ahead. >> you can watch this and other programs online. >> up next on booktv, a panel discussion of the creation of the sixth floor museum at dealey plaza, in the former texas school book depository, which remembers the life, presidential tenure, and assassination of president john f. kennedy. this is an hour. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much for being here today. this is truly a remarkable audience. i have been with the museum now for 13 years and i can't think of another event, another program, where we have had an audience quite like this there are far too many people who require recognition for me to catch everyone's name so please forgive me i if i don't acknowledge you. want to point out our special

guests. jim laugh veil, the detective who was handcuffed to lee harvey oswald when he was shot. [applause] >> you might want to save your applause. i have a lot. and seated very close to jim is eugene boone, the dallas deputy sheriff who discovered the rifle on the sixth floor of the texas school book depository that day. and also over in that area we have phyllis hall, nurse from the hospital who was in trauma room under one when president kennedy died, and also over there is rose black, who worked for the time life bureau in houston at the time of the assassination, and behind rose we have julian reed who was press add to governor connally at the time of the assassination, and on that row is one of the first reporters inside this building after the assassination. he was later our tour narrator for the audio tour.

i think i got that section. over in here. i do want to go through this quickly. we have some eye witnesses to the assassination. tina pender who was our youngest and a halfer in dealey plaza at the time of the asass nation. behind tina are bill and gail newman, the closest eye witnesses to president kennedy at the time of the shooting. is james peg here today? that's okay. we hope all is well with jim. we had some other folks here. wayman rose, the tenth juror selected for the jack ruby trial is here today. is dr. phil williams here? all right. well, i know we have others and a number of museum founders as well as people involved in the story of the assassination here on the front row. allen and cynthia mundell, our wonderful documentairans who created the films you see on the

sixth floor. where are bob staples and bob -- >> our wonderful exhibit designers who created such a wonderful display which continues to fascinate our visitors almost 25 years after the museum opened. jacky is here, did research for the exhibit and involved in reconstructing the sniper's perch. a number of our board members past and present are here. john crane, jill johnson, victor elmore, rubin is here. we're so happy to have all of you here today. there's so many friends and family and professional colleagues. we're so honored to have all of you here to be here to celebrate the museum's history and to look back on how this museum became a reality. i've written a book about the history of this museum and as an introduction today, before i introduce these two ladies, i want to go back in time a little bit and provide also context, and we understand what happened here to this site between november 22, 1963, and when

these fine ladies became involved in this project in the 1970s. and we have to start, of course, with the day of the assassination. we wouldn't be here today, speak in this historic setting, without these two women. and we -- that is great. and we're honored to have them here with us today. i want to given with the assassination of president kennedy which had a profound impact on people around the world, but here in dallas, this was a devastating tragedy that left indelible wounds that were not easily healed. virtually overnight dealey became the most visited sites. the plaza was transformed into a shrine, and at the center of this experience was the texas school book depository building. when the ticketbook distribution company vacated the warehouse in 1970 there was an immediate public outcry to tear down the

structure. many in the local community viewed this structure as an eyesore and a painful reminder of the asass nation. the anger directed locally at this building stemmed from the international criticism that dallas endured after the assassination, in the months and years leading up to president kennedy's visit a vocal minority of extremists had dominatedded the political image of the city, and in the aftermath of the president's death, dallas bore a stigmas a city of hate that took years to shed. ashamed and angry, dallasites naturally thought the distance themselves from the darkest moment in the city's modern history. though eager to put the assassination behind them, local residents did not forget to honor the memory of president kennedy. a bond marker wag up veiled in dealey park, and the jfk memorial was dated here.

but in this building visitors from around the world gathered in dealey plaza to discuss the assassination, remember president kennedy and experience history through their own eyes. there was initially an effort by state senator mike mccool for the state of texas to purchase the building. but he found no support in the senate. and in 1970, a national music promoter purchased the build agent public auction, hoping to open a museum and research center. but unable to secure financial backing, all by mayhew lost the depository in 1972. at this point, a public outcry to demolish the building really gained momentum. community leaders such as tom landry, ross perot, advocated tearing down the depository, and a group of business executives formed an organization called dallas onward and policemenned over $100,000 to purchase the building and demolish it. ultimately, after the dallas city council froze dem

demolition permits though building, the public works director arranged to purchase the depository as part of a 1977 bond package. after several years of renovations the building was renamed the dallas county administration building, housing the commissioner's court, public works and the civil division of the dallas district attorney's office. upon its re-opening in 1981, it received a texas historical marker. publicly acknowledging for the first time its place in history. the question remains, however, what do we do with the infamous sixth floor? and that's where our story begins today. lindalyn, you were chair of the historical commission when the county bought the building. take us back to your first visit to the empty floor and your first reaction when you found out that there might be an exhibition on the sixth floor of the building. >> i'm going even farther back than that. >> it's your program.

>> i was appointed in 1975 to be on the historyam commission chairman, and i thought, oh, that is nice and fun. and so i was down here a lot. and i was not -- i just -- i just wouldn't -- in fact i gave some bus tours for the slides who did that when conventions were in town and i remember going down elm street, turning the corner and i was pointing out the cabin, and the old red courthouse where the bus listed to the right siled and they were all saying, is it? is it? and i was kind of offended but that's all they wanted to see in dallas, because obviously i hat pit out of my mind. but when i was appointed as chairman of the historical

commission, and being down here a great deal, and seeing the visitation, incredibly all day, all night, all kinds of weather, there were visitors, looking in the window, walking around, and it became evident that something needed to be done. you're the hero of today, and we're so appreciative of the masterful job you did on this book and recorded all of-under ups and downs and you did just such a wonderful job. >> thank you. >> now, my first hero was -- the facilities director of dallas county. and i would go to commissioner court, meet various commissioners and hear juddson talk about the possibility of acquiring this building. so, it was not news to me but he

handled that so beautifully, and there were two thing that occurred that through juddson's effort -- number one, the build was acquired and was saved. number two, the commissioners decided to hire an architectural team, a group that had done the fedco. one of dallas' first major historic preservation projects, so, that was such a relief. as a press very boss prevervationist, that people would be working on it. so it gave me a total sense of comfort but i was called one day to a meeting, and it we went to

judson's office and i was accompanied by martin gerou, and i had met martin at the meetings and i had no idea he was the producer, hollywood producer, of break fast at tiffanies. and so the three of us were over at uson's office and he brought us across the street and walked through this eerie, dusty, terrible building, to the back elevator, freight elevator and went up to six. they had an elevator in the front but just went to two floors. so, when we walked up into that empty space, and walked across the floor, it was a profound

experience. it's one you'll never forget. and i looked out the window, and i've never held a gun in my hand, and i looked down and i thought, this is so close. i think i could do it from here. and that's a misnomer generally by the general public this is a great open space. it really is not. so, realizing what we had ahead of us and how important this was, i literally signed on to do anything i could to help promote -- not promote -- but to build something on the sixth floor that would be part of dallas' history, the history of the world. what happened on that terrible day. and so that is where conover

comes in. >> absolutely. conover, the first thing you did for the project was see what visitor interest there was. you had some difficulty fining statistics for visitation. tell us about that. >> the texas historical commission, and they gave the historical commission a $500 grant to bring in visiting specialist. and lo and behold little did i know. so i went to juddson, who is fabulous, and i said what kind odd statistics do you have. and he went, what? and so there was nothing about visitor interest in dealey plaza, and the county having acquired the building the idea of giving away 10,000 square

feet of valuable downtown real estate for a nonprofit is something the taxpayers might have questions about and unless some very strong arguments could be made for public interest. so i called the convention and visitors bureau, and they said we don't have any statistics. they said do you want to know about interest in south fork? i said south fork isn't even in dallas county, and i they said, that doesn't matter. i said, what about -- i they said how about anymore man marcus, and i said you have to have something and they did not have anything on the. so i i said, what say we do a quick and dirty little survey, so we did, and it was a one-pain questionnaire and we put people out in dealey peninsulas through the course of a week or so, and i had gone to employees whose offices overlooked dealey peninsulas. are there a lot of people there?

a few people? and i was -- obvious huge interest, and we did a survey and came up with 100% of the people surveyed said that under the right circumstances, an educational exhibit for the public about the event, in the school book depository, they would want to see. if the state paid for it, they didn't want to pay. if private people did it, they were willing to pay a modest admission fee and that was the basis on which we went forward to the commissioner's court, saying there's interest, and applied for a little grant from the national endowment for the humanities the only federal grant we got, and they gave about $8,600 to bring in a panel to study. now, the county was getting ready to begin republic know --

renovations to the building and the 1963 elements on the exterioror of the building were still prepare. thing too book depository sign, we brought in gene george, may he rest in peace. he died in january, and restoration architects, very, very highly respected, not just in texas but nationally, who we promptly dubbed moses. >> we did. because he -- he didn't say much but when he spoke we all listened. >> so we had this panel, and we all sat together, and the panel said, who is -- there will be taking pictures of us the whole time we meet and they did. but the decisions needed to be made, and gene examined everything and he came back and said, here's what you need to do. and everything that was removed was recorded. if not all of it preserved, then

critical elements of duplicates were preserved, and so that at some future date -- >> remember the discussion about the sign, and that was very difficult for tina george because it is such an identifying mark on the city, and he feet that if we removed it there would be a hugh -- hue and cry about what happened to the hertz sign. but we went upstairs on the roof, and walked around and it was just squishy. it just gave at every step and caused great cracks in the building. so, it became very evident that was something that needed to be done, and we saved the panels. >> it's interesting that on the third floor of this building, they installed a structural truss that in some future date

-- i they did want to put the sign back up there, it would support the wind load. it was like a giant sail pulling the top of the building off, and it's a wonder it didn't just head right out and end up in oklahoma. but a lot of thing went into that. >> let's talk about the sixth floor. in the early '80s, you get the project designers. talk about how you create a exhibit narrative and fit it geographically want it 1901 warehouse space and you have to lead windows up to the window at the right moment in the star. >> bob and barbara ought to be up their explain that. >> they were in dallas with major exhibit, and john said

these are probably the finest exhibit designers ever, and certainly in the united states. they did not want to come up and see the floor. they were very kind. very generous, and did come one afternoon. and there's barbara. and they immediately -- you could see the wheels turning. this needs to be preserved. this needs to be preserved. this could be done in certain ways, and so -- excuse me for interrupting bus that was a key element that the fact later they did and all say, yes, they'd be onboard. >> lindalyn talked them into it. >> she knew we were determined and might as well be done well.

[laughter] >> and it was. >> in the summer of 1983, with the model of the exhibit, you -- the two of you went out into the dallas community to speak to community leaders like stanley marcus and john stemons to convince the dallas establishment this exhibit needed to happen and served a purpose. take us into one of the meetings, how one of the city leaders responded to the story. [inaudible] >> i will say this. we took our own projector and our slides and we depended upon having a blank wall to project our slides on at all these different businessmen. and so we went to see stanley marcus, very kind and very gracious, and we looked around and there was not a blank wall in the whole place, and behind

him was this priceless tab tapestry, and so he reached behind behind his desk and pulled out a great big piece of parchment with his, which tour on one side and turned it around and told his secretaries to bring some thumb tacks and he himself, thumb tacked it up on the wall so we could give our presentation. he was very kind, very supportive. that was an interesting -- and we went to see eric johnson, and that was -- >> oh, boy. >> never forget, because everyone relives where they were. i don't care if you were six years old or 80. that you remember where you were and what was happening when this event occurred. so then eric johnson, who was called on to go to the kennedy funeral and represent dallas.

if you can imagine anything harder than that, i don't know what it would be. and then he came back to dallas and became the mayor, and then helped us heal, and then shall we talk about john? >> that was the hatchet. remember, he had a hatchet on his desk. >> i tend to forget things i don't like. >> just as well. >> i didn't forget that. >> john was the director of the hoyt historical society and i was on the board, and the first president they ever had in 16 years, and john simmons was on the board, and tom mccarty, publishers of both papers, when we had both papers, and it was a dynamic group. so i knew these men and we made

an appointment to see john. well, his sister-in-law, his brother had died but his sister-in-law still had an office next to john, and so he called her in and brought his long-time assistant in and sat down and kind of told the story with the slides. all of a sudden, wonderful simmons, excused herself and then his assistant excused herself and conover and i were sitting with john simmons behind the huge desk. he was about 6'4" and i always thought of him as mr. dallas, not saying a word. finally, he spoke. he said, well, it has to be done. you go ahead.

block -- [laughter] >> so that kind of adventure. >> in the early '80s this exhibit ran into a number of delays and obstacles, outside forces. i want to go through a couple of these. initially the national park service did not consider this to be historic site worth preserving. initial fundraising efforts were unsuccessful. then the attempted assassination of president reagan brought attention back to dallas. john hink lee bought his begun here and did research on lee harvey as oswald and one time the building almost burned down. >> he was acouple offed to answering the phone in the middle of the night. about 4:00 a.m. one morning, he said -- he answered the phone and said, she's still asleep. and then he said, it's for you.

and this reporter from -- forgotten which paper enough but at any rate called and said there's been a fire in the texas school book depository. this was toward the end of the republican national convention. with everyone still here in town. so, i quickly dressed and ran down here and by the time i got here and i was visiting with the county judge, we were just like, what else could happen? they had the fire under control and it turned out to have been set and was arson, in the basement, with a lot of the things that mr. -- who had a man who had a jfk museum across the street who donated them to us so

to great loss except damage to the billing. >> a number of these obstacles got in your way ask also this prevailing notion this was not going to work. that any exhibit in this building would be a shrine to lee harvey oswald and you had to battle this animosity towards the idea of anything historic in this building. i want to take a quick look at a video clip we prepared, and we want to thank our friends at wfaa tv for providing is to us and allowing to us show it today. we're going look at clip from late 1986 you'll see lindalyn and hear.ongoing efforts to try to raise interest and awareness in the sixth floor project. >> announced plans to build an exhibit recounting president kennedy's asass nation. at it to be entity up on the sixth floor of the old school book depository building. there's a new effort to raise money for that exhibit.

>> thousands of touris visit the site of the kennedy assassination every year, but for many, looking around outside is not enough. >> i'd like to go in. i'd like to see what what happened. >> what she and other visitors want to see is the sixth floor of the old school book depository. a spot where lee harvey oswald is said to have fired the fatal shot. but this space in what's now the county administration building remains closed to the public. the historical exhibit once scheduled to open this year remains several years away. >> we had not really gone to the public and -- to ask for funds in almost two years. >> lindalyn adam acknowledges the tight economy pushed the kennedy display lower on the list of major contributors but says a study completed last week suggests starting a new fundraising program. the historical display, collection of photos, documents and film clips, will cost $3 million to set up.

>> a chronological account of the events surrounding the asass nation of john f. kennedy a tape will be updated and distributed to the public. and next year the dallas county historical foundation hopes to kick off a fundraising campaign. >> it's tragic part of our history but it did occur here and needs to be happened in -- handled in the best possible way. >> visitor comments show a continuing interest in a sixth floor exhibit. foundation officials hope the public will respond with money, adams says the display will not be what critics call a memorial to an assassin but, rather, chronicle of the events of november 22, 1963. some say, however, it's still too soon. >> all right. late 1986, and then everything changes in january 1987 with the new dallas county judge lee

jackson, who quite to your surprise, pledged his support in his inauguration that he wanted to see the sixth floor become a reality. >> like christmas and new year's all together. well, before that, almost the day before, we had a visitor from the national park service in santa fe, named richard zeller, and he wanted to see the sixth floor. he was here for the cotton bowl game. so we took him up and told him about the plans that has been developed through the year by conover and all of the -- and he said, this more than meets the standards of the park service. and he was very interested in doing what he could to help. so, that was so terribly exciting. and then to have lee, whom i'd never met, make this

announcement in his inauguration, when he became county judge, was again just a thrill, and so this started the final push to have that kind of support and backing and conover came back to lead the charge, which she did. ...

we see in the photograph being constructed here but early on you had a problem with the brac not matching what you wanted, the specification. >> once we had the elevator tower which made "the new york times," then the county of course very involved in the construction they are building. we ordered a brick that would be compatible the sort of american breeks color of the depository building, which has a lot of orange, and what a ride to build the tower was horrible. so we called the owner of the company and he flew in and we looked at the fact back of the sixth floor where that hauer was going to be and he said that color was perfect. [laughter] the judge who was fabulous of

course was standing next to me. i turned around and i said let me make sure that i get your name and your telephone number. he said why? weld because when "the new york times" called and asked why they had built an elevator tower that looked for all intensive purposes like a dream cycle i want to make sure that i can give them your contact information. [laughter] that will do it. [laughter] but there were delays to the we had more ice storms coming and was, you know, it was dressed amazing that it all came together in the nick of time. >> the key evidence erie area, the southeast corner of the sixth floor was reconstructed to the way that it appeared and the

police photographs. when you pulled up the floor tell us how that site was prepared for exhibition. >> they were laying a floor when the assassination took place. they hadn't gotten to the corner window, so we knew that the flooring had been there. the planks were fed and they had to come up for the reconstruction. so we go in and pull up the planks and we were terrified the floor would be brought it out but that wasn't the problem to the the the problem was that they had a section of the office immediately behind the sniper's perch. when they ripped up the planks, all of this pension page in guano, spiders, well it ended up

in his office. somebody came up and said we have a problem. he was in his office and the man was totally bald, she never had a hair on his head. i look and in the frame of the picture of his wife and kids there were a little bit and stuff all over the sofa and i said this is terribly embarrassing. he said just tell me that it's over. [laughter] and i said its done. we will send somebody to clean up. [laughter] >> the visitors center was being built in the back and the state mandate and a historic area. while we watch from the fifth

floor in life and you said the worst thing they can find is a hand made well. one of the kennedy administration said would it be a felony if we filled in? anyway, it kind of went on and on and on. conover kept saying if we find any bones like moly -- wooly mammoth. so to provide a little levity, lee jackson's friends got together for an april fool's joke. conover went to the museum of natural history and a borrowed a wooly mammoth bone. now it was tagged and shellacked

but it was an impressive. they brought in all of these -- jim jackson was never totally thrilled in the project had a part, and his part was to come in with newspaper, i mean television reporters which he did beautifully. he came in and said the judge, i just found out they found a will wooly mammoth bone and you know what that means, another $175,000. the newsman said maybe talk to you, judge? he said i am afraid i must ask you to leave my office. [laughter] and of course my part was to hold busbee team and kind of do like this. he was so used to seeing me rub my hand over one thing or another and worked. and so then lee jackson -- no,

jim jackson said come over here to the window and look out and he did and here were all of his friends saying april fool's. [laughter] we were afraid there might be repercussions. ms. jackson led this commissioners court in such a wonderful way and kept it from any controversy. >> let's talk for a minute about the exhibit content because you had a limited space to tell an important story context of the 1960's american history. how did you work with historians and amateur researchers, conspiracy theorists? there were 27 people that helped shape the content. talk a little bit about how it came together. >> the preliminary designs that had been worked out with kunkel -- what was missing until we came back to life in '87 was a

documentary filmmaker and that is when blundell came. there is nothing about the content that you couldn't question. so we had a large number of experts from the cia. you name it. it ended up being 20 something that worked on are riding on what was the consensus of what the facts were if you going to the commission exhibits they give you -- and gary will correct me. he always does. three different times the officer was shot. and if there is a lot of contradictory information. we had official investigations

and overviews of the major conspiracy theory. just a tremendous amount of information went into it. we also wanted to -- there are 100 pages of text on wall that's about 50 pages too much. there is a 20 or 30% overlap between the content of the film and what is on walls and the labels. we were aware there were readers and runners to read some people go through in exhibit and run and some people go through and read and find every typo in the health and. it was very carefully balanced but we had a wonderful dinner party with the current generation of conspiracy theorists and the head of the house select committee on

assassinations and mary was there who was a respected researcher. it was an incredible dinner party. i wouldn't recommend that anyone have such a dinner party. [laughter] we survived it and tremendous amounts of beverages were consumed and nobody ate anything at all as far as i could tell. [laughter] they understood we were doing history and we needed to find an approach that you couldn't do in exhibit on their fever's is another theory that we had the responsibility to say how the tax dollars had been spent in history and all worked out. i don't think too many people know jackson who ended up being a terrific editor.

everyone was involved so there was a lot of coordination. everyone came together and cooperate. we had retired cia staff director that came in to work and they called me at 7:30 on a saturday. he has applied for a job. what do you think? i said look him in. keep him close. everyone was very helpful. but everyone finally got the idea that we were doing something that was more important than any of the other individuals involved and that we were doing at for the public and the public calls from people all over the world who were either ignorant about an event, confused about an event and it was the karma that they had to deal with it and that is

basically. >> opening day february 1989 and 6th floor is under the media microscope mostly praise, a few detractors but mostly praise. i remember the front page of the herald read simply today we stand whole again. when you were there that day there was a ceremony in the commissioners court and 1700 people filed through the exhibit. tell us about opening day. >> people kept asking for my autograph. this wouldn't have been done if it weren't for her ability and drive. >> she thanked me and we had the president of the national trust -- no, wait a minute, he spoke

and was very complimentary and i thought my goodness with a complement she is the one that saved mount vernon in 1854. >> may i interrupt? he also said the disguise is a mack trucks. [laughter] >> we are running short of time. >> if you have a question for any of us today passed them to the end of the road and we will be collecting those to get to as many questions as we can. from opening day let's fast-forward to our upcoming 25th anniversary in february of next year.

>> this institution began as an exhibit. some would say with a temporary exhibit because its longevity. where are we now? how do that two of you see this museum and its contribution to understanding the kennedy assassination? >> i think that we both felt that it was going to last because we realized what had been compiled we were very careful not to call it a museum. there were still repercussions and feelings of sensitivity even today. so in order to move ahead and plan an exhibit that is what we called it for the first three years and then later jeff blast was the director and actually

worked with the national museum. so it is now e-verified museum. but we felt it would last. >> a lot of the obstacles that we face we were talking about convincing the town that has been totally traumatized to invest in something they can't save. once we got it open and was largely financed. but getting it open was, you know, you are asking them to trust in an unknown when there have been very many -- much damage has been done not just the communities but the individuals that were yell that when they went to other cities and so on and so for. so anything that could trigger a

fearful reaction -- if you said museum, they immediately started talking about you're going to have the rifle, you're going to have all of these unsavory things and we just moved away from that. the board was very good and getting the right tone i then was snowing and praying that it would be successful because barbara asked me before, she said well who's going to cover the opening? i said will be breaking news story. she said what if they don't like it? i said that's easy, none of us will ever work anywhere again. [laughter] >> of the board was fabulous. >> and then something that happened one day when we were in the midst of all of this, there

was a lady by the name of nancy cheney that was working on the alzheimer's gala with rita hayworth coming and she wanted me to be the co-chairman and came down to the house and we were visiting. she just casually said you know, we were friends of the kennedy family. they did invite us to all of their events and parties. i said senator ted kennedy? and she said yes. my daughter worked for him and allyson is here in the front row as well as nancy cheney. so i told her the scope of what we were trying to do. and i said would you mind taking this information to senator kennedy? and she agreed to do it.

think of that. just think of that. we had never been in contact with any of the kennedy family. too painful. something we knew they wouldn't want to hear. but manzi took our material. i would love for you to be able to tell us what happened this ted kennedy did read them. he said i know if you're involved it's going to be all right. and from that point on, his assistant kept in touch with us and actually came down to meet all of us and so we had that open conduit to the kennedy family. nancy, stand-up we want to thank you. [applause]

after she visited with ted kennedy he asked her to go to new york and visit with steve smith about. he then was in contact with the family. >> i want to go through a few questions from the audience today. this one is addressed to all free. where were you when president kennedy was shot to read i have to disqualify myself. i wasn't alive when president kennedy was shot but my mother is here and my love to have a word with you after the program. i was born several years after the assassination but this to move you remember where you were november 22nd, 1963. if you could tell us where you were and how you found out about the assassination.

go ahead. >> i was at home and i was having a meeting at my house on doctors' rights and all of a sudden, ruben appeared in this emergency room and he couldn't get through to tell us what happened because of the lines were tied up. so he came in and he said turn on the television. we did and we stood around and we watched and he said president kennedy was shot in the head. i felt is there any way he will survive? and sell that is how i found out about it. >> i was leaving my last class on a friday. i was a senior involved in the local newspaper for the school. i was a feature editor and news editor and ran around in the

transistor radio. we were walking down this long hallway since kennedy has been shot and i realized later that what he heard was the first radio announcement. he held it down a hall and that was it. there were parts of the memory everybody remembers what they were doing. but if you look at your memory and more debt you will find the edges of it are very gray. >> here in dallas you touched so many lives and so many ways because all of the emergency teams were good friends of ours. and also we went back sunday to make the rounds and he was on the elevator going that the search and they pushed a gurney with him and was a comatose man and a trout because walt.

that team that worked to save president kennedy's light turnout also to be on call when austal came in. our next-door neighbor when i was growing up was surgeon. we had an extended member of the family who was an fbi agent here and he was one of the ones who interrogated oswald, and he would never say anything about it until right before he died. it was just three or four words. of course that story is all out. but he basically said, and i quote, he was such a distinguished man [inaudible]

>> stories like the ones you share today are very important. they form the backbone of our project. you helped start the project we back in their early years of the museum to excuse me, steve, you helped start that in the early years and we have almost 1100 oral histories now record and as we approach the 25th anniversary we are looking for more stories. if you have memories of president kennedy were the days of the assassination you like to share please contact the web site at jfk.org. i would ask the audience if you've been part of the oral history project of the museum stand with us so we can recognize you. there are quite a few in the audience today. [applause] that's wonderful. i hope that even more of you will become a part of this archive that we are building to another question and this is directed to both of you. do you have any regrets or is

their anything that you wish you had done differently in the creation of this museum? >> just thank goodness that it's done. >> it was not the kind of thing you could second-guess. i mean, neither survived or you didn't. [laughter] i was very gratified to see that it was well received. hindsight is, you know, the thing was we needed to get it open. we knew we was going to be good content because we had excellent eaglen -- people involved. it was getting it open to the public so that the figure would be laid to rest. that was kind of it. >> conover, this question is for you. how do you feel about the museum today in 2013? >> i think it has become a real museum.

and nicola is a great professional talent. it's doing all of the things that are truly important in a nationally respected it museum. the education program, the outreach, the distance learning, the oral history program, the publications come in your book and the -- garrey is doing a fabulous drawn as the curator and advising others. i went to see the fort worth art show. the film was done and the active equity it's a magnet that i always dreamed it would become. has the best collection relating in a global tragedy in the face of the earth and now it is doing the right thing with the material. so i think that balance should

be very proud of the professionals who have come through the last 20 some years and really turned into a nationally respected educational and institution >> i would like for anybody that work in any way to stand and let us recognize you. >> up you go. [applause] >> that about does it for today. conover, lindalyn and myself will be moving over the table to sign books for you. with all of the other wonderful founders here today i am sure that all of them would be happy to add their signature to the book as well and you can create your own the sixth floor museum your book. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. thank you for being here and being part of the conversation in our history.

thank you. [applause] >> for more information about the sixth floor museum, visit jfk.org. what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> i am robert costa, the washington editor of "national review" and a half a lot of books i want to read this summer but as a political journalist and looking ahead to the 2016 presidential race of the candidates that are going to run especially on the republican side and one of the people looking at is chris christi. so i picked up this book called "chris christi the inside story of his rise to power," by robert ingle and robert sign and a pity it takes you back into the political sense of new jersey. before he became the u.s. attorney, he was a morris county freeholder involved in a lot of county politics. and so, it takes us behind the story come behind the policy we

have seen with president obama in new jersey and it really asks who is crisscrossed the and it's told by people that know the new jersey politics. i would recommend it because chris christi i think is a likely contender and you've got to know where he came from and what his policies mean ahead of the election. second is kevin williamson who wrote a book called the end is near and it's going to be awesome how it will leave america are rich, happy and more secure. another reason i think this book is a lot of fun as because the fiscal cliff earlier in 2013 was a story that we cover on the "national review" but later this year you'll have the story that consumes congress and kim williamson looks at the debt from a political perspective, the historical perspective, talks with the consequences of how it has taken up a lot of the, chris's time and what could potentially ruin the country and make the country go broke and he does it with some fun and sexy and izmir is a great book by

kevin williamson. a third on my list is by mark lee which. there is always stockholm is happening behind the scenes and how the story is written and who is leaking to who the power struggle not only in the policy but in the media. so he really has the year of the beltway crowd coming up with a book in july. this town is all about that the inside seen in washington in the dupont circle and at the georgetown salam to be the gives a story and the quarter of washington and the political media establishment. and for fun a book i'm really looking forward to reading is called mckee and willie the mantle made the parallel lives of baseball's golden age. one of my favorite sports writers. i was just down and arizona watching the cleveland indians, chicago cubs player in baseball and i ran into him getting up there in age but it's great because it looks at the two men who came of age at the same time and start at the same time and

actually formed a lifelong friendship, something i never knew so that is a great book today i think it will be billed for baseball fans this summer. so that is my list and i'm looking forward to reading them all. >> he was one of the finest american musicians and he was what is often called a genius or the word genius is used by the data that is the advertising now. but charlie parker is with the word genius