as a mayor, you work with everybody, you learn to work with everybody to try to make things work in your community, that's what i want to see. so -- >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> every weekend since 1998 c-span2's booktv has shown over 40,000 hours of programming with top nonfiction authors including dee dee meyers. ..

marking 15 years of booktv on c-span2. >> some programs to watch this weekend on booktv. throughout the weekend we bring you a few interviews and tours from the tv's recent visit to andy reid, pa.. at 4:45 eastern, a look at the smartest kids in the world with amanda ripley. at 11:00 p.m. dumbing down accords:how politics keep the smartest judges off the bench tomorrow at 5:00 eastern, we bring you a collection of programs about the federal reserve chairman and at 6:45 from the recent southern festival of books linda barnacle gives a history of the civil war battle. visit booktv.org for this weekend's television schedule. dr. james swanson is latest book is a history of the kennedy

assassination for young adults is next on booktv. >> i am here to welcome you to this session of the southern festival of books and introduce you to our author for this evening's session. as you know our writer for this session is james swanson who is the edgar award winning author of the new york times best-seller manhunt:the 12 a case for lincoln's killer, as well as chasing lincoln's chemical and the best-selling adaptation of manhunt for young adults. he held a number of government think-tank posts in washington d.c. including at the u.s. department of justice. is two recent books are a book called end of days:the assassination of john f. kennedy and the subject of his presentation this afternoon which is "the president has been shot!: the assassination of john f. kennedy". james swanson? [applause]

>> thank you very much. to give you fair warning the book that has been published in? want to leave, this is the children's book which is available today at the festival. my adult book, end of days is coming out in a couple weeks. i don't see many kids here so i thought i would give you advance notice i'm talking about a children's book today. whenever i hear of this talk i don't like to see them read from their books or read from a script. if they're going to do that i could just read the book anyway so why go to the event so i thought i would talk a little bit about how i did this book, al i do my books, why i did these. i am always interested to know the back story. everything i have done as a writer originates in something i heard about what was exposed to as a child. even the kennedy assassination.

i got into writing because of abraham lincoln. i was born on lincoln's birthday, the very twelfth in chicago, ill. lincoln country and realize some of the southern states like kentucky claim a lincoln affiliation but we are the land of lincoln and we are the lincoln state so we forget the others. from an early age i was exposed to lincoln things, objects, comic books, trinkets from the lincoln home. as a boy i would go visit the lincoln deathbed, chicago historical society. at the turn of the century created candy millionaire, purchase the entire contents of the lincoln death room in the peterson house in washington d.c. moved them to chicago, the room was recreated and remember as a boy going in the room and pushing buttons, and the voice of a man would come on and married the story of what

happened to abraham lincoln and april 14th and fifteenth, eighteen sixty-five and live with 6 or 7 years old going in and pushing that but to listen to the story of what happened to president lincoln. then a few years later when i was 10 my grandmother gave me what you might think is an odd gift for the little boy, not a baseball bat or myth or ball, she gave me a framed and grading of the derringer pistol that john wilkes booth used to kill abraham lincoln and framed with an engraving was part of a clipping from the chicago tribune from the morning of april 15th, 1865, the morning the president died and i remember reading that story in the headlines and in those days there was no big broad horizontal headline across the newspaper page. the headlines were in the left-hand column and there was a series of them from top to bottom, i remember reading those headlines, president shot, john wilkes booth the actor the assassin shoots the president in

his box, leads to the stage, cries out and runs out the back door and at that point someone had cut the sentence off in midsentence and i hung that on my bedroom wall. i still have it today in my house and i remember thinking i have to know the rest of the store. where did and john wilkes booth go? who chased him? was he ever caught? that was my rosebud object like the sled from citizen kane. i must have read the story hundreds of times as of boy wanting to know what else happened the night of april 14, 1865. years later when i was working on my book man hunt agreed find, i was able to acquire from my collection and original set of 100 issues from the chicago tribune from 1865 that covers not only the end of the war, the assassination, the manhunt, the trial of the conspirators.

years later after i was exposed to that as a boy, and actually had on my hands and entire original issue of the chicago tribune from april 15th, 1865, and it is one of my treasured possessions. i was exposed to other stories as a boy too. my grandmother worked for chicago newspapers. the detail end of that era, the sun-times, the sun-times, those reporters hung out at bars, dressed like cops, acted like an, pretended to be them. it was an era of wild storytelling and i remember when i was 6 my grandmother told me this, and she loved telling wild terrifying stories, she said did you know that during the 1893 world fair a madman doctor murdered 100 girls and as all their bodies in acid? i was 6 years old when she told that to me. years later when my agent said

what you want to do next? when i was a boy my grandmother told me as sort of a madman doctor who does all girls in acid. i want to do that and my agent said do you know who eric larsen is? i said yes. he said i happen to know he is in the middle of writing that very book. so i did manhunt instead of writing about dr. holmes. another time my grandfather who is a chicago policeman from the 1930s, the al capone gangster to the late 1960s, the entire vietnam war protests and civil rights movement iraqis home and said almost in a stage whisper and i wondered if he wanted me to hear this, don't let jamie read the newspapers. they lived with us. what did i do the moment i was alone? grab a copy of the chicago sun times to read the newspaper. how many of you remember the

name richard speck? almost all of you. madman murdered a number of student nurses in chicago. i read all about it because my grandfather said don't let him read the newspaper. since that day i have read seven newspapers a day and four on weekends. i am addicted to newspapers and i'm sure it is because of my grandfather and grandmother exposing me to these when i was a little boy. my father went south to high school in chicago and the teachers used to point at a desk, he would tell me this, in that desk sat one of the eight nazi sabateurs who landed on american shores by you boat in 1942. of course he was executed. i told my agent i want to write about the nazi spies who into america. my father told me about it. this was after 9/11 and my agent said i have great news.

there's no eric larsen writing the book about the nazi senators. there are three authors writing the same book about the nazi senators so you can do that. , a childhood was filled with the storytelling from my parents and grandparents. there's nothing i have ever written that doesn't come out of something i was exposed to as a child because of my lincoln interest i became a fanatical collector of books, objects, memorabilia, artifacts related to abraham lincoln and the civil war and almost view myself as full-time curator of curiosities who happens to an hour and then write a book about what those curiosity's inspired me to think about. over the years i have collected things like a lot of lincoln's hair cut from his head in the peterson house after lincoln died that morning of april 15th and that lot of air is framed with flowers that adorned lincoln's coffin at the white

house funeral on april 19th. have a fragment of the dress stained with the president's blood. he dropped to her knees and cradled lincoln's head. i spent a lifetime pursuing these objects and they were touched sense to me that get me interested in what i write about. the same is true of the assassination of john kennedy. november 22nd, 1963. do you remember? i see that many of you are old enough to remember. if you are over 55 or 56 years old you remember exactly where you were and what you doing and how you felt when you heard that news. it was 50 years ago next month but in some anyways it seems like yesterday. i remember i was 4 years old. i don't remember anything about the assassination itself. i remember nothing about

november 22nd or saturday november 23rd but i had two playmates across the street, two girls, i remember them to this day, they were 7 and 10 and they tolerated the 4-year-old who wanted to play with them. their father who was very conservative did not want them to watch television. they didn't have -- he wanted them to go to harvard, of them slammed it and went to my college, university of chicago. my mother said to me on the morning of sunday november 24th get dressed, get out of your pajamas, the girl coming over. why? their coming over to watch television. why are the girls being allowed to watch television? my mother said the president has died. we are going to watch the carriage take his coffin from the white house to the u.s.

capitol where there will be up memorial service in honor of the president. i remember that conversation with my mother as though it happened last week, it made such a vivid impression on me and i realize that is why i have written these two books, "the president has been shot!" and an end of days for kids and adults. after i did manhunt i thought about doing books for young people because my boys would tell me they don't find a lot of good history books that they love and we talk so much about these stories, why don't you write books for kids? their 7, and 9 and give me a couple good tips how to get into this. my 9-year-old said readers want blood. and the 7-year-old said and knives. there was a lot of that in my lincoln books. i can assure you i love speaking to kids. one of the first time i did was

at a school attended by my niece in illinois. was a writing class and my students prepared writing samples to show me and i would comment on them and discuss how to write, what to do and after that, the children all wrote letters thanking me for coming to the school. i remember a letter from one girl identified as one of the smartest kid in the class and perimeter said thank you so much, i dare say you seemed to enjoy yourself quite a bit. this was from a child. than she said i felt tidying insight into your personalities by staring into your right eye as you spoke. i asked my knees about this. what is with this girl? sheet is just weird, don't worry about her. she is not a witch or anything.

since then, when i speak to an audience i am tempted to put a patch over my right eye like those old hathaway shirt ads, the child who looked into my right eye to figure out who i am. a few years later, after that november day, i was going through my mother's closet, she called it her morgue, she was a painter and a lot of resource materials, twice my height, sliding or closets with a number of shells crammed with photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, souvenirs, she would use these things in her pink things. i remember one day in that closet i discovered her memorabilia from the assassination of president kennedy. the life magazine, the saturday evening post, the old brown newspapers for, and albert when you have to turn the pages so carefully and i didn't fully

understand what it was all about. i didn't know who president kennedy was fifth. i didn't know what happened. i knew from my mother tears when she looked at these that something terrible had happened. i learned more as i looked through these documents in these old newspaper stories. i am sure it is because of what happened when i was 4 and what i found in my mother's closet so many years ago, the reason i have written these books. a little bit about them. there is so much one could say about november 22nd, 1963. it is especially challenge to talk about it and write about it for young people. children and adults who don't remember anything about it. those of us who do it seems like yesterday but it was a challenge to write about something for people who had never experienced it, didn't know who john kennedy

was. children are not talk about john kennedy in elementary school or high school today. few kids are taught about the cold war or the vietnam war. history stops and a lot of schools with the civil war and they move forward to the civil rights movement and modern history. i was dealing with kids who don't know much about the subject. i had to figure out what to tell them so i try to tell >> i experienced it through imagery, maps, drawings and through vivid chronological descriptions of what happened to make it come alive for kids who knew nothing about it. the cuffing was the story is a gigantic. what do you do? i began the way i try to do my other books as though i am

writing a novel, but pretend you don't know the outcome. like writing about the titanic. everyone knows the ship sank and everybody died. i try to persuade the reader that it didn't have to happen that way. i think i tried to do that in all my writing. it is of being a historian writing about things everyone knows. you all know john kennedy was assassinated on nov. 26 and. what i surprise you with. you know john wilkes booth killed abraham lincoln. how could my other books surprise you with that information? i discovered readers seem to like telling the tale. tell the story as it happened, as though people don't know the ending, week by week, hour by hour, day by day, minute by minute or in the case of bill street in front of the texas book depository second by second and don't tell readers anything a person living at the time wouldn't have known before it

happened and the manhunt for john wilkes booth. i don't want you to know what is going to happen on day 10. the story of the kennedy assassination when i tell you about lee harvey oswald seven months before president kennedy assassinating an army general with a rifle i don't want you to know he's going to kill president kennedy. another way is through reports of what happened through the eyes that saw it. there is incredible newspaper and television and radio coverage that came out of the kennedy assassination. it is almost as though shakespeare was providing the lines to these journalists. if you look at the arrival of the kennedys in dallas, who doesn't remember that bright pink suit? you should listen to the

reporters saying this is kitty now stepping off air force one, her bright pink suit glows in the sun, the deep dark red roses contrast beautifully with the pink suit. almost as though they know but they don't know. the reporters talk about secret service protection. we spent many days talking to the secret service men, and this is a split-second operation. nothing is left to chance. that is what they saw on the airport. and reporters said they extend down to the state. the secret service was going to randomly select the state's so no one could poison president kennedy unless that person poison dollar 2,000 people who attended at the lunch so they didn't mention the president would drive past 20,000 open

windows. to the trademark. they didn't mention of the buildings had been searched. they didn't mention fbi agents had forgotten to mention that a strange man named lee harvey oswald was being interviewed regularly because of his past with the soviet union. nobody confronted the president and said we absolutely refuse to get off the back of your car and not stand behind you when it is driving. president kennedy was not well protected just like abraham lincoln. it wasn't raining, kennedy wanted the top of the car, he often traveled in the car, one was a convertible. agents try to stand on the back behind him and two agents standing on the back of the car, oswald wouldn't have much of an angle, rifle fire at the president. he didn't want that. you wanted to show himself to

the people. i found photographs that would shock you to see how close people were allowed to get to the car of the motorcade. anyone could have jumped on it. people got so close someone could have plunged forward and stabbed him or jackie in the back seat. that is how close people got to the president that day. none of it had to happen that way. if it was raining and the talk was on the car, if the agents the on the back of a car, if a friend of oswald's wife hadn't by chance found a job at the texas school book depository six weeks before the president came to dallas, if oswald had succeeded in murdering general walker in texas seven month earlier maybe that would have satisfied the first for blood. if his wife had hidden the rifle from him so he couldn't find it that morning he took it to the office. so many things could have happened a different way.

president kennedy himself believed ultimately nothing could protect him in the end from an assassin and he said something very peer e. just a few hours before he was shot, he was still in fort worth, he had gotten a been morning, went outside and spoke to a crowd in the rain. by the way that crowd was right up against him. there were open windows all around in front of the hotel texas in fort worth. went inside and spoke to reporters. he sees the dallas morning > as a full-page ad, is it looks like a friendly greeting, welcome, mr. president. was a vicious add that after a series of part important questions, why are you a communist, la why are you with america's enemies, why is your brother helping communist skill are soldiers in vietnam.

was filled with a statement against the president. he said will you look at this? we are heading into not country today. then he paused and said you know, last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a president. the crowd was jostling us, it was dark, anyone with a pistol could have pulled a pistol out of a briefcase and shot me. jackie kennedy was sitting next to the common joined by state powers and other top aides, powers and o'donnell said what the hell were we talking about

today? why did he bring that up? why did we talk about it? what made us all discuss the assassination of the president this morning a few hours before it happened? it is-experience story. one thing i've tried to do in a children's book and an adult book is bring you back to the day it happened before you knew it would happen. you have been so distracted by a number of contradictory conspiracy theories involving grassy knolls, cubans, pro castro, an anti-castro, naval intelligence, secret service, doctors, where the president was autopsied, and dallas policeman who was murdered by oswald.

oswald shot in four times comet to the helpless police perspective and the pistol to his head and said poor dumb cop, some theorists named officer tippett as a conspirator in the conspiracy to kill the president. other if these data are two oswalds of the one who moved to russia was not the same oswald who came back from russia. money, his mother and brother and other people who knew him never said that is not oswald. these conspiracy theories have seized our imagination, by what they mean. or why we want to believe them. they have detached eyes from

emotional truth november 22nd, 1963. was real, not some theory. a wife lost her husband, the nation lost a president, other men were shot that day. and emotionally traumatic day, since the assassination of abraham lincoln, i try to get that across. and what it did to the nation, what it did to the kennedys, howell was reported, of those four days of constant radio and news broadcasts, multiple editions of the newspapers and magazines have that -- the first unifying experience to the mass media that brought the american people together to experience

the same thing, and dropping the atomic bombs, victories in world war 1 enroll at -- world war ii. none of those things compared to the emotional impact of the assassination of president kennedy on the american people. i really wrote the book, both books for three audiences, one for all of those of us who do remember. and young degeneration of adults who only know what they've seen in movies or heard the conspiracy talk, and what happened moment by moment. one thing i ask kids in the young book is conspiracy theories have been part of american history for over 300 years. we use them to explain terrible things, why terrible things have

happened in our nation. conspiracy theories have one thing in common. they deny the role that luck, chance, accident or happenstance have had in human history for thousands of years and so neither one of these books is a rebuttal or support of any conspiracy theory. that is not the point. i will tell you what i think happened and take you through this day-by-day but i do advise that the kids that just as the conspiracy theorists are skeptical of what happened in dallas, texas, so should they be equally skeptical of any one or more of these theories. i won't take time to get into the theory is one by one because that is not the point of the book. one point of the book is to tell the story around dallas.

jackie kennedy became as interesting to me as the president or oswald and i draw them out as characters counting down the hours to november 22nd. .. hours to november 22. i show you who oswald was, what he was doing, where he was in his life. i show you john and jackie kennedy and their story and what was happening to them before they went to dallas. it's so fascinating to me that on the last half of his life john kennedy had dinner alone with jackie. they were going to a political event and of course the president can never eat a proper meal in an event with thousands of people. they are in their hotel room and he is dressed. he was the bit of a fashion plate. john kennedy usually changed clothes two times a day, clothing ties and shirts. that's the way reason he always

looks great in his photographs. he had a personal man who traveled with him to take care of his clothing and outfitted him throughout the day. jackie of course always looked great. she is in her black velvet dress he is innocent and they have dinner alone in a hotel room in texas. as that is happening lee harvey oswald is with his wife not far away in texas, not such a happy occasion. most of you know that they weren't living together then. oswald was living in a rooming house in dallas and his wife was -- we oswald would visit on weekends. oswald came one day earlier that week on thursday november 21. they were bickering and he promises to buy her a washing machine which is not a small thing when you have two infant children at home and you were doing laundry by hand.

marina later said i was too hard on him. maybe i shouldn't have been. one image strikes me at the kennedys are up in the morning and their hotel. the trip has been great. one thing that is often forgotten is what a great trip this was before dallas. the crowds loved kennedy. huge receptions. he was really enjoying this. when he landed in dallas he said look at that crowd. he would over to the fence to the people who were cheering and waiting for him. dallas was really the tale and of what would have been a great trip to texas. so he is with his wife in the hotel room. oswald is at mrs. payne's house. he gets up and takes almost all the money he has in the world, $170 in cash and he leaves it on the top of the dresser. he keeps about 15 bucks which coincidently is approximately the price of a bus ticket to mexico.

he then removes his wedding ring and places it in a china cup that his wife brought back from the soviet union. he then leaves the house, walks to a neighbor a man who lives in that house works at the book depository. he has been giving oswald writes back and forth each weekend. that morning, the day before on november the 21st oswald says to him can you give me a ride tonight? sure, but why? you always go on friday. i want to pick up some curtain rods for mrs. payne. okay. he didn't tell the man in the boarding house room had curtains and already had blinds. the next morning after he leaves the money and the wedding ring the sister of the co-worker sees him come to the house. he is carrying a package wrapped in brown paper about that long

and about that tall. the woman looks out the window and sees him with the package, sees him put it in the backseat. oswald's co-worker gets in the car. okay lets go. he backs out and he says what's that package? oswald says zero cohost of the curtain rods i told you about. he picked them up that morning. the man walked 75 feet ahead of oswald her into the backdoor of the depository. the co-worker said he always walks next to me that this day he rushed ahead. he said he held the package sideways one park tucked under his hand at the other part tucked under his arm and held it close to his body. i won't go on with all the details but that's the kind of detail that i tried to search for the book to make the story alive. i'll give you one more quick

example about that about oswald and jackie kennedy. it's often said by those who dispute the warren commission and we know of a lot more today about the assassination and the warren commission. some theorists even dispute that any shots were fired from the depository. some say not a shot was fired. he was shot from a grassy knoll or shop behind the book depository. here's a little fact. when i mention this to kids because i've been going around the country speaking to audiences of young adults and they ask me these questions because they have seen the movies and they have heard the talk. i

>> and let the reader know what those people said. certainly, that puts to rest any question of whether three shots were fired from the sixth floor window. oh, by the way, about ten witnesses saw the barrel. pointing out the window. a high school boy saw the rifle tracking the president's car.cho so, again, that puts to rest ang question that there wasn't a rifle in the window aiming out.u

most of the people when they heard the shot turned around and looked right up at the texas school book depository. school. that in miniatures when i tried to do in this book. tried to cover exactly what happened in detail. again it's not a book to refute conspiracy theories. i don't get into it very much. i began by telling you what i think happened that day and giving you as much eyewitness testimony and facts to support it. it's really impossible to refute a lot of conspiracy theories point by point. how can i prove to you that khrushchev didn't order the death of kennedy? how could i prove to you that oswald didn't do it? the way to begin is to show the facts that are known. what did happen that day? jackie. there was always the myth that she was trying to escape the car and climb out of the car.

it's actually not true. she saw part of her husband's school in the backseat of this this -- car. she never climbed out and if you look at the photos carefully she is kneeling and reaching out to take something. later at the hospital she was in such a state of shock that she went to the doctor and handed him part of her husband school and brains. in her state of shock she was thinking somehow they'd might need them to fix them or help them. when a car pulled up to the house she wouldn't let go of the president. they had been about a 60 minute ride siren to 80 miles an hour. after the third shot the secret service agent ran to the car leaps on and cover jackie pushed her back in and put his body on top of the president and jackie. i tell the readers what happened in that car. what she said what clintonville

said what she saw and what he saw. a car pulls up to the brooklyn hospital. the reporters russia to the car because no one has taken a present out of the car. reporters are standing 2 feet from jackie kennedy and the president. she is holding in her lap and covering up his head with her arms like this. agents tried to take the present out of her and she said no. he is dead. agent he'll encourages her let us take him. why? he is dead. you know it. he then realizes she doesn't want to see the president that way so that is why he removes his suit coat and drapes it over the president's head and takes him inside. jackie tries to enter the emergency room and burling hearst tries to stop her. she pushes the nurse and the nurse pushes her and then jackie

says it's my right and i want to be with him when he dies. a navy admiral says let her in. jackie enters the room and stands there. again what i'm trying to do is not to persuade readers about the conspiracy theories. i'm trying to take you into the hotel room the morning before it happens to hear what he says about assassination. i want to take into the car in and emergency room and then explain what jackie did after that. she decided that her husband should have the greatest funeral since that of abraham lincoln. there is very much patterned after that. the decoration of the white house the procession up the avenue, the ceremonies at at the capital and the funeral at arlington cemetery.

later she said when she looked in the mirror she said i shouldn't have wiped the blood from my face or my hair.

i should've left it on for everyone to see. she did though and then she posed for the photograph. she devoted the next couple of years of her life to the memory and legacy of john kennedy. one of my favorite stories involves what she did one week after the assassination. we all know the story of camelot and the myth of the golden age of president kennedy. did you all know that jackie kennedy created that myth one week later it? she was in hyannis parred. the hurricane was coming and she calls the journalists ted white who wrote the making of a president in 1960. jackie calls and says there's something i want to tell you and only you and "life" magazine can tell it to the american people. we are old enough to remember life. when i speak to young audiences

they are shocked to know that once upon a time there were picture magazines that tens of millions of americans would get every weekend that is where they would get their news. when i tell kids there were three network tv stations for editions of the newspaper a day these news magazines with pictures they picked a primitive time. so he comes over. jackie tells everyone i want to be with him alone. and she says i have called you here because i didn't want people to forget jack kennedy and that's impossible. what did she mean? she said people are always trying to write summaries of his administration what he did right and what he did wrong and what was good and what was bad. that was not the real man that i knew. and then for the next three and a half hour she went out of his stream of consciousness telling him about the car combat the

blood and what happened and how she moved her wedding ring and placed it in her husband's hand. and then she gets to the point she wanted to make to him. she says you know before we go to bed we would often play records on the stereo. we often played this musical, this broadway musical camelot. king arthur and his courts mythical time of knights and their ladies. some of the songs from camelot have phrases like brief shining moment for once there was a place known as camelot. jackie said there will never be another camelot again. she says that three or four times to hawaii. that is what she wants him to write. she by the way used to be a journalist and she was a great writer. i have read some of the things that jackie is written including some of her private letters to the secretary of defense mcnamara. her prize essay the price of

paris to become a junior editor of "vogue" magazine she wrote as a college student she was a terrific observer. he goes up to -- they are holding the presses while he types the story of her house right after she had spoken. he comes down and she takes it from his hand, could she reads it and she starts editing the story. white later said i've violated all journalistic ethics by letting her do that. i became hurt tool so she edits the story. he dictates the story to new york from a wall telephone hanging on her kitchen wall. the editors in new york are telling her what's this camelot stuff? get rid of some of it. she is standing right next to white and she looks at him and says no. then the editors in new york say wait a minute is she standing

right next to you? is she listening to you right now? and white without saying it, that was what was happening. the story runs in the december 6 , 1963 issue of "life" magazine. the last two pages of that issue a tribute to john kennedy and it's filled with the whole camelot story. white later says there were no galahad. he was embarrassed about what it done but then in his memoirs he believed in the myth of camelot again. he said when i left her house that night and got back on the main road i was on familiar ground once again. i did not realize that i and the american people had passed through an invisible membrane of time. that nothing would be the same again. and so it's very important to me and telling the story of the

death of president kennedy the story of jacqueline kennedy during and after the assassination to talk about the myths and the legends and memories we all have about president kennedy. was camelot in myth or because tens of millions of people believe it does that make it true and make it real? jackie did other things to remember him. she wanted to go home to georgetown. she wanted her old huspeth. the night of the assassination secretary mcnamara offered to buy it for her. she said no. she said that would be morbid and how could i go back there with all the memories? averell harriman and important diplomat that served in many -- he wanted to live a normal life again like they did before the presidency. the people wouldn't let her do it.

that was the beginning of the strange national obsession with jacqueline kennedy. people stood in front of her house to spy on her. they would take photographs when she came out with children. they would never leave her alone. she didn't like crowds in the first place. she was a little afraid of them so she was terrified to see these strangers waiting to a qasr all times of the day and night. mcnamara had sent an oil president of the painting as a gift to her. i discovered this when i went through some unpublished correspondence and mcnamara's files which i publish for the first time in this book and other things also from that collection. she wrote i cannot have that painting here. it brings too many things to the surface. the only photograph of jack that i even keep in the house he has his back partly turned to the viewer. and then she told mcnamara

it's heartbreaking because just last night john kennedy junior walked up to the painting and kissed her goodnight and said goodnight daddy. she said he had been eating candy so i apologize if you plan you get the painting back there will be sugary imprints on the face where he kissed his father. so these are the stories to me, these human stories that are as much history as the story of oswald which i tell in great detail who was -- who he was and why think you did it and things we do and don't know about it that nothing was more important to me than to tell these human stories about what it was like to live in america then. with the president went through what jackie kennedy went through with the families went through what america went through. i think it's the saddest story that i have ever written about. it is as or more sad than the story of the assassination of abraham lincoln.

there's also inspiration inspiration at the end too. about a year after the assassination after jackie gave her televised tribute to the people, not really televised. it was just a two or three minute statement trade she was sitting in attorney general robert kennedy's office in a club chair and there was a fire in the fireplace. she had received 800,000 letters and they will all be answered. they will be in the kennedy library one day. one thing i did discover and i put in the book is jackie scathing letter where she wants to take back all the president stuff from harvard and the library and send it to ireland or washington. there was a big risk between her and the kennedy library and she said i should take it all back. jack and bobby would be laughing in heaven if i did this to the harvard corporation. but during her thanks to the

american people she just stops and out of nowhere she just says all his bright bright light gone from the world. a year later in a magazine she talked about his legacy. she said i remember him as he told me when he was a little boy , sick so much of the time. he was ill. john kennedy almost died at several points in his life not just during world war ii when his ship had sunk. he was often import health. jackie says i think of them as this little lloyd in bed sick rating -- reading about great heroes and its inspired him to be something. she said i hope other children will do what he wanted to do and read these books and these great american stories. and then she said at the end my husband believed that any man could make a difference and that

every man should try. and so certainly that is i think ultimately the message of john kennedy's life and what which is why i tell in obsessive detail what happened in dallas. i don't want to end with that terry the book goes on with his legacy. john kennedy was a great president who loved america who believed in american exceptionalism and american greatness. he loved the american story and he could communicate that in an enthusiastic way. probably his greatest trade was he could inspire or motivate others to do things to serve their country. and so i certainly hope just as with my books about the lincoln assassination and john wilkes-booth by the time young adults and audiences get to these books you will realize that heroes are not john wilkes-booth racist murderer who killed one of the best american

presidents ever and one of the greatest americans of all time. the heroes are not the cypher man lee harvey oswald. the heroes of my books and these two books are certainly john kennedy jacqueline kennedy and the story they wrote from the brief time from january 20, 1961 until november 22, 1963. so with that i thank you and you can ask some questions if you like. [applause] there is a microphone in the back of the room. please go to that microphone.

just tip it towards you. >> can you hear me? >> yes, i can hear you fine. >> the security surrounding kennedy of course gets a lot of attention with conspiracy theories. was that unusual for the time or was it typical of dallas? a few days later obviously security is surrounding oswald was poor enough to let ruby near him. i'm just wondering at what point did they start learning about security? >> it took a long time. no lessons were learned after the murder of abraham lincoln and public figures including president kennedy were not properly protected even into the 1960s. one time he was traveling in a motorcade and someone tossed a bouquet of flowers in his car. what if it was a hand grenade or a stick of dynamite? recordings conspiracies those secret service agents and i've met a number of them, they loved

him. it's inconceivable that any of them would have participated in any conspiracy to murder the president. some theorists defamed them but it's not true. unfortunately security was not then what it is like today. then the president had one limousine. today the president has three two decoys and the one he is really an all identical. you would never find a president in an open car convertible or walking about in public. it was a different time. i can explain why it was that way because people have tried to kill harry truman in an armed attack at the warehouse when the white house was being renovated. porter weekend nationalist terrorist opened fire in the 1950s and shot five congressman. the bullet holes are still in the furniture of the u.s. house of representatives. franklin roosevelt was almost assassinated when he was president he was president-elect

with the mayor of chicago took bullets and roosevelt survive. we have had enough examples that security was not good but it was just a different time. kennedy didn't have any were security than was typical for american leaders of the late 1950s or early 1960s. it was unfortunate because so many things -- if a few things had gone differently that day he would have survived that day. >> a couple of questions. one which ties in with a security issue. there were stories and i can't remember at what point in time but about the secret service having been out the night before in some of the clubs similar to the one that jack ruby brand getting drunk so they really weren't prepared on the 22nd and maybe you could comment on that. >> i have heard those stories and they had been mentioned as early as 1963. what were the agents doing? were they out carousing? all i know is this.

no carousing prevented two agents from standing on the back of the president's limousine which would have blocked a oswald's main angle. the president didn't want them there so anything they might have done the night before did not interfere with having them stand on the back of the car. >> to tie in with that i was a little older than you were at the time and i remember vividly a couple of weeks before hearing about the adlai stevenson incident and i think the fears that they had for the president having the dallas dallas newspaper ad and so forth i think the mentality at that time was that there be an incident similar to the adlai stevenson incident. >> yes. what you are referring to is when two-term presidential candidate kennedy's ambassador to the united states adlai stevenson went to dallas and he was harassed and heckled by a crowd. a woman allegedly hit him in the head with a protest sign.

kennedy was warned dallas is against you. it's a city of hate. the conservatives of the right-wing are after you. chief justice oral warrant blamed conservatives in his intemperate remarks at the u.s. capital at the memorial for president kennedy. jackie kennedy didn't lame the city of hate. she didn't blame dallas. she didn't blame the conservatives. she didn't lame the right wing. in fact the night of the assassination when she was at bethesda naval hospital awaiting the autopsy and the embalming of the president she said to her mother, i can't believe it was just a silly little communist. he didn't even have the satisfaction of dying for civil rights. but you are right. for years people blamed dallas as the city of hate. the political divisiveness that somehow killed kennedy.

>> if i could ask one final question because it ties in with the lincoln books as well. i remember one of the first things after the four days had passed was hearing as a schoolchild the similarities between the kennedy assassination and lincoln. it goes on and on and i'm just wondering if all those things were in fact true or what you discovered about that and also he thought about writing a book. everybody in this room that is about this age has a very distinct memory as you set up what happened and maybe putting those stories together for a book on the letters to jackie kennedy? >> the summaries i will talk to you about the fleet. how many letters are in their names and where were they killed there were trivial connection so i didn't pursue them. i'm doing two books. i'm doing a children's book on martin luther king and thinking of doing a jackie kennedy both. i am definitely doing a book on

dr. king and i might do a book on jackie kennedy. anyone else? thank you very much. [applause] .. >> that was james swanson, author of "the president has been shot" from the 2013 southern festival of books. ..