deployed her childhood. they were genuine, but she knew had to use them politically. what was interesting was that she has someone neglected father . first not quite enough time. you become very busy. quite a big issue in her mind. we dad before. gilts. a particularly great respect for what her father had taught her. it's the sort of payback that he began it -- becomes is great figure. it was reflected reality.

>> that was depicted in the movie. she was always very conscientious. she always tried to manage your time very efficiently to do that. the truth is we all know that senior politicians have great trouble because they are distracted. a great problem with being in the public eye which is doubly a problem for the mother. particularly in those days says. people blame, much more children than bother. she blames herself more. no doubt that the high price is paid she wished she had spent more time with them.

she was absolutely driven to politics which was the first thing. if he had to sum it up, essentially the marriage fundamentally and a few problems but was successful and the mother had was much successful which would be something less she would actually acknowledged. could. >> your own sense of her place in history. again, fascinating when al haig was over in london. i think she showed as nelson and wellington, chamberlain and many others, this is not going to be 80's, munich, 1938, was her sense? >> guest: mrs. thatcher did not know history in any accurate way in did not have a strong historical mind but she had a

strong romantic a sense of history of britain and, like churchill, the english speaking people. and she has some idea to my romantic idea of the destiny of these people. this is really important. and i think the key to thatcherism is to do with an idea that only as doing something new, but a restoration, restoring certain values which are key to a western english speaking, particularly english speaking civilizations. churchill, nelson, it the first -- the accuracy, but it was very real, both true, and quite personal in their mind. she knew vast chunks by heart.

she is a romantic patriot as well as a rational communist. it. >> host: this is volume one. when can we expect to see it? >> i don't like being asked to tell you. so much so do. quite a lot, but there is more to do. i very much hope that, you know, within two years -- i don't like to put a precise time on it. >> what kind of working routine the you have? >> a regular one. i write and pile up and right. sometimes i might not be writing for months, but you cannot highlight everything and then write everything. you will forget it all. it is so much. unbearable and helpless and you forget it all. there is never a completely right time to write. i've made it quite fast and then go back to it later.

>> host: thank-you and really towards tv second installment. >> thank you. >> it is interesting to sit here and talk about how the republican party is less unified than the democratic party. o we talk about this historical the it is an interesting time to be studying this because for the first time in recent years rare senior republican party that is facing many troubles the democratic party base when they were tinkering with the reform process. >> the interplay of what happened, how candid it's dealt with what happened all really matter. more than the underlying scandal itself when it comes to these comebacks, especially if you're running in a context in which

you can present yourself as an abused -- part of an abused groups have used by the system, you can play that quite well. whether that is the case that jeff talked about or whether it is roy more in alabama, very effective in terms of an attack on christian conservatives, i think that is very much the case. >> this weekend this state of the national parties in a look at the scandals and political party saturday morning at 10:00 eastern. live sunday, calls and comments were talk-radio host marc levin, best-selling author and not -- nine nonfiction books at noon on book tv in depth. and we look back 15 years at the impeachment of president bill clinton.

>> next after words. it is the authorized biography of britain's only female prime minister. interviewing, tony harbin. this is an hour. >> host: i am just going to pretend that i am sitting by my fireplace at home with john talking a little bit about this book. it is -- it is such -- it was such a pleasure to work on, and people find that hard to believe because it is not an easy cain and writing a biography of a very famous leader on which everybody has an opinion and it on whom so much has been written already.

it is true that there are 2,683 books in that library of congress on simon bolivar. 90 percent of those are in spanish. i am lucky. this is an extraordinary life and one that was live in the largest sense, i mean, a canvas that is huge and stretches through most of south america. a life lived large in other ways . the very dramatic and commanding as a personality. he was called iron s by his soldiers because he wrote 75,000 miles to liberate the six countries that he liberated. eighty's and extraordinary physical feet to make nothing else, but he was also a man of

the enlightenment, someone who had been inspired at the end stage by reading the voltaire and month to skier and john locke and and came out of that experience and about 20, 21 with a passionate sense of his country, the colonial yoke that it suffered under. he was all for liberty and freedom. it greatly admired the united states, in many respects napoleon, although there were aspects of his -- of much of the napoleonic empire that he did not admire, but this was a man of flesh and blood. he was a great womanizer.

thirty-five mistresses that we can count. after his wife who was greatly beloved to him died, he was 19 years old and she went on to a pledge that he would never marry again, but that did not mean that he was not going to have a good time, and he did. he was a great dancer, loved music, said that he did his best thinking on the dance floor whereas others needed to be away from the above of life in order to get things pushed through. he felt that the ballroom was lots of pretty women and polkas and dancing was the perfect place three than not that he encountered, and he would go back in the middle of a dense,

all sort of happy and elated in sweating in the middle of it to back-to-back grumman dictate three letters at the time to three defense secretaries and in back to the ballroom again and saying more. i am also often asked why i chose to write about simon bolivar. i have to say come and my whole career as a writer. i have had a long career as an editor, but as a writer my career has been to try to exploit in latin america and latin americans to north americans and to english speakers which is not an easy task because there are great, great differences, great divides of personality, heart between north americans and south americans. but every single book that i

have written has been another brick and mild way say, in the edifice of trying to explain who we are and how different we may think from north americans. you may say as a by cultural person, and i see many faces, you also know if you are thinking with two heads and dealing with two hearts. and i wanted to get a sense of that other side. the latin-american side which is so different and the history is so different to north american english readers. end brad is right. i had always been captivated as a child. i was not a very well-behaved child. i was very often dragged by my collar to fit in my grandparents

living room which was dark and airless and filled with frightening porcelain and things like that, musty books. i was made to sit there in that dark chamber to contemplate my badness. and it it was -- ever remember it as being on a hard stool, although my end and god mother told me and it was hardly a hard stool. it was a big, soft, plush cushion the chair. i am not sure about memories, but it felt hard. i was made to look at the portraits that surrounded me. one to my right was -- i'm sorry, to my left was. [indiscernible]

, my great, great, great grandfather and had fought at the battle, an astonished brigadier-general, the first spaniard to charge and the first spaniard to fall. he was killed with a sword to his heart break away at the very beginning of the battle. on the right was a portrait of a beautiful young woman whose name was. [indiscernible] , and she was the daughter, but she had never met him, born a few weeks after that sort pierced his heart. and across from me was the rebel -- rebel general eventually married. and his name was. [indiscernible] he fought, charged down that hill.

and it managed to free peru and ended, by the way, with the peruvian freedom, all of spanish rule in latin america. so i always felt that even though i was sitting there being punished for being bad, rebellion was great, so over the yolk. i was fascinated ever since. this is a towering figure, and i wanted to give you a sense of that by reading some of what i have written about. by that time he a exactly 200 years ago in 1813, by the time he began his admirable campaigned in which he was not

known at all, he was beginning to be known in south america, but by the end of it, by the end of 1813 he was known around the world, in washington john quincy adams and james monroe agonized over whether they're fledgling nation founded on principles of liberty and freedom should support his struggles for independence. in london they signed on to fight for his cause. in a -- in italy they dreamed of immigrating. but there would be five more years before spain was the rest from latin american shores. fourteen more years. a 14 year war. there were 14 years of war, and

great bloodshed before spain was thrust from latin american shores. at the end one man was credited for a single handedly conceiving, organizing, and leading a population one-and-a-half times the length -- size of north america, the odds against which he thought, a formidable, established a world power, and i and trusted wilderness. there would have proved daunting to the ablest of generals. but bolivia had never been a soldier. no formal military training, yet with little more than well and genius he freed much of the spanish-american and laid out his dream for a unified constant despite all this he was a highly

imperfect man. filled with contradictions committee spoke eloquently about justice but was not always able to meet its out in the chaos of revolution. his romantic life and a way of spelling into the public realm. he had no patients for disagreements. he was single handedly incapable of losing a game of cards. hardly surprising that our the years that americans have learned to accept human imperfections in their leaders. bolivia -- "bolivar" taught them how. he was called the george washington of health -- south america, and there were good reasons why. they came from of the end

affluent families. both were heroic in war, but apprehensive about martial peace. and both resisted efforts to make themselves cain. both claimed to want to return to private life, but were dragged into the public sphere. there the similarities between george washington and simon bolivar end. he could not have one without the aid of black and indian troops.

his success in rallying races became the turning point in the war for independence. is there to say that he thought both the revolution in the civil war. but perhaps what really distinguishes man can be seen most of all in their written works. washington's words were measured , auguste, dignified, the product of a cautious indeliberate mind. his speeches and correspondence on the other hand remind me much more of thomas jefferson, fiery and passionate and elegant office and beautifully written. they represented some of the greatest writing in latin american. much was produced on the battlefields and on the run, clever but historically grounded , electric, but yet

deeply run, it is no exaggeration to say that the revolution changed the spanish language, for is words marked the dawn of a new literary age. the old dusty castilian and his remarkable voice and pain became another language entirely, urgent, vibrant, and young. you see, this was a man who represented commanded by wanted to build this at this of explanation of who let americans are, "bolivar" was it. he represented the history that a really defined the continent of south america. the revolution that he thought was in such contrast to the revolution that was bought here.

he had to employ, when he started, and it was a white man's war because he was a very rich man who came from probably the richest family in venezuela and one of the richest families in all of latin american, a very, very wealthy man. his parents had -- his family had been fifth in venezuela for, at that point, 200 years. or more. and they had accumulated wealth, indigo plantations, copper mines , owns 12 properties in caracas alone. it was a tremendously rich family. it began as a kind of an aristocratic discontented with the colonial power, the spanish

held in south america, and people do not realize this, but spain was very, very assertive in making sure that its colonies had no contact with each other. they were like spokes of the wheel. you could not travel. one area to another. you could not do commerce. you were presented as a colony of spain from doing in the manufacturing and all. you were prevented from owning a mine, prevented from any kind of commerce whatsoever. and it was punishable by execution. so you see, the whole business -- you can imagine putting together a revolution in a place that is so isolated, the

colonial power was a difficult thing. and this is what he came up against. it was not automatic that countries would welcome him to liberate them, even though they wanted to be liberated. it was not automatic that the races would all play a part. in fact, they kept shifting. in the beginning of the blacks on whom so much of the revolution depended or aligning themselves because they knew what it meant. they did not know what the revolution would bring, but feeling that they already knew the evil that existed, they could deal with it, but they did not know what was coming with though white aristocrats of latin america. so they were hesitance. it was not until a two-time

exile, the republic, each republic that was set up, first by a heat who himself was a tremendously marvelous romantic story. this second republic fell apart, and he found in self in haiti welcomed by alexander. now, if you know the history, what happened was they had had a very bloody revolution in which all of the whites were either running or slaughtered on mass. and alexander says, you will never win this.

you are going back now for the third republic. i will help you. i will give you ships come introduce you to all of the english, commercial establishments and men who can help you, but you must promise me one thing. that is, your next time out -- this was already 1815, your next time out the moment you hit the shore you must liberate the slaves. you must into slavery. and he thought about this for a long time because, in fact, with probably a greater moral instinct then the american founders of jefferson and washington, he could not imagine that you could fight for liberty or freedom with slaves.

he immediately understood what was being said and had already figured that out. he needed he was going to have to reach out and get the indigenous and at that point at 300 years into the colonial history. it was a huge mestizo population along with the blacks and the indians, a great trade, and he knew that he would have to engage those many races in order to win the revolutions. was not easy. you can imagine. there were a lot of suspicion, a lot of, at the time, every general wanted his own country. really. the five terms, a very difficult

to fight, but there was a point at which -- and it was a daring point, and i will tell you about it in a moment, in which the whole tide of history changed. that was, he engaged, managed to engage in half of the mestizo who lived in caracas and out in the planes who were able to give him the impetus of the courage to think differently about how the revolution should be fought. and he had the very daring thought in the middle of 1819, already much blood has been spilled. the revolution had grown so bloody that half of the population had been killed in

the process. some towns had been completely wiped off the map. he had this thought, well, maybe elsie's to worry about venezuela and heads the spaniards in their heart by crossing the end these and going to new granada which is now colombia. it was a ridiculous thought. it was the rainy season. they were on the planes. he was looking at the end these. they are parched in the summertime and absolutely flooded in the rainy season. whole rivers become seized.

foolish as to take an army with cattle and women and soldiers the mountains of the end these which everybody knows, you are taking an army over pepys that are 18,000 feet high. it was a revolutionary thought, if i may make a pun, and no one would suspect that he would get into it. why would you go to another country when you have not even one liberation for your own. he kept a secret. the soldiers did not know where they were going. they knew it they were waiting through water. ino, sometimes having to carry women on their backs.

he got to the bottom of the range that divides the venezuelan par to the new granada in part and finally explained what he wanted to do. the soldiers were for it. he took a battalion size -- he took a battalion with wind and with cattle and horses and what not end with his printing press because he carried it every wed he went. he really did feel that words with the greatest weapon, and he pulled it off, going through the bottom, the highest point where the spanish had no garrison's for miles. he went over and came down the other side.

there were so many who died. a third of the british expeditionary force died in the process, all of the cattle were gone, many of the horses did not make good, but the number of people who came down were terrified and were enough to actually send the viceroy running. he put on the grimy hand, pancho , and left a million pesos on his desk and ran for cover. there were detonating, as you can imagine, detonating all of the ammunition said that he would not get at it. and if he rode into the capitol all by himself, and there aitol all by himself, and there are wonderful descriptions of that

ride which is the way that i step the book. it is a marvelous story, full of adventures couple of romance. i could talk about his mistress, his favorite mistress about whom much is known, but not enough is written. she was a great beauty, fears, had, as we -- say in spanish. [speaking in native tongue] baja she was like nothing for te generals had ever seen. some adored her in some despised their, but she was a person who

had three times in his life and saved him from assassination. the stories are dramatic but absolutely hard to believe that something like this could happen, completely cinematic, sick, in the palace, and it sees as a messenger to bring her because he is so sick and everyone around them is sick as well. the most and unguarded moments he had experienced in his whole career. if she s iss, no, i am to six. he says another messenger and says, no, you have to come, i am feeling terrible. she puts on her galoshes and goes. he is trying to cool his fever

because he is so ill. she comes in and treats him individually he gets up, goes to bed, false into a great sleep, she does as well, and suddenly she awakens to the barking of dogs. it is a whole of organized assassination, 150 people who have converged on the palace to kill "bolivar." at this point he is quite famous, powererfl, some of his generals and certainly his vice-president of very suspicious of his power. and he s iss, what do we do? and she says, he does not have a pair of boots. he s iss, well, i will just go open the door. some was banging at the door at that point. she says, no. get dressed.

she says, put on my galoshes and jump through the window. he puts on his mistresses galoshes, jumps through the window, he had just said to a friend a couple of d iss beforht that would be a great getaway. as it happens, there are no guards outside, so he is able to jump. siesta the door, that of flings open, the general on the other side actually several soldiers in the of the side describe her as this beautiful sort of aberration with a sword in your hand in hand and ahead saying, what do you want tt d of course the story goes on from there. l.a. you read it for yourselves. it is qqute amazing on every level. but you can see, my excitement. someone in thinking, how do you

explain the latin american personality, latin-american character to a north american reader? q. explain it by showing how different the political system was, how m muh history in this case, the republics that emerged after the revolution. described . e is sort of insane kind of palatial life that was lived in how it changed from country to country as he progressed from venezuela to ecuador liberating panama on the way down some peru which was the hardest of all. i hope you enjoy reading it. i want to hear yourreaduestions. i hope you will have many questions for me because this is always, for mhave t my favorite part. thank you. [applause]

>> that was a great spequeh. think you very m mue] i came down here to buy the book number one bquebease i read five or so, fabulous reviews. i did not realize the you had an in-house review or. i read in every weekend. i cannot wait to look at the buck. buck. i am also from south america. things. the battle of i couldl, ore. we hear a lot, hear about delayed departed, his excellency , the president of venezuela who used simon bolivar

to badly governed a wonderful people in country. to what extent he lived a long time, to what extent was chavez distorting history and doing the usual sideap that he did, or is there a serious historical, responsible basis for s ising, for using him as part of the venezuelan package? >> thinks you for thatreaduesti. it is a very goodreaduestion. there is very little. i speak about this in the epilngeue. there is litning e to compare. except for the thing that everybody in, since he died destitute, penniless, had given up all of his riches. and he gp,s chavez died a very rich man, opposite experiences there, but he was -- let me put

it in the most concrete way. he knew that he was a liberal. he knew if he was a man of the indictment, and he was cast by is enemy as being anti liberal. is a mistake. he was not anti l3 eceral. he was one of the most liberal, enlightened leaders in the western hrepuisphere, but throuh the years after he died, completely rejected by his own homeland and on the w is to exie , it did not take ten, 15 years before he was brought back as a great hero. his greatest general, his

closest general said of him, i wish, there is something about hifore the magic of his prestig. well, there were at least two presidents before chaveelywho dd a exactly the same thing, take the legacy and use it as a round it is amazing to see people on the right use them, people on the left use them. i thixc there would have been horrified to see how his name has been used. but it has been used many times before. he was constantly being brought up by a leaders throughout latin america to argue different points, which is why people live

very, very conerfsed aboutl, ust who he was and what he believed in. what they do have in common is this, dreaming of unifying all of latin america. he wanted a unified america because he felt that it would be stronger and more influential, a greater, shall we say, a counterpoint to the united states which was growing very strong. a dream, and he has the bulgarian nation which is queuador and bolivia. he thought they all had very little to do. the key for thereaduestion.

>> a two-part question. as a by cultural person, could you enumerate several other, what you would consider to be gross misconceptions on the part of north americans, how we misperceive his legacy and then and secondly, any truth to this story i have heard about the locket that george washington had? [a yes. let me sta mh with that first. george washington, the grandson -- grandnephew really of washine hion wanted to send a

medallion with a clipping of george washington's hair inside to "bolivar" bquebease he felt that george washington himself would have wanted to be associated with his namhave t at of the people, of all the pdidpe in the world that gdidbefe washington most admired, it was "bolivar." lafaldltte said that himself. pinnacle of achievement. he admired washingtodicl, effern , north american froe,3 the north american founders, although he knew that his task was different in he could not emulate them, but he treasured this medallion for all times and acthoally it is still in

venezuela and is very much on display. if you go down to caracas, you the question about biculturalism , thereaduestion is mias a bonceltions. youralnnow, his whole life was lived with people having mias a bonceltions about in. when he was ftlyhting for liberation of peru, winning his way basic to his homeland camaro a.mors that he wanted to make and sell cain. these were rumors put forward .e his enemies, franchave t everyb. it was a wave of tarnishing his name. he was the fought thest from wag to be king because when he met san martine, and the other liberator coming from the south of argentina and chile, the one

thing that really tought ned him against was the fact that he really believed the south america should have a keen. he sent pdidple out to come and will. and he said, no, i am sorry. sacrificed a lot of lives prqueisely to be written. there are misconceptions there as well, and there were used against him, even by south americans, so i am not surprised that there are misconceptions. thank you for thereaduestioand h >> like yourself, i grew up here. i am from guatemala. iralnnew very litning e about hd am looking forward to reading. as the son of a wea. he thy family, was he educated in spain?

>> is a great story. >> i have to believe that if he was e i cated awn at some point learn something about history in bquenstse his. [indisce gu3 ecle] >> except animal prepared for two years. rt[a theyralneep. the thing that is amazing about his education, he was an inordinate the area that bin. he could speak languages. he ready cousteau and a french, cicero, latin. he was e i cated bquenstse whene went to spain as a young man he was sent over the age of 16 because his mother, he was a complete often by this time.

he was sent over . e his family to see if he could persuade spain to actually give him sullen noble positions. and he ended up under the thotelage of a wonderful venezuelan who had lived in spain for a long time who wn he had never had a son. he taught him everything, had thotors come and. he ended up really astonished by his own interest in history and literathore and music and was trained in everything from the personal library end two years, the pdidple who came and color e

was really, as i say, a person who changed the latin american language because he had listened to the europeans, the philosophers. he read deeply and a therereciad good prose. he was a deeply educated man. >> answered myreaduestioand h sanwill ring beise it. i apologize. but why did he refuse to work? a hpinely talented in commander sideossing the end these. >> yes, and he had something similar which was that he to wanted to unite america. what happened in the process was

ma mhine was very sick. . e the time he reached peru he was an opium addict, had terrible a mhhritis, had been a soldier since 12. he was carried over the andes, they actually sat down and met the first time. trying to say, come and help me. and he was not convinced. the meeting was awkward. the meeting, no one was in the room to record it, but there is enough that was written about it . e both sides that we know pretty much what went on. but it san my gene wanted in to come. even said, i will meet with you.

but he s iss, no, that is imposs3 ecle. and when -- well, "bolivar" writes that in a letter. wanted to serve under mhave t ai kn his that that would be a mistake because he would have the moral advantage of having so "bolivar" refused to help. sanwill send you a few battalios at that point he left knowing that in order for peru to be yeaee he would h boe to mme pe himself scarce which is exactly what he did. he left in the midselle of the >> hr waited ab little while and eventually went down to abefentina and then went into exile in france. it is one of the great moments

in history when you h boe to liberators sitting in the same room and really of buying for authority. thank you. rttal what happened to slavery? did they take the haitian advice and in slavery? rttal immediately. although a lot of it was immediate in word and not actual ac the it was hard for some pdidple to let go. you have to imagine the revoson they had been told that if they join the army there will been freed immediately. it is so interesting that so f s let americans -- and i have come across this, don't realirar that it was really the blasic forces, indian forces that won the revolution. i h boe had great poets s is to me, how can you speak such rubbish?

all of those white arifor man.r, it was the battalion. blacks and mestizos and indians who actually won the ring beoluc won the freedom thit i call a prqueought sor tos , the call, the conference of all of these republics because of the panralmerican union. he had written a whole sort of vision for this greater america. in the pdidple did not come. thit i stalled. people died on the way. there were too many animosities. first it was not the united

states. then his vice-president -- it became, that is when we had this revolutionary movements, the unification of all of latin americ mhi thank you. >> very briefly, i would just like to add a footnote to your answer about the e i cation a boulevard my including -- >> absolutely, one of his early thotors. and he was tutored by a number of people in venezuela. this was one of the great literary ftlyought es of latin-american. he happens to be not too much older when he was bropinuni in s a tutor. >> thank you. thank you for that.

rttal alw iss interesting. talk a little bit about the person, who he was. what infson it mtlyuni give you an idea for your next book. is there any correspondence between her and madame blanche and in the broader framework in which you obviously right and operate, operation, the kwergence of the mills. >> thank you. youralnnow, when the napoldidnic wars stars trying to a close

yellow millis rise europe, a lot of soldiers who came back to england and ireland and have no means of income. it was these pdidple who were resideuited. some of them came camino, whatever recruitment, it was really loose. it was done by somdidne he did not know as much about soldiering assorenrs uelan diplomats who sat in lonimsn and just was recruited like mad. and so people what kind of s is, oh, y?s, i was a colonel, lieutenant colonel they would come over. outsoretted in these majestic unifor3 wr. given big champagne goodbyes and would come to this absoson wild ring beolution where the

soldiers were barefoot and fighting with spears and fighting with stakes. and they were ludicrous. you know, parading around in these fancy. bonilla make lumber along daniel was one of those. ..

he liked that. he had spent time in london, and he appreciated, i think, their experience in europe, and he elevated them, and he was certainly rewarded by collecting all of his letters. if you go and 3 # 2 volume letters and correspondence and speeches, it was daniel's who did it all, collected it all, it was a gift back. anybody else? yes? >> exiled to the topic in that library. >> oh, what i was doing? >> oh, general behavior, don.

i fancied myself, you know, a tomboy, and i had no -- no, i don't have hair on my tongue. i would say things i shouldn't, and, you know, they made me the sort of grim little woman you see here today. [laughter] >> can you comment on what was going on in chile and his role? >> of course, he was the illegitimate son of chile was one of the closest collaborators, and the story is fantastic. i mean, somebody should write

that, a marvelous romantic fashion. the correspondence, they didn't really have too much in common, but i think he knew he owed people, that it ration of that part of the continent and very respected very, very much. >> final question, if i may, united states had a number of agents in latin america when it was going on, correspondence between the agents and our secretary of state and our president. can you comment on the extent to which that correspondence contributed to misconceptions on the part of north americans? >> absolutely, absolutely. in the middle of a rough campaign. he was not only -- i mean, he