so with that, i became convinced -- 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 in one of the bombs exploding. so i found myself for many years after that probably about 20 years suffering from depression at a time we didn't call it depression but it took along time to sort through the things that happened here in birmingham and to understand them and to put them in perspective. ..

>> i decided maybe we forgot many of the lessons we learned during the 1960s, and in many cases, we had not taught the lessons, but in other cases, we had forgotten. i decided to go back and recapture the memories of a 14 -year-old from the bombing of the church. >> is there a nonfiction author or book you want featured on booktv? e-mail us at booktv@ booktv@c-span.org.

>> host: it's fun to be here with you as we spent a lot of time talking in the past about your grandfather and my great grandfather's relationship, and you just wrote a new book that as a book drop, the truman library has 13 letters that your grandfather woes to bess, but in response, they only have 184 letters that bess returned to harry. what's the story? >> guest: my grandmother was a very private person. grandpa was an open book, asked

a question, he had an answer. he saved everything, scraps of paper, gas receipts, anything he thought -- i think he was a natural pack rat anyway, but he was mindful of the fact that the american people should be able to learn from the mind of their president, so he saved most all important papers and he didn't mind that people would read these things and know what he was thinking and what he had said. my grandmother, on the other hand, had not been president and figured her business was her own damn business and nobody else's. he came home in 1955 around christmas, found her in front of the fire tossing in stacks of letters she wrote him. he said, bess, what are you doing? think of history. she said, i have, and kept chucking. >> host: chucked another stack in the fire. >> guest: another stack in the fire. she burned -- if she wrote as often as he did, which is

likely, she burned more than 1200 letters, more than 1100 or 1200 letters, and what she missed, the truman library called is poor housekeeping. they were stuffed in books and drawers. >> host: there's 184 on her own, and when did you come to find them? >> guest: my mother asked in the early 1980s, a year before my grandmother died, my mother asked for an inventory of everything in the house, and archivists found the letters in twos and threes and tucked them into a box and took them to the truman library. >> host: in the letters, can you tell us about the time frame from the letters? what part of their life does the letter writing span? >> guest: yeah, and it's odd that it actually does span -- the letters roughly go -- there's one from 1919, the end

of world world war i. the rest are from 1923 to 1943, grandpa's tenure as county administrator in jackson county missouri and as united states senator, so his political apprenticeship for the presidency, so those 20 years leading up to -- and they actually hold together pretty well, and they are pretty linnier considering she stuffed them in drawers. >> host: what i noticed about it is it's true, she probably burned about 1100 letters because in the time you have the letters she's written, it's almost every day or within a couple of three days they write back and forth. >> guest: right. >> host: they did have, it seemed to me, a pretty committed relationship, and i wonder if you could speak to what you have learned or if you could characterize their relationship that you learned about by reading the letters.

>> guest: well, i always knew they were close, but i did not realize how close. when they were apart, and there's no -- there's no way to know that the letters of my grandmother's that we have from a certain year, let's say from the two week period -- from 23-33, they were written often with grandpa went to national guard training camp two weeks every summer 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's quite a few that 14, 15, 17 letters from that two week period, so they wrote each other twice a day very often, and grandpa's back again, and we have, i think we have all of his, he saved everything, but, again, you have from, you know, one two week period, you have 35 letters going back and forth.

>> host: so one of the things i love about these letters is first for anybody who has nostalgia about the lost art of letter writing and how this was the primary way that people kept in touch in the early 20th century, so you really get a sense of day-to-day life, especially if they wrote twice a day to each other. can you give -- there was one example of a letter, and maybe you can tell the viewers about it, where she decided -- bess decided she missed harry because she had -- i want to give it to you -- she found something in her bed at night. >> guest: oh, yeah. that's the first one i read because i was used to the 80-year-old bess truman, no nonsense, don't mess with your grandmother, behave yourself, you know, nice lady, sweet lady unless you crossed her or climbed on the walls, on the roof, or put mash les down the grate, but that was an 80-year-old woman sure of herself and how she ran her

household. first letter i read when i got them out was she was complaining that there was big black bug in the bed that night, and then she had to kill it herself like you run off and play soldier, and i have the kill the bug, so i thought that was interesting in my 39-year-old who didn't like bugs. >> host: yeah. you talk about actually how you knew your grandmother as a stern woman because she was your grandmother and you were 6 years old when you got acquainted with her and realized you were descendent of a u.s. president, and you got to know her as a woman and as an adult when you read through her letters. i wonder if you can share other stories or letters along those lines? >> guest: she was -- it really is -- it 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's essentially younger than i am

now, so meeting bess truman at 39, and 44 and getting a window on her life, finding out what she was like, i knew my grandmother had a sense of humor, but she's all through the letters teasing my grandfather. in the second letter i read was she asked him wouldn't you like your slippers at army camp? i went back and found his letter -- he had to walk to the shower every morning, get on the road or whatever they had laid down the board walk and slog between the tents and go to the communal showers, and she teased him, wouldn't you like your slippers? she asked questions like that, and she also worried about him. they treated these army 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. it was hard for him to get things done, and it gave him headaches and heart palpitations, and he lost sleep, so going off into the woods at fort levinworth and riding horses and shooting guns was a break. war was a break from politics. did the doctors look at you? how's your heart? do you get enough food? are you sleeping? she was always worried about his health, so teasing him an admonishing him at the same time. >> host: when the reports came back clean, a clean bill of health, she said, i bet they didn't look at your consul. >> guest: didn't believe him. what about your heart? they didn't look at it, i bet. >> host: what i loved about the book is how it really paints a picture of what a pillar bess was for harry throughout their

relationship, and i wonder, could you pull from any letters or characterize how they relied on each other and what kind of support she provided him? >> guest: well, it's interesting. he often said, and he said it in a letter there, and i think it was in the -- it was in the late 20s or early 30 #s, i think early 30s. he had come back from national guard encampment early because there was some problem with the court that he had to deal with, but the way it seemed to have been presented, and the letters from that year are sketchy. we have just one or two, so that actual chapter has one of her letters and three of his, so you kind of figure out what happened by going around what she had said and done, and apparently grandpa came home, and she was really expecting to see him. i mean, they missed each other, and she was really expecting him to spend time with her and my mother, and he came home a went

to the -- and went to the courthouse and stayed and stayed, and when he got home, she let him have it, and the letter he wrote after wards, it's the only time i really saw friction between the two of them. she 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 -- i can't deal with these people. i can't go through this stress. i can't do it unless i know you're okay, everything's at home, your happy, and you can hold down the fort. she apparently not done that. that was just the last straw for me, and they patched it up, and i think she felt badly about it, but that was the only time i ever -- >> host: in the letters that there's any amount of friction? >> guest: any amount of serious frex. they got into it over her haircut in 1925. >> host: the golden curls.

>> guest: yeah, the curls. my grandfather saw my grandmother when he was six and she was five in sunday school and remembered the girl with the golden curls and big blue eyes and fell in love right then and there. there's absolutely no evidence that he ever looked at anybody else. he fell in love right then and there and pined for her for the next 20 years while she ignored him completely. >> host: because they got married in life late for the time. >> guest: yeah, for the time. they were both in their mid-30s when they got married, but their courtship, he was born in 1884 #, her in 188 5rbgs -- 1885 and their courtship started in 1910. they graduated together, she had not really looked at him in that capacity. >> host: but one of the letters admonished her for cutting -- for wanting to cut her hair.

>> guest: right. this is 1925, all the women are getting their haircut short. they started this argument at home, they must have because the letter starts right in, oh, why won't you let me get a haircut? i'm the only woman under 60 who still has long hair. the schoolteachers got it cut, they look great. your cousins, they look great. why won't you let me do it? his next letter, nothing. riding the horses, shooting the guns, having a grand time. not a word. >> host: no word about the hair? >> guest: nope. he decided to avoid it on that letter. maybe they crossed in the mail, but he's kind of like, oh, just going to keep my mouth shut and see what happens, and she wouldn't let him get away with it. the next letter from her is come on, come on, be a sport. if it looks bad, it grows back out. let me do it. finally he says, look, go ahead and do it if you want to. i mean, 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 were not pulling my leg on this one, but just go ahead and do it. she writes back and says, oh, thank you, that's wonderful. apparently doesn't believe him because, you know, a few days later the letters start again with, so, it's okay i get the haircut? really? what if i go here? what do you think? talk to me about the hair. he thought he finished it. apparently not. >> host: you said that in the 1930s period there were fewer letters, and that's also the decade where your mother was born, and she -- this is also, as you notice in the letters, first it's between them, and it's clear. they have a solid marriage, but then margaret emerges, your mother, margaret truman, and she writes in the letters. she appears as a character. >> guest: yeah. >> host: and they had a very

close relationship, the three of them. >> guest: they did. >> host: i wondered if you could -- >> guest: they were the trio, a very tight family group. i think -- i think that's just the way they were, but also my grandmother had had two miscarriages before my mother was born, so she was very precious to them, and they were not going to have more kids, so that was it. you know, she was the only child, the only one they were going to have. their relationship was a little different. grandpa doted on her she could do no wrong, and grandmother took the other tact. mom was born in february of 1924 #, and her first contributions to the letters, and i couldn't show it in the book, but they are scwig les. she said marge wrote something for you all over the page. she sent that. that's nice. eventually, she added postscripts. one, i think when she was six years old says, dear, dad, hope

you are having fun shooting off the cannons. love margaret. she becomes a character. my grandmother's reporting always includes my mother, piano lessons, dresses, later on, dates, movies, whatever she was interested in, and grandpa had to write through grandmother saying get her to write me. it's nice you tell me, but why isn't she? my mother told, it drove me nuts. he always wanted a letter, and he always made me write. she said what do i say? he was serious, they both were, about keeping in touch. >> host: one of the i thinks, i -- one of the things, i think, the american public has an image of the 1934 convention, and harry and margaret l smiling to the cameras and waving, and bess was removed. i think she had the impression with the american people she was not as engaged in the political life of her husband, but that is

a very different story than the letters tell, especially throughout the course of his political career, so did she like politics? >> guest: she loved it. she -- and that particular -- those series of photos, she is glowering. they are waving at everybody, and my grandmother is over there like this because she knows she's afraid of what's happening. he's about to be nominated for vice president, and if he gets the office, and if roosevelt is very ill, she, you know, she's just sitting there thinking, oh, god, where is this going, and sure enough, she was right, but she was engagedded -- she loved -- she was engaged and loved to live through grandpa. she had her own family, friends, loves, and the things she wanted to do. she didn't want to be in politics, but loved hearing about it from him, very opinionated about it.

early on when he was a judge, all the roads were dirt, well rng i think all of the roads were dirt, and you had to spread oil on them to keep the dust down otherwise it buried the furniture, and apparently the roads were not oiled in awhile, and one after another, the ladies in the area were calling my grandmother saying we need the road oiled, and this one, finally, she reports to each of them, and said, there must be a league out here, people who need roads oiled. she was the go between. it was also a little bit later on, 1927 or 1929, someone called and asked if grandpa would throw a fundraising dinner for an attorney, a kansas city attorney, who was running for senate, and wanted judge truman's backing, and my grandmother thought, well, i don't know about that. she called tom pendergast who

reason the democratic machine in the county, and said should he do it? he said, no, stay away from all fights right now. don't get involved. she reports that and lies and says, oh, i'm sorry, he won't be back for another week. he couldn't do it. she's playing the game a little bit along with it, but and in later letters in the 30s and 40s, very opinionated about president roosevelt and the people around him. grandpa would report something had happened in congress, and she said, oh, well, of course they do that thing. she was very, very involved, and you can tell that from the letters. >> host: she also had newspaper clippings. >> guest: yep, any story that would interest him or anything he was missing by being away at national guard camp in the 20s and on senate investigative committees in the 30s. >> host: did her attitude

about politics change from local politics in missouri to going to the senate and then involved in washington? did -- >> guest: no. she becomes, you can see in the letters she becomes for estute. she understands politics on the national scene and stage. she's very good at it. she, again, is very opinionated, and just -- and she was his sounding board. i mean, he could come home at the end of the hard day or in the mail reports what he's doing and how difficult it is, and comes home at the end of a hard day and can say, you won't believe -- like anybody would. >> host: is there, you know, bess was sometimes criticized publicly for being an independent and not being in washington with her husband, and there was an event early in her life, which may have informed how she embraced the public, and i wonder if you could talk about that. >> guest: right. she does get -- it goes back to the photo at the 44 convention

that looked like she was removed, and she didn't like the whole thing. when she was 18 years old, her father, david willick wall liz committed suicide in the family home. david wallace had been one of the nicest men in independence. everybody loved him. sweet man, would give you the shirt off of his back, great with the kids, my grandmother loved him, and he had aspired to a political career, and it had not gone well, ever. i mean, he had minor posts, but he was not -- he department have the career -- he didn't have the career he wanted and not making the money he wanted and thought he needed to keep his wife in the style to which she was accustomed. her father was one of the richest man there owning a milling company, and david was constantly borrowing money, especially from his

father-in-law because his father-in-law said up front he didn't think david had a future. all of this, david was never a tempered man, but he drank more and more, and it got to him, and he killed himself. my grandmother was crushed and furious that he abandoned her, abandoned the family. one of her friends, mary paxton went 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 in her sides, walking, head down, not talking. mary didn't say anything to her, just walked and kept her company for awhile. after that, my great grandmother, david's widow, retreated. the family even went to denver, colorado to stay with relatives for a year. the stigma of suicide in 1904 being a lot different than it is today, and they were treated to colorado, and they came home,

went to live in the gates' mansion with my grandmother's grandfather, with george porter field gates, and that was her home for the rest of her life. she became head of the family, maj retreated, didn't go out much, and my grandmother ran the household. she didn't -- so two things -- she was weary of public life, because she didn't want to coming out, the stigma, again, of her father's suicide coming out, and she left him in the white house because there was pull from her mother to help out with the family. there was pulls in two directions. my grandfather wondering in the -- wandering in the white house alone, there's ghosts here, keep me company. and my grandmother was like, come home. >> host: you think that also contributed to her reservations about embracing the public. there's one thing you wrote

saying her favorite form of interview was a written q&a. >> guest: when she got into office -- when grandfather got into office, mrs. radio vet had weekly conferences, and my grandmother canceled those, and she requested all questions be in writing, and her comment nine times out of ten was no comment. she got questions, nope, no comment, none of your business. she said early on in grandpa's career the role of a political wife was to sit next it her husband, be quiet, and ensure the hat was on straight. that's a little regressive. >> host: with that, we're going to break, and we'll be back in just a moment.

>> host: we're back with clifton turman daniel talking about his book, bess truman's letters to harry tru man, and you were 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 as an adult. >> guest: talking about the various references tonight gowns and -- nightgowns, and that's another thing about getting to know your grandparents when they were younger is they don't talk about that thing, that sort of thing to their children. there's nothing overtly -- >> host: there's like a whole nightgown section in the letters. maybe you can tell us about -- >> guest: they keep cropping up. >> host: there was something racy. >> guest: she reported that

blithely, just a toss up sentence in a letter, went shopping, bought marge a new hat and a nightgown for me. nice to report that, but better though with the nightgown story, they -- they each almost every one of those letters, his and hers, and we, you know, we paired the letters with, as we said, with his so that you have them talking back and forth. on either side, almost every letter starts with i'm really happy, i got your letter or letters today, or, i'm not so happy, i didn't get a letter. you know, what are you doing? they would make up sometimes there's these elaborate excuses. if a letter had not shown up, and two for my grandmother. one she gives it's like a run on sentence. i couldn't get fred to go to the post office, and it was not openny way and couldn't go in the afternoon and the car broke

down, and then he borrowed another car, and that broke down. she goes on and on and on about how she couldn't get to the post office. they are complicated or interesting. the interesting one to me was she said i'm 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 have a light to read by. sort of thing that grandchildren go, oh. >> host: i don't want to know. >> guest: i don't want to know that, thank you very much, but that stuff came up before -- in this country we don't talk about presidential con gal relations. truman told a story about my grandparents. for the entirety of his second term, they lived in blair house because the white house was rotten. it was absolutely falling apart. grandpa would be in the state dining room downstairs hosting a stag din e and he knew it was just my grandmother upstairs and

the chapped leer would shake as she walked, and finally a piano leg punched through the floor of the sitting room, they cleared everybody out, gutted the white house, and rebuilt it from the inside out with beam, and early on, by the way, in one of those -- they ran to hold the floor up, stabilized with steel rods from the ceiling to the floor so my grandparents could stay there for a few days, get the furniture out and things set, and grandpa who loved the white house and loved to share it, took a group of reporters on the tour of upstairs saying there's the hole in the floor, this is what's happening and how bad it is. he stopped outside the bathroom and a steel rod was next to the toilet. he said, you know this things scares me. i'll sit here some night, and i'll flush, and i'm going to wind up in the state dining

room. you know the band will play "hail to the chief" as i come through the ceiling, so, anyway, they are over in blair house, and they kind of like it. it was smaller. my grandmother k, i think, liked it because you couldn't have the big state dinners. it was family-like. it's a beautiful home, blair and lee houses together, so they are over there, and they've been on one of these separations, months apart. my grandmother's had to go back to independence to take care of her family and do whatever, and they had been apart. it was hard for them to be apart as we can see from all the letters, and when she arrived, it was the atmosphere was electric. the staff remembered, and david wrote about this saying the staff, everybody was in a good mood because they were happy to see each other. there was 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. there's -- in our room -- oh, hell, one of the slats on the bed is broken. so appointly, just wonderful little hints about it that they had -- >> host: a strong and healthy marriage. >> guest: they did. >> host: in many ways, and that's one of the things that draws you into the book that it's a love story. >> guest: yeah, they had a great romance. when they, you know, like i said earlier, she ignored him -- well, not that -- >> host: early in the courtship. he proposed in a letter. >> guest: yeah. he almost blew it. he proposed, and after six months of letter writing and visiting, he said, well, what do you think about wearing a solitary, a diamond? nothing. >> host: received no response? >> guest: no response. it was a week or ten days of nothing. he wrote again and again saying,

hey, i'm sorry if i jumped the gun. finally, and i don't know whether it was in writing or whether she spoke to him, but she turned him down, and apparently she did it so nicely he said, you know, that was so gentle and nice i almost don't feel bad. we'll be friends. if it's okay, i'll write, i'll see you, but don't worry about any pressure. he lied. you know, over the next couple years, there's a little pressure beginning to creep in, backs off again, and, you know, he can't help himself. finally, when he thought he had no chance at all, she actually tells him, you know, if i marry anybody in this life, it'll be you. apparently left him speechless. for a guy who poured his heart out on paper and person, he didn't have a thing to say, just sat there with his mouth open, and she said, harry truman,

you're an enigma. they had a wonderful romance. the courtship lasted from 1910 to 1919 when he came back from world world war i. >> host: speaking of which, i want to point out the cover that's on the book. the photo here is a special photo that's resembling that courtship. tell us. >> guest: he took that to world war i, kept that in his pocket all through the war. she agreed to marry him before the war, and he had told her no. he said that -- his words were i will not have you tied to a cripple or a sentiment should he come back wounded, severely wounded or killed. he was not going to make her a widow. when i come back in one piece, we'll get married. he stopped here in new york at tiffany and bought the rings, the band and the diamond that he gave her. i think he had months and months of bag pay to afford it. >> host: now, your mother made

your grandfather's letters public in the mid-1980s. >> guest: correct. >> host: but she did not do the same with your grandmother's letters. >> guest: no. >> host: why? >> guest: i think, and i remember asking her in the mid-80s after she'd -- bob ferrel did the book, dear bess, using half of the letters and collected them in a book, and i asked my mother, she told me about these letters, and i said, you know, well, you got gammy's, are you going to do something with those? she vaguely, well, i don't know, and i remember asking her even back then, and i was in my twenties, and then the next decade in my thirties, and i had started to write about my grandparents, i said, if you're not doing anything with the letters, can i? again, maybe. she sort of put me off. i think, honestly, she was respecting my grandmother's wish

for privacy. she made ten or 15 public. they were on a limited display at the truman library in 1998 for a month. >> host: that was the first anybody in the united states had ever had this access. >> guest: right. >> host: only 15 letters, and there's 184 year. >> guest: right. >> host: so how do you think that your grandmother would feel knowing that you, her grandson with the long hair -- >> guest: yeah. >> host: had pliered her letters? >> guest: you know, i don't know. i think that -- she had a deal with my mother. she and my grandfather both had a deal with my mother. my mother wrote best selling books on each of them in 1973 about my grandfather, and in 1983 or 84 about my grandmother, and the deal was you don't write about us until after we're gone, so i'm not making these letters

public until well after she's gone, so i don't think -- and there, again, they were really nice portraits. they are a lot of fun. she was a lot of fun. i really enjoyed bess truman as a younger woman. she has -- as a mother, as repairing the furniture, you know, shopping, ironing, getting involved in politics, taking pot shots 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 discussed in the letters? >> guest: yeah. well, god, it runs the gamet. roosevelt. >> host: roosevelt, for example, give us a sense. >> guest: well, the main thing she was angry, both angry at the president for, grandpa was -- he had won his senate seat in 1934, and he was getting ready to run again in 1940, and it turned out

to be a very hard fought race with a lot of srb sort of a -- sort of a prelude to the 1934 race, not whistle stop, but drove all over the state of missouri giving speeches, so the same, it was a template, and it worked in 1940, but he had opposition from the governor of missouri, lloyd stark, and stark came to him early on saying, oh, i don't worry, i -- oh, don't worry, i won't run against you, i'm not after the senate seat. well, he lied. he did too go after the senate seat, and originally fdr seemed he was going to back him. stark, you know, got to the white house, and weaseled his way into fdr's good graces, started flattering him and pushing things in that direction, and fdr looked like he was buying it. ultimately, he did not, and it, you know, after a few months of this, fdr figured out stark was

not the guy that he wanted, and swung back to grandpa, but they talk about that in the book. you know, i think my grandmother said if they, roosevelt and his team, if they think they can get along without us in 1940, they have another thing coming to them. >> host: she talked about tom pendergast, thee democratic boss. >> guest: yeah. >> host: what was bess' view of pendergast? >> guest: like me grandpa, doesn't say much about him other than paying that respect that when grandpa was being asked to do certain things, she goes, tom, do i need to do this? she, i think she held the same view my grandfather did that nevermind pendergast's politics or his way of doing things. he supported my grandfather. he was a grenned, and grand -- he was a frand, and grandpa was loyal to him the rest of his

life and went to his funeral as vice president when pendergast was disgraced. he had been imprisoned, and people were saying to my grandfather, you're the vice president of the united states, don't go to the funeral, and grandpa said i never forget a friend, i'm going. he went. my grandmother would have -- she held the same views once, you know, they were very, very loyal to their friends, and kept up with friends, did things for, you know, people they befriended. they were always helping out in little ways ensuring everybody was all right. she talks a lot about their extended family, her brothers, the children, and all of their friends, so they are always -- and she's always reporting that to him and touching base with what's going on, so she really -- she really kept the friendships going back home when he was working. >> host: and then through the letters reporting that back to him? >> guest: right. it falls into a pattern. when she's at national guard camp, he's like this is what i'm doing at camp, and she's like,

this is what's going on at home. we know what we're doing. put the two together, and you have their entire marriage. >> host: what do the letters add to the historical record in terms of the truman's presidency and understanding them? >> guest: i -- i just want to say humanity. you don't -- you don't often get to hear presidential, you know, a president and first lady speak to each other like this to just, the normal rhythm of their lives, to understand -- i understand a lot better who they were, and what they were like, what they meant to each other, what they meant to their friends, and through that, the larger picture of what their lives were like, who their friends were, what was important to them, and you begin to get some idea of how that shaped him as a president, although, he was pretty much in the same kind of shape early op. grandpa became harry truman

early on in life and stayed true this himself. her, too, both strong willed and opinionuated people. >> host: do you think there's anything in the criticism that harry truman was more in love with bess than bess was with harry truman? >> guest: no, nothing. again, she was private. grandpa told you. if you asked him, do you love bess truman? yes, i love her. if you asked my grandmother, she would say, well, yes, of course, i love him. what business is it of yours? i don't want to talk about it. she kept her emotions in check. she was much more reserved than he was. r for a variety of reasons, naturally, because of the father's suicide and all the responsibility she had. she was much more guarded, although, you catch her in the unguarded moments reporting she got up at five o'clock in the morning just to see her neighbors leave on vacation, just so she could see them in their underwear.

i wouldn't missed seeing mrs. smith in nickers for a hundred dollars. >> host: what was the funniest letter you read? >> guest: oh, there's little bits in all of them. there's nots one after the other. >> host: she has a sense of humor throughout all of them. >> guest: it's in all of them. he's off investigating waste and fraud in the military, the robbery of the united states railroads, off investigating these huge issues, and people are losing millions and billions of dollars, and the railroads are falling apart, and he's off investigating this stuff, and she comes back, while you're at it, investigate the glue they put on government envelopes because i can't get it to stick, so it's a complex issue and trifle yalizing -- trivializes it. >> host: going against the

theme she's not political at all, in 1942, she writes about a radio speech he gave the night before saying your radio technique improved immensely, and says your continents were pronounced as the speech coach told you. he had coaching 20 speak on the radio, but she says maybe a good idea to take lessons also. >> guest: yeah. >> host: she pulls back and says, but if you do it like last night, maybe you don't need lessons. >> guest: right. she does contradict herself, maybe i shouldn't deflate him too much. he did well. >> host: shows she was involved in the political career throughout even though the american public had a notion she was independent and not engaged. >> guest: they were engaged in each other's lives. the story from key west when he start the going down there, you take the president and the economy immediately improves. >> host: what was in key west?

>> guest: a little white house where he went for vacation. had a head cold in 1946, couldn't shake it, doctor said go somewhere worm. he said, where? there's a submarine base in key west. it's warm now. >> host: roosevelt had been there previously? >> guest: i think. grand pa moved in lock, stock, and barrel. he spent working vacations in the key west. when my mother made her concert debut, he was going to leave because he wanted to be in washington to hear her, and john was in key west, owned a local radio station and he said if it's piped in here, would you stay, please? grandpa said, yes. he was going to hear that concert one way or another. it scared john half to death because john had to change licenses. he had nbc license and he was

cbs. john watched the whole thing and they listened to the whole thing, and grandpa said are you enjoying yourself? he said, no. why not? i'm a nervous wreck, it's going to break, something will go wrong, you're the president of the united states, i'm going to blow it. grandpa said, relax, you're going to be okay. >> host: one of the best endorsements anybody could have for a book is what michael beschloss gave you saying we learned who she was with the emotional support and the wise private council with the world changing -- was to the world changing history of her husband's presidency. even now she remains somewhat of a mysterious first lady and how this important book, as she writes dear husband, is a vivid portrait of their marriage, and we gain freshening of how crucial bess was to harry, and that's ultimately to the american people. she was strong minded. she was strong minded.

what are some other examples of her maybe strong headedness? because it does also appear, a theme appearing throughout the letters. >> guest: yeah, she's very opinionuated about health, politics, their friends, who should be doing what. she could also -- she was the opposite, too 6789 too. talking about my long hair, and grandpa -- >> host: she referred to this when you were 15. >> guest: yeah. >> host: is it fair to say she was due duplicitous? >> guest: yes, she was very duplicitous to me and my mother. >> host: in this case. >> guest: grandpa couldn't stand long hair. this is in 1971. couldn't stand long hair, my brother and myself, and could barely speak to us. two years after he died, she visited us in washington, d.c., and my hair was down to my front

pockets, and i sat to breakfast one morning and my mother was making food for my brothers, and my grandmother said in a loud voice, my, goodness, you have beautiful hair. my mother said, for god's sake, grandmother, don't say that. he'll never cut it. next time she said, well, maybe cut it. i got a letter to a friend that said in part, too bad she's having the trouble with the hippies. it's time something was done about it. >> host: referring to her son with the long hairing? >> no another gang down something to a friend, we don't know. it's about time something was done. when i saw my two grandchildren with long hair, i about expired #. thank god they were clean and had on clean clothing. she hated, but could overlook it

just to annoy my mother. it worked for two years. >> host: that's a great example. so, any last morsels that you can give the viewers in terms of a letter or a surprise, something that may might not have known about bess truman or harry truman? >> guest: well, i don't know, i think you said it. it shows that it's a picture of who she was, really because i get this a lot when i give speeches. people bring that up. your grandmother just desserted your grandmother in -- grandfather in the white house. well, it wasn't. you read the book, it's not one-sided at all. she says in one early letter, please keep on loving me, just as hard as ever. she, you know, she really, really -- she needed him, and he needed her. they were very, very close. you know, had known each other

since they were five years old, all through school, a long courtship. >> host: how many years were they married? >> guest: 1919 to 1972 so 53 years pl >> host: wow. well, it's an incredible contribution. it's a wonderful book. anybody who wants to know more about bess truman, we have her in our own hand and through the leeps -- lens of her grandson who got to know her. >> guest: who may or may not be in trouble with the grandmother someday. >> host: someday. thank you very much for sharing the letters from your grandmother. >> guest: thanks, margaret.

>> that was "after words" booktv's signature program in which authors of the latest non-fiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policymakers, legislatures, and others familiar with their material. it airs every weekend onbook tch 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9 p.m. on saturday, and 12 a.m. on monday. watch online at booktv.org and click on after words in the booktv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page. we talk now with local birmingham author, author of "a walk to freedom" a collection of photos of the civil rights era in birmingham, alabama. >> what role did the church play in the alabama christian movement for human rights?

>> well bethel was the movement, and the movement was bethel. this is where it began. members were 100% behind everything he did. the movement -- his office was in the upper room. the church secretary worked for him. the secretary of the movement came here. all the members were all behind everything that happened in the birmingham movement. >> any church that was involved in the 50s and 60s challenging segregation laws was subject to be bombed. its members intimidated and harassed, so bethel received its fair share of such treatment. it was bombed three times. the parsonage was bombed christmas night, 1956. it fell down on top of reverend who walked out unschaved, and

that was the moment in which somewhere in the congregation was gathered outside said the lord saved the reverend to lead the movement. it was bombed again. that bomb was on the side of the church, and it was thought to have been an attempt to destroy his base here at bethel. i'm not sure why they bombed the third time, but they did, but bombing of the churches where the movement met, intimidation of members was a regular occurrence. the movement, which was organized, when the state banned the nacp from operating in alabama, met every monday night in a network of churches that was 60 churches scattered across the working class areas of birmingham. it met in these churches so that

it could tell the story to people, share what was going on in the legal challenges, and raise money to help finance the legal challenges against segregated laws. it met, it gained steam, the early churches could hold maybe 300 to 400 regulars, but as the movement won many cases and as things pr depressed, by 1962, they were meeting in churches that were 900 large, and during the spring of 1963, of course, the action took place downtown in the large city center churches around the park. beginning in the 90s, birmingham started researching the churches that were involvedded as mass meeting cites and were evented in the civil rights.

bethel rose to the top of important churches, and we began a campaign on national historic landmarks that took us longer than dismantling legal segregation in the city to obtain landmark status for the church, but that was successful in 2005, and interestingly, when national landmarks started the civil rights movement and began with a study on the freedom rise, just on the basis of bethel participation church in the freedom rise,-named a national historic landmark because he lived here, coordinated the freedom rise across the state of alabama from this place. church members helped and picked up the freedom riders. he ran the whole operation right out of this place. he ranch of the movement from

bethel. now the church is under restoration. a new church was built. it's currently being restored to the conditions just following the first bombing, and we're working to develop historic interpretation at the church, and we hope that visitors will actually come out here and get the feel of what it was like from the real people who stood behind the movement for many, many years because the story of birmingham is a story of common people standing up for their rights, standing up in the streets of birmingham until they win rights for all, and he was the only one of the major fclc leaders who actually had a local movement, that is, people who supported him through many years of many court battles and many court challenges, and many boycotts, and many, many other kinds of campaigns against very, very restrictive local laws, but

finally, in the spring of april may with the help of king and the fclc staff, grew into one of the most amazing testimonies of people standing up for their rights anywhere in history, anywhere this happened. >> we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv. >> i want to start by talking about why i wrote the book and what i hope to accomplish with this book. i wrote the book because our party is certainly at a cross roads and there's a division and going forward, i truly believe we have to unite. as a matter of fact, i said on a fox interview an invitation for carl rove and i to kiss and make up and move forward a united party. i talk about the cronyism of

especially the republican party in delaware, which those leaders have been ousted, but the reason i bring that up is not to perpetuate it or to fan the flames, but to put it to rest and to say that, you know, if that, you know, that cropny crowd -- crony crowd would embrace the principles that the grass roots crowd, that our party was founded on, and not just our party, but our country was founded on, we will be a power house if we can unite, and i detail things my campaign endured and what i went through as a candidate. again, to illustrate a point of what happens when we divide instead of when we unite, and everybody knows it's no secret that the 2010 elections -- the republican party was divided, but i think that there are some

examples to look at, and i draw the contrast between kentucky and my own race where in kentucky we are the nrc and senator mitch mcconnell really campaigning against rand paul. he was the worst thing to happen to politics until he won the primaries. the day after he won the primary, mitch mcconnell for arm and arm to ensure this guy crosses the finish line, and unfortunately, that didn't happen in delaware, but it's not to happen in order for us to win in 2012 # so that's the message that i hope that people can take away with them. i try to tell the story of how i got involved in politics, and what made me embrace principles i did and why i chose to become a republican, and i told it in a

way that some political advisers have said was a little too honest. i probably shouldn't have admitted some things, but i did that, again, so that the reader can relate because it's not about how many mistakes we've made or if we've fallen because you simply cannot pretend to be perfect. it's too exhausting and weary to keep up that facade. we're human. what it's about is about whether you get back up again, whether you own up to your mistakes and correct your mistakes and whether you're willing to forge ahead in spite of the opposition so that's why i chose to address many of the things i did in my book and talk about it where i came from and some of the hardships that i personally endured so that people can be up spired to get involved. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org