who are not here but first of all i would like to thank, to start thinking the great people who have helped me and a share i share their life with me to the realities and the people in israel, america and india, the surrogate mothers. i would like to thank -- for trusting me for over 11 years with all of my projects. i would like to thank diana and by dairy -- very dear husband for trusting me, for being my partner, for helping me to create it and to work on it. i've been traveling and he was raising my two daughters in tel aviv.

>> it's a pleasure to introduce to you tonight our speaker. candice millard is an excellent writer formerly national geographic magazine and we are glad to have her here to talk about her second book. first was the river of doubt about theodore roosevelt's journey down the amazon after his presidency and we are very pleased that she has chosen to tackle another interesting presidential subject that being the assassination of james a. garfield. i believe this is referred or

fourth trip to the site between research and other things she has done for us and with us and it is a great pleasure to welcome them tonight. please make her feel welcome. candice millard. [applause] >> -- thank you. thank you for the introduction and to all of you for coming. it is a real pleasure to be here, and it is a great honor to be able to speak at the james a. garfield national historic site. and i also wanted to say a particular thing to to the garfield family as well which has been incredibly kind and generous and helpful to me throughout this whole process. so thank you so much. at heart this book is not about politics or science or even the shooting of president. it's about an extraordinary trauma that took place inside

the white house over more than two months. in the 130 years since garfield's death, his story has been largely forgotten. but even that claim, even though the entire nation, the entire world was watching, no one really understood what was happening. what began as a shooting became an incredible struggle for power and ambition. the result was the brutal death of one of our most promising leaders at the hands of his own physicians. this is an intimate heartbreaking story of ignorance verses scions, agreed versus heroism. james garfield was not as he has often been remembered to be just

a bland 19th century politician. on the contrary, that's the wrong picture. i'm not sure what went up, but on the contrary, he was one of the most extraordinary man ever elected president. although he was born into desperate poverty, he became a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages when he was just a sophomore in college. by the time he was 26-years-old he was a college president. he knew the entire by heart in latin. will he was in congress he wrote an original proof of a fear on to the to -- serum. to me what is more inspirational and more astonishing even than garfield's brilliance was his

decency. i wrote a book about the roosevelt and i have great admiration for him. he was a firebrand, garfield was the calmest wisest man in the room. he was a good, kind, honest man trying his best he's a real person not consumed by ego and ambition. someone who is simply trying to do the right thing. even after 17 years in congress and one of the most ruthless officious era's of machine politics, garfield never changed. his friends used to marvel at his patience and forbearance even in the face of the most brutal attack but garfield was incapable of holding a grudge. he used to just say i am hater.

although he took his presidency very seriously, he had never had what he called presidential fever. in fact she never really ran for any office. people ask them to run and he did, but he would never even campaign. he always made it clear that he was going to follow his own conscience and convictions and less people didn't agree with him they shouldn't vote for him. when garfield went to the republican convention in the summer of 1880 only was he not a candidate, he didn't even want to be one. he had gone there to give a speech and he was kicking himself because he wasn't prepared. he wrote a letter home telling his wife that he was just sick about the fact he hadn't written the speech before the convention and now he wouldn't have time. the convention was an enormous hall in chicago.

there were 15,000 people there and the favorite to win by far was ulysses s. grant who was trying for a third term in the white house. and then this was his chaos and malae is. thousands of people garfield got up to speak and his speech was so powerful and so eloquent, and again, largely extemporaneous that the hall slowly fell silent until the only thing you could hear was garfield's for voice and everyone was just riveted. at one point, garfield said and so, gentlemen, i ask you what do we want, and someone shouted we want garfield. and the entire house went crazy and when it began the delegates began casting their ballot for garfield even though again he wasn't even a candidate and he stood up and objected but the

vote kept coming and he couldn't stop what was happening and what was a trickle became a stream became a river and then finally a flooding of votes and before garfield knew it, he was the republican nominee for president of the united states. what i found again and again and again while i was researching this book was that not only was his life and nomination and reef presidency fallujah incredible stories, but the people who surrounded him also unbelievable. you just couldn't make them up. first of course is the charles atoka garfield's would-be assassin. guiteau was very intelligent and highly articulate. if you read nearly any other

account of garfield's assassination, guiteau is described as a disgruntled office seeker. but that doesn't cover the small part of it. he was a uniquely american character to get he was a product of this country at that time. a time there was a lot play and there wasn't anyone to really understand what he was up two and hold him account for it. guiteau was a self-made madman. he was smart and scrappy, he was a clever opportunist and he would probably have been very successful if he hadn't been in same. guiteau had tried everything and he had failed at everything. he tried law, and vandalism, even a free love commune in the 1800's. and he failed even at that. the women in the commune nicknamed him charles get out.

laughter could he succeeded on audacity. he trembled all over the country by train and never bought a ticket. he took pride in moving from boarding house to boarding house slipping out when the rent was due. and even when he occasionally worked as a bill collector he would just keep whenever he managed to collect. after the republican convention, guiteau became obsessed with garfield and immediately after the election he began to stock the president. he went to the white house nearly every day. at one point he even walked into the president's office while the president was in it. he even attended a reception and introduced himself to garfield's wife. he shook her hand, he gave her his card and he slowly pronounced his name so she wouldn't forget him. it's like a hitchcock movie. it's incredibly creepy and absolutely terrifying.

finally guiteau had what he believed was a divine inspiration. god wanted him to kill the president. it was nothing personal, he would later say. simply god's will. as strangely fascinating and strange as guiteau is, conkling is a vein at berkeley powerful machine politician who appointed himself garfield's enemy. he were a canary yellow waistcoat, used lavender ink, he had a great curl in the middle of his forehead and it quickly with the slightest touch. his vanity was so outsized she was famously ridiculed for it by another congressman on the floor

of congress. but conkling was no joke. he was dangerously powerful. as a senior center from new york he controlled the new york customs house which was the largest federal office in the united states and controlled 70% of the country's customs revenue. conkling tight control patronage within his state, and he expected complete and unquestioning loyalty. in fact, his apartment in new york was known as "the morgue." ..

and he never showed up for work before nan. arthur preferred a life of leisure. he liked signed crows, old-line, late dinner parties and he was merely a springiness conkling. in fact, he then missed his birthday back a year to appear more useful. even within the republican party, arthur's nomination was considered ridiculous burlesque. after the election, arthur continued to make it clear where his loyalties lay. he went on location can even lead to 10 for a in d.c. and he took every opportunity to publicly criticize the

president. and then, suddenly, everything changed. after garfield was shot, arthur made a transformation so stunning and complete that no one could leave it. the entire country was horrified by the fact that chester arthur might be president. but unlike conkling, arthur was vacant and grief stricken. the last thing he wanted was for garfield to die. he hid himself from public view and refused even to go to washington for fear would look like he was waiting in the wings and a cut himself off from conkling. finally, after turning his back on the man who had made him come arthur found moral strength in the most unlikely of places. the letter of a young invalid one man named julius and.

fans believed in art fair when one else did, when he didn't even believe in himself. after the shooting, sand wrote to arthur, if the spark of true mobility in you now is the occasion to let it shine. faith in your better nature forces me to write to you, but not to ask you to resign. it is more difficult and brave, reform. enter resumes that, not least of all, arthur's come a day. he changed likely and try to be the president garfield would've been had he lived. he became an honest and respected leader and never forgot julius fans. not only did he keep our letters come he wrote her back and even went to visit her. one day after sunday dinner, santa sutter brothers house and a highly polished carriage pulled up in front of the house. antisense astonishment,

president arthur stepped out. yet come to thank her in person for her help. the reason arthur became president was not because it not mr. conkling's political maneuvering, but the ambition, ignorance and dangerous area can of the man who could sound control of garfield's medical care. dr. dr. willard bliss. that's right, his first name was dr. his parents had named him.there. [laughter] bliss was a well-known surgeon with a profitable practice. yet even been with the dr. z lincoln's bedside, but yet far from a sterling reputation. he had enthusiastically sold something called an drongo, which was supposed to cure cancer,, all serious, blood diseases, you name it. let's had even been disgraced for taking bribes and he had

spent a small amount of time in prison. robert todd lincoln was garfield secretary of war saffer bliss after the shooting, i saw in this national tragedy a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fame and power. he immediately took charge of the president's medical care, even though no one had given him the authority. he just took it. he dismissed the other.there's been completely isolated garfield in a sick room in the white house. he wouldn't even let him see his secretary of state. and what happened in that room, inside the white house, is nothing short of horrifying. last and assertions he had helped to pick him unsterilized fingers and instruments and garfield's back again and again, day after day, searching for the bullet. the last thing he wanted was for

garfield to die. he had to much at stake, but it's an arrogance and endurance were slowly and excruciatingly killing the president. the only hope for garfield was to find the bullet and endless search, but this is 14 years before the invention of the medical x-ray. what happened next is nothing short of incredible. only the most brazen novelist would make it out. none other than alexander graham bell stepped forward to help. bell, a young restless genius had invented the telephone five years earlier, when he was only 29 years old. 1881 from the telephone had earned him some money and a lot of fame, but he wanted nothing to do with the come to me that a grown up around it. he said it was hateful to him at all times and that it fettered and as an inventor.

even in the business for the lawsuits against the telephone. there were 600 lawsuits against 10, five of which went to the supreme court. finally, bell had enough. he said it thickens the telephone and quit the bell telephone company. they'll just wanted to help people. he had lost most of his brothers to tuberculosis before he was 24 years old. both his wife and his mother were dead and he knew he could make life better for people, and maybe even save lives. but he worked so hard that his parents and his wife were terrified that he would literally worked himself to death. when he was working, he wouldn't stop to eat or rest. his only rest there was play the piano deep into the night. but even then, he played with such an intensity that his mother who taught him to play called it musical theater.

when garfield was shot, they'll turn his life upside down to help him. it sickened him to think of garfield's doctors blindly searching for the bullet. science, he thought, should be able to do better than that. i'll abandoned everything he was doing and spend day and night inventing something called an induction balance, which was basically a metal detector that he had got to the telephone receiver. and which he slowly ran over the president's body, listening for a tall cell bus and i would tell him where the bullet was lodged. in the end, dell and science were defeated, but not because the invention didn't work. it did work. in fact, it went on to save countless lives before the invention of the medical x-ray. alexander graham bell was defeated by comparing come ambition ignorance of the president that not yours.

if there began my research for this but, the question that coming to me was, how could this have happened? what i found was, first of all, the presidency in 1881 was very different from the presidency today. first of all, secret service. this is 16 years after the assassination of abraham lincoln and there's still no secret service protection for the presidency. garfield had only has 24-year-old private secretary and an aging policeman. not only was the president not protected from the public, but he is expected to interact with them, one-on-one, face-to-face on a daily basis. you have to remember that this is the height of the spoils system and many americans believe that they were entitled to government jobs, even if they had no training or credentials for them. more than that, they insisted on

making their case directly to the president himself. garfield was forced to meet with office seekers from 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day and the situation made him desperate. he longed for a time to work and think and he wondered why anyone would ever want to be president. but while he found office seekers tiresome, even maddening, he never considered them to be dangerous. he said the fascination can no more be desired against than death by lightning and it's best not to worry about either. he walked all around the city by himself all the time. in fact, one night he left the white house. he walked down the street to the secretary of state's house. they walked on together through the streets of washington with guiteau following the entire way holding a loaded gun.

by that time, guiteau had been stuck in the present for weeks. even thought into church and considered shooting him in church. finally, he made his decision. the president he knew would be a baltimore and potomac train station in washington d.c. on the morning of july 2nd, 1881 and a transfer would waiting. the moment guiteau walked into the station that morning, guiteau stepped into the shadows and shot him twice. the first bullet hit the president and they are. a second doctor is back. by an incredible book, he did not kill garfield. he only wanted him. but all of that torture is back and had a spinal cord and didn't hit any vital organs. today, he would've spent a few nights in the hospital. even if he'd just been left alone, he almost certainly would've survived. unfortunately for garfield and

the nation, and dr. bliss stepped in. this took advantage of this fear in the chaos to consume control of garfield's medical care. but he was not only ambitious, yet here to the most traditional medical methods of the time. bliss gave garfield a gunshot that tim, rich foods and alcohol. he took great satisfaction in what he called the healthy pause from the infected moons and avoided any treatment he considered to be new and radical, including antisepsis. the renowned or surgeon, joseph lister, the prevention of infection by destroying germs 16 years earlier. the death rate in his surgical war had plummeted and he had traveled all around come the

baking.thursday sterilize their hands and their instruments. and warning them that if they didn't, they ran the very real risk of killing the patient. 1881, antisepsis was widely accepted in europe, but the most experienced and respected doctors in the united states still dismissed it as useless, even dangerous. some still didn't even really believe in germs. they laughingly referred to them as invisible turns and they certainly didn't want to go to all the trouble that antisepsis required to kill them. they took great pride in what they called the good old surgical stink. they would not change or washed their surgical fee brands because they believe that the more blood and encrusted on them, the more experienced it showed. even those who tried antisepsis had little success for a reason that today seem painfully clear. they would sterilize their

knives, but if they drop in during surgery, david just pick them up and continue using them. if they needed those of their hands during surgery, they would hold the knife in their teeth and then use it. even alexander graham bell could not raise the infection coursing through garfield's body. the story, however, doesn't end there. garfield's death brought about tremendous changes. changes in madison and politics in the fabric of our nation. as soon as garfield's autopsy was released, the american people understood that their president didn't have to die and they understood why he did. list was publicly disgraced and antisepsis was the top hit across the country. americans turned their rage and their grief on the political system that encouraged a man man like guiteau. chester arthur himself who owed

his entire career to patronage find the panel tonight which was the end of the oil system. his death also prompted country together in a way not seen since the war. lincoln's assassination had only deepened the divide, but garfield had been the first president who was except to type this out since the civil war. he was accepted as a leader of the whole country, north and south, immigrants and pioneer, freed man and some slaveowner. his death was their laws and their common grief brought them together. above all, garfield's death changed the presidency itself. you could argue that this really marked the end of the idealistic or perhaps naïve concept of the president of meeting with office seekers, personally making appointments at every level of government.

it was obviously an unworkable system for many reasons. it was open to correction, completely inefficient and purse really dangerous. they would never have worked as the united states grew into a major world power. and it is good that it can't. but at the same time, these changes also make it almost impossible to ever again a lack someone like garfield. the presidency today is not about a single person, but about a large, complex institution. the president may be our greatest political celebrity, that is personal power is bounded by then filtered through many layers. he is surrounded by elaborate security. his contact with the public is carefully controlled and he operates in this bubble of secret service officers, high officials and the press. it is very unlikely that would have been to garfield could happen today.

by the same token, if it even if we could find someone like garfield, we can elect him. the presidency is too big and too distant for americans to be with you choose someone who isn't even trying to be elected. it seems to be open only to people who are willing to sacrifice almost anything to become president. we have hopefully outgrown the day when and not and can just walk into the oval office and incompetent.irk seize control of the white house for nearly three, murder in the president in the process. but we likely have always thought the day when americans could recognize the promise of a fine, honest man. a man with no financial support, no political regime, nothing but the strength of his own words and ideas and in the shining moment of democracy they can our

leader. thank you. [applause] happy to take questions. >> a favor and ask a question, please approach and speak into the microphone. thank you. >> marvelous presentation. were there any among garfield's family, friends or subordinates who chant and ballast machine over lister's methods? if so, how did that play out? >> well, bell himself offered help. he'd put the bell telephone company and had opened a small laboratory in d.c.

as soon as the president was shot, he knew he could help him and offered his help. and by that time, although his public faith was that everything was going great, the president doing very well, he had become desperate so he accepted bell's help. and interestingly, although as i said really the most respected, most experienced in the united states dismissed his methods. there's some doctors who had been studying his methods in europe and who watched this with growing horror, but didn't feel that they could stand that to these well-known.there's. there was, i'd probably say -- again by the way born and raised in ohio in, but i live in kansas now. there is a doctor from kansas who wrote to the creation of garfield's wife and told her, don't let them probe the one. make sure they sterilize everything. i just never got through to

bless who ran things exactly as you wish. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. i don't mean to get you off the track, but i'm thinking that garfield played a very significant role in the 1876 election and the commission that actually elected the president. can you tell me a little bit about that? >> is a very controversial election which pays and was given the presidency. i am not sure, to be honest, exactly how much of a role garfield played and not. but it was interesting and not everyone was very, very closely watching the election of 1880 because of this and also because it was such a stunning nomination for garfield as the republican convention. so this election was closely watched really by everyone except for garfield who is very happily here with his family, and doing experiments with oil

and with pleased he was a nasty campaign, which was unseemly as they find. thank you. >> thank you. i find fascinating favorite great presidents presidents, lincoln garfield and mckinley were all kindly towards the african-american and all assassinated. our calendar this year is the same as 1881 and he was on this date on a thursday and tomorrow that garfield's body lay in state in the nation's capital. ever just thank you for coming here on this day to her hometown. >> my honor. thank you. [applause] >> hi, what do you think about the fact that garfield quit being a general while the civil war was still raging to go back into politics? what is your response that garfield the politician? >> well, garfield didn't want to. abraham lincoln asked him to come back. he needed him back in congress citing the site link in hand and

garfield understood that. it was difficult for him. he loved his regiment, which was many of whom were made-up friend boys from the western correction is it too. so is decision and he felt very passionately about the civil war, not only in keeping the country together and bringing back abolition, he was a fierce abolitionist and was a national hero because of his work on the civil war. >> thank you for image for an excellent presentation. toward the end come you said in the very last paragraph that dr. bliss was murdering the president. you don't have any malice to have it all, that letter in confidence. wal-mart question, a little about your background. i'm curious to know how you got interest in a subject like this. >> well, and i will just say, the last thing bush wanted was

for garfield to die. you know, he wrote a letter to friends on white house stationery saying i can't afford to have him die, underlining each word. he was desperate. he worked night and day. he lost his house, lost his is. but he was incredibly arrogant. he dismissed all the other.there is than he was woefully ignorant. he knew about antisepsis. and so, you know, you have to judge him on that as well. another question is how i got in? to be honest, i didn't even know i grew up in ohio know much about garfield beyond the fact he had been assassinated. i wasn't necessarily and interested in writing about another president, but as interested in science and was researching alexander graham kolb and stumbled upon this story after garfield was shot. i was done because first of all i'd never heard this story.

secondly, i couldn't understand why bell, who really was at the height of his fame and his power would turn his life upside down to do this. they mean, he had a family in boston. his wife and children -- his wife is pregnant and they've been planning on going to maine because it was incredibly hot and he had just left them and spent all this time, night and day working on this. it made me wonder, why would he do that and what was garfield by? when i start your research garfield, i was just completely kept debated and i knew i had to tell the story. >> hi. >> good to see you. >> undergone the same theme. i know you are from a small town in ohio and our product of public education. how are we aspire to be a raider? >> is a good question.

i didn't ever think i would be a writer. as a reader. i was a voracious reader. i thought i was probably going to teach. and i got an undergraduate masters degree in literature and thought i was going to get my phd. but to be honest, i hated literary criticism. i realize that i really wanted to write. so really it was a process. you know, it wasn't all overnight. it was little by little. i got my masters at taylor in a move thome, moved in with my parents, literally open the yellow pages college every publisher in town and just had all of these little magazine jobs here. search for a magazine for veterinarians and never even had a pet. i knew nothing. and finally got my dream job when i was 28 years old, working at "national geographic." as a researcher the first year, but they have this terrific

blind test for a writing position on the magazine and i applied along with 300 other people and i got the job. and it is the best thing that ever happened to me after that point and i did that for six years until i got the idea from a first vote. it's been a dream and it's been wonderful. hi. >> when the doctor was working on garfield, why didn't mr. garfield to the.here's to stop working on garfield? >> is a wonderful question. you know, it was a time of chaos and confusion and fear and bullets came forward very competently and wrote a letter to the art and treat other doctors and the president and i thank you for your help and concerned, but your efforts will be necessary any longer, even though garfield and the khrushchev had never given him that authority.

so the preshow, even though most doctors know about antisepsis, she didn't really understand what was happening, but she did keep on her.her. she had a female doctor, which was very very bad time, they called mr. dr. who they were. the doctor at singh refused to go away when bliss dismissed to create annoyance that said you can stay, not as a.there, only as a nurse. but she stated she did what she could. >> what time are you from and cannot find the book in the library by now? >> that's a great question. i was originally born in marion, ohio and grew up in lexington, ohio, which is very close to mansfield. and i think that the book is probably the libraries by now,

yeah. thank you for asking. i hope you read it. >> what a delight to be a not there and if you're going to write a next up, what is it going to be about? >> is really, really fun to be a not there. i would recommend highly. the best part for me is doing the research because you get to do all these incredible things. when i wrote my first book, it was about the river in amazon that theodore roosevelt went down. i got to go into that river that was so incredibly remote. i heard a pilot in small plane and flew for hours over unbroken jungle from horizon to horizon and i met this isolated group whose parents and grandparents had followed him and they remembered it and they remembered all these stories. so you get these incredible experience is. researching this book was interesting. researching the river of doubt was a difficult logistically.

this is difficult emotionally because i became very attached to garfield. i really cared about him. and it is difficult to see what was happening. i kept wanting to yell over the span of 130 years, stop. somebody stop these men. by reading his latest diary can i redeem children's diaries, you know, saying there's a section of garfield's fine and the national museum that was used during the trial. also, remains of charles guiteau in h.r. with the remains of john wilkes booth. yeah, there is actually -- there is a jar, pieces of guiteau's brain center on the country after he was executed to study and see if he could see any physical evidence of an entity. so anyway, it's a very interesting job.

and a real privilege to be able to do this. yes, i am working on a next book. i can't get into details about it because it's really early, but it's going to be about winston churchill. thank you for your question. >> i remember hearing about the story of alexander graham bell and what he was doing and i heard that his thing that he did for the president did work, but when off all the time. seems like the bow was all over the place. but it worked because it is picking up the metal bread springs underneath the president and that is why they had a hard time finding the bullet. is there any truth to that story? >> that's one of the reasons. it's not astonishing? he actually asked them if the president because he was there at that time to have masters of metal springs in it. they said no and in fact he was. so obviously that's going to affect the metal chair.

the other reason i didn't find wallet is that he believed in had publicly stated that the bullet was on the president's right side and he would only let l. rend the induction balance over the president's right side in the locus on the left. >> wow. and the other one is i was curious about the old cliché, ignorance is bliss. does this work it comes from? [laughter] >> i had that in the book. that's very perceptive of you. so after the autopsy results and bliss is disgrace in newspapers in the medical journal, one of the doctors says, ignorance is bliss, but it comes from a poem in the 1700s. [laughter] very apropos unfortunately. okay. >> did you read any fiction

books? >> now, haven't written fiction. fiction and nonfiction writing is very different. and i read a lot of fiction and i love it and i've gone to a lot of talks by fiction writers and i always marvel at myself because they will say, what is your process like? they say well, i sort of let this story lead me and i kind of followed by cared to her and to me that's a nightmare. and now, i know exactly -- my processes they spend three years writing a book and a fourth tier is doing foundational research. the entire second year is spent going through the research and outlining and outlining. it's really important. it will help than it saves you a lot of pain, believe me. and i just work on structure for an entire year and only then do i start writing. at the route i will find holes in my research and go back in

more, which i love. >> best of my says. [laughter] >> she's right. she's right. you can't skip the outline, sorry. >> i would just like to know what is the term political machine means? >> well, so this is a time of machine politics those incredibly, incredibly corrupt and power mongering. so rasco can't really was the sort of pinnacle example of that kind of corruption. i'm sure you've heard of past week and stuff, that really in the gilded age and that comes from. it was just a time of rampant corruption. bullying and the spoil system. and so, things obviously are not perfect now if you compare them to that time were a lot better off. >> when you do your research and when you are able to use like

the diaries and the letters and stuff like that, how do you go about obtaining not? is that they're for the public ordeal to get permission from the family? >> a lot of garfield's papers, most of his papers in the presidential papers at the library of congress. anyone can see them. you just get a drivers license. you go in and get a i.d. card. i will say they are very, very strict with their rules, which they have is they should be. i mean, these are national treasures. but for instance, i give you a story here. i am a good person i very carefully follow the rules, but you're only allowed to have one card at a time. you cannot say i've been founded as time. only one bid on your desk at 110 and one folder added that pin. so i'm following all the rules and i open a folder and there's an envelope and the folder. and it's not sealed in the face of it is facing the table.

insight open it up and out false all of his hair. and i turn it and it says click for president garfield on his death made. my god, my career is over. they're going to kick me out in all never be able to -- you never know what you're going to find. so it's an adventure. >> banks. >> you mentioned lucretia garfield's letters and diaries. are those published? >> garfield kept a diary for many, many years. lucretius diaries at the back of the last volume of garfield's diary published. and then yes, there is this wonderful volume of letters between lucretia and james. they only spent five months together during the first five years of their marriage because he was either gone hiding during the civil war or he was in washington when he was in

congress and she was here in ohio. and you know, to her credit, she kept all of those letters. at the end of his life, garfield question if he would have much of a legacy because he had been president for such a brief time. but lucretia understand who he was an understood. so even though many letters are very painful because their early marriage is very difficult, she kept all of them and they are beautiful. and as brilliant as he was, she was his equal intellectually. and i would highly recommend this book. >> banks. >> i thank you for a very enjoyable evening. >> thank you so much. >> i have one question. detector that james garfield being a multitalented man, how do you rank him at the others, such as jefferson.

>> you now, to me personally and i'm obviously biased, i think had he lives, i believe he would've been one of our great presidents. i mean, it's impossible to know because he was in office for such a short time. and a great admirer of chapters then come a great admirer of lincoln. but i think -- honestly i think garfield had a mind like jefferson and a heart lake lincolns. >> i agree. thank you. >> i was wondering, is that hard-to-find research on him quiet >> you now, it's like being a detective kind of. and so, it's really fun in that way. so you just get to search and search and search. so when i began my cast a very wide net. so i looked everywhere and every place. but for the obvious places. i came to light filled several times and the college where he was a student and teacher and

president. i went to the library of congress, but then i found the new europe bar, the library of the nearby has letters from guiteau which are incredible. or just bits and pieces here and there. it's like a treasure hunt. it's a lot of fun. any other questions? >> i just have one question to add to the thing about dr. bliss. was there any government action taken against him are prosecuted? did they ever investigate his ineptness? >> they didn't. i think the country was heartbroken and enraged and focused beam on charles guiteau in his trial because he had an insanity defense in the country was terrified he would get often be sent to a file instead of being hanged.

and also, bliss never admitted that he had done anything wrong. he in fact insisted that he had given the very best medical care to the president. in fact, he handed congress a very expensive bill for his work and was outraged when congress refused to pay him. >> okay, thank you. >> via several small questions. first of all, have you ever talked to the group out of hiram college about this? >> i've done research at the college, but having spoken with any groups there. >> do you think is to make a good book for a movie? >> yes. [laughter] [applause] >> well, i think would make an excellent book -- or a movie. i can hardly wait to see it come out. my father was an ordained minister in the same church that

garfield was. and he -- i heard somebody say that he rode a horse from here over to the franklyn christian church, which is a disciples of christ church. do you know if that's true? >> i don't know that story. at the two year, but obviously i don't know. >> that's what i heard anyway. thank you very much. >> thank you, everyone. i really enjoyed it. thank you for coming out. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> could i make just one comment? >> go ahead, bob. >> as the intellect did -- as the senior member in this part of the country as a matter of fact. i trade some of those years, but that's not going to work. i want to thank you for an extraordinary undertaking.

he took on and cheat so mightily and you cumin as someone who is a ghost the past too many people who didn't even know the ghost was there. there have been things written about him and about the family in the past, but nothing begins to compare with what you've done here. so thank you very much.

55 minutes. >> thank you so much to get i apologize so much for keeping you waiting. thanks for waiting for me. i had no idea at the traffic it connecticut ave. so, let's go straight to jerusalem. i've been doing to jerusalem all my life ever since i was a little boy ever since i was a baby and ever since i've been a writer i wanted to write this book and i've been thinking of a way to write about jerusalem. as you know there are millions of books about jerusalem about the israel palestine conflict, king david, the crusade for jesus and there are few books,

only one book in print in english but is the history to this which is karen armstrong which many of you may see and that is a theological because the wonderful book but it's about the nature of god in jerusalem. i wanted to read a book that was about not just the architecture, not just of the holy theology, not just one empire after another conquering it, but the people that made jerusalem and how they built it and how it developed because after all, its people, it's family that builds the city's and jerusalem is a city that's both involved and has been created a great dramatic acts in this direction as well and it's a combination of the two things and i wanted to catch that so i looked for this book for a long time and i couldn't find it and i read others about russia. once i read about benjamin a hero of mine a person who visited jerusalem and the book

and he said when i want to read a book i write it, and so humble the following in the footsteps five slightly done the same thing here. is that malfunctioning? >> not anymore. >> good. so i set about writing this book. why is it called jerusalem a biography? well, first of all, those of you, many of you know that in the scriptures jerusalem is always described as a woman. sometimes a mistress abandoned by her lover's, sometimes a beautiful princess and scarlet silk but always a woman so that's one reason traversal has a personality like an idea that appealed to me. but also this is about the people and what i wanted to do was create a book that would

confront a very complicated ideas. after all, the names are incredibly complicated. there are babylonian famous, turkish names, english names, there are hebrew names or arabic and so on and so many civilizations the syrians often and so forth. so the book had to be readable by someone who really knew nothing about the middle east, nothing about jerusalem and didn't read history books. namely my mother. and so, that's why i designed it so that it is in very small sections of each section is a person, and it's a person who helped make the city in some way or other. and the great thing about being a writer is people that interested me and i love and i wanted to write about. and so, it is a biography, it's a collection of biographies as well. some of them may scarcely have heard of like jesus christ or her role of the great work david

ben-gurion and others are well known characters like ed leah, the travel writer, or osama the arab writer and the crusades. some of these people are people i discovered. i hadn't heard of them before and i sure many of you haven't either. but it's partly a literary book and part of that i wanted to share with you the joy of reading of jerusalem and discovering these people and maybe you will go off and read more if you read the book you will go off and read more books about jerusalem and go back to the primary source that catches your imagination. so that's why i wrote this book and why i decided to do. the great challenge of jerusalem of courses that it's both a blessing and curse of jerusalem that everybody feels that jerusalem is partly owned by them. everybody has a vision of

jerusalem even though you may be a secular person who despises religion. you will still have a view of what jerusalem may be and if you are a religious person, you have a very strong view of what jerusalem should be. and that's why the moment it's a fascinating time in history because even though washington, d.c. from london to paris many of us look upon religious people with a slightly mocking smile. we think that we portray them often in the media as borderline met. in fact, in america in the middle east and jerusalem all over the world obviously fundamentalist people which i mean people who believe the bible is fundamentally the divine word of god or the koran those people are increasing in numbers within the states. and in jerusalem and i sure many

of you have been there recently you feel this strongly now you feel that strongly the number of muslims, palestinians who are now extremely observant have increased enormously since i got to go to jerusalem as a child and through the streets of jerusalem you call to prayer and now you see people going down and praying in a way that he would never have seen 40 years ago. of course the jews are far more now in jerusalem you know about evangelism more than we do in england. from these three groups of people, jerusalem is a place for mohammed as it was for jesus is the place where when the kingdom of heaven comes judgment day the apocalypse, the second coming of the messiah, whenever you want to call that it will happen in

jerusalem. can only happen in jerusalem. it will happen somewhere else side of the golden gate. the golden gate beautiful mystical mysterious structure. actually my favorite structure injures a land that is where it is going to have been. very different scenarios but basically that's what's going to happen. so, ever increasing numbers of these people ever more politicized as you know but also in the muslim world also in iran and elsewhere in israel is ever more the center of the world. no you know that by that time it is of to the crusade the time since the early middle ages really up the preparation. you often saw mabus in which jerusalem was literally the center of the world. you've seen those maps.

there's one in the book there is a cross over the world and the center of the cross was jerusalem and the center of jerusalem in those days people believe tatars from statistical center of the world, and again, now today in a weird sort of way jerusalem is again one of the centers of the world. i've talked about the fundamentalist believe in the apocalypse and judgment day. but also, geopolitically in the middle east is the fulcrum, it is in the crosshairs of all of the great crises are the great conflicts of today. secular some versus fundamentalism. not just between the western world but also we are in strange situations no where the orthodox jews often stone nonobservant

and jews for example in jerusalem. so within the religion's themselves there is ever growing conflict. jerusalem is the central course of palestine and that in itself happens with iconic value. an iconic center of the in many of the crises that happening in the arab muslim world and that is an ever greater importance in europe, too and in america. so all these things are really being played out in jerusalem in different ways and also america and iran, very shortly to get up the cause of jerusalem they would have a jerusalem day, the elite part of the revolutionary guard they've taken of jerusalem as a way they are persians and

aryans and shia and appealing to the sunni arab who are often suspicious of them and so jerusalem is a clever way of doing this. there are so many different ways jerusalem is ever more central and it's one of them in a sense that this piles on the intensity of all of the world's troubles of all these conflicts on to the fragile stones of dressel one which is really when one means the temple mount the center of the place where does it mean when you say the holy city? it is a phrase that is frequently used on cnn and newspapers. all you really mean is this is a place where on earth this is the perfect place, the prime place where god can encounter men and men can encounter dogs and that is what the holy city means. and the place that this is these are temples now in jerusalem,

and so that had a large structure intact but led to this more considered hopes and dreams that piled on top of that and that is why many people that go to jerusalem are hugely disappointed by jerusalem and hence of the syndrome. you know what this is, the special madness peculiar to jerusalem. now in jerusalem there is a mental institution, a mental hospital which specializes in every year people were hospitalized with the sender and i've been to this place. it's one of the few places where you walk in and you see the patient that says if you say jesus several people turnaround. [laughter] and in fact, there are various levels of the centrum and they've had many names over the years, darussalam met as and fever but it's not just a sort

of silly name for what happens for jerusalem. it is a psychiatric -- recognized by psychiatrists as a genuine syndrome. what it is caused by is the disappointment. it is particularly christian pilgrims, but actually i think certainly jewish pilgrims have often suffered from it. certainly i would move them from it, too and in fact one of the bizarre characteristics of jerusalem but i think just about anyone who gets control of jerusalem stops on the syndrome, too that is every conquer has succumbed to it in some way because monotheism means if you believe in one god, one way and there for you simply can't compromise, you cannot with the road to heaven, to the in the

days come to the last judgment and that is why there is a peculiar nature of jerusalem the one city they just want to live there. they want to possess and totally. to come back to the syndrome is the disappointment where people arrive expecting a white marble city, pristine, and towers rising towards the clouds where god smiles down on the pilgrims and perfect white robes. how many of you have been to jerusalem? those that have been to jerusalem know that it is exquisite, politic, sacred, wonderful, grouping, is propelling, idiosyncratic but it is also the messiest, noisiest and angriest, most awkward, most furious, most chaotic dusty, hot, crazy city and the whole world. it's no wonder that many pilgrims to go there suffer the

jerusalem syndrome. i thought it was a bit of a joke as you probably do as i'm talking about it. but i looked it up and i found out that recently in the last ten years it has been a very scholarly work by psychiatrist in the state, israel and in england about the jerusalem syndrome and they've kind of divided up and analyze it. it's unintelligible. but at the end of it there is a section that is for idiots like me. and what it says is this might be useful for people who are leading groups to jerusalem and anybody who is going have simple things to look for in your group your group starts to display any of these characteristics than call for the institution.

but they're quite interesting. the first one is obsessional clipping of meals and toenails, finger and toe nails and the fetish keeping of the clippings. they don't see why that is. second is the cutting of hair and again, keeping the cutting. the third one is the fashioning of the rope from hotel bed linens. [laughter] the fourth one is putting on the robe and progressing to a high place. if number five is giving a sermon, preferably a sermon on the mound. [laughter] you can only write this book if you're truly obsessed and immersed in the subject. she thinks i suffered with the book is done now, thing god.

i have to say that this book is definitely the most daunting and challenging but i've never written. when i started to write a obviously the most important thing was there was no importance of letting the antiis really history of jerusalem, no point in letting the pro palestinian zionist history of these things have been done and i historian. i wanted to might as close as you can get to a history of jerusalem without bias. i should first of all tell you that is hard for me. i'm jewish and i should tell you what this means because monetary the character played a big part in the creation of jerusalem isn't totally forgotten but pretty much and his name was moses and he was my great, great uncle and he was a fascinating character. he was born in italy and came as a child to england in the 79

these and he had a very successful financial career. he married -- he and the first rothschild to arrive and in business together. it said and i think it's been proven recently that they were quite naughty in the battle of waterloo. they had a better intelligence service than the government of, so the new when they won the battle before the press minister because that meant they could buy the stock first. so that said they made a great fortune which was mel recalled but it never had been invented yet. no he was exactly what the victorians fought a jew should be like.

he was 6-foot 4 inches, blue eyes, barrel chested, broad shoulders and he was one of those people who had great charm whenever she saw him i saw moses wanted very with a very grand old hebrew he is which by the standards of the time was great compliment. wouldn't go down so well today. but the point was stranger the time and this was the situation -- many of the leaders of britain aristocracy and the middle class or the evangelicals and they believed absolutely the return of the jews to israel to the gathering of the jewish people, the jewish jerusalem and ultimately this will accelerate both british control of the least and also the second coming and this also coincides very

much with moses he was very friendly with of the leader of these evangelicals they were very similar and windows is not a theory in the eighties and twenties went for the first time he was a very world the english gentleman who made his first fortune who was jewish but not particularly orthodox she fell in love with jerusalem he went seven times. he said when he received his knighthood from queen victoria i was much prouder to see my banner flittering in the hall than i was to receive the title from the queen of england and he became a very orthodox jew. he always traveled with his own and silver and complete paraphernalia of the orthodox jew could afford to take everything with him wherever he went into his carriage is in jerusalem and some of you may have seen that. he went seven times which is difficult and dangerous and many

people died on the road to jerusalem. he was an extraordinary character. after weigel going to jerusalem giving money to the jews that were an incredibly poor he realized that for them to have a future there they had to return to jerusalem but they also had to make their own living since the age of 60 he built the first suburb outside of the city walls. that is a fascinating thing. if you read many of the papers in europe, north america i might add that northern europe, you would believe that all of the suburbs of jerusalem that were jewish or very recent and authentic and to believe that the palestinian in the air of neighborhoods -- let the interesting things about jerusalem is in fact both of the suburbs were started in the 1860's. wanted to rebuild the first

jewish one and the great palestinian families started to build their split sample was the most famous of the neighborhood. so, all of these things were built at the same time but not to restart so he brought a little bit of england to jerusalem because this wind mill didn't work for very long. fascinating and 1846 rutka was going to see is he built the wind mill but they're still to rows of them which you will have seen. he built jury classic english style of the time. the cottages are completely out of place in jerusalem but so are many things. but what they look like is a kind of fake gothic like a medieval castle and of course they look exactly like a golf

club from london suburbia will build up that time and that is the time they were built. interestingly in 1948, 47 as the battle to jerusalem began the battle for palestine began, the palestinian irregulars took possession of the gate and the walls of jerusalem and don't know if you can picture them steve got the gate here looking down and the montefiore when the mill here controlled by the british and the have a huge and as the battle started to attack the montefiore as they called it into the jewish defender is actually used these battlements as they were very useful so they said that purpose but the british were actually sort of backing and at one point they

blew off the top of the wind mill which i can't forgive them for. so that's the background and of course the was the beginning of the family connection to jerusalem. they went down through many generations. when 1917 when the british took jerusalem from a simple for the british empire by coincidence the person who made the military police chief was the nephew of moses montefiore, like mechem and his job was to run jerusalem and was very peaceful at that time. and i found in the family papers -- this book is a work of synthesis and assure the subject in a way to the archives but there is also quite a lot of