movement and began the study of the freedom rights, just on the basis of shuttles worth baptist church participation, it was named a national historic landmark because he lived here, and coordinated the rise across the state of alabama from this place. church members picked up the freedom writers and he ran the whole operation right here as he had much of the movement. . .

who actually had a local movement, that is people that supported him through many years of many court battles and many challenges and many board cuts and many other kinds of campaigns against very very restrictive local laws. but finally, in the spring of april and may, with the help of king and the sclc staff it grew into one of the most amazing testimonies of people, standing up for their rights anywhere in history, anywhere this happen. >> coming up next, book tv presents after words an hour-long program where we invite guest host to interview

authors. this week, clifton truman daniel provides personal commentary and historical context for his grandparents correspondence with each other in his latest book, since "dear harry, love bess." the book presents more than 20 years worth of letters to the trim is to highlight the roles of former first lady played in shaping and supporting her husband's career. mr. daniel also talks with margaret hoover the great granddaughter of president herbert hoover. >> host: clifton it's so fun to be here with you. we have spent a lot of time talking the past about your grandfather and my great grandfather's relationship and you've just written a new book that as a backdrop, the german library library has 1300 letters that your grandfather harry truman wrote to bess. but in response they only had 184 letters that bess returned

to harry. what's the story? >> guest: my grandmother was a very private person and my grandfather was an open book. you estimate question you got an answer. he saved everything. he save scraps of papers and he saved gas receipts. anything that he thought was -- i think that he was a natural packrat anyway but he was very mindful of the fact that the american people shouldn't be able to learn from the mind of their president so he saved mostly all of this important paper so he saved a lot of stuff but he didn't mind that people would read these things and know what he was thinking and know what he had said. my grandmother on the other hand had not been president and figured that her business was her own business and nobody else's. he came home in 1955 around christmas and found her in front of the fire, tossing in stacks of letter she had written to him. he stopped her and he said bess what are you doing? think of history. she said i have, and kept

chucking them. >> host: tossed another stack second of fire. >> guest: if she wrote as often as he did which is likely, she burned more than 1200 letters, more than 11 or 1200 letters and the ones she missed, she missed and what raid guzzle brock at the truman library library called an act of poor housekeeping. they were tucked in books and stuffed in the back of drawers. >> host: so they're 184 that she had honor on and when did you come to find them? >> guest: my mother asked in the early 1980s, a year or so before my grandmother died, my mother asked for an inventory of everything in the house and archivists found letters. >> host: stashed away. >> guest: in twos and threes and talked them into a box and took them to the truman library. >> host: and in the letters can you tell us about the timeframe from the letters? what part of their lives to the

letterwriting stand? >> guest: it's odd that it actually does span -- the -- there is one from 1919, the end of world war i. from 192-32-1943 which was essentially grandpas 10 years as a county judge, county administrator in jackson county, missouri and the 10 years he was the united states senator so sort of his political apprenticeship for the presidency so those 20 years leading up to it. they actually hold together pretty well. they are pretty linear considering she stuffed them in george. >> host: one of the things i've noticed is it's true, she probably did burn about 1100 letters because then the times that you have the letters that she she is has written is almost every day that you are within a couple of three days that they are they are writing back and forth. so they really did have it least it seemed to me, to be a pretty committed relationship. and i wonder if you could speak

to what you learned or white you would characterize as early french -- relationship that you learned about by reading their letters. >> guest: i always knew they were close but i did not realize how close. when they were part and there is no way to know that the letters of my grandmother that we have from a certain year, let's say the two-week period from 23233. they were written very often when grandpa went off to national guard training camp for two weeks every summer so you have got the two-week period in july or august. but we have no way of knowing whether we have all the letters from that two-week period in 1923 or 1925 so there may be some missing from that. there are quite a few from 14, 15, 17 letters so they wrote each other twice a day very often and grandpa sat, again and i think we have all of his.

he saved everything but again so you have from a wand, two-week period you have 35 letters going back and forth. >> host: one of the things that i love about these letters is first, for anybody who has not told you about the lost art of letterwriting and how this was the primary way the people kept in touch in the early 20th century. so you really get a sense of their day to day life especially since they're writing twice a day to each other. there was one example of a letter and maybe you can tell the viewers about it, where she decided, bess decided she really miss harry. she found something in her bed at night. >> guest: that was actually the first one i read. i was used to no-nonsense, and very sweet lady alessi crosser,

lsu climbed up the walls or put marbles down in the grades but that was the 80-year-old woman i knew that was very sure of herself, very sure of how she ran her household. the first letter i read when i got them out was she was complaining that there were big whack bugs in the bed that night and she had to kill it herself. you run off and go play soldier and i had to kill the bug. so i thought that was interesting, my 39-year-old grandmother did not like bugs. >> host: you talk actually about how you knew your grandmother is this stern woman because she was your grandmother and you were six years old or so we first got acquainted with her and realize that you were a descendent of a u.s. president. you said you got to know her as a woman and as an adult when he read through her letters and i wonder if you could share any other stories are letters you read along this line? >> guest: she was -- it really is a wonderful thing

for a family member, for a grandchild to meet, to go back in time and get a chance to meet your grandmother when she is essentially younger than i am now, so meeting bess truman at 39 at 44 and just getting a window on her life, finding out what she was like. i always do my grandmother's had a sense that the letters where she is teasing my grandfather, i think one of the second -- the second letter i read what she had asked him, wouldn't you like your slippers at army camp? and i went back and found this letter, because he had to walk down to the shower every morning. get out on the road and whatever they had laid down on the boardwalk, walk down from the tent to the communal shower. she is teasing him, would you like your slippers? she asked him questions like that and also, she worried about him. they treated these army

encampments, these national guard encampments as a vacation, as a break. grandpa was working within a very corrupt, very difficult county government. he was the only honest guy in it and it was very hard for him to get things done and it gave him headaches, gave him heart palpitations. he lost sleep, so going off in the woods at camp ripley or fort leavenworth and shooting cannons and riding horses around was a really nice break. warriors of rape from politics. she was always asking, what did the camp doctor say? are you getting enough food? are you sleeping? she was always worried about him and teasing him and admonishing him. >> host: even when the reports came back fully clean, yet a clean bill of health she said i bet they did not locate your tonsils. >> guest: did not believe it. would have a say about your

heart? >> host: one of the things i loved about your book is how it really paints this picture of what a pill or bess was for harry throughout their relationship and i wonder, could you characterize how they relied on each other and what kind of reports she provided him? >> guest: is interesting, he often said and he said it in a letter there i think in the late 20s or early 30s, early 30s. he had come back from national guard encampments early because there was some problem that he had to deal with, but the way it seemed to have been presented in the letters that year were kind of sketchy. we only have one or two so that actual chapter had one of her letters and three of his, so you kind of figure out what happened by going peripherally around what she had said and what she had done. apparently grandpa came home and she was really expecting to see

him. they missed each other and she was really expecting him to spend time with her and my mother. he came home and went to the courthouse and stayed and stayed and stayed in when he finally got home from that she apparently let him have it. the letter he wrote afterwards, it's the only time i really saw some friction between the two of them. she apparently was very angry with him and he was angry back saying you know, i can't do this job unless i have you backing me up. i can't deal with these people, can't go through this dress, i can't do it unless i know you are okay and everything at home, you were happy and holding down the fort. she had apparently not done that so he said that was just the last straw. and a they patched it up afterwards and i think she felt badly about it at that was the only time i ever -- >> host: in the letters in a

friction. >> guest: any serious friction. they got into it over haircut in 1925. >> host: the golden curls. jess. >> guest: grandpa saw my grandmother when he was six and she was five in sunday school and he remembered for the rest of his life a little girl with the golden curls in the big luwiza daman l. in love right then and there. there was absolutely no evidence that he looked at anybody else. he fell in love right then and there and pines toward her for the next 20 years while she ignored him completely. >> host: because they got married quite late. >> guest: they were both in their mid-30s when they got married. but the core chip, date, he was born in 1884 and she was born in 1885. their courtship did not start until 1910 although they went all the way through school together. they went through grade school and high school together and graduated together. she had not really looked at him

in that capacity. >> host: one of these letters admonished her for wanting to cut her hair. >> guest: right and its 1925. all the women are getting their haircut short and she complained. the apparently started this argument at home. they must have because the letter starts right in. she is like, why won't you let me get a haircut? i'm the only woman under 60 who still has long hair. the schoolteachers have gotten it cut. they look great. my cousins of guy that cut. they look great. why won't you let me do it? his next letter, riding the horses, shooting their guns, not a word. >> host: no word about whether she cut her hair? >> guest: no. maybe it crossed in the mail but he was like i'm going to keep my mouth shut. and she wouldn't let him get away with it. the next letter from her is, come on. and she said actually, come on

in be a sport. if it looks bad it will grow back out. let me do it. finally comes back and says look, go ahead and do it if you want to. i want you to be happy. i want you to do what you want to do and then he says, you usually do anyway. i wasn't sure you weren't pulling my leg on this one but just go ahead and do it and then she writes back, oh thank you. that's wonderful. but apparently does not believe him because you know a few days later the letter start again with, so what if i go to this barbour? what do you think? talk to me about the hair. he thought he had finished but apparently not. >> host: you said it is the 1930s period there were fewer letters than that is also the decade where your mother was born. this is also as you notice in the letter, first is between them and it's very clear they have a solid marriage but then margaret emerges, your mother,

margaret truman and she starts writing in the letters. she appears as a character. and they had a very close relationship, the three of them. i wonder if you could -- >> guest: they were the trio. they were a tight family group. i think that's just the way they were but also my grandmother had two miscarriages while my mother -- before my mother was born. she was very precious to them and they weren't going to have any more kids, so that was the only child they were going to have. their relationship was a little different. my grandfather dote upon her, she could do no wrong and mom was born in february of 1924. and her first contribution to the letters and i couldn't show it in the book but they are squiggles. she said -- all over the page bushey sent that along that

night. eventually, she started adding postscripts. i think one when she was six or seven years old said dear dad, hope you are having fun shooting off the canons, love margaret, so she does become a character and my grandmother's reporting always concludes with my mother. piano lessons, dresses, whatever she was doing, later on dates, movies and think she was interested in. grandpa was having to write through my grandmother saying, get her to write me. wise and she picking up the pen too? my mother used to tell me, you know jokingly, he always made me write and typical childhood, what am i going to say when i sit down and do this? he was very serious and they both were about keeping in touch. >> host: one of the things i think the american public, they have this image of the 1944 convention and was hairy and margaret smiling into the camera sand waiting.

that was a bit more removed so i think she often had the impression with the american people that she wasn't as engaged in that political life of her husband but that is a very different story than the letters tell, especially throughout the course of his political career. did she like politics? >> guest: she loved it. and that particular, those series of photos, my mother and my grandfather are waving and smiling at everybody in my grandmother is over there like this because she knows, she knows she is afraid of what is happening. he's about to be nominated for vice president and if he gets the office and roosevelt was very ill. she is just sitting there thinking a oh god where's this going and sure enough she was right. but she was, she was engaged in it. she loves -- i don't want to say she loved to live vicariously through grandpa. she had her own family and her

own friends and the thing she wanted to do. she didn't want to be in politics but she loved hearing about it from him and she was very opinionated about it. early on when she was a jet -- he was a judge, you had to spread oil on them to keep the dust down because otherwise it. the furniture. apparently the rows haven't been oiled in a while and one after the other, some ladies in the area were calling my grandmother and saying road oil. finally, she reported each of these to grandpa and she said they must have it leak out here, people who need their roads oil. she was his go-between. it was also a little bit later on and 1927, 1929, someone called and asked if grandpa would throw a fund-raising dinner for a kansas city attorney who is running for senate and want to judge

truman's backing. my grandmother thought, i don't know about that soshi called tom prendergast who ran the democratic machine in jackson county and said, should he be doing it? prendergast came back and said no. tell him to stay out right now. don't get involved in this. so my grandmother then goes, she reports this to grandpa and goes back to the guys and lies to him and says oh i'm sorry judge truman won't be back for another week. he couldn't possibly do it so she is playing the game a little bit along with it and in later letters in the 30s and 40s president roosevelt and the people around him, grandpa roof to report that something happened in congress and she would say that kind of thing. she was very very involved. you can tell that from the letters. >> host: she also had newspaper clippings. >> guest: shiites had a newspaper clipping, a story

about him or anything he was missing by being away. national guard camp in the 20s and on the senate investigative committee in the 30s. >> host: does your all at -- attitude about politics change from the time he was in missouri and then went to the senate and was involved in washington? >> guest: no, you can see in the letter she becomes more astute. she understands politics on the national scene, the national stage. she is very good at it. again she is very opinionated. and just, and she was his sounding board. he could come home at the end of a hard day or even in the mail, he reports what he is doing and how difficult it is and he can come home at the end of a hard day and say you wouldn't believe, like anybody would. >> host: bess was sometimes criticized publicly for being independent and not thing in washington with her husband.

this was early in her life which may have formed how she embraced the public and i wonder feeca talk about that? >> guest: right, it goes back to the photo of the 44 convention. she was glowering and she didn't like the whole thing. when she was 18 years old, her father, david wallace, committed suicide in the family home. david wallace had been one of the nicest men in independents. everybody loved him. he would take his shirt off his back. he was great with the kids of at my grandmother loved him. he had aspired to a political career ended had not gone well ever. he had minor problems. he didn't have the money that he wanted and needed. he thought he needed -- her father was one of the richest man in town and he owned a

milling company, and david was constantly borrowing money,, especially specially from his father-in-law, which was galling because his father-in-law had set up and that he didn't think they have had much of a future. david was never a tempered man but he began to drink more heavily and it finally got to him. he killed himself. my grandmother i think, she was crushed and she was furious that he abandon her, abandon the family. one of her friends, mary paxton, she went over to the house to see what she could do and she found my grandmother walking back and forth in the backyard with her fists balled up just walking, head down, not talking. mary didn't say anything to her. she just walked in kept her company for a while. after that, my great-grandmother madge, david's widow, retreated. the family went through colorado

for a year. the stigma of suicide in 1904 being a lot different than it is today. and they were treated to colorado and came home and went to live in the gates mansion with my grandmother's grandfather, george porterfield gates and she called that home for the rest of her life. she became the head of the family. madge retreated, didn't go out much in my grandmother ran the household. so two things. she was wary of public life because she didn't want any of this coming out. she didn't want the stigma again of her father suicide coming out and she had also, she left grabber at the white house because there was a lot of poll from her own mother to come home and help from the family so she was really pulled in two different directions. she had my grandfather wandering around the white house by himself, saying this place is lonely. there are goes in here. come back and keep me company and her mother's like, when are you coming home? i need your help so she really

got caught in a tug-of-war. >> host: do you think that also probably contributed to her reservations wax there was one thing you wrote. you said her favorite interview was a written q&a. >> guest: when she got into, when she got into office, when grandpa got into office this is roosevelt had weekly press conferences. my grandmother canceled those and then shortly after stopped taking spoken questions. she requested all questions been writing and her comment nine times out of 10 was, no comment. she would get these written questions, and nope, no comment. she said to grandpa that the role of the political wife was to sit next to her husband and sick quiet and make sure her hat is on straight. >> host: with that we are going to break and we will be back in just a moment.

>> after words is available via podcast through itunes and xml. visit booktv.org and click podcast on the upper left side of the page. select which podcast you would like to download and listen to after words while you travel. >> host: we are back with clifton truman daniel, talking about his book, "dear harry, love bess" bess truman's letters to harry truman 1919-1943, and you are just about to tell me another set of things you learned about your grandmother that you didn't know. before you read these letters and got to know her. >> guest: talking about the various references to nightgowns that's another thing about getting to know your grandparents when she was younger. they don't talk about those sorts of things to their children. there is nothing certainly -- >> host: there's a whole nightgowns section in the letter. maybe you can tell us about that. >> guest: they keep cropping

up. >> host: i remember i did read something about a racially nick shea -- racy négligee. >> guest: it was just a tossup sentence in one of the letters, went shopping, bought margaret a new hat and bought a new nightgowns for me. are a great, nice to report that the better though, with a nightgown story, they each come almost everyone of those letters, his and hers and repaired the letters with his so you have been talking back and forth to each other. on either side, most every letter starts with, i'm really happy i got your letter or letters today. , i am not so happy. i didn't get a letter. what are you doing? and they would make up, sometimes there would be these elaborate excuses. if a letter had letterhead showed up, and there were two

kinds. when she gives is like a run on sentence. well i couldn't get to the post office and the post office was an open anyway and i couldn't go in the afternoon and then the car broke down. then we borrowed another car in that one program. she goes on and on and on about how she couldn't get to the post office so they are aired either really complicated are really interesting and the interesting one to me was i sorry i didn't get a letter off to you but it was so hot last night i couldn't keep on enough clothes to -- [laughter] the sort of thing grandchildren go oh. don't want to know that, thank you very much. that kind of stuff has come out before. in this country we don't talk much about presidential conjugal relations. david mccullough in his book, is 93 book, truman, told a great story about my grandparents. for almost the entirety of his -- at the warehouse because

the white house was absolutely falling apart. grandpa would be in a state dining room downstairs hosting a stag dinner and he knew it was my grandmother of stairs and the chandelier was quivering as she walks back and forth. finally a piano leg punch through the floor of my mother sitting room. and they eventually cleared everybody out, gutted the white house and rebuild it from the inside out with i-beams. early on by the way, early on they ran to hold the floor up and they stabilized of the steel rods that they ran from the ceiling down to the floor so my grandparents and mother could stay there for a few days and get the furniture out and get things set. grandpa, who loves the history of the white house love to share it took a group of reporters on the tour of the upstairs and showed them, there's a hole in the floor and this is what is happening and how bad this is. he stops outside of his bathroom and one of the steel rods have been run through the floor next

to the toy that and he said you know this thing scares me. i'm going to be sitting in here some night and i'm going to flush and wind up in the state dining room. [laughter] and you know the band will play "hail to the chief" if that happens. [laughter] anyway so they are over warehouse and they kind of like warehouse. it was smaller and more intimate. my grandmother i think liked it because she couldn't throw the big steak dinners. it was a beautiful home, blair and lee houses together. they are over there and they have been on one of these separations, a month apart. my grandmother went back to independence to take care of her family and do whatever they been how. it was hard for them to be apart. as we can see from all these letters. and when she arrived the atmosphere was electric. david wrote about this and he said the staff, everybody was in a good mood. they were so happy to see each other. there were so much love in the

air. the next morning my grandmother came downstairs and approach the head usher and said, there's a little -- we have a problem on the second floor. our room, oh hell, one of the slats on the bed is broken. [laughter] so apparently, there urges these wonderful hints. >> host: a strong and healthy marriage in many ways, and that's one of the things that really drives you into the book. it's a love story. >> guest: yeah, they had a great romance. like i said earlier, she ignored him. she wasn't that mean. >> host: early in the courtship she had her -- he had proposed to her in one of the letters. >> guest: after six months of letter writing and visiting he said what did you think about

wearing a solitaire, wearing a diamond? nothing. >> host: she did not even respond. >> guest: no response. i think it went on for a week to 10 days, nothing. he wrote to get in but again and he said i'm sorry, i jumped again. i don't know whether she did it in writing or whether she spoke with him. she turned him down and apparently he said you know that was so gentle and so nice that i almost don't feel bad. will go right back to being friends. it's okay, i will write again and come and see you. don't worry about any pressure. he lied. over the next couple of years, the pressure begins to creep in and then he backs off again. he can't help himself. finally, when he thought he had no chance at all, she actually tells them, if i marry anybody in this life it will be you. apparently it left him speechless.

for a guy who poured his heart out on paper and in person, he didn't have a thing to say and apparently sat there with his mouth hanging open. it prompted my grandmother to say harry truman you you are an enigma. they had a wonderful romance. the courtship lasted from 1910 to 1919 when he came back from world war i. >> host: speaking of which i want to point out the cover that is on the book, the photo here is a special photo that resembles that courtship. >> guest: that's the one that he took with him to world war i and he kept in his pocket all through the war. she had agreed to marry him before the war and he had told her no. and i think his words were, from not have you typed to a cripple or a sentiment should come back severely wounded or be killed. so he wasn't going to make her a widow. he said when i come back we will get married and he actually stopped in new york at tiffany's

and bought the ring, bought the wedding band and the diamond that he gave her. i think he had months and months of backpay so he could support her. >> host: your mother made her grandfather's letters public in the mid-1980s. >> guest: correct. >> host: but she did not -- your grandmothers. why? >> guest: i think and i remember asking her in the mid- 80s. bob farrell did the book. he used about half of mike grandfather's letters in the book and i asked my father -- mother. are you going to do something with those? she would say vaguely, i don't know. i remember asking her you can back then and i was and even the next decade when i was in my 30s and i had begun to write about my grandparents. you are not going to do anything with those letters, can i do

something? again, maybe. she sort of put me off. i think honestly she was respecting my grandmother's wish. she did make 10 or 15 of them public. they were unlimited display at the truman library in 1998 for a month. >> host: 1998 was the first that anybody in the united states united states had ever had this kind of access but it was only 15 letters and you have 184 here. >> guest: that's right. >> host: how do you think you grandmother whitfield knowing that you, her grandson with the long hair had publisher letters? >> guest: you know i don't know. i think that she had to deal with my mother. she and my grandfather had a deal with my mother. in 1973, about my grandfather in

1984 about my grandmother. the deal was you don't write about us until after we are gone. so i'm not making these letters public until well after she is gone so i don't think, and there again they were nice portraits. they were a lot of fun. she was a lot of fun. i really enjoyed bess truman as a younger woman. as a mother, repairing the furniture, shopping, ironing, getting involved in politics, taking potshots at her friends, teasing my grandfather. she was a lot of fun to be around. >> host: is your -- are there some other people that were in the letters? >> guest: roosevelt, -- >> host: roosevelt for example. >> guest: the main thing that she was angry, both of them

angry at the president for, grandpa, he was one senate seat in 1934 and getting to run again in 1940 and it turned out to be a hard-fought race with a lot of prelude to the 1948 presidential race. he did not do a whistlestop but he got in a car and drove over the state of missouri giving the these speeches so the same, this is a template for 1948. in worked in 1940 but yet opposition from the governor of missouri, lloyd stark. stark said something to them early on. oh don't worry i won't run against you and it was after grandpa helped make him governor. don't worry, not after your senate seat. well he lied. he did too offer the senate seat and originally fdr seemed it was going to back him. he got to the white house and thrilled his way into fdr's good graces and started flattering him and pushing things in that direction and fdr look like he

was buying it. ultimately he did not and after few months of this fdr figured out that stark was not the guy that he wanted. and they swung back to grandpa but they talk about that than the book. they think they can get along, roosevelt, they think they can get along without us added 1940 they got another think coming. >> host: she also talks about tom prendergast who was the democratic boss. what was best' view of prendergast? >> guest: like my grandpa, she doesn't say much about him except she pays in that respect back when grandpa was being asked to do certain things she goes to top it says you know do doing me to do this? i think she held the same view that my grandfather did, nevermind prendergast politics

or his way of doing things. he supported my grandfather. he was a branded grandpa was loyal to him for the rest of his life and even went to his role as vice president when prendergast had been disgraced. he had been imprisoned, and people were saying to my grandfather, you are the vice resident of the united states. do not go to that funeral. grandpa said, never forget a friend and he went. my grandmother, she held the same views. they were very loyal to their friends and kept up with their friends. they did things for people they befriended and were helping out in little ways and making sure everybody was all right. she talks about their extended family, her brothers and the children and all of the friends. she is always reporting that to him and touching base with what is going on, so she really kept thin friendships going back home

while he was working. >> and through the letters reported that back to him. >> right. when he is a national guard camp he said this is what i'm doing it national guard camp and she said this is what is going on at home. i know what you are doing and you know what i'm doing. you put them together to have their entire marriage. >> host: what do these letters add to the historical record in terms of determining presidency and understanding? >> guest: i just want to say humanity, you don't often get to hear it president and first lady speak to each other like this. if the normal rhythm of their lives, to understand. understand a lot better than they were and what they were like, what they meant to each other and what they meant to their friends and through that the larger picture of what their lives were like. who their friends were and what was important to them. you begin to get some idea of

how that shaped him as president although he was pretty coming was pretty much the same kind of shape early on. grandpa became harry truman early on in his life and pretty much stayed true to himself. her too. they were both strong-willed, opinionated people. >> host: to think there is anything to the credit to them that harry truman was more in love with bess than bess was with harry truman? >> guest: know, again she was a private lady. grandpa will tell you if you ask him, do you love bess truman? yes, i love her and if you asked my grandmother she would say yes, of course i love him. what business is it of yours? i want to talk about it. she kept her emotions in check. she was much more reserved than he was. for a variety of reasons. naturally i think because of her father suicide in all the responsibility she had. she was just much more guarded although he catcher in unguarded

moments when she reports she got up at 5:00 in the morning just so she could see her neighbors leave on vacation, just so she could see them in her underwear. she said i wouldn't miss seeing mrs. smith in knickers for $100. [laughter] >> host: what was the funniest letter that you read? >> guest: there are little bits and all of them. >> host: she really has a sense of humor. >> guest: yes she does. he is off investigating waste and fraud in the military, the robbery of the united states railroad. he is off investigating these huge issues and people are losing millions and millions of dollars and the railroads are falling apart. he is off investigating the stuff that he comes back and she is while you are at it why don't you investigate the glue to put on government envelopes because i can't get them to stick. she takes a nice big complex issue and --

she says they are little gems and most of the letters. >> host: i like going against this theme that she was not political at all. in 1942 she writes to him about a radio speech is given the night before and she said your radio technique has improved immensely and then she said your confidence had advanced so he had a speech coach to speak more properly and radio but then she says maybe it would be a good idea to take a few speech lessons also. then she pulled back and said if you do it again like he did last night maybe you don't need them. >> guest: right. she does contradict herself. >> host: it also goes to show she was involved in his political career throughout even though in the american public had this notion that she was often independent and wasn't really engage. >> guest: they were very engaged each other's lives and the story from key west sort of

going down there, the economy immediately improve. >> host: what was in key west? >> guest: a little white house were grandpa went for vacation. he got a head cold in 1946, couldn't shake it. the doctor said go somewhere warm. where would that be? i believe it is nice and warm right now. >> host: had roosevelt been there previously? >> guest: roosevelt had been to key west. i think he stopped by. grandpa moved in lock stock and barrel and spend 170 days of his presidency, 11 working vacations in key west but one of the early ones when my mother was making the concert debut he was going to leave because he wanted to be in washington to hear her. john foss lech on the radio station and john john said if i get a place here would you stay? grandpa said yeah but he was going to hear that concert one

way or the other. it scared john have to death because he had to have grandpa help them change licenses. he had to switch licenses for a day and john sat there with grandpa and watch the whole thing, listen to the whole thing and grandpa are you enjoying yourself? he said no. he said why not? i'm a nervous wreck. something is going to break down. wrong. i'm sitting here with the president of the united united s and i'm going to blow it. it will be okay. >> host: i think one of the best endorsements anyone could have for look is the one that michael beschloss gave you. he said more and more we are learning about how bess truman, who she was with her emotional support and why -- with a world changing, the world changing history of her husband's presidency. even now she remained somewhat of a mysterious first lady and how this important book, she writes, dear husband is a visit -- vivid portrait of her

marriage and we cane fresh understanding of how crucial and strong-minded bess was to harry and that ultimately to the american people. she was strong-minded. she was strong-minded. what are some other examples of her baby strong headedness because it does also appear throughout the letters. >> guest: she is. kenyan aided and strong-minded about his health and politics in their friends, who should be doing what. she was the opposite too. she was kind of an amp. he talked earlier about my long hair. >> host: this was something she referred to when you are about 15. she said she was a bit, was it fair to say she was duplicitous? >> guest: yes she was, she was very to post it -- duplicitous. grandpa hated long hair on us. he could not stand as with hair. this was in 1971 and he couldn't

stand us with hair, my brother and myself and he could barely bring himself to speak to us. two years after he died you was visiting new york, i'm in washington d.c. and my hair by that point was down to my front pocket. i sat down to practice with her one morning and my mother was across the kitchen making bacon and eggs for war one of my brothers. my grandmother said in a long voice, my goodness you have beautiful hair. my mother spun around and said my goodness don't tell them something like that. will never get a cut. sure enough she said it would look a bit -- a little better -- i said no. the german library library here's later gave me a letter from my grandmother to a friend this seven-part, too bad she is having all the trouble with those hippies. it's time something was done about it. >> host: referring to her son? >> guest: no, referring to somebody squatting on the property, we don't know. if it's time something is done

about those hippies. when i saw my grandsons with long hair and nearly expired. thank god they had nice clothing on. she was willing to overlook that just to annoy my mother. >> host: that is a great example. so and a last morsels that you can give the viewers in terms of a letter or a surprise, something that they might not have known about s. truman or harry truman? >> guest: i think you said it. it shows that, it's a picture of who she was. i get this a lot when i give speeches. people will bring that up. she did not really love him. her own mother did not like him as a son in law so is a one-sided thing. well it wasn't. if you read the book it was a one-sided at all. she says in one early letter please keep on loving me just as hard as ever.

you know, she really, really she needed him and he needed her. they were very close. they have known each other since they were five and six are sold, all through school together, a long courtship. >> host: how many years with a merry? >> guest: oh great, it to do math. 1919 to 1972. so 53 years. >> host: it's an incredible contribution. is a wonderful book. anybody who wants to know more about bess truman because really there wasn't a lot about bass before this and now we have her in our own hands and threw the lands of her grandson who got to know her not just in person but also as an adult. >> guest: who may or may not be in trouble with his grandmother. >> host: who may have some reckoning to do. thank you very much clifton for sharing the letters from your grandmother. >> guest: thank you margaret.

>> that was after words, booktv signature program in which authors of nonfiction books are ordered by journalists, legislators and others familiar with their the material. after words the airs every week weekend on booktv at 10:00 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9:00 p.m. on sunday in 12:00 a.m. on monday. you can also watch after words on line. go to booktv.org and click on after words in the booktv series and topics listed on the upper right-hand side of the page. >> now more from booktv's city of tours. this weekend we visited birmingham alabama could. coming up an interview with the

author of while the world watched, the birmingham bombing survivor comes of age during the civil rights movement. see what i remember when a bomb the bomb exploded, i remember not really thinking that it was a bomb. the first thought that i had was maybe that it was thunder or something. the sound made me think of thunder but as quickly as i thought that, the window came crashing through. i heard someone inside the church say, hit the floor. when i fell on the floor, i could tell after a few seconds, get here feet. i could tell people were getting up and running out, so my first thought was for those two younger brothers that i have wrought with me. i knew that before i could leave. to safety, i would need to figure out where they were. so i went outside and searched downstairs and upstairs and was

never able to find my brothers there at the church. we would find it later to different part of the community. september 15 start at -- started as a very routine day. it was sunday morning and i was trying to talk my sister and getting your hair combed. finally my mother said, just leave her here and i will bring her later with me. my two younger brothers, ellen and wendell, left with me. my oldest brother dropped us off at church and we arrived right about 9:30. after putting them in their classes i went upstairs to the church office to gather my equipment i guess i could call it, but i was responsible for taking attendance and i was responsible for recording the financial giving for the day. and the summary report that i would give later. so i did this, selected all of

these reports and pass them out. i sat in our sunday school classroom for a while and generally at 9:15 i would collect those reports and create the summary. on this particular sunday, we were very excited. excited. all of the young people were excited as it was youth fun day. that just meant that we were in charge of everything. we sang, we gave the devotion, we did the ushering. we did everything so we were excited about that. as i started up the stairs to complete those reports i've past the bathroom. i spoke to them and they were combing hair and talking and everybody was excited in their own way about different things. but i didn't linger there because of the report and as i started up the steps, when i got to the top the phone was ringing in the church office. in those days the church office was right behind the sanctuary. when i reach the church offices and heard the phone rang i went

and answered it. missed a shorter who i worked under was not there and the caller, a male caller on the other hand said -- and as quickly as he said that he hung up. i still had -- i had my materials in my arms and i just turned and walked out into the sanctuary and only because we counted it. i knew that i took about 15 steps before the bomb exploded. >> what was the last thing you had said to them before you left the bathroom? >> see you later when i pass the bathroom. the last thing i said, see you later. birmingham was a segregated place during that time. it was a very difficult, dark and difficult place during that time. as a young person, probably prior to the age of 14 we did not experience a lot of the difficult days.

our parents did such a great job of sheltering us. many of our activities were provided for us right here in the church and in the schools, so that we didn't miss the places that we could not go or the places we were not allowed to go. they provided picnics and swimming parties and contests and all kinds of activities right here at the church, so we didn't really know to what extent we were dissing a lot of things. i think that her parents did not want us to know that there were a lot of restrictions out beyond the home parameters so for many things they just didn't tell us about it. they sheltered us. when for example they opened the first fast food place, jack's hamburgers, rather than letting us know that they didn't serve lack people, rather than having us go to a side window, they

kept us at home and they always told us it was about money, that they didn't have the money to do these things. so in a real way, we did not know many of the barriers that existed out there. it was not knowing that the barriers where there. there were no imaginary -- in our mind saying we can't do this because of those people are this person or whatever. we really grew up thinking that we could do anything we wanted. we could be anyone we wanted to be. this was just a lot of my elementary school in my high school. i guess they felt we would find out soon enough what things were possible and what things warned, but they really did a tremendous job of preparing us so if the opportunity came we would be ready. i think our church was just heartbroken.

they were young, innocent girls. they had not been part of the movement. they had not served in any way with that. they have a whole life ahead of them. they were all very bright, very smart young girls in school. in two of the cases they were the only children. denise and cynthia were the only children that their parents had. church was really shocked that we had people in our city who are willing not only to kill young children in segregation but to bomb a house of worship to maintain that. we were away from our church for about eight months during the renovation, but we had many members who did not come back. sum did not come back because they were afraid. they would -- they thought it would happen again or something new would happen. some did not come back just because they thought the church would continue to have mass meetings and so forth.

at venture to say we probably had half of the congregation to return. so the church reacted very strongly to what happened there. it was a very painful experience. i can tell you that prior to this experience, i was a young girl growing up in a house with four brothers, who picked on me a lot but life was good. i had very loving parents. both my parents were teachers. we had a lot of fun at home. after the bombing of the church a lot of things change. i think we all probably became a little more quiet. we became a little more fearful. we have heard these bombs going off but all of a sudden it was very real because we had lost four of our friends. i struggled with a tremendously the tremendously because i was trying to understand as a child of course, trying to understand

what could make the situation right. if this was all about the color of your skin, what could make it right? what after all were we supposed to do about that? we understood that we could not change the parents to whom we were born, our gender, our color so what were we supposed to do differently? that was what i kept trying to figure out. and it became just a very troubling thought or a possession that i carried around. i didn't understand. six months after they bombed this church, they bombed the house across the street where i was growing up. so with that second bomb, i can tell you i was afraid most of the time wherever i was, wherever i was traveling, when i went off to school. i was convinced that sooner or later i was going to die from one of