to that shark to get but you want. in my case with diplomacy, a political prisoner or cease-fire for bringing peace or humanitarian work, but it is a fun book because i had a good ghostwriter who worked for the daily show. kevin brier is right in the back. it is a fun read. and i am teaching, writing books, consulting, giving speeches, people are paying me to give my boring >>. >> host: any changes the political office for you? >> guest: never say never. i am happy with what i'm doing as a private citizen. >> host: how do you use humor when you approach the north koreans? >> guest: you use humor to make the other side at ease.

most dictators are very formal. they try to intimidate you. there have been times i will kid somebody about their reputation. you are known for torturing people. so i will say where do you cut all the fingernails of? where are the prisons? they look at me and the there wants to kill me or laugh and generally you make them at ease. they laugh a bit. that is what i am all about, connecting with the other side. >> host: a few minutes with governor bill richardson, how to sweet talk a shark, here is the name of the book. you are watching booktv on c-span2. >> maura mcenaney recounts the life of the late entrepreneur willard garvey who financed housing projects throughout the world and champion of privatization and limited government. this is about half an hour.

>> hi, everybody, thank you, harvey, thank you, dale, thanks to everyone for coming today. waive that finger at me makes me a little crazy. it is enthusiastic and that is good. i wanted to thank harvey too. he was a reporter's dream, was always available when i came to talk to him, had a great memory and told me he liked the book. i want to thank patty brown who helped put this together. this is the big show in wichita. you are going to rotary, going to rotary. i am here at the big show and happy to be here. we have special guests today, mary and david thoreau. of the independent institute and liberty tree process, the publishers of this book, i appreciate the hard book they did to make this book happen and i know the effort they made to be with us today so thank you

guys and thanks to the plan in the front row. ever supportive, always supportive and told me i could do it even when it seemed i didn't want to do it anymore and it came to be so i am happy to share with you today but also bring greetings from medford, mass. rotary which is medford is about five miles north of boston. as it turned out, a population of about 55,000 and when i was writing this book, a 10 x 10 office space for a local architect who was a 1-term rotary president and now signing up for a second term so he told me before i came to speak to one of the most prestigious and oldest. rotary's in wichita, may be bigger. keep it short. these people are on their lunch break. i did hear a lot and glad to

hear you find each other the way those groups do. willard -- willard garvey didn't know how to keep it short. some of you in toward that as well but he was a faithful rotarian for 50 years and this was his quote. you could usually find him here without bail on monday. if he was out of town he often made a point to visit with the rotary clubs like we had today and around different cities in the united states. he really loved rotary and all the speeches he had, and gave an awful lot of speeches at rotary. this group gave him the service above self award and was something that meant a lot to him. i want to get an idea who you are dealing with, in case you

thought you new willard. i came to find out he was many things to many people. the book tried to capture many facets of his epochal life as willard was a man of epic ideas, epic ambitions and at the achievements. when friends asked me to tell them a story, going back east about a man i was writing about, i didn't know how to describe it quickly so i told him he was a sophisticated forest gump character who witness stand experienced key moments in world history. because willard had such a world lead character and was involved in different facets of business and like i needed to move him through history so i did that. in the book we learn about the pioneer spirit of willard's ancestors, the tanks of the great depression and the 30s

era, talk about the uncertainties of war, the family and the community and the communist scare of the 20th century among many things so this book is not only a story of willard's like but an american story seen through the eyes of a kansas entrepreneur. willard came from pretty good stock, the oldest son and a second of tweet for children born to rain and olive garvey, the elevator mobil's in the kansas business hall of fame in topeka. they had their own fascinating histories and a touch on that in the book. he started his life, live eight years in colby, kan. 290 miles northwest of here if i got that right and his father launched a massive wheat and army business, at the urging of olive they

brought the family to wichita, that children needed better schooling and more urban environment so he came here in 1928, stayed here, raised his family here and died here in 2002. willard liked to say he loved wichita because it was the furthest he could get from both coasts. some of you might feel that way too. but it was his love for this community and the impact he had here and elsewhere that went beyond that. as head of garvey industries and its subsidiary builders, petroleum, garvey international to name a few, he wore many hats but called himself a builder and if you look around town you can see that he did just that began building in a small world war ii brick home you see and apartments around town, returning veterans, he went on to bigger developments like out

east and commercial properties, one of the first shopping plazas in wichita. and in the late 1980s he had a vision or maybe he was crazy enough to build the epic center, downtown's tallest building with the hope it would become a beacon for downtown revitalization, he lost the building and something like $5 million in the process two years after it was built but never regretted building a new project. in northern nevada where i first ran across him working in my first newspaper job out of college, that is another story, willard was a rancher who broke out against the bureau of land management and billed the state's largest private dam and reservoir created a valuable resource for his land in the process, a beautiful place. he dabbled in the newspaper and television business and a host

of other investments that grabs his attention along the way including something like a flower mill in trinidad. i wonder if you ever got an exchange from trinidad. when fiers of creeping communism became a global focus in the 1960s he launched world home, innovative oversees housing project in third-world countries like peru, india, mexico and bolivia. what he wanted to do if he felt you make people capitalists you would help force communism and he set out, his program's motto was to make every man a capitalist, every man a homeowner. wichita state university has an amazing collection of world's homes, documents, 100 boxes of documents that are stored in a salt mine in hutchinson, kan. and an amazing resources of what willard did in many countries

around world. i only use a few examples to show the things he was going through at that time. to some in this room willard garvey was an employer but not an easy man to work for. a philanthropists, he was a strict father, 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 she needed anything for him to pick up on the way home. some vehemently disagreed with his anti-government views and walked the other way when they saw him coming. you know who you are. don't way of those fingers again. others saw him as a profiteering businessman who criticize government yet welcomed federal money to programs that would

support his project. is pay creditors cringe about letters that said socialist public-school. he chose to support and launch tweet to private schools in town, one collegiate and others and later the independent school with jean leading the way on that effort and in the front yard out east. i was just out there and a beautiful new football field getting closer and closer to the garvey home. nice to see it going so well. he was never too busy for wichita. he headed up campaigns to stop bond issues for public projects like the new jail and he fought any and all new taxes, most news stories about his efforts began with the word millionaire willard garvey is opposing, or

proposing. others eat pmi is the spirit of kansas. he was the true entrepreneur who could spin out ideas rapid-fire. put a fish farm in grain elevators or t program to teach people to train dogs long before caesar milan came along or start our own country, our own country. bobwhite, executive at garvey said willard had 10,000 more ideas in the time he had to put into action and another story that bob page told, to introduce himself to a group of people, my job each month is to pick 30 or 31 ideas willard garvey has thrown out and get rid of 29 of them. this guy was like -- he wanted his best ideas to come back to wichita, wanted to make a model city to be, quote, admired and

imitated by communities elsewhere at the best place to work, raise a family and enjoy life so whether you loved him or hated him there was a lower about willard garvey and i try to provide a sampling of in the book. many new willard was an avid swimmer, a great contributor to the ymca program and started the wichita swim club. willard was a championship swimmer who swam competitively in london in world war ii and every day into his 80s. if we were going to go back to the forest gump analogy it would be swim willard swim. there were stories of wet bathing suits and briefcases with to pays that i heard, squishy steps across the floor at home, the water in willard -- he was really an exhaustive traveler with influential

friends including knighted investment giant stirred john templeton and prominent families in town including the beaches and leaders of wichita aviation fame, the kochs, parents and friends of people in this room. liked to talk about people and the places he had been and the inclusive bohemian club in california. he would run around talking with everybody, al new heart of usa today, british actor david niven beloved to brag about the people he met. from the stories he was a downright hazardous driver and definitely a worse time but. i thought about a title, why stop at red? apparently red lights and willard didn't really agree. i am sure i will hear some stories after this. but he was a fantastic dancer who once landed himself in a

cool after one too many exuberance that close to the edge. then he went home and changed into a new tuxedo prompting the other guests at a party to assume willard was the only man in town with two tuxes. i wasn't sure that was true. one person tells you a story you don't know and i told that the y p o meeting and someone said i was at that party. .. from one of his talks to this

very which don't let their patients unfamiliar to those of you who followed him. [inaudible] it frustrates the ordinary citizen. i plan to emphasize what you and i can do to solve this problem. a project starting locally. economically, government spending is out of control. there is no concerted effort by anyone. [inaudible] >> sound familiar? [laughter] >> here's the thing. that clip was from 1969. that was 44 years ago.

willard like to say that he was a voice in the wilderness, for some 50 or 60 years and it took the rest of the world that want to catch up. in order to write this story of a man i didn't know i had to start your in chandler. here i found a romance that was a different from what i found from the dusty desert when i first met him. when i came to know his daughter, julie, and laid all the members of his family that 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, barren architects, said platt, a prolific historic minor. willard's sister into big and, of course, gene who left us 10 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's night, along with the whistles of the freight train. but not where they built the overpass. and the site of the mile line -- mile-long grain elevator built by willard garvey. on one trip a friend and i unearthed a collection of letters that would have saved in the trunk somewhere and they were his nails and letters from high school days. we found them in his home and it turned out to be an amazing resource. it turned out to be not only young men push into adult world of war but also a winner of his parents paying and a child -- i have the reading on that. by august 1942, willard was

promoted to first lieutenant and that file headed to adjutant general school in maryland. you will go through ranks like these like eagle scouts i imagine his father wrote, congratulating him on the promotion. i think at the temperament, ability and ambition to be and will be a fine officer and soldier. they were not easy words to write even though he knew them to be true. it was easier perhaps for ray to write about the businesses of 21 the duplexes and 86 houses he was building that fall for the 20 four-plex just complete south of wichita's kellogg avenue. with so much effort and material of our to work, ray could feel the pinch on his own businesses. the labor problem is getting quite critical, he said. we have played as carpenters but only three or four laborers. materials are hard to get. the story on the farms was similar. it is getting more difficult all the time to get competent help, he wrote, since the war was taking all the young men, those

left behind were either too old or too young. but as willard's departure overseas grew near, ray swallowed hard before writing his son your he mentioned once that perhaps you ought to make a will, he wrote. i am sending a couple of forms in case you wish to do it now. if you wish to send it home, we can put it in the family safety deposit box. he signed off like it did so many of his letters, with best wishes, sincerely, pop. there were so many beautiful the couples of that and 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 taste of bureaucracy but i think it really affected him for most of his life. [laughter] i'm glad you laughed at that. so i had a lot of his letters back to his mother and he was not content. he would write he was unhappy,

he didn't like it. he wrote to his parents about his discouragement with the army bureaucracy and its continued russell says over his job. it was here in the weather will develop animosity for one government spending. i want to see someone in a government who will cut out 90% of the bureaus and departments he told his parents, those parasites are self generating and vicious. so he wrote -- he was saying it when he was in his 20s. after the war he came back to wichita and he married jean. take all that is best partnership ever. the romance is well documented around town. gene got fixed up with willard oon a blind date, and she saw hm in his uniform. he was a major when he got out of the war and became assistant and she said her heart skipped a beat. they went out on a day. she said he was the most fantastic dancer she had ever seen, 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 soften so many of his rough edges. she attended family business meeting and can't understand the inner workings of the successful garvey companies. she got involved in a host of projects and reflected her husband energy and enthusiasm at every step of the way. it was jean, observers say, who often made willard more tolerable. [laughter] you know who you are there, too. [laughter] in willard, gene found a worldly, driven, good looking and athletic man who idolized his parents, valued his siblings and delete an american production and liberty. he was also reliable. after a day of roughing up people in the office, floating out new ideas, working out new ideas, willard would call jean every evening at 5:30 to see if she needed him to pick up anything on. he would come in and give her a

big smooch and have dinner together every night. theirs was a beautiful partnership in many, 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 the use to make his father and siblings kind of angry. and you learn about that and some of the chapter about world homes. you call that a single best idea. he lost millions on the project but took great pride in having to help people have afford a house in peru and places like that. in a neighborhood in lima peru there is a plaque dedicated to willard garvey for providing housing to people in that community. jean got to see. see. she would get sick and they gave her a reception. the late ethics an architect said platt who i fell in love with was interviewing him, a delightful man at age 91 i talked to him said willard built because he had to build. he had to build. and he made an international businessman but wichita was

really where willard chose to make all the difference. one more. despite pursuits in faraway places such as the root, the south pacific and the wild in the vatican willard garvey did his most influential work in the city along the kansas river. where you are is all you count, you can also problems that are in the vicinity where you're not. if you will solve the problems we are, each person will help their neighbors all the problems are he is, all problems disappear because they are solved. a lot of what you guys try to do. willard was known for his antigovernment stances and he said someone asked about how was going to feel to look down on city hall from the ethics and and he said i could look down at city hall from the sidewalk. [laughter] that's good. good job. but he also offered solutions. something we don't see today i think the here's a guy, he was

dissatisfied but he came up with an alternative, and he didn't want a bond issue to bill for the new jail in 1986 because he thought the proposal was too expensive and urge voters to turn down because he said he could build a different design for much less. do hear of many people, this is people take it time to that kind of thing in their communities today? here is another example of one of willard's long-standing ideas, one in which many people here may agree with today. [inaudible]

>> so what he did on that horse, he would often back up his arguments. we will do it again. he backed up his argument with statistics and figures. if you turn your head around. i watched a video of this debate over the jailed and it was a sunday morning thing and he's throwing out numbers. he would say this about the money and that amount of money. i had to put on real slow about 10 times before i can hear what he was saying. so from that speech we heard in 1969 to long winded questions some of you endured here at rotary, willard garvey never gave up his fight against the government, it could make it as fun to do so as well. in 1999, gene and willard went to the museum in washington, d.c., the newseum for news coming 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 act drop.

see if you guys get this. ♪ ♪ [inaudible] >> spent i am jean garvey. i have one question for you, mr. carter. why are you at the white house today? >> as you know, after my campaign -- [inaudible] [laughter]

[applause] >> so they even cut him off, right? he wished to go for another 20 minutes. that was a fun thing to find. willard was hardcharging let up until about a year before he died. he launched -- he launched the president's college school of law, another idea he first floated in 1960. so he launched the president's college school of law, and i did it first had him 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 the university which now the garvey institute of law. we ran into dixie while i was there earlier and she was so excited because they are so

excited over there in this program. it's another thing that willard put his mark on. and, of course, the football field is just looking beautiful. he never really stopped building even up to his last days. one more reading. so, for some it wasn't just what he was saying that was so important. it was that he took the time to say anything at all. seven term republican mayor night withstood his share of fire from willard garvey in person and in print as evidence in one of his last letters to the editors, a following of which could be written in the book. why does wichita mayor bob knight as the person responsible and accountable for city hall confirmed again and again that city hall is a cheat, willard road, the newspaper in march 2001 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 and they could've taken in egypt have, noting that garvey purposely chose to focus on the minutia of local government. the former mayor can still go willard's voice that tells me so depressed him and 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 the freedom. and wichita he was a good citizen, bob said. and i think of something we need to take away. in wichita, the name garvey is brandished on buildings, athletic facilities and a host of educational facilities and programs. willard garvey to the service above self model too hard and whether you agreed or disagreed with him, i think there's a lesson in there all for us. take you for your opportunities become and thank you for the interest in this book. [applause]