a roundtable discussion on practices for promoting liberty on campus and i decided to have another meeting in another and eventually formed as an organization. >> how many campuses are you one click >> we have well over 700 student groups in our network. so like i said, all over the world. >> this is your second compilation? >> yes, our second compilation we've put together a partnership with the atlas society. >> behind grant society? >> know, the atlas society. >> megan roberts for two indications direct her. and one of the copy editors on this book, "the morality of capitalism." students were liberty.board is the website. ..

good evening when. what think you for joining us. in a time when the great desperation of the great depression was holding americans in its grip, the works progress administration, or wpa was changing of the american landscape offering hope in the form of employment to millions building roads, dams, bridges

and airports and creating opportunities for artists and art for everyday people. nick taylor is the author of "ameican-made a scholarly dramatically written book about the enduring legacy of the wpa. the story of a time that seems quite distant now when big government acted with great quality and passion. owls our guest points out, the wpa wasn't without controversy and its critics. but as he also makes clear, it brought a change to the lives of countless individuals and fundamentally changed america. our guest began his career as a journalist for newspapers in ohio and georgia and worked on the presidential campaign of jimmy carter in 1976, worked for john lewis before he was elected to the congress and leader for the georgia public television. since then he's written for numerous magazines and has written nine books including his newest which brings him here.

it's a pleasure to introduce the author of american made, nick taylor. [applause] thank you for coming to barnes and noble tonight. i see my friends in the audience. thank you for coming out. you know the wpa the new deal is 75-years-old as of yesterday, march 4, 1933 is one franklin roosevelt was inaugurated president of the united states. all that time, yet we have today program in the wpa that suddenly seems fresh and new because once again we are talking about infrastructure, the need for economic stimulus, and that is the kind of thing the wpa did. i'm going to talk about all that and read a little bit.

so let me first read from a prolonged a little bit but will give you the framework in which the wpa came to exist. the human toll of the great depression is the 1930's is almost impossible for us to fathom today. when franklin roosevelt took office in 1933 as many as 15 million people, workers in the united states had no jobs, had no jobs and no hopes of finding one's. the desolation knew no boundaries. the skilled and unskilled still on the bread lines waiting for their turn in soup kitchens. when they were evicted from their homes the build in prague two shacks to house their families until the police came and knocked them down. when roosevelt took over the reins of government from herbert hoover and worked to gain a foothold in the struggle against starvation and homelessness, his first step was to provide direct

relief. the handouts range from cash payments to surplus food and clothing but these are emergency measures designed to the basic necessities. it doesn't alter the underlying problem of unemployment nor do they address the singular and a vital human need the urgency of maintaining dignity. the president's instinct that was better to give people work than handouts as shared by harry hopkins, the true worth one worker roosevelt chose to administer relief. even this era of remarkable politicians coming and remarkable characters, hopkins stood out. he had no patience with foot-dragging politicians who mouth good intentions but didn't back their words with votes and he said so as a lightning rod for action. he would say the kind of things like hunter is not debatable and when he was asked if he could

get by on a billion dollars instead of $2 billion until the country could see whether the unemployment picture was going to improve, he would say i can put the unemployed couldn't so he entered people and he was a lightning rod, honest and they hated that antinew deal press hated him as well and he was adored by the people that worked for him who, like he would work themselves to exhaustion. hopkins created jobs in the initial relief programs but it wasn't until the works progress administration was established by the president-elect and 35 that johnson came to focus on relief and gave genuine hope to the formerly jobless workers and in turn they shouldered the tasks that began to transform the physical face of america.

they transformed a cultural landscape as well the wpa lasted for eight years. at the end of its life and the global fight to save democracy the was world war ii, the wpa sang virtually unnoticed. july 1st, 1943, as the united states and its allies fought against nazi germany freshest italy with the obituary was buried on page nine of "the new york times" along with the news that a san francisco jury had convicted the band leader of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for having his young valet carried marijuana cigarettes. he paid seven? said the single column headline followed by four paragraphs consisting mostly of statistics. this notice gave no hint of the passions the subject once inspired and a barely suggested

the wpa' sweeping mission is said nothing at all about its incalculable value in rebuilding and often actively building from scratch the country's infrastructure or training vast numbers of workers to meet the demands of wartime. left unmentioned its place in the national consciousness, the turmoil generated, the picture id hurled at it, the controversies it swirled around, politicians have grown horse and attack and in its defense. yet after consuming models of ink and forest tree is the wpa reduced its numbers on balance sheet and it died because it had no reason to exist with men fighting overseas, labor of all kinds in short supply. the 25% unemployment rate that existed when roosevelt took office had been reduced to 1.9%

in 1943 and a year later was less than 1%. bread lines and shantytowns were just a bad memory now. world war two waged on for two more years and when it was over rather than look back on and in pushing past, americans were ready to move on and they stored their memories in the depression and in a corner in the attic and passed along its dramatic residues to new generations in the form of ludicrous thrift. my parents used to prince of aluminum foil and free use it and spread of the public paper towels to dry. only recently in the newly greenwald have the habits of thrift taken on new credence and in the same with the contributions of wpa had emerged from an awareness and the drawing renewed attention now not only for the programs arts and brick and mortar legacy is also for its example. the roosevelt administration placed in ekstrand i bet on

ordinary people and then they realized in extraordinary return. the story of the wta the -- wpa reminds us it is the strength, patience and the underlining wisdom of its people when they are called upon to face a crisis and are given the means to overcome that. now, harry hopkins, he was as i said the lightning rod for the opponents of the new deal because of his fast talk and his attitude that you can't describe when it comes to helping out the poor and giving them jobs and this is why he gave jobs not only to labor and construction jobs, but jobs to artists and a white collar workers, clerks and entomologists. anybody who needed the job, harry hopkins was willing to create one and his view of this was held, they've got to eat just like every other people.

so, hopkins was a real interesting guy coming and i'm going to read from the book a quote about him that was originally from ernie pyle. and you, mr. hopkins, and like you because you look like, and people. i don't mean slurred by that either because they don't come more common than on p.m. but use it they're so easy swinging back and forth in your chair with your blue suit and shirt and your neck is sort of skinny like poor people's necks and to act honest and answer to reporters' questions as though you were talking to them personally instead of an official. it tickled me the way you would say i can't answer that in a tone that almost says out loud you knew damn well when you asked me that i couldn't answer it and that old office of yours, good lord, it's terrible. it's so little in the first place in the walls are faded and foe water pipes are up the walls

and your desk doesn't even sean but i guess you don't care. maybe it wouldn't look right for you to have an office anyway when you are dealing in misery all the time. one nice thing about your office been so little, the reporters have to pack around your desk and they can see and hear you and it's like talking to you in your own home except they would be sitting down. they tell me your about the fastest thinker of any of the men who will press conferences. yours come right back and you have a pleasant face, too and they say you never try to law all of anything, so he was excoriated by the opponents of the new deal, but he was the first to say look at us, we are poor. anything wrong music and anybody that is trying to misuse the wpa

and offer her jobs in exchange for contributions so he kept it up and above the board for the time that he was the administrator, and i think it would be hard to say that of such a vast program in today's bureaucratic world. of course the biggest threat of the wpa was construction work. roads, bridges, water, sewer systems. the country had a largely 19th century infrastructure. most of the roads were unpaved. one county of north carolina where aside from federal and state roads within 1 mile it existed in the entire county outside of the towns and cities people use outhouses and pumped well water. here in new york agreed deal of construction work went on. robert moses saw that and he was a master of harnessing cheap

labor to build things that he wanted to build using labor from a predecessor in the civil works administration he managed to restore and repair every park. when the wpa cantelon he used a lead brand built and many of you perhaps have gone swimming in them. 11 huge olympic sized swimming pools ten of which are still on existence which speaks to the quality of the work that these jobless workers did when he. they were often subject to criticism. the criteria for the wpa project had to spend 90% of the budget on labor that meant they had to skip on the materials and the administration and materials administration they had to work

very hard but they did is created and inefficiency. the inefficiency is basically you had a bunch of guys with shovels and wheelbarrows and they were often waiting for the wilbur of to come back so they could be filled up and of the guys were often standing around waiting for the wheel barrow to be filled up so people can criticize the wpa and say the workers were just always standing around lanning on the shovel. somebody even invented a shuffle that had a full down seat and armrest so the workers could lean on it and of course the wpa critics said we piddle around in the warm boondoggle came to apply to the projects and the

boondoggle was created right here in new york and i'm going to tell you, read a little bit about that story. the board of aldermen was having hearings on the way the relief money was spent, and it was spent for the white-collar workers to do teaching, and sometimes the teaching was in an unaccustomed fields so let me read a little bit about how the word boondoggle team to what we think it defines today. a criminal trial attorney was the counsel for the hearings and he was a colorful score from former and he brought his fall arsenal of theatrics against the string of witnesses. on this day they were white collar relief recipients hired to teach in the various recreational projects in the

city. stryker and some of the committee members to the witnesses to a barrage of disbelief and scorned when they described the subjects they were teaching. a supervisor of dance programs testified that she oversaw classis and social, tap, folk and eurith too dancing. what is your rhythmic dancing, stryker asked? natural type, simple form of dancing, any kind of dancing is a rhythmic dancing. stryker invited her to demonstrate but she had the sense to keep her seat and her hands folded in her lap. when a recreational trimming specialist testified that he was in charge of a craft school for men and women, he pretended that he didn't hear and asked was that a craft or a craft school? we do not have the other, said the witness blandly. but for the sheer historical moment, the star witness was another specialist and craft

teacher robert marshall of brooklyn. he told the committee that he taught boondoggles and asked to clarify, marshall replied somewhat sadly according to "the new york times" and spent a good deal of time explaining it. it's simply a term applied beckham a pioneer days to what we call gadget's today things men and boys to the useful in their everyday operations but recreations are out their home they may be making bolts and leather with ropes or it may be by working kansas or intent or sleeping bag but it's to perform crafts lit are not designed for the work but simply utility purpose to read "the new york times" headline the next day was abram over of the story of the hearings. $3,187,000 relief was spent teaching jobless to play and be loyal to the top of the

subheads, boondoggles made. marshall testified the questions were not that popular but the word was with the times headline boondoggle leaked from the obscurity of campfire to political prominence as a way of describing work with in value, indeed as we know it would help lift work relief itself becoming a permanent addition to the language. now course when people referred to boondoggle and ogle that didn't really refer to the majority of workers, iain they didn't always respond enthusiastically when people describe them in this way. i found a number of people who worked for the wpa, one was named johnny mills pregnant with

their first child trying his best to put food on the table, but he couldn't do it. and so he in order to secure a doctor's care for his wife went to work for the wpa and this is what his reaction was to some of the criticism. he found it strange that some people were ashamed of working for the wpa and others criticize the man like him as idlers. when they talk about leaning on the shovel, well, we did a whole lot of work and the whole lot of hard work. there was some i guess that thought you were on relief but i knew i was working for money when i was doing that. it was a different than any other job. as for the needy people, the good people they can't always felt hard times, tough luck to be a i always figured i would try to make a living for my family, and was a help to us.

many of the project on the best known of the wpa and part of its legacy are the projects because new york is the cultural center of the united states many of the projects were intensely centered here. they created the series of state by state guides that are examples of what things like this ought to be but they were also creative writers, people like james baldwin and richard wright and studs terkel work for the project. we know of the art project that exist on public buildings around the country in the schools and hospitals and other public buildings and this not only connects us with the arch of the early 20th century, but the

extent to which the wpa was willing to - people who couldn't build roads and bridges and the like and the artists included jackson pollock and william triet music projects range from a symphony orchestras to dance and entertained hundreds of thousands of people. the fever project is perhaps best known in new york and it employed people well. the project put on circus's. a one performer was a young acrobat whose name was burt lancaster. sidney was a child actor working for the speaker of the the project and so was joseph coffin, an actor. but the best known of the fielder projects was done by orson welles and john houseman

he treated the negro theater as one of the future arms here in new york from and wells and housing together collaborated on some interesting projects, the opera, the runway opera but probably the best known thing they did is the so-called voodoo macbeth his wife virginia heath command of a jungle city and to use instead of the richness of the jungle and one of the shift some in continuity for the voodoo macbeth is hiring and house until this is a good idea and they began to cast and had a

troop of african witch doctors who had been touring the united states and it failed and they were available to go to work in the theater project, so as part of transferring macbeth to the jungles of he, he substituted and the director substituted this troop of which doctors and a drummer's for macbeth, and there was a great success and is sold out and ran for weeks. it eventually was done by the wpa theatre projects all around the country in the new york it was a sellout and a was an

unremarkable success, but i want to read a little passage about the consequences of bad reviews. the review was originally to read it. they praised the performance of was being called to do macbeth, the reporter of martha and previously one of harry hopkins investigators dispatching their views of the depression for more of the country described a richness of never seen in the theater or anywhere else. the audience watched and listened as of this for a murder mystery by edward wallace on a much more exciting. the exception was the review in the politically conservative herald tribune. hammond echoed the new deal stance with an article in the next paper there was basically a political screed. the negro theater in offshoot of the federal government and one

of the experimentalists gave us last night in example of the telex boondoggling. that afternoon he came upon a witch doctor and the drummer steadying of the notices. they had singled him out and wanted to know if it was evil. he agreed that there was. was it the work of an enemy, they asked, was he a bad man? he agreed on both counts then he left to celebrate the block long line outside of the office. the house manager reported to house in the next day that he heard pingree drumming and weird and a portable chaffetz issuing from the fielder basement deep into the night. he knew they took it seriously after he and walz had cast them they had requisitioned which they sacrificed and turn of the hides and to drum skins and when heldman and thompson had asked

during rehearsal if the numbers could sound more wicked, the witch doctor warned this bill might be too long in the darkened the in contusions' only after he insisted but he was stunned to read the news on the afternoon of the 16th that the critic percy hammond had suddenly fallen ill and he died several days later reportedly of pneumonia. aretz construction, disaster relief was a big thrust of the wpa. the ohio river flood of 1937 marshall eventually on hundred thousand workers to rescue people to evacuate refugees and rescue property. the wpa built boats on the streets of louisville kentucky to rescue people and proceed with the ejaculations

people were poured into the ohio valley to moly deal with the flood is a plan about force. the same thing was true after the knowing what hurricane of 1938, that fall in unexpected hurricane decimated much of new england, the wpa poured rescue workers and cleanup workers into the new england and the long island to clean up after that. i want to burden you with reading any of that, but it is a remarkable contrast to the government response to disasters today at least in recent history as world war to approach, the wpa gradually shifted its work over to a military thrust.

it had always, the wpa, responded to requests from the army and navy to improve the military bases to build airports, to repair naval stations, and as the war began in september of 1939 with the invasion of poland and thereafter, the wpa turned its work more and more towards the military purposes. it built airports largely in the border areas which were thought to be the most vulnerable obviously to attack from outside, and essentially rebuilt the nation's military infrastructure. at the same time, the wpa workers trained in the vast numbers to meet the board time both with things like mechanics and other factory jobs that were needed to turn out the material

that helped win the war. is what the end of its life, when the wpa ended in june of 1943, it had built 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, 125,000 civilian and military buildings and build 800 airports, 700 miles of the airport runway. at the same time, it had served almost 900 million taught school lunches to schoolchildren operated in a nursery schools, presented 225,000 concerts' to audiences totaling 150 million, performed plays, puppet shows and circuses for 40 million people, produced almost 475 paulson works of art and of leased to wonder the 76 full-length books. so, looking now at this amazing program what does it mean for us

today? is it a historic art affect almost lost in living memory or a model for the future demint initiatives? many people wonder if anything like the wpa will ever happen again. the answer to that at least in terms of the wholesale offering of public jobs is almost certainly no. the circumstances as i said such as the aftermath of hurricane katrina in which it is possible to imagine the benefits of a labour force mobilized by the committed the government. so what did it mean for the government to exchange faced with its people in such an unprecedented way? looking at the legacy the fact that shines through the statistics and the human stories the administrative trauma and the political attack is the fundamental wisdom of treating people as a resource and not as a commodity. franklin roosevelt and harry hopkins believed people given a job to do would do it well and

their paychecks were issued by the government wouldn't make not a bit of difference. and they were right. the workers in the wpa shown and excelled. they created work without restoration that lasted more than 70 years and still stands strong. art is at minute, research that is relied upon, infrastructure that endures. they taught the electorate, inaki lead of the formidable. they turned cards and poor children's treasures and fault floods and hurricanes and forest fires of bravery that exists today only in the memories of the fewer survived in the news press and newsprint and in the memory bank created by the internet. one final, much of the wpa' workers must never be forgotten. these ordinary men and women proved to be extraordinary

beyond all expectations. there were golden threads woven in the fabric to be the shame of the political philosophy that discounted their value and reworded the one that placed its face in them thus fulfilling the founding vision of the government by people. thank you. [applause] >> i will be glad to take questions. the folks at barnes and noble well let me know when we will have to cut off in the meantime if you have a question, wait for the gentleman from c-span2, the microphone because they want to get all of this record. have i answered all -- right

here. >> as you reflect on the legacy, what would you say is the role of the wpa dennett legacy? >> it's quite large. social security survives today, and that was the part of the legacy that we probably are most familiar with, but it brought the infrastructure to the united states to the 20th century country out of a 19th century country. it provided an economic stimulus in the form of jobs. it offered not only improved ways of transportation to buildings, all of that. they gave workers her dignity and it established a relationship between the government and the people. this was part of the new deal

generally but also specifically with the wpa. people felt like they were not given a chance to go to grocery stores and take home bursaries or coal. there were actually working for their job and i think the interest of that, roosevelt understood and harry hopkins understood the wpa was essential to this new understanding in the government and the people that people deserve to be treated with dignity. >> if you already answered this question i apologize. i came in on the table. both of my grandparents worked for the wpa and i was wondering if there was a database summer of of people that participated in the program.

islamic yet but it won't define -- it's not like ellis island i don't think. you have to go to the national archives and where they worked, because mine cents a the consensus that it's not a digitized archives of it's not searchable. do it have to find the state and the project and you would be able to find i am confident listing of people who did that work, the national archives as you know is a vast compendium of the national archives, you could find it. it wouldn't be easy and he would have to get a lot of microfilm probably but i suspect it's their. right here and the microphone is on its way. >> as you said there were many construction projects done by the program.

how were they able to modify the labor union at that time if at all? >> at first, the wpa paid union wages but they paid -- the worked people in two shifts for example of you were a union carpenter you'd get the carpenters wages the you would only work halftime which meant the work got spread around and nobody competed for the union jobs. later on in busbee 12, the pay was cut and people had to -- the pay wasn't cut the hours were increased and so i didn't give people as much of a chance to moonlight as they had before, but the union's role is critical and suspicious of the wpa because they knew people would take the jobs before they would take private jobs. but by spreading the workaround and living in the hours they managed to mollify the unions.

for the microphone. estimate for the about to join the union at that point? >> absolutely. one of the stories i tell in the book is a book about jimmy that worked as a perfect the and he was a union slippery factory worker but he had been a carpenter before the depression, and eventually win the military buildup began he was hired by the wpa as a union carpenter, so yeah, the trade unions were the, the members in the trade unions were definitely part of the wpa. okay. good evening. >> i believe the was able to galvanize the country which elkus to win world war ii had we

not had that backroom. one of the questions i have is in terms of the african union, do you feel a program like the wpa would be important in terms of governments and that continent to create an infrastructure and if so how do you think we can move that policy forward? >> that's a great question. i think the answer to that question lies in how much money is available to the nations in africa, how well they can coordinate with the picture of their infrastructure needs which ensure our great, how you would manage to run a program like this without the corruption that has been endemic in many of the nation's. it's an impressive new vision and i think it would be a

wonderful thing for some eloquent visionary leader to undertake. it would certainly do a lot of good. >> how does history judge the success of the wpa? that's the first part of the question and if it was just accessible, why wasn't it or isn't it being used as a model for say people who are unemployed or the so-called work programs will but in the model be used rather than to generally make work where the unions absolutely prohibit any job that might replace the union labor? >> that political conditions are different today than 1933. the on an polemic rate of 25% is a political force in itself. the unemployment rate today is

around 5%. so, the unanimity needed to create a program of jobs on the wpa simply doesn't exist. as to how we recognize it today, you know, we are all here essentially in this room talking about a book that in my view so rates this people. when i first began to work on this but that is what i wanted to do. i wanted to restore the national memory, a program i heard people talk about when i worked with john glenn on his autobiography, he remembered being a 15 year old during his parents talk about the possibility that they would lose their home, but his father got a job working for the wpa and they didn't lose their home, and i thought this story was repeated over and over again throughout the country. also, people have the experience of the work of the wpa.

individuals remember it as something -- there were playground's the wpa felt that they played in and campgrounds built by the wpa where they can't and tourist attractions, and they went to schools built by the wpa and salmon swimming pools built by the wpa, sallai knew there was an impulse to remember, but nobody had ever put it all together before, and i think that we remember not only the physical and cultural profligacy of the wpa but as a time when the government was a more responsive entities to people's needs. wally it's not a model for today' welfare to work programs, i think that as i said before,

the -- you know, the lack of the political unanimity that bedevils our system today. is that it? i want to thank you for coming and i want to thank you all for letting me to share my thoughts and glove for the subject and thank you all for being with me here tonight at a barnes and noble. [applause]

years ago when she was at one of her yearly garden parties at buckingham palace making her way through the crowd of 9,000 people and grading a selection of guests, she was asking such standard questions of what have you come far? when one woman looked at her and said what do you do? with several days later at a friend's birthday party the queen will confess to i have no idea what to say. it was the first time and all of the years of meeting people that anybody had ever asked her that question. my job in writing elizabeth the queen was not only to explain what she does, but to tell what she is really like and to take the reader as close as possible to elizabeth, a human being, the

wife, the mother and a friend as well as the highly respected leader. today i'm going to talk first about what it was like to write about queen elizabeth and a second, i would like to share some of the surprising discoveries i made out the clean because she is the best known the woman in the world. people feel as if the know her, but the real woman is very different from the woman in velvet. this is my hero the sixth biography all of them about larger-than-life characters that barbara mentioned, but there is no one like the queen and she lives in herniel in this remarkable world. while other heads of state have come and gone, he elizabeth is the longest serving leader in the world spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. she's the 40 of monarchs and a thousand year history of the

british monarchy branding of the united kingdom of england, wales, scotland and northern ireland along with 15 realms and 14 overseas territories. she's the second mark to celebrate a diamond jubilee marking 60 years on the throne which is a milestone that she will reach on february 6th. the only author was her great, great grandmother queen victoria who is a celebration was 115 years ago with an 1897 when she was 78-years-old. if elizabeth who will soon turn 86 is still on the throne in september, 2015, she will surpass the reign of nearly 64 years. between the two of them, victoria and elizabeth have banned on the throne for 124 of the last 174 years and have

symbolized britain far longer than the men who were the king between the reins. elizabeth is always surrounded by people but being the queen makes her a solitary and singular figure to read it is crucial for her to keep a delicate balance at all times that she seems to mysterious and distant she loses her bond with her subject but if she seems too much like everyone else, she loses her mystique. she doesn't carry a passport, she doesn't have a driver's license although one of her cousins told me she drives like a bat out of hell on the roads to her country estate. she can't vote, she can't appear as a witness in court and she can't change her face from anglican to catholic and because of her hereditary position every one around her, including her closest friends and family dows

and curtseys when they treat her and when they say goodbye to her. although she was trained by strict nannies to prevent her from being spoiled, she was also trained from childhood to expect this deference. a friend of mine told me about the time when then princess elizabeth came to visit the family castle in scotland and he playfully threw her onto a sofa. his father, the 12th and took him by the arm, punched him in the stomach and said don't you ever do that to royalty. the princess didn't mind, my friend told me, but that was the structure in which she was brought up. so how does a biographer particularly american penetrate the royal bubble especially when the queen has had a policy for the past 60 years of not granting interviews? actually, it really wasn't

different from the way i approach my of their books, which was to turn to those that knew her best for insight and information. on p.m. a long time anglophile and i visited britain frequently over the past three decades and made a lot of friends some of whom helped me when i was reporting my book on princess diana in the late 1990's. when i started researching the queen's life i went back to a group of sources who agreed to help me again what and introduce me to more people who knew the family. they also served as my advocates in getting cooperation from buckingham palace. my book had been fair to the family and particularly to charles so the senior staff of the palace briefed the queen and gave me the green light. as a result, i had access to her

inner circle of close friends and advisers by the queen has to support herself to keep her views and the motions under wraps in public those close to her will share some fascinating opinions and feelings. what worried her most about prince charles and his marriage to diana was falling apart for example what would happen if she can physically or mentally incapacitated, and even some politically sensitive opinions including one hot-button issue she discussed with an american ambassador. her friends explained the secrets of her serenity and courage, and the size stir up some times in the unusually perceptive ways. monty roberts the california horse whisperer was one of her most unlikely friends told me that when the queen gave him good advice, she showed an

incredible ability to read intention just like a horse does to read with the assistance of the palace, i was able to watch the queen and prince philip in many different settings, at the party that windsor castle, representing honors at buckingham palace and messenger's son and at one of her annual garden parties of the palace, for that i receive a personalized invitation on white pasteboard embossed with gold with the crown announcing that the lord chamberlain had been commanded by her majesty to invite me. everybody got that. watching the queen of the garden party make her way along a line of people i was struck by her measured pace. the lord chamberlain who's the senior official but buckingham palace leader told me that she moved slowly to absorber everything that's going on, and

to take as much and as she can. i also marveled at her mastery of the focused conversations and her sturdy stance. a technique that she once explained to the wife of one of her foreign secretary is by lifting her evening gown above her ankle and saying one plants 1 feet apart like this. always keep them parallel. make sure your weight is evenly distributed and that's all there is to meet. as i observed over a course of a year i accumulated impressions that help me understand how she carries out her role in helping earnestly she does her job with great discipline and concentration in every situation for which she is not just a figurehead and she has an impressive range of duties. every day except christmas and

easter she spent several hours reading of the government boxes that barbara has described. they are delivered, they are red letter boxes that can only be opened by the board keys. she reads the in the morning and at night and even on weekends. one of her close friends told me about the time during one of the queens visits when she was bent down all morning. must you, ma'am, her friend asked? the queen replied if i miss one side must never catch up again. mary, the youngest daughter of the queen' first prime minister winston chao hershel told me that when he elizabeth was a young the 25-year-old queen and her father had been impressed by her attentiveness that she always paid attention to whatever she was doing. it's hard to imagine the and out of information that the queen has accumulated over six decades

and she's used it in exercising her right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn when she meets with government officials as well as senior military officers, clergymen, diplomats and judges who come to her for confidential private audiences. as she once said, the fact that there is nobody else there gives them the feeling that they can say what they like. the most important encounters of these encounters have been a weekly audience is with her 12th preakness terse. consider the trajectory from churchill's who was born in the 19th century and served in the army of her great, great grandmother queen victoria to david cameron come herd current friend primm minister born three years after her youngest child prince edward. she actually glimpsed the first -- for the first time her future

12 the prime minister when he appeared at age eight in a school production of toyota of total haul. probably her most fascinating relationship with margaret thatcher, and in the course of my reporting i gained some great insight into how that relationship worked and some of which contradicted the common view. the queen doesn't of executive power, but she does have unique influence in her role as the head of state she represents the government officially at home and abroad but also serves as the head of asian faugh which means she connects with people to reward their achievements and remain in touch with their concerns triet two decades ago in the normal retirement age she still does something like 400 engagements a year. traveling around the united kingdom to cities as well as

tiny hamlets. charles reserved as the private secretary to both john major and margaret thatcher told me the clean knows every inch of this country in a way that no one else does. she spends so much time meeting people that she has an understanding of what people's lives are like. she understands what the normal human condition is. she's also spend an extraordinary amount of time honoring citizens and members of the military for exemplary service in 60 years she had conferred more than 400,000 words and had given them in person over 600 times. they need a pat on the back sometimes. it's a very dingy will otherwise is particularly valuable especially the overseas role to bermuda and trinidad.

she was 83-years-old at that time and her program called for a long days of meeting and greeting. her stamina was impressive matched only by the 88-year-old prince philip. whenever they go off on a trip together like that, the lord chamberlain always accompanies the airport and philip turns around and waved at him and says mind the shop. i got a sense of how much in sync falcon elizabeth or with an expert choreography's certain light ginger rogers. i saw aspects that contradict his character of brashness and insensitivity. what she needs geneina resistance i once saw him bring a little child over to greet her he often stops people in the crowd who can't see very well and will lock them out to give them a better vantage planned. when the queen needs a boost

he's also there with a humorous aside such as don't be so sad sausage. on the last night in a trend of also witnessed a close range of what i heard about this from several people the queen doesn't perspire even the hottest temperatures. the british high commissioner was hosting a garden party in his hilltop home on such a steamy evening that everyone including me was dripping from the heat but after an hour of lively conversations with some 65 guests, the queen who walked past me very close by and there was absolutely no moisture on her face. one of her cousins who traveled in the tropics with her explained to me in her own way the queens skin doesn't run water. [laughter] and why let me look good it does make her uncomfortable. i saw further evidence of this a

year later on a july day at ground zero in manhattan when the temperature hit 103 degrees and one of the women the queen spoke to said to me afterwards we were all pouring sweat but she didn't have the bead on her. that must be what it's like to be leal. during the trips i was able to see the buckingham palace machinery on the road. to get to know the senior officials and to get a feel for the atmosphere around the queen and the way her household has changed from the early days when it was run entirely by aristocratic man. as i stood in the lobby of her hotel in trinidad, pro master of the household pointed toward a half-dozen foot then want to was a woman dressed in navy blue suits. can you see sam over there? he has a master's degree in paleontology.