as -- that security has been achieved. now pakistan needs to trade in the neighborhood, address its economic dysfunction, make sure that pakistan's population doesn't continue to rise at a pace much faster than the pace of its economic growth. none of those things can be addressed just by building relations between an american military personnel in and pakistan superpower. >> the four pakistani ambassador to the u.s. on the english of pakistan and american relations sunday night at 9 p.m. on "after words." just part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> maura mcenaney recounts the life of the late entrepreneur willard garvey, the finance housing projects throughout the world and championed privatization and a limited government. this is about half an hour.

>> hi, everybody. thank you, harvey. thank you, gail, thanks everybody for coming today. dolled way that finger at me last night it makes me -- but it's enthusiastic and that's good. i wanted to thank harvey. he really was the reporters dream. he was always available when it came to talk to them. he had a great memory. and pleasant the and he told me he liked the book last night i want to thank patty brown who helped put this together. this is really the big show in wichita, i've got together. going to the rotary, going to the rotary. [laughter] so i am here at the big show and happy to be here, let me tell you. we have special guest today, i want to thank them, great deal of the independent institute and liberty free press. they are the publishers of this book are i appreciate the hard

work that they did to make this book at the end of the effort made to be with us today. to thank you, guys. and thanks to the front row. always ever so bored. always, always supportive and toby i could do it even when it seemed like i didn't want to do it anymore. it came to be some happy to share some of it with you today. but i also bring greetings from medford massachusetts rotary, which is medford is about five miles north of boston. as it turned out its population is about 55,000, and when i was writing this book i sublease a 10 by 10 office space from a local architect who was, in fact, a one term rotary president and now he is signing up for a second term. he told me before game i told him us coming to speak to one of the most prestigious and oldest and certainly friendliest i know rhodri's in wichita may be

bigger, he said keep it short. these people are on their lunch break. [laughter] but i did hear an awful lot and i'm glad you guys don't -- willard garvey didn't know how to keep it short. i think some of you enjoy that as well. but he was a faithful rotarian for more than 50 years, and this was his club. he joined rotary in 1950 and you could usually find in your without fail on monday. he was out of tow town and he on made it a point to visit with other rotary clubs like we had today. and around different cities in the united states. willard really loved rotary and became clear to all the speeches that he had come and have two books of speeches that were to indicate an awful give an awful lot of speeches here at rotary. i know in july 2000 in this group gave him the service above self abort, and do something i know that a lot to him and his family members that are here today. i just want to get an idea of

going to be without you. just for kicks, how many of you new willard or thought you knew him? okay, so that's a good crowd. i came to find a really that he was many things to many people. the book tried to capture some of his many facets of his epic life, as would have, sor sort is a man with epic ideas. he had epic ambitions and he had epic achievements. when friends asked me to tell him the story, i'm from back east and when friends told him to tell me the story, i did know how to describe it put the pics i told him he was sort of a sophisticated forrest gump character who witnessed and experienced key moments in american and world history. and because willard had such a worldly character and was so involved with so many different facets of business and life, i needed to move them through history so i sort of do that. in the book we learn about the pioneering spirit of willard's

ancestors, the angst of the great depression and the dirty \30{l1}s{l0}\'30{l1}s{l0} area. talks about the uncertainties of war on the family and community, and the common scare in the 20th century, among other things. so this book is really not only a story of willard's life, it's an american story and it seems to the eyes of an independent kansas entrepreneur. now, willard came from some pretty good stock. he was the oldest son and the second of four children, the moguls who are in the kansas business hall of fame out in topeka. his parents had their own passing histories and a touch upon some of that in the book. but willard started his life, he lived for eight years in colby kansas which is about 290 miles north and west of your i think, if i got that right. and what his father launched a massive week and farming

business. in 1928, most at the urging -- she thought the children needed but it's going a little bit more of an urban environment. so he came here in 1928. he state your computer a system here and he died your in 2002. willard like to say he loved wichita because it was the furthest they could get from both coasts. [laughter] some of you might feel that way, too. but it was his love for this community and get back in here and elsewhere went well beyond that. as head of garvey industries and its subsidiaries, would war many hats. but he called himself a builder. and if you look around town, you can see that he did just that. he began building a small world war ii britcoms that you see an

apartment around town for returning veterans. he went on to build bigger developments like the commercial properties, like park lane which was one of the first shopping plazas in wichita. in the late 1980s he had a vision, or maybe he was crazy enough, the only one crazy enough to build downtown's tallest building with the hope that it would become a beacon for downtown revitalization. he lost the building and something like $5 million in the process, like two years after it was built, but he never regretted building the project. and northern nevada where i first ran across him working in my first newspaper job right out of college, that's another story, but willard was a rancher who spoke out against the bureau of land management, and to build the state's largest private dam and reservoir creating a valuable resource for his lance

in the process. is really a beautiful place today. he gaveled in the newspaper and television business, and a host of other investments that grabbed his attention along the way including something like a flour mill in trinidad. wing fears of creeping communism became a global focus in the early 1960s, he launched a project called world home, and innovative overseas housing project in third world countries such as peru, india, mexico and bolivia. what he wanted to do their, he felt if you make people capital s. you would help thwart communism. he set out, the program's model was to make every man a capitalist, every man a homeowner. and just an aside on the, wichita state university has an amazing collection of the world homes documents. there's 100 boxes of documents over there that are stored in a salt mine in hutchison kansas

and it's an amazing resource of what willard did in many, many countries around the world. i only use a few exams of departure some things he was going to at that time. to some industry, willard garvey was an employer, i'm not always an easy man to work for, right, harvey? [laughter] a philanthropist. he was a strict father, or a commanding grandfather. he was most certainly a devoted husband who would check in with his beautiful wife every day at 5:30 on his way home from work to see if you need anything for him to pick up on his way home. some female disagree with his anti-government views, and walk the other way when they saw him coming. you know who you are. [laughter] .wav those fingers again. [laughter] others saw him as a profiteering businessman who criticize government, yet welcomed federal

money programs that would support his project. what willard would say it's in response to is what his father said, we operate under the program, we don't set it. newspaper readers may have cringed when i saw his caustic letters to the editor about socialist public schools. he launched to private schools here in town, one collegiate, and later the independent school. i was just out there and have a beautiful new football field. is getting closer and closer and closer to the garfield. it's a beautiful thing. it's nice to see it going so well, but he was never too busy for wichita. he headed up campaigns to stop upon issues for public projects such as the new jail, and he thought any and all new taxes. most news stories about his efforts begin with the word, millionaire willard garvey is

opposing -- or proposing. but to others willard really epitomized the spirit of kansas. he was a true entrepreneur who could spit out ideas rapidfire. there was put a fish bar in grain elevators or tv program to teach people how to train dogs long before others came along. or even let's start our own country. our own country. and that's again -- bobwhite, an executive at garvey said to me, willard had 10,000 right is an the time you d put them in acti. there was another story that bob page told, he introduced himself to group of people wants and he said, much of each month is to get 30 or 31 ideas that willard garvey has thrown out and get rid of 29 of them. [laughter] so i mean, this guy was like -- but he wants his best ideas to

come back to wichita. he wanted to make it a model city, to be quote admired and imitated by communities elsewhere as the best place to work, raise a family and enjoy life. so whether you loved him or hated him it was a blue or about willard garvey. and i tried to provide a sampling of in the book. many people knew that willard was an avid swimmer. he was a great can trigger to the ymca programs and helped start the wichita swim club. willard was actually a championship swimmer who swam competitively while in london during world war ii, and every day into his 80s. so if we're going to say back to the forrest gump analogy instead of run forrest run, it would be swim, willard, swim. there were stories of wet bathing suits in suitcases with today's i heard. [laughter] there was water.

he was really an exhaustive traveler with influential friends, including knighted and investment giant sir john templeton and prominent families in town including the beaches, the coax, the less, parents of friends of people in this area rybicki like to talk about people he knew -- including the exclusive bohemian club in california. he would run around talking with everyone. willard of to brag about the people that he met. and from the stories i've heard, he was a downright hazardous driver. [laughter] and definitely a worst pilot. i thought about a title, why stop at ready, because apparently red lights and willard didn't really a great. [laughter] -- agree. i'm sure i'll do some stories

after this, but he was a fantastic dancer. he once landed himself in april after once too many exhibits steps close to the edge. he went home and changed into a new tuxedo. one person tells a story and to don't really know, and then i told at a meeting and someone stood up and said, i was at that party last night and last night, she said she was home last night she was home when working mom with a wet tax. but there's a lot to remember of that willard here at the rotary. you know that fast talking fell in the back to get dozens of speeches to this group over the years and later stood up under the guise of asking a secret question. and then going on and on and on and on. [laughter] and always about the same thing. martin reminded me of this and

how he would slink down in his chair when willard would get up last night here's a sample of a soundbite in one of his talks to this very wichita club. it should set them up to those of you who follow the willard. [inaudible] ..

>> from the dusty desert where i first met him when i came to know his daughter, julie, and all the members of his family. but it was a romance with the flatlands. i came to kansas again and again and again to talk with some of you, and some have passed on. people we have been here too, architect sid plath, craig minor, willard's sister, ruth garvey in topeka and, of course,

jean, who left us ten months ago. and i was so happy to get their voices down. but with each trip i came to fall in love with that warm wind that blows incessantly on a hot summer night, the long whistle of freight trains but not the backup before they built the overpass. [laughter] and the sight of that mile-long grain elevator built by ray garvey. on one of these trips out to jean's house, a friend and i had unearthed a collection of letters that willard had save inside a trunk somewhere, and they were letters from his high school days and from world war ii, and, you know, we found them in his home, and it turned out to be an amazing resource. not only of a young man pushed into adult world of war, but really a window into his parents' pain and worry and longing for a child at war and ca -- and a city hoping to deal with an exodus of -- coping to

deal with an exodus of young men. by august of 942, will adder was report -- willard was promoted to first lieutenant. congratulating him on the promotion, his father said i think you have the temperament and ambition to be a fine officer and soldier. they were not easy words for ray garvey to write. it was easier perhaps for ray to write about the businesses, the 21 little duplexes and 56 houses he was building that fall. with so much effort and materials being diverted to the war, ray could feel the pinch on his own businesses. the labor problem is getting quite critical, he said. we have plenty of carpenters, but water lines are hard to get. the story on the farms was similar. it is getting a little wit more

difficult -- bit more difficult all the time to get competent help, he wrote. all the men left behind were either too old or too young. but as will articled's departure -- willard's departure overseas drew near, ray swallowed hard. you mentioned once perhaps you ought to make a will, he wrote. i am sending a couple of forms. if you wish to send it home, you can put it in the family safety deposit boxes. with best wishes, sincerely, pop. and there were so many beautiful examples of that and of emotions coming out very slowly in the way that ray garvey could do it. the army was really the place where willard got his first case of bureaucracy, and i think it really affected him for most of his life. [laughter] i'm glad you laugh at that. so i had a lot of his copies -- letters back to his mother, and he wasn't content for long, and

the army took a lot of tests, and he would be an administrator, and he would write that he was unhappy, and he didn't like it. so he wrote about his discouragement with the army bureaucracy. it was here in the war that willard developed his an moss my for -- animosity for wanton government spending. those parasites are self-generating and vicious. so he was saying it when he was in his 20s, you know? after the war he came back to wichita, and he married jean. he called that his best partnership ever. and their romance was well documented around town. jean got fixed up with willard on a blind date, and she saw him in his uniform. he was a major when he got out of the war, and she said her heart skipped a beat. they went out on a date, she said he was the most fantastic dancer, and they started talking about marriage on the second date. and in jean, willard found the

perfect partner. friends and family say she was the one who softened so many of willard's edges. she attended family business meetings and came to understand the inner workings of the successful garvey companies. she reflected her husband's energy and enthusiasm at every step of the way. it was jean who made willard more tolerable. [laughter] and willard, jean found a worldly, driven, good looking and athletic man who idolized his parents, valued his siblings and believe in american production and liberty. he was also reliable. after day of roughing up people in the office floating out dozens of new ideas, barking out challenges, willard would call jean every evening at 5:30 to

ask her if she needed him to pick up anything on the way home. they would have dinner together every night. so theirs was a beautiful partnership in, many ways. sure, he made a lot of money, but he wasn't always motivated by profit. willard's ability to overlook the bottom line was a small detail that used to make his father and siblings kind of angry, and we learn about that in the chapter about world homes. he called that his single best ideas. he lost millions but took great pride in helping people have affordable housing in places like peru. there's a plaque dedicated to willard garvey for providing housing in that community, and jean got to see it. she went on a trip to see it, and they gave her a little reception there. sid plath, who i fell in love with when i was interviewing him, a delightful man at age 90, said willard built because he

had to build. he had to build. and he may have been an international businessman, but wichita was really where willard chose to make all the difference. one more reading. despite pursuits in faraway places such as peru, the south pacific and the wilds of nevada, willard garvey did his most influential work in the city along the kansas river. where you are is all that count, he once said. you cannot solve problems in a vicinity where you are not. if you will solve the problems where you are, if each person will help their neighbor, all problems disappear because they are solved. that's a lot of what you guys try to do. he was accused for his anti-government standards, he said i can look down onty hall there the sidewalk. on city hall from the sidewalk. [laughter] that's good, that's good. good job.

[laughter] but he also offered solutions, you know? something we don't see today, i think, you know? here's a guy that he was dissatisfied, but he came up with an alternative. and he didn't want a bond issue to be built to the jail in 1986 because he thought the proposal was too expensive, and he urged voters to turn it down because he could build a different design for less. do we hear business people trying to do that kind of thing in their communities today? here's another example of one of willard's long-standing ideas, one in which many people here may agree with today. >> [inaudible] city hall, put the money they save -- and see where the cost cutting occurs. or why p don't -- [inaudible]

[laughter] >> so when he'd get on that horse, willard would often back up his arguments. oops, okay. he'd back up his arguments with statistics and figures, and it could turn your head around. i watched a video of his debate over the jail, and it was a sunday morning thing, and he was throwing out numbers and, you know, we could save this amount of money, and i had to put it on real slow about ten times before i could hear what he was saying. so from that speech we heard in 1969 to the long-winded questions that some of you endured here at rotary, willard garvey never gawf up his fight finish gave up his fight against the government. in 1999 jean and willard went to the newseum in washington, d.c., it's a museum for news, and couldn't resist the chance to do a little skit of their own when

offered a chance to play reporter in front of a white house backdrop. see if i can get this. ♪ ♪/. ♪ ♪ >> [inaudible] >> good even, i'm jean garvey. i have just one question for you, mr. garvey: why are you at the white house today? >> i'm willard garvey, and as you know, after a -- [inaudible] they've just completed the privatization of the united

states government -- [laughter] [inaudible] over these 60 years of continuing growth in government -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> so they even cut him off, right? [laughter] he was ready to go for another 20 minutes. that was a fun thing to find. it really was hard charging up until about a year before he died. he launched -- oops, he launched the president's college school of law, another idea that he first floated in 1960. so he launched the school of law, and it was an idea that he first had in, like, the '60s to give business people a better understanding of the law. he helped build -- he started that and then ran into financial trouble, and after he passed, it merged with friends university which is now the garvey school

of law at friends university. we ran into dixie, and she's just so excited over there in this program. so it's another thing that willard put his mark on. and, of course, the football field out at independence is looking beautiful, so he never really stopped building even up to his last days. one more reading. of -- so for some it wasn't just what he was saying that was so important, it was that he took the time the say anything at all. mayor bob knight certainly withstood his share of ire with garvey in person and in print. why does wichita mayor bob knight as the person responsible and accountable for city hall confirm again and again that city hall is a cheat, willard wrote to the newspaper in protest over the plan for a new

downtown tax district. bob told me we didn't agree on fundamental political values, and yet years after willard's death, he believes both he and wichita have lost something significant. willard had enormous resources p and he could have taken an easier path noting that far i have purposely chose to focus on the minutiae of local government. be how he pressed him in other candidates to sign no-tax pledges and how he always, always spoke up about his mistrust of government and was a passionate defender of his freedom. this wichita he was a good citizen, bob said, you know, he was a good citizen, and i think that's something we need to take away. garvey is branded on a host of buildings and programs. he took the motto of self-service to heart, and i think there's a lesson in there all for us. thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for the interest in this book.

[applause] >> [inaudible] >> does anybody have any questions? don't wave those fingers at me. [laughter] no questions. harvey has one. >> i think you did an excellent job of. [inaudible] [laughter] >> thank you. thank you, everyone. >> there's a question here, maura. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> well, my question was what's the best story you didn't print? >> [inaudible] the best story i didn't print. i don't know, i think i got the good ones in there, i gotta tell you. sorry.