, an event that may have happened and you were very young, but still resonates with a lot of americans. that is the bush and 55 for 47 days is noted the president-elect would be. we had court cases, demonstrations, charges back-and-forth that make even the mud whistling and cable television to the lipton. it was a mess. in the and the supreme court had to intervene. and don't agree it was a 5-4 vote. floridian was miscounting.

it was a bow to have. americans never thought an election as legitimate. and then flush presidency and the bad feelings that have come from an. monitoring the election. if there are any irregularities, business, front you can bet that this would go to court. we can only a few thousand votes away from john kerry challenging him on election results, and the could have watched the same process. the dean of american global scientists as we of the sloppy a selection systems of any industrialized democracy. that was true then minister now. we still have time to take remedial steps will the election to minimize the sloppiness, incompetents, and from.

from has distorted history in american life. it just like to be decent and animals college students. and live in new jersey, one of the most corrupt political machines ever. the men there for 40 years. what it @booktv? because of its wooden ones. in 1935 be honest about association, the do that is another day some 245 princeton, students to one of the election. the beat of five of them within the or the arrival. several others went to the mayor's office to protest. will you fellows go back, but if he ever get knocked cold will be your own bed of black. they explained it involved animal spirits. until the layoff, but it was a pretty dull election.

the jersey journal, where with the did give? some of them were looked upon the police station. somewhere stickum corners. the only way is with the militia . in truth the little bit, but they're still places in this country, texas, alabama, chicago , philadelphia win election from israel, the threat is ever-present, and to give you an exhibit will in philadelphia and many other citizens and more registered voters than there are adults over the age of 18 according to the u.s. census. because of a clue. what to me to put this will,

there's simple steps. have they photo id to present at the polls and clean up absentee balloting. absentee ballots of the to a choice because you can register, applied for a ballot, then, and in many cases never have to present himself. kansas has been very good form. often require the you have a legitimate excuse to ask for an absentee ballot. they should make an effort to vote on election day. the few votes to early you have people voting before the last debate stiffeners. in addition, when you apply you have to give them the last four digits of his social security number, and that has reduced from dramatically.

we are told this is the other suppression. we're told this is a return to the jim crow laws. well, frankly 80 percent of americans support the total idea pools. the thomas is a high percentage for any issue, even high and another that your humble pie because people are estranged and some people. chieftains of hispanics and african-americans support photo id. in fact, rasmussen asked, they believe and for a is a serious issue? 63 percent of whites said yes and 64 percent of african-americans said gm's. african americans in some places live where a machine controls the political left that the live under.

frankly it allows the crime rates to skyrocket. the biggest victim of flow from is minority reformers and veterinarians were political machines control the destiny in the can't fight city of. the mayor of detroit who until recently was serving in public housing after conviction for crimes, he won his second term in part because of a flood of fraudulent ballots. the city clerk cluster job after that. abilene were asking for another florist, a town we could extend free finlandia's to anyone.

i believe it's a small number. in time this issue comes before the court the people the kind of fund 10% of people like eddies. it's a very small, tiny number. melson of in indiana and georgia , turnout has gone up with a minority in the overall turnout not just in the 2008 obama election but the midterm election. if there are people out there in light of a bloody let's cut the one. you can't participate in the mainstream american life of a melody. travel, check into tell, cash a check, antar government building, rent a video. he can hardly do anything. instead the critics rather than try to help people get ideas simply yell racism further

exacerbating the racial political tensions. chris dodd who crafted a bipartisan lecturer -- reform bill after the florida miltown was quoted as saying the goal of american law should be to make it easy to vote and hard to achieve. we are americans. we can do both. to civil rights. one is the right to never be prevented or intimidated from voting. we had a history in many states. poll tax, literacy test, bizarre registration hours. we passed the civil rights law to prevent that. the second city right not to have your vote canceled up by someone who is an illegal alien,

and died, voting twice, or someone who does not even exist. that to file its your sole rights. we can do both. now, an obstacle to this is to reference the previous speaker on fast and furious, the eric holder justice department. they claim there is no voter fraud america. the clinical want to poll taxes. eric holder himself said that. they are suing any state that they can sing their voter i.d. lot is unconstitutional even and has been up held by the supreme court. so where are we with the lyrical the justice department? a complete stall. well, this is no accident. the president of the united states got his start with these

issues. his first major political challenge chicago for barack obama was with a group called project vote, a voter registration effort that registered 135,000 people and illinois in '91 and '92. project vote was allied with and an affiliate of the acorn. how many of you have ever heard of acorn? the most notoriously corrupt the registration effort ever in american history. it 2008 it's estimated their registered 1 million people. we will still debating whether a majority of those for fraudulent or not. as you know, because of some videos that came out recently regarding, shall we say, the other scandals they ultimately dissolved and had to declare bankruptcy. many of its members have reform in and out during the registration again. i call that a court under the mismanagement. acorn is back. but acorn day barack obama his political birth. he did such a good job running

that the registration program that acorn made him their top trainer in chicago. in 1993, the first law that the democratic congress elected with bill clinton passed along was the motor voter law would set anyone in the country can register by filling a post card and it created severe restrictions on cleaning up of the rules, making sure that the rules are accurate. the republican governor of illinois challenge that law as an unfunded mandate. acorn hired a lawyer to challenge that in federal court. the lawyer they hired was poor,. barack obama won that case. it became the law of the land. forced upon states. they could not clean up the rolls for many years. barack obama, acorn's lawyer, is now the president of the united states. how interested he think he is in making sure that his friends don't resort to old bat habits and old patterns of behavior?

apparently not at all if you judge by the actions of the air called the justice department's. in conclusion, i don't want to go through 2010. we live in perilous times, both in foreign policy and domestic. the last thing this country needs is another dispute about who won the 2012 election. the last thing we need is for this country to be driven a par with allegations of by the corruption or incompetence in which we don't know who the present electives for weeks and when the president is sworn in, half the country is angry and bitter and perhaps is not even see that person as a legitimate. we can clean up the selection process, even starting now just by observing what goes on in the election, making sure election officials are doing their job, by making sure they know someone is watching for voter fraud. activist groups.

they're recruiting a to a billion people to observe the election process. we can make the election more honest. voter fraud is a law like shoplifting. if you simply put up signs and cameras and to a few basic common sense things 20- 20-30-40 percent of shoplifting goes away a because people will take a risk. a small risk deters a lot of people. the same thing with voter fraud. for too long it has been the perfect crime. well, let's make sure they can't let's make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. thank you. [applause] >> any questions? >> hello. the bynum from florida. given their rick scott has been battling the justice department turned to get lists of people who have moved out of state. >> and non-citizens.

>> and i just wanted to can get a sense for what is the body is going with try to clean up the voter rolls and florida? id think he's going to improve the voters some in florida? >> well, i have reported a lot of the florida situation. florida election officials say we don't have the budget to be investigators. if you register to vote, clammy are a citizen, there's no way to prevent another not. you can vote. but when nbc affiliate in one city, fort myers florida, one out of florida's 70-odd counties did an investigation. here is what they did. they went to the list of people and for buyers who had been called for jury duty and said i can't do it jury duty because and not a citizen. then they went to the voter registration list and discovered over 100 people and that one county and said they were not citizens for jury duty but or registered and some of them were even voting and had for years. we finally caught some people.

now, some people may have tried to get out of jury duty, but that is a small number. most of these people are talking, and those who are are saying, i made a mistake. i did not know. somebody told me i could register and vote begins on in the process of getting my citizenship a couple of years a month on the one. this is a potential problem. we do know the florida's voter registration rolls are rife with errors and outdated. the department of homeland security is under an obligation federal law to share with the state's their citizenship records. they have the most complete records of all. for months that just part refused to look for a have those records citing privacy reasons. i'm sorry. it's not someone's private business select people not be able to know whether you're a citizen are not. you're either in this country legally or illegally.

we have a right to know that. so florida went ahead and started eating the best records they had, the dmv driver's license records, and i'm sure there were a couple of mistakes, but the wanted to get people's attention. sure enough up obama administration finally relented and said it could have the records. it's like pulling teeth. they just ignore the law. and as floridian made some public relations mistakes, yes. they are not trying to deny the vote to anyone. they're trying to make sure the election is honest and has the confidence of the voters. the supreme court has said unanimously regarding an arizona id case, if people don't believe the elections are honest it will lose confidence in the process. voter turnout will go down, and our democracy will be undermined it is a fact of over 40 percent of americans are not confident that their ballots are counted fully or accurately. that is dangerous for democracy, especially since so many other nations counterbalance far better and more effectively and

honestly that some of our states to. mexico, was just had an election, being a perfect example. a national id card. the election process is clear, transparent. frankly, no one questioned it after it happened. >> hi. >> asking why so many americans don't vote. what you think that is? >> well, i would turn around the question. if you had a choice between everyone voting, even if they knew nothing about the issues of the candid it's and cared nothing but the issues of the candidates and people voting 60, 70 percent of them, which is traditionally our number, but they did know something about the election are the candid it's , which would prefer? >> the latter.

>> i hope so. you know, there are some people who sincerely believe this track and out of a democracy is that as many people as possible votes even in some cases if they know nothing or even if it doesn't mean anything. i disagree. i believe we have an informed electorate and to strive for an even more informed electorate. the bottom line is, we are not a country that finds people if they don't vote like belgium or austria. i think that is ridiculous. if you don't want to vote, that's your right. as far as i'm concerned, you can still complain but not as much because it decided not to be part of the process. bottom line, people should vote, but people should also be informed. voting is a right that cause with responsibilities, including there's a possibility to know something about what to voting about. we don't prevent people, but i don't think we should go to extraordinary efforts to encourage them to vote if they know nothing. >> which to you think is more prevalent in voter fraud?

illegal immigrants voting or residents of chicago area's largest cemeteries? >> well, i believe that illegal aliens voting is a potential problem, but, perhaps, not the biggest problem. let's face it, if you are an illegal alien you probably want to avoid contact with any government agency. they also don't know how easy it is to do it. it's child's play to vote if you are not eligible to vote. but i think most of them stay awake. certainly in a close election, if someone is does the picking go to places were illegal aliens her date. you have all seen in front of walmart. you could come in theory, scoop them up and taken to a polling place and encourage them to vote. in wisconsin a few years ago the convicted apart at teapot park avenue eris. his going to homeless people and saying, if he job and his van and go vote because you can register and vote the same date, will give you cigarettes. for a candidate who is anti

tobacco i thought that was really rich. cemeteries in chicago, there is an old joke. to election workers going to the cemetery taking down names so that people can vote the next day. the need a name and all that. one of the election workers for the machine kicks over a tombstone. his friend gets very mad at him and says, now, don't you do that. those people as just as much a right to participate as you and i do. i disagree. no representation without respiration. the answer is, in chicago they still vote the more sophisticated way. a former city took to chicago, the number two man in the daley machine was convicted of, shall we say, kraft. he got out and i interviewed in. how early on to discover this?

we will come here is what happened. this is how it happens. i was in college and had a summer job with the city. it was a good paying job. every summer it was renewed. one summer there was a vote coming out. i voted absentee. there was one guy i've really, really hated. the next summer did not show up, did not given notice. i went to the local captain and said where's my summer job. he said, you know you're supposed to vote if you want to work for the machine. i voted. yes, we know. you're supposed to vote a straight ticket. >> i voted the straight ticket. >> but you forgot one. how did you know that? we have ways of knowing. they opened the ballot and to track of who voted for whom, and if you did not vote the right way you did not get the job. that is the chicago way. the president, need not remind

you, from chicago and was an active part in the daley machine yes. >> brand in the quarters. what are your thoughts about the original lan3 >> brand in the quarters. what are your thoughts about the original land requirements and the constitution and talks about returning to that? >> i'm sorry, the original? >> the land requirement to vote. >> in the united states constitution. >> wasn't that in there? >> can you send it to me? some states have property laws. some states have laws that said you had to own property. >> okay. state constitutions. >> well, you refer efforts into several friends in the u.s. constitution. was addition deal havnst >> had made at the question wire you asking jack. >> i know it may not be the united states constitution. >> of course we have evolved beyond that. we also has slavery sanctions at the top of the american revolution. it was a blot on our record. a double even property >> iuirements and adult refer to restricting the franchise and

the basis of race or sector gender. we have evolved as a society to society. >> as just a question about voter fraud and waste to help out. public. ♪ and w for those of us who had safety. people vote mostly democratic. do have a ways that we could help out? >> obviously not everyone is excited to go downtown to polling places on election day become especially since he made his some dirty looks to my but there are other things you can do. you can help by with voter registration lists him sane exactly how many mistakes have been made it out today are. also a mess. marketers will now use voter

registration lists. it will lose money. i think you can also help with absentee ballots could be. very sophisticated. a very close assembly election. you could vote per absentee. there will send an absentee ballot even if you're not say. you will always vote absentee. well, that list is public. in one very close to a legislative election when candid supporters were very clever. the listeners of p-vlic, so they went and get the list and discovered which belong to a certain local party. the only do this for that political party. they fill the new voter registration cards and sentiment

to the office for the elections. the affirmation of the car was identical to that on the card in the p-vlic record except the signature was an eligible scroll on the application. so this registration replace the original registration and the recoe fs. then the absentee clollot comes in and the $7 an hour minimum wage temporary. >> was selected this and make sure that the ballot as a pet system well, gee, this is a signatamere that does not come close. i left turn out. the threat of a 250 of these. it was found out by accident a few weeks later after the election had been certified. the candid whose supporters a dennis had one buy less than 200 votes. the election was stolen a from under them. not by adding fraudulent votes but by subtract a legit%date votes. if someone had quizzed the

officials and observe the process from afar that might have been able to uncover. there is a lot that you can do to make samere that the processs conducted in an honest and fair and open way. one more? thank you. >> i have a couple of questions. they are related. in maine we tried to pass some better idea was recenic.y but failed. students, there is no residency requirements to prove that your residence so students from other states can vote in our state elections. but there is nothing to say that they're not voting at home as well. how do you comclot that? and also, related, our secretary of state told the students that if they wanted to vote in oamer state that they could get driver's licenses and changed their aatioress and the re a blicans are saying, you don't want them to do that because that will give them in state ti'tion and back taxes will go up to support our universisc.

>> well, first of all, the question of institution i think that there should be a t%de when you have to be an actr residence before you qualify for in-state tuition for his the way to handle that. i want students to vote, but i only want to vote once in a place with actr let them both there. the parents live other status, spend all summehe maybe there. if you're voting twice amended think there was a case that is prd then this, we have to prosecute some of those people. we need to do more of that, you will we uncd ther we don't to gt seriously. this happens. the former city clerk in charge of elections was indicted on voter fraud.

the current election supe subisr in a florida county was invited -- indebted for voter fraud. he's the person in cha. wee of the elections. then the official in mississippi was sent to prison for voting for the names of 15 dead people often its officials to do this and we don't take it that seriouell,y as rigid. my view is with s%rdents of course we want you to vote, but there should be clear and fast rules that indicate where you actually are living. one last one? >> matt johnson, a resident of california, several absentee. requires you to have photo id. what is the same people a stateo make it so hard to block of the voter i.d. laws. just a vote you have to show i

h when they make your show i detested by simple medication frantic. >> i'm awill says astonished tht people like 35 years old up to show id to buy cigarettes or alcohol in some places. yet, we don't do it for voting which is so critical. it's bnot byarre. it makes me think that maybe something is happening behind the election camerve we don't kw about. they don't want that to stop because it and that is a political interest. it is bizarre that the same bureaucrats that impose data idealize and bsteding all these consumer products don't want that for the fundamental issue of voting. the s a valid interest of the state. thirsc states have some form of >> ii'rement. a% of the american people support this. it strikes me as bnot byarre. youh now, rhode island, a

democratic state with a demofatic legisla% rre passed it the other side the law. the sponsor was the only. that african-american speaker. voter fraud in the district constituents were complaining about and the machine was bstedg the election again. sometimes the biggest victims of this are minority people living in machine areas where the elections are constantly sell enough among the. woman in her n

right, susan hertog. [applause] >> i'm certainly honored to be

here at the library of congress book festival, but perhaps i'm even more honored to having been introduced by the extraordinary man, dr. james billington him a great man and a great librarian of congress. [applause] thank you. i will start at the beginning. as a child i loved to read. in the mid '50s, live in the outer boroughs of new york city, in my case the bronx, was comfortable but provincial. and my curiosity extended far beyond the bounds of my home and school. i wanted to know more about people in other places.

what was happening in the world now, what had happened in the past, and quite simply how i came to be. books were my passports, and i consumed them voraciously. but i came to writing later than most. in my late '30s after having raised my three children. my generation, those of us born during and after world war ii, numbered in the millions. and we were asking questions that demanded to be answered. we had come of age in the heat of the escalating war in vietnam. and we didn't know why our brothers were fighting so far

away for a cause that was so difficult to understand. and the role of women in society was changing rapidly. my friends, educator with traditional values but a deep sense of personal ambition, wanted to know how to be true to ourselves, yet remain committed to our husbands and our children. as a young mother i had stumbled into a bookstore and told gift from the sea off of the bargain shelf. it's author was struggling with the very same questions that we were asking ourselves. her answers were deceptively

simple, and yet they ring true. and i wanted to know how this woman got so smart. and so, rising before dawn, i climbed the stairs to my third floor room. yes, dear virginia, a room of my own, to read lindbergh's work, to study its historical framework, and to jot down my thoughts before sending my children off to school. my biography of and lindbergh would take more than 10 years to complete. during which i had the rare privilege of meeting her. 10 times. but the book was more than a biography.

it was a journey towards self-knowledge, during which i developed a consuming interest in understanding the lives of women. not only women thinkers, but doers. women who were willing to enter the public fray and change the discourse. what were the qualities of person and mind, the value and loyalties of those women who succeeded, and what did they have to sacrifice to bring their goals to fruition? while researching the lindbergh book, two names kept cropping up. dorothy thompson, an american journalist, and her friend of 40 years, rebecca west, journalist,

novelist, literary critic and historian. they eat atomized the kind of woman i was searching for. they play for high-stakes, whisking personal pain for public voice and influence. think of it. two generations before the baby boomers were born, these women had the courage to throw off convention, defy social expectation and catapult themselves into the public arena at a time of roiling political and social upheaval. and against the headwind of their contemporaries, i mean, they were ridiculed.

and with none of the safety nets we take for granted today. and to compound their struggle, they had no family connection, no money, and had fractured childhoods. let me begin with dorothy thompson. born in 1893, the english irish parents in a small town in northern new york state, she was the eldest of three children whose preacher father taught them first to love jesus. second, do all day the christian epic. and third, to embrace the written and spoken word, in that

order. but after the death of her mother when she was only eight years old, everything changed. for two years she helped take care of her younger brother and sister, and to cater to the needs of her brokenhearted father. but when her father remarried, his rebellious and precocious teenager was cast out on her own. after graduating from college, she cut her teeth as a spokesperson for the women's suffrage movement. and then doing a short stint as a kennedy organizer, -- community organizer, she realized that she was slated for a life beyond the bounds of

cleveland, and even new york. so in 1921, with $150 in her pockets, determined to become a foreign correspondent, she went to england with the desire to make her way through the wilds of fleet street. but what's remarkable is that within five years she became the first woman to head a news bureau in europe. station in berlin, she saw a world in chaos, and she hunkered to understand that madness that seemed to be sweeping europe. the public and local upheaval

after the great war, and the political landscape that was giving rise to ruthless dictators. she wanted to be a player, and she knew that as a woman she would have to fight harder, faster, and longer than her male colleagues. she would have government officials, prime ministers, presidents, and earned a reputation as a reporter willing to do anything, and go anywhere, for the sake of a story. thompson had the guts to ask the american public the questions they did not want to think about. mired in the delusion that they were protected from asian and

european to mold by tuitions, americans preferred the roar and affluence of the 1920s, dancing and drinking themselves into oblivion. in 1933, after knocking at his door for seven years, thompson would become the first foreign correspondent, male or female, to interview hitler as he was gaining dominance in the reichstag, and ruthlessly cutting his way to public, to government control. her book, "i saw hitler,"

catapult her on the national stage and earned her the distinction of being thrown out of a nazi right. along with national celebrity and the total generation of her peers. but as thompson's influence grew, her voice echoed across america and europe. just listen to this. in 1936, she was writing a thrice weekly column in "the new york herald tribune" that reached eight to 10 million readers a day. and by 1937, she had received six honorary degrees from major colleges and universities. and a public radio broadcast on

nbc that reached 5 million readers, listeners, and she was rumored to be running for the u.s. senate. that was true, but she was also thinking of running for president. in 1942, through shortwave radio broadcast, she would reach millions of ordinary citizens in germany, hoping to bring hitler down by convincing them that he would enslave them and free, free people around the world. within a span of 20 years, she had gone from being a nobody, a community organizer in

cleveland, to a powerful international figure. but her personal life was in shambles. while she had been working in berlin in the early and mid 1920s, she had been swept off her feet by harry sinclair lewis, whom you know as perhaps one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, and was soon to become the first american to be awarded the nobel prize for literature. he had already written mainstream, babbitt, and aerosmith. and was about to publish elma gantry. she was drawn to him, not only because of his litter or

brilliance, but because he was the saddest man she had ever met. and dorothy thompson, the preacher's daughter, like nothing better than to save someone's soul. he in turn was drawn to her strength, her morals, her driving energy and her unwavering ambition, and her indomitable drive. but within a short time she realized he was and in court jubal drunk. -- in court jubal drunk. and despite his own international celebrity, he could not spare her rising thing.

rebecca west who have met thompson in london in 1921, whom jim spoke about in his introduction, and later when dorothy was a chief of the bureau in berlin, was as courageous and as an domino ball as american friend, possibly more so. kindred spirits intent on breaking through that concrete ceiling of male-dominated literature and journalism. they both were intent on confronting the pivotal issues of their times head-on. and they would remain friends all of their lives. rebecca west had as humble a

beginning as dorothy thompson eric she was born so silly isabel fairfield on the outskirts of london in 1892 to a scotch highland mother with musical aspirations, and a truly gifted journalist father. when he left them, abandoned them to poverty, when she, too, was only eight, she was both devastated and liberated. as angry as she was, she, like thompson, was able to invent herself. noddy and rebellious,

ms. fairfield first tried to be an actress, which was a terrible thing for a respectable woman to do. but early on she realized that her true passion and her true ability was the spoken word. and she became a feminist journalist as a tool for initiating social change. by the age of 20 she had earned a reputation as a serious polemicist, and by the age of 30, she was not only a journalist, she was a literary biographer, a novelist, and a literary critic with a scathing reputation. for 40 years, rebecca west took

britain by storm. are writing cut across every genre, from fiction to nonfiction, and the range of her knowledge was wide and deep. she can truly be called a public intellectual, in the sense that lionel trilling defined it. one whose writing land at the crossroads of literature, the bloody crossroads of literature and politics. and west, like thompson, was among the very first to perceive the oncoming danger of nazi devastation. although by nature she was more of a moral philosopher and intellectual than a journalist,

like thompson. she nonetheless traveled alongside her banker husband as he was an emissary with schroeder's bank, a german bank. and was commissioned by the british government to investigate and understand countries across eastern europe. on one of these assignments she went to yugoslavia, and the trip changed her life. from a distance she could see the disintegration of british culture. and its political -- at a time when great steaks were on the

table, with more clarity than ever before. the result was her magnum opus, black lamb and grey falcon, a political military and cultural history of yugoslavia that in her hands became a microcosm of tribal contention and foreign conquest that altered the face of europe under nazi siege. it was a 1200 page clarity and call to arms. meant to awaken her compatriots from the deep white sleep of

appeasement. to the ruthlessness of hitler and mussolini. and the devastation of the democratic ideals, their ascendancy implied. but black lamb was just one of her more than 30 books. along with hundreds of essays and articles she wrote during her lifetime, in american and british periodicals. "the new republic," "the new yorker," u.s. news and world report, the "evening standard," "the daily telegraph, the spectator, just to name a few. in which she grappled with a dazzling array of issues that actually defined the essence of

life in the 20th century. democracy versus totalitariani totalitarianism, nationalism versus the new internationalism, the legal and moral intricacies of punishing war criminals, the meaning of treason, the validity of christianity, and the silence of god. but what was astonishing about rebecca west was that she never went to university. early on she understood that she was smarter and more capable than her classmates, or even her children -- her -- sorry, probably, probably her son. but also her teachers.

she was an autodidact, great philosophy, theology and philosophy. managing to out perform and outclass those of high birth and formal education. throughout her career she was honored with the middle, from america and france. but her coup de grace came in 1959 when queen elizabeth awarded her game commander of the british empire for her contribution to 20th century literature.

now, how do we account for the success of these two women? pure raw intelligence and drive, certainly, but there were other smart and ambitious women. what distinguished thompson and west was their courage to jettison the constraints of the past, break the rules and forge a path for women in journalism and literature at a time of great political upheaval. their influence was of perception, character, drive, and the guts to speak truth to

power, at a time that was cataclysmic in world history. in short, they felt an overriding sense of historical mission, and were willing to do everything to make their voices heard. but there was a danger in their ambition, a dark side, which is exactly why i named my book "dangerous ambition." it was certainly heroic, but risky to throw away the rules and make new ones up on the fly. at the cutting edge of such change, they had no

understanding of who and what they were sacrificing. so intent on achieving their goals, even when they had the slightest glimmer that they were hurting those whom they loved, they chose to turn away, caring more about humanity then those people in their personal lives. their relationships with men ended either in divorce or in deep antipathy, and their sons feeling abandoned and alone, spend much of their lives trying