sat on the dais. she recalled one occasion when she delivered a speech at a men's club and she and her sister were the only women present. bmc turned to her and said, and now mrs. peterson, we hope you'll not give us your broad speech is that only covers two points, but instead launch into your girdle speech and that covers every point. bill describes the quote that romney used a lot. romney she recalled that he was being kind, but for years it was bike waving a red flag in my face and i always answered as politely as i could, i think like men think they think. if i were introducing elly peterson is the speaker tonight i would focus on her many first. she was the first woman to run

for u.s. senate from michigan. that was back in 1964 when there were only two women senators, both of whom had entered congress when they were appointed to fill the seats of their late husbands. she was the first woman to chair a state republican party. in 1965 people around the country thought she was in fact the first woman to share any state party. this was a time when the chairman of the republican national committee would not permit the female vice chair to fill in if the male party could not attend the meeting. it was at a time the michigan repugnant party held its meetings at male only clubs. 1976 peterson was recruited to be cochair of dra america, the coalition of dozens of national organizations that work to ratify the equal rights amendment and that same year she served as deputy chairman of the president committee which according to my research was at that time the highest

professional job that a woman had ever held in major presidential campaigns. in recent months, and often been asked what led me to write this book. i think the answer speaks to the importance that hiro's and hero once can plan our lives and as bill mentioned i grew up in michigan the child of parents who consider themselves to be moderate republicans. elly peterson first came to my attention when i was watching television coverage of the 1964 republican national convention. that year peterson was about to step down from her first and as assistant chairman of the republican national committee. she was running for the u.s. senate and she was about to become the first woman to address the republican national convention in prime-time. on this particular afternoon she was being interviewed by network television correspondents and i was struck by it and remembered it to this day because it was so unusual to see a woman on the national political stage back then and i was very proud that she came to my home state.

i continue to follow peterson's career from afar during the early 1970s when i attended the university of michigan and she began to take a leadership role in the women's movement. as fate would have it late in her life peterson moved into the same retirement community in north carolina where my parents live. i had the great pleasure of finally meeting her in person. a decade after that i reached a point in my life when i was looking for a new project that would be intellectually challenging and personally satisfying. i decided that trying to capture the life of this relatively unknown political pioneer might be the answer. if i needed another nudge it came from the words of david broder, the dean of washington's political journalist who i had worked at "the washington post." early in my research i came across a calm that david wrote in december 1970 when elly peterson stepped down as the stints -- assistant chairman of the republican national committee. he said of her, it is i think

accurate to say that her abilities to -- would have earned her the national chairmanship were it not for the unwritten sex barrier both parties have a have arrested around that job. certainly her organizational talents made her views as respected and her vice sought sought-after among her colleagues in the party has anyone in the past decade. broder continued, the role of a woman in politics is an inherently difficult one, especially if her forte is organization. one basic problem all women face is the tendency of the party to shunt them off to women's activities. i should note that was it different political context for the word tea party than the one we have today. broder went on mrs. peterson fiercely resisted stereotyping and by sheer energy and capability won her rights to operate at the full range of her talents. her colleagues back in michigan

also clearly agreed to. in 2003, when members of the michigan political history society were asked to vote on the person for the best party over the 50 years, her name came out on top. elly peterson was a member of the greatest generation, generation of women who knew the way to get ahead in a professional world that was still dominated by men was to work very very hard, be very very good at what you did and to a large extent keep your mouth shut about the indignities he would endure along the way. elly peterson didn't set out to build a career in politics. she said it would have made a much better story if she could've said her family always debated politics around the dinner table but she said, it would also be a big fat lie. she readily admitted she twisted it into the republican party because her friends were republican and they have put out and the best parties. she noted of those days in the

1930s they wouldn't have known an issue if we met one 11 face-to-face. she attended a secretarial school in chicago and discovered she loved everything about being a secretary. she loves people, she loved to sell, she loved organize in office. she was successful she later reflected because she understood the organization and that was really my basic skill. she once told a writer, a secretary can learn the business has no other position can. during world war ii peterson joined the american red cross and served with the army field hospital in england, france and later germany. looking back she felt that those experiences were the source of her strong sense of patriotism that they had not really have much impact on her political career. those experiences undoubtedly shaped her in more subtle ways. she was able to observe first-hand how to lead men and women into battle and keep them motivated when they were weary and discouraged.

haps it is no surprise that she often referred to her campaign workers as the troops and she had to slog your way through the mud of wartime. is no big deal to crisscross and michigan's upper peninsula and the dead of winter as she did so many times. after her wartime service and marrying, divorcing andrea marrying her husband, peterson wound up living in michigan. in her mid-30s, she'd given up trying to have children but capped active with little jobs and volunteer work. in 1957, one of her best friends persuaded her to drive over to lansing and interview for a job as secretary to the new chairman of the republican party, lawrence lindenberg. she was hired on the spot. petersons recollections of their office were characteristically feminine. it was in this -- indescribably filthy. the filing had accumulated for months on top of files, desks, tables the floor and everything

was covered with dust and mixed up with old newspapers and other junk. when larry said he needed me, he wasn't kidding. he needs me and 14 other potential women take clean up the place and get it into some kind of working order. subpeterson pitched in to straighten things out. overnight, she became quote receptionist, secretary, typist, mail or, janitor cook, helper to all in mimeograph operator. she cleaned up at office and then she looked around for the next thing that needed fixing up. it was the michigan republican party. by the end of her first year she was on the road full-time. on those days she recalls people organized every precinct and i found that more fascinating than anything i had ever done in my life. from those days came the subtitle of my book, mother of the moderates. peterson was 43 when she went to work as a secretary for the michigan republican party and linda maher was seven years younger. at the time there was a popular

radio comedy show called the aldrich family which began each week with a teenager henry aldrich, responding to his mother snagging by saying, coming mother. linda recalls how he began responding in that way in the name stuck. in the course of my research i talked to many women including some in this audience who worked for peterson and described how she took the mother like interest in their lives, gave him valuable advice, but also set high standards for them. laid in her life she said there were still 15 to 20 people who began their letters to her by writing, dear mother. for political children included christine todd wittman, the former governor of new jersey and administrator of the environmental protection agency and many others. in recent weeks, it has occurred to me that my books might sell a few more copies or receive more media attention if i use the kind of words found in the titles of some other recent

political books. words like revolt, and rogue and troublemaker or even something a bit more cynical lie, how did talk to a moderate if you must. perhaps i should've used the provocative but tongue-in-cheek subtitle that peterson used on her own self-published memoir, confessions of a woman who walked the streets. titles like that might ultimately sell a few more bucks but i don't believe they would be in keeping with the spirit and philosophy of a woman like elly peterson. that's not for sale a peterson could not fight hard or even throw a figure trip on the she felt the cause was worthy. but i believe her political -- were conducted on a higher plane than political battles across today. was clearly a different time in our political history. in the 1970s it was a time when peterson could hold a high-ranking job with gerald ford's questions the campaign and liz carpenter who worked actively for his opponent jimmy carter and they could still

happily share carpenter's home in northwest washington during the final months of the 1976 campaign. peterson ran a hard-fought campaign against democratic senator phil hart in 1964 but still the two of them retain great respect and affection for each other. heart mack attended the parties to celebrate peterson's retirement from the rnc in 1970 and told a reporter that is a democrat she hoped quote alleys council will continue to go unheeded. as hart was dying of cancer six years later the two of them still exchanged affectionate notes. so mother, the name of so many protéges and political frenzy is when they addressed her, seemed appropriate for the subtitle of my book. and i think the subtitle mother of the moderates captures the role peterson played not only in michigan but the ranks of the republican party in the 1960s and 70s. much as been written over the

past two years about the particular challenges women can face when they seek high public office. research has shown that women more than their male counterparts, need to be asked or encouraged to become candidates. that was certainly the case back in 1964. governor george romney and his aides were concerned that the governor would not be able to win re-election from senator goldwater was at the top of the republican ticket. say they recruited peterson to run against bill hart knowing that in the process she would do what she could to keep the party unified that year. despite her disease patters -- peters and ran a credible campaign for the press coverage of the campaign was often relegated to the women's pages and laden with images that make us cringe today. for instance it is trite free press editorial that was headlined millenarian states rank said peterson was quote, a stray from the shoulder political throw who will be as

hard to deal with as a wife who wants a new dress. [laughter] another reporter wrote that quote, the rustle of political petticoats will set the scene and another story said that peterson had an endorsement from former president eisenhower quote tucked firmly in her handbag. peterson recalled that at the time such comments didn't bother her much because there wasn't much he could do about them. later in life, as her feminism matured, she recognized the kind of denigrating stereotypes on which they were based. i believe one reason why peterson is not better known particularly outside the state of michigan is that there were so few women journalists covering politics at the time. it's easy to forget that it was not until 1971, the year after peterson retired from the republican national committee, that women were first admitted into the membership of the national press club and allowed to come down from the balconies

to cover newsmaker lunches. i once asked peterson if she could identify her moment, a term coined by an article of "ms." magazine in its early days to describe that episode in a woman's life when a feminist consciousness is awakened. peterson knew exactly when her moment occurred. romney managed to win in 1964 but it was not a good election for the rest of the republican ticket. at a time when no woman had chaired the state republican party prominent republicans pushed romney to recruit peterson for the job. a month later the state party convention she was waiting to go out on stage to accept her new position when max fischer and the industrialist who's served as head of the party finance committee, pulled her aside. he congratulated your honor new job and then said, but of course we can't pay you what we pay our -- her predecessor. you are a woman. he then told her if she would be

paid $15,000 which was $6000 less than elly had received. peterson's response typifies the kind of person she was. she later knowledge that she had thought about crying but on the other side of the curtain, the convention delegates were growing restless and she knew her party needed her, so she went straight to the podium and delivered what reporters describe his quote, an emotional speech for party unity. then she announced that she was donating $6000 of her own salary to help retire the party and she expected all the delegates to make contributions as well. nobody realize she was not going to get the money in the first place, not the reporters covering the event, not even her male deputy and her still as he and diplomacy were such that it was many many years before she began to identify them by name. still the episode infuriated her. how dare they think i am supposed to save the party she

told an interviewer later in her life. they lost everything in 1964. they are the ones you thought i could do it, but i'm not worth the money because i'm a woman and i think there probably was the first time i began to observe things at that time. it bugged me then and it bugs me to this day when they put women down like that. i am sure that experience helps drive or ride into the early leadership of the national women's political caucus and 11 years later into the leadership of the fight for the equal rights amendment. teeters and came to realize that she herself had experience sex discrimination in a very profound way. early in her political career peterson observed that women were happy to perform the kind of mundane detail-oriented political chores that she felt men were unwilling to do. but by 1972, the year after the founding of the national women's political caucus, peterson felt women's attitudes were changing. in an article she'd vote for the magazine of the american

association of political consulting she said, we are through. through with stuffing envelopes, ringing doorbells, answering phones, baking cakes, labels, through with the work the males do not touch, through with the gopher chores and politics. this has come as quite a shock for many candidates and their managers. for too long women have been doing 80% of the god work in politics and getting little and thanks besides a form letter a wilted corsage in a condescending thank god for the ladies from a victorian candidate who speaks from the platform while we are in the pit. finally women are having the courage to climb up there where they belong, demanding not only to do the seating chart but also to be a part of it. in feminist circles there was a well-known quote that goes, well behaved women seldom make history. i think for most of her life, elly peterson was exceedingly wealthy in herb public

pronouncements. that is what was expected of women of her generation. her personal papers reflect is the women's movement began to make headlines in the late 60s and early 1970s she was turned off by the tactics of the more militant members but when she got to know the women on a more personal level, she developed a greater understanding of other people and appreciated the experiences they had shared his women. as peterson aged and was approaching her 70s, three things happen. first, her political party turned to the right. from her days in the michigan republican party she had argued that the only way to party could win was to seek to include as many voters as possible, including blacks and women but now she felt the party strategy was based totally on writing off those segments of the population. similarly she was very distressed that by 1980 the republican party had abandoned the history of support for the equal rights amendment. many persons are surprised to

learn that throughout most of the 20th century, republican party has supported the era more strongly than the democrats had because the democrats were concerned about the amendments potential impact for workplace protection laws. secondly, peterson's own career and her involvement with the women's movement led her to identify more strongly with women's issues than with the issues that were increasingly defining her party. finally she was old enough that she no longer have to worry about whether she was burning any bridges behind her. there were no political leadership jobs in her future so she could feel free to speak her mind. all of these factors, naked in her decision in 1982 to lead a group of moderate republicans to very publicly endorsed democrat james blanchard when running against richard huntley for governor of michigan. later on she described it as quote, a protest, a statement, a

scream in capital letters to be heard, to be considered. peterson's decision to the kind of press coverage that she hoped it would and generated some angry letters rum reporters of the repugnant party but she did not retreat. she told the "detroit free press," gave my 15 years of my life, 24 hours a day, to build a broad-based republican party and to find now that we are reversing all that, i guess you have to say i am a michigander and a woman before i'm a republican. over the time i've been working on my book, former massachusetts governor mitt romney has emerged as one of the front-runners is not the front-runner for the republican presidential nomination for 2012. much peterson's political story of course is the story of george in leonore romney, his parents. one of the things i found most poignant in her life is how she and the romney struggle to reserve their long friendship as their political views differed in the 1970s over the women's

movement and the mormon church as they fought over issues of such as the ratification of the era. many commentators have written about george romney's own failed presidential campaign when they have explored net romney's background, but i've seen virtually no mention of the fact that his mother also sought statewide office, running against bill hart for the u.s. senate seat from michigan six years after elly peterson did, having had two parents who ran for statewide office is a distinction i believe candidate mitt romney and his brother scott may share only with the carnahan's of missouri. george romney first came on the political scene after elly peterson and gone to work for the michigan republican party. she recalled that she first met him during the michigan constitutional convention the markets 50th anniversary this year. peterson got to know leonore romney when the two of them began making appearances in small towns around the state, speaking in support of a constitutional revision.

when george romney ran for governor peterson was assigned the job of managing leonore romney's appearances. she wrote in her memoir that she did not accept the assignment quote with a great deal of joy and she thought her own credentials quote rated more than another shepherding the wife of a candidate. elly peterson lived by my mother's maxim of if you can't say anything nice don't say anything and so by her standards, the statements were expressions of true annoyance. she developed a great deal of respect in a close friendship with leonore romney particularly after mrs. romney welby lancing press corps at a press conference that she pretty much set up for her at the start of the campaign. peterson traveled all over the state with mrs. romney in that 1962 campaign and meg been a teenager can't beat them. local women peterson recalled handle of the details of leonore romney strips raising money by selling everything that was

sellable. mitt recalled was a bit of foresight i think, quote was in seventh heaven doing the selling. in her memoir peterson described how george romney's strong religious convictions could be a source of amusement for the rest of his family. she recalled that on one trip near traverse city they consulted maps that seem to suggest there was a road that looked as if it won over water. mitt said kept asserting the road had to be there because it was in fact on the map. finally his mother said in exasperation, oh mitt, you know a road will not go over water unless there is a bridge. oh that's right mitt retorted, dad isn't here. george romney of course went on to get elected as governor and as i noted later recruited peterson has his ticket mate and 64 and his state party chair in 1965. peterson did not buy your own accounts play major role in romney's campaign for the 1968

republican presidential nomination. as far as i can tell she did not complain about this and of course it was good to have deniability when things did not go very well. she couldn't help but be disappointed she did not play a more prominent role considering how she'd been recruited to be state party chair three years before and considering the role she had played in engineering the republican statewide victories in 1966, victories i might have the demonstrated to the national pundits that george romney could in fact help elect other republicans. back in the day when i was still an important consideration. for elly peterson didn't believe in elbowing her way into powerful positions. she waited until she was asked and that then presidential campaigns were still limited to the guys. it would be another nine years before a woman was installed in a job as high-ranking as a deputy campaign chairman of a presidential campaign and that would turn out to be peterson herself.

peterson did have a front-row seat on the fallout that accompany george romney statement that he had been brainwashed by the u.s. military and our diplomats there. although mitt romney was in europe for most of his father's presidential campaign, one can appreciate how his father's experience probably help shape the way he responded to questions in this presidential campaign. as a former journalist i found it interesting to reflect on how george romney's apparent gap played out on the national stage back in the days before 24 hour campbell new shows and the world wide web and twitter. i wondered whether the ongoing scrutiny of a single political gaffe was more intense back and compared to what seemed to be our gas a day culture now in which every 24 hour news cycle seems to produce a new one for a different candidate. back in 1967 romney's gaffe continue to resonate for months. i did not have room for this in my book but i will share with

you now. by the time the gridiron, the bastion washington print journalists held this fall dinner and night late 1967 approximately the same place we are in the current election cycle, three of the six in the republicans get were directed at george romney. i will spare you my singing but here are the words to one of them. set to the 1930s tune, did you ever see a dream walking. did you ever see a brainwashing, well i did. with the plunger in the dust, sloshing. well i did. did you ever get your foot caught in your mouth just like me? and gulping hard, find you choked on your knee? the final verse went, did the white house light stop beckoning bright, while fading right out of your few, while the rain that gets laundered, they can make it pretty tough on you. romney continued to read his

polls and surprised his closest supporters including peterson by pulling out of the race just before the first primary in new hampshire. as leonore romney's 1970 campaign was a very painful time for peterson. while she thought of leonore romney had many gifts, she felt that mrs. romney's campaign was doomed from the start and tried to convince her not to run. she felt that mrs. romney was running only because of import and male politicians including her husband wanted her to make the race so that would become pleasantly clear as the campaign when i'm. i think she also did not want her friend to feel as degraded as she had during her own sacrificial lamb campaign six years before but once leonore romney was committed, peterson tried to be supportive, taking time off from her job in washington to campaign for her on election night. peterson phone, she sent yellow roses and hinchey wrote another note later on. lenora responded with gratitude. it helps to know there are

others to give their all because some things mean so terribly much. the political highs and lows that peterson had shared with the romney's made their political separation a decade later all the more painful. they romney said become local opponents of equal rights amendment and argued that ratification of the amendment would lead to marriages and the further dissolution of the american family. peterson's frustration was palpable as she conferred in letters with michigan first lady helen milliken and other feminist friends about how she should respond to them. finally, in early 1980 peterson's frustration boiled over. she wrote the former governor that quote, i am in this battle because of many iniquities i have endured in my political career. she recalled how she been recruited to run for the senate and then picked for the financial support she had been promised. she recalled how she had been told that she was the only one who could solve the michigan republican party's problems and

then quote, when i was too far down the road to back out, she was told she wasn't worth the money paid to other states because i am a woman. there are so many women every day she wrote in politics and business who face the same iniquities. and then, in typical elly peterson fashion, she was romney and his family the best wishes for the new year. romney replied he was sorry about her experiences. quote, if it was my fault, please forgive. years later peterson recalled that when she returned to michigan as she grew older she would always go have lunch with romney. but it was never quite the same she recalled, because we couldn't talk about equal rights the equal rights amendment or choice so instead she said, they talked about the people they had known. i think their experiences unfortunately our vermilya once for many of us today. sadly our politics have become so polarized and emotional that

it becomes very challenging to maintain relationships with persons with whom we disagree. how many of us have learned we should avoid talking about politics with certain of our friends and family members. i spent three days interviewing elly peterson when she was 92 and he talks a lot about politics and watch several hours of cable news television shows together. and so when i'm asked what she would think about the state of our politics today, i feel pretty confident when i answer. i know she was very concerned about how campaigns had come to be dominated by money and a large sums that are now required to be raised to be able to run a campaign. she would be very concerned about increased polarization of our politics and their inability to forge bipartisan solutions. i thought it was noteworthy the former first later betty ford had asked cokie roberts and to speak at her memorial service and wanted her to recall the day when members of congress from rep rosing -- opposing parties

could still be close friends. elly peterson was certainly part of that world as well. finally peterson was a strong believer in increasing the participation of women in politics and government. over her lifetime she watched as the number of women serving in congress went steadily upward, but then trendlines has leveled out and at the state legislative level is actually headed downward. for peterson, this would have been a major disappointment. peterson expressed her perspective well in a speech i found in her personal papers that i believe was the last or most beach that she ever made. she delivered her remarks about 20 years ago to the men lob of the retirement community where she lived with my parents. she began by saying she considered herself to be an independent and was not there to espouse the views of any particular party or candidate. she concluded by saying, politics has changed but not all for the better. today it's too much about money,

the raising of that, the spending of that and worst of all there prevails a tone of insensitivity, instability and mean-spiritedness. i believe the surest way to political oblivion for a parties through its tolerance and tolerance of women, in tolerance of minorities, intolerance of people who dvd from one narrowly defined point of view. and diversity there a strength for us as a party, as a community and as a nation. in our tolerance and fairness to others lies the path to being the rational human beings we all aspire to be. may we all find their way gracefully and passionately down this path. thank you. [applause] i think we have time for a few questions. >> i have a question about -- because back in the 60s bill

milliken was a fairly minor political figure and wasn't widely known. elly peterson politically was almost the creation of george romney at a high level after she ran for the senate. he was someone who asked her to become the chairman and she became the chairman. how to her relationship with milliken if all they develop because they became quite close as you know, and yet ironically, her relationship with romney who is really the main republican figure attribute and whether the way and with the problems you describe. >> bills question was to talk a little bit about her relationship with the milliken's rudy and helen medicare and how that contrasted with the romney's. it impacted her political relationship with bill milliken and the fact that she moved to washington with romney or she was going to move with romney in 1969.

he had talked to her about the job and the housing and urban development department and she ended up going back to the committee working with rogers so for bill milliken's first years as governor, she was in washington and then of course after 1970, retired for a retired for more formal political roles. but at the same time, helen milliken's feminism was developing and so they become very close and in part through the battle of the equal rights amendment and when l.a. and liz carpenter decided to step down as the co-chairs of the ra america they recruited helen milliken and percy rockefeller to take their places so she continued to have a very close relationship. i think that she had a great deal of respect for bill milliken as a politician and i think he was clearly out of the same moderate republican mold that she was out of. and any other questions?

or comments people want to share from your own experience? go ahead again, bill. lives. >> i gather you were a little bit younger when she was breaking through all of those barriers but i can remember her in the distance as a young person. i thought you captured it so well how -- about her and what she was doing. she really was groundbreaking. >> i think you are right in the comment was about if you are a woman, stay in our 60s or so and elder women as well, that she caught your attention, and it like i said the headlines around her could refer to l.a. and they knew who she was talking about both in terms of first her senate campaign which was groundbreaking both in

michigan and nationally at the time, and as well when she became a state republican chairman. one of the things that interested me when i went through her papers was how many michigan ap or upi report we do a profile of her. it would run in papers all over the country because it was considered unusual and it was also right around that time, this is more a guess into the early 70s that newspapers were starting to transition bayer women's traditional women's sections to a more feature section. ..

>> i noticed in one of the refuse of your book cover that keith lwin who was one of her early field operators when she was republican state chairman said about her and you have addressed this in your talk. she didn't leave the republican party. the republican party left her. how accurate do you really think that this? i know you talked about later the republican party took a turn but i remember talking to elly peterson in the late 60s that she was already concerned that the nixon at ministration was

too far to the right and too conservative. and today richard nixon is probably not acceptable at all to republican itself. how much did she actually changed her view or to think she was absolutely pretty much rock solid, and this ain't a philosophical outlook and ideology from the time most leery whenever in the late 50s all the way up until the end i ask a >> , the i think clearly in the 1960s she was considered about right we republican parties both in michigan and on the national level. one of the reasons why she was concerned about the possibility of phyllis lasley would become president of the national federation of republican women. i think the champion was that

romney rockefeller, bill scranton, that kind of mood. i think she said when nixon ended up as candidate, they should of silicon republic and a you got behind her cry and she worked hard for him. but i think during the years, the first years of his presidency she would say things very frustrated because on one hand it's the assistant chairman of the rnc and tragic it would top jobs in the administration try to be a liaison with the state party leaders, she found the nixon white house was sort of running their own game and not frustrated her because i think she felt we can all work together to build the republican party and wasn't working the way she envisioned it. i think, too, she came out of michigan where she had started the detert action center had envisioned for taking that concept nationwide and new this is new this is still a point in our history where the republicans could conceivably

attract a percent of the african american voters certainly more than they do today. she thought this to be one strategy towards making it more of a big tent party. so i think it was gradual and probably other feminists are not mature it come to dedicate her perhaps issue she could more definitively paying her hat on. it is possible but how that happened she would become more politically is she cuddled her. did you find there's a lot of people to come up to me and say i was that kind of of republican and i missed it and i don't feel the party is that way these days. one of the things she said to anything specific about 1870, which was a tough election in a number of people that she liked a lot defeated that year. she felt one of the big differences between moderates

and people on the right of the moderates in between elections tend to go back to their regular lives. they didn't have the same kind of passion that she thought the right-wingers did in this made the difference in how the party evolved because the moderates would move on to other things and to think that the same kind of passion. she also felt moderates could get passionate about a candidate be upon you rockefeller, but had less support for an ongoing ideology compared to the right wing. >> did ms. peterson never share with you wish it had earlier in our conversation here that with family and friends we don't often -- we don't engage in conversations anymore. we kind of avoid politics and

those types of subjects. did she share with you why she thought that it changed over time? white people and friends and family could not discuss it in a civil manner? white people and friends and family could not discuss it in a civil manner? white people and friends and family could not discuss it in a civil manner? white people and friends and family could not discuss it in a civil manner elly peterson had shared the interviews about why the increasing polarization had occurred. think it is benfield by the media culture we live in now. also one of the contributing factors is frankly the last couple of rounds of redistricting in and which particularly in congress and the state legislatures, political districts are being drawn so that candidate can be assured of election. the republicans of the republicans in their districts and democrats will put a generous and say this is how will divide the world.

what it means is the politicians in those kinds of situations, because they are playing to their base, it makes them take more extreme conditions than they would if they had analyzed drip with better balanced or not chosen in a way. i think it is unfortunate that the way our media culture has developed and in the past few teams that the good news is you have more voices. the bad news is you have more voices. the way people feel they can get to be hard sometimes fortunately i'd been more striking. and because we have more media outlets now, it also means we can tend to cause immediate help and so we can agree with. we have less of a kind of -- the big media common experience that we could back in the 50s or 60s or 70s when i was growing up. so all of these things contribute. when allie and i talked about

it, i think she was concerned and of course we were watching cable news there and you can see the extremes that that particular medium has provoked a lot of contributed. but i think what it does if it increases the emotionalism of our politics more so than rational discussion and that's one of the things that make them more difficult. >> i'm curious, to elly peterson have any friendship or relationship with martha griffiths in their support of the equal rights amendments? did they work with? >> jazz, and when she started off in politics and writes about her when she went to work for the republican party, the michigan democratic party seem to be on the ascendancy with all these people like phil hart and martha griffiths and her husband daniel stabler. so she viewed her as a very talented competitor.

the tv came close later in their lives and chris has succeeded in getting the erie discharged in the house judiciary committee during the time when allie peterson was assistant chairman of the republican national committee and when tranter was in washington at the time was the first time women were appointed as general by president nixon. and so, she hosted a reception to mark this occasion. and because she viewed it as a victory for women rather than for republicans, she invited counterparts in the republican national committee over to share this perception. i bring this up only because they did this event happened was that he picked griffiths -- the day passed the house and were surprised how fast it passed congress, which turner, everybody's surprise. suddenly they had all of these states passing it, falling into

line which is the last these states. and of course griffis was blucher's running mate when she came out and endorsed blanchard said she would've had interaction with her at that time as well. >> is this your first book? >> this is my first nonfiction book. i've written a couple novels. if you asked it which is harder, a novel or nonfiction book, was a nonfiction book because you cannot make it out. [laughter] >> is there another book -- the >> i'm going to take a little break, but i will say that i like to think that experience as a novelist told me in writing this book because you learn a lot along the way in terms of telling the story and trying to understand the character and i hope that certainly in this book as well. >> bill ballenger talked about your start as the michigan daily. would you just kind of give us a little overview of your career

and what led you to the "washington post"? >> the question is how my career had evolved. i started off in michigan is a journalism major and went over and begin working on the daily my second semester in college and had a bunch of different jobs there and ended up as editor-in-chief. i was very fortunate and then i had two summer internships during my college years. i was lucky enough one of them was a dow jones newspaper fund copyediting internship and i spent that summer on the journal, which is in the newspaper and not been led to a report in internship for next summer on the "miami herald" and it was a great summer to work on the "miami herald" because of his 1972 in both of the national and political conventions in miami. he was a great preference seen on politics. but he was not a convention to

elly peterson actually attended so that's kind of an interesting twist. after college i started my career in the st. petersburg times first as an editor and follow me feature has been to washington and worked for four years of national journal magazine and about 15 years at the post as an editor in for about five years of the new media developer normally and services and left the post in the mid-1990s and have done a few other things in between. i decided to pursue this project right on a the consulting firm i had sold my share to a partner and decided i was too young to be retired at that age and needed something to keep me busy. thank you. [applause] >> for more information, visit press.you have ich.edu and

search elly peterson. >> one of the great beauties of your talks is the actual unfolding of the gunfight in a step by step fashion and it unfolds in a way that seems both inevitable and a total accident if that makes sense. and you get to the final moment and hazlitt seems to me and i'll when he looked at what saw all the indians in the world down there for travis had when he realized no one was coming to save him at the alamo. what does that -- i don't mean that. what does that tell us about how this event happened? >> i will repeat that i think something was bound to happen.

whether he was going to involve the specific individuals or others, there is just too much tension in too much distress. james earp said later that he thought there was a certain amount of pressure put on virtual by some of the townspeople that have been in none of this would've occurred. i like virtual light and ended up feeling sorry for him. i think he tried very hard to beat a good long man. in the eyes of average american today, the okay corral included wyatt earp, doc holliday maclean's. it seemed to me that virtually market or have sort of been dumped into the background as have tom and frank mcclory. virgil wanted to be a good long man. i think it is very pragmatic about the way he enforce the law. he preferred giving people a chance to back away without embarrassing man or having their pride