the books in "the washington post" nonfiction best seller list, is former secretary of state madeleine albright warning about the rise in fashionist tactic bis world leaders. many of these authors have appeared on booktv and you can watch them on our website, booktv.org.... that would be great. also, when we get to the question and answer portion of the event, if you wouldn't mind

using this microphone here in the aisle so we can pick up your voice, that would be appreciated. now, for eileen's book. eileen mcnamara spent 30 years with the "boston globe." she was one of of the first to write about abuses in the catholic church. two choice awards from her long list of accolades, pulitzer prize for commentary and the yankee quill award. in her latest book, "eunice," she argues that is the kennedy that left the greatest tragedy after mistreatment her coying knittively impaired sister, by the medical community. she used her wealth, and education to advocate for people with cognitive differences in their families. "washington post," says eunice is moving. mack ma nara has a well reported book. allowing mcthat -- mcthat

mayor ray to deliver a portrait. now, eileen mcnamara. [applause] >> i do have old friend here. thanks for having me, politics & prose. i remember this place, because, it opened its doors the first year i was in washington, when "the boston globe" assigned me to come down here to cover politics. it was in the smaller setting, as i recall. across the street, across the street. what i remember most it was a great refuge for me, figuring out what exactly was in the tax reform package, that i was supposed to be covering. i don't think i ever actually really did figure that out, what was in there. this is wonderful, wonderful place to sort of hide as a reporter. in 1984 was also the rear ronald reagan presented the presidential medal of freedom to

eunice kennedy shriver. i don't actually remember that. and that is sort of surprising, if a kennedy sneezed in 1984 it was big news in the boston grown. it must have been my colleague in the white house to covered that ceremony. what would i have thought about eunice kennedy shriver in 1984? i'm guessing i would have thought, she's president kennedy 's sister. she was sergeant shriver's wife and maria shriver's mother. i wrote this book to restore eunice kennedy shriver to her own place in history which is remarkable for some things beyond the founding of the special olympics. who is eunice? calling this book eunice was a stretch for me. the publish letter said you can't call it mrs. shriver. but every one in her life, people who knew her for decades

called her mrs. shriver. her daughters in law called her mrs. shiver. i'm was sure if we named it "eunice," there would be a thunderbolt that hit me across conneticut avenue. who was she? she was often overlooked middle child of joe and rose fitzgerald kennedy. she was not old enough to be part of the golden trio. jack, joe, jr., kick. they were the glamorous kennedys. rosemary was tucked in the middle, forgotten in her own way. so she wound up at the kid's table most of the time. supervising rosemary, cutting her meat for her. supervising her younger siblings, patricia. bobby, gene, baby teddy.

she, she found it an advantage to be overlooked in that way. so she was aggressive, aggressive trying to get her father's attention. she become the best sailor in that family. the best tennis player. the most aggressive of the touch football players. simply to get his eyes on her and off of the boys. in 1959 she wrote a letter to her father, probably in hyannisport saying, i know you are so busy daddy, spending all your time worrying about the boys careers. what about me? so, she knew the answer to that question. in the kennedy family, power was the reserve of the men. the men played, the women prayed. it was not in the cards for her to get his attention in that political kind of way that she hoped to. so what joe kennedy wouldn't

give she took. she hijacked the family's charitable foundation and for all of its existence the names of the president of the joseph p. kennedy, jr., foundation, named for her older brother killed in world war ii. the president was john fitzgerald kennedy, robert francis kennedy or edward m. kennedy. from the beginning to the end the foundation was eunice's baby. she ran it. she decided where millions of dollars in kennedy money went to support research into the condition we then called mental retardation. the condition that she found the experts wanting in their advice to people. what was the advice to mothers and fathers when eunice was growing up? what was the advice right through the '50s? institutionalize your child for the sake of your other children and for your marriage. well that didn't wash with

eunice. the kennedys had kept rosemary at home as long as they could. when mental illness intruded on the intellectual disabilities that she suffered, joe was grasping at straws. whether he was misguided or ill intentioned is for others to decide. i think he grabbed on to the possibility that this new experimental, psycho, neurological surgery would cure his daughter. instead the prefrontal lobotomy left her immobilized. she wouldn't walk. she couldn't talk. then came the real sin is, the real guilt that eunice spent her life i think trying to resolve, not just for herself but for her whole family. joe kennedy shut his daughter away in a psychiatric

institution in upstate new york. it was ill-equipped to deal with her. that had no rehabilitative services for her. it wasn't until 1949 that she was sent out to st. coleta school in wisconsin where rehabilitation began. she got her speech back. she was able to walk again, but to the end of her life she could only say a few words, and one of those words was eunice. we don't know exactly when eunice learned that her sister had been -- robot. when st. coleta's rights to her in the '70s to say your daughter's personal physician has passed away, and we need your recommendation for a new doctor for rosemary, rose, i

refer the letter to mrs. shriver. my daughter was involved in the original selection of a doctor for rosemary. when it came time to transfer her to wisconsin, joe turned to the one child who had been closest to rosemary all her life. she took her on his crew when they were in sailing races. she spent hours on the tennis court trying to help rosemary develop her coordination. so was only natural that he would bring her of all of the children into this decision. it fueled something in eunice that propelled her through her life, relentlessly powerfully, i think i might thought when i heard about that, presidential medal, how nice, what a nice woman she is. doing all that charity work. eunice was a lot of things. nice was not one of them. [laughter]. her work was a lot.

one thing it wasn't was charity. she was not about charity. she was not a lady bountiful giving her money and her gifts to the less fortunate. she in fact didn't see her constituency as less fortunate. she saw them as equal. she said the time has come to bring people out of the shadows. that is her gift to us. we remember her for special olympics of course but special olympics isn't the accomplishment. the accomplishment is she got us to look the a whole population in a different way. in some ways she is the anti-joe kennedy for whom only first place finishes count. coming in second wasn't good enough. what is the motto of special olympics? let me win but if i can not win, let me be brave in the attempt. very different idea. but on the other hand she learned through her father.

her father's great gift was public relations. we're watching a six-part series on cnn, about the kennedy family. why are with so fascinated? because joe kennedy took this family and he molded them and he sold us them and we bought them. i should note in the six-part series of hours and hours of information that by the way we all already know, there is exactly one sentence devoted to eunice kennedy shriver and it is an enormous, enormous injustice. my contention she left at least most significant legacy of her brothers a little bold, i admit. it's a little bold. evan thomas said today in the post, well, none of us would be here if jack kennedy hadn't resolved the cuban missile crisis, maybe that is a little bit of a stretch. mr. thomas, i concede that

point. but you think about what she did. she made us see this whole population in an absolutely new way. she said every child is entitled to a home. every child is entitled to play. every child is entitled to compete. they won't fall apart if they lose. think of the joy if they win. that was a revolutionary idea in the 1960s. equally revolutionary was opening her estate in maryland, timber lawn, to a camp for these children. how did that camp come about? because a woman in maryland called her up and said the kennedy family is doing so much hon this issue, why is there no place for me to send my daughter to summer camp? and mrs. shriver said where do you live? i live in maryland. she looked out the back window and she said, well, i live in

maryland, and i have 200-acres! so she opened this camp. conventional? not exactly. she had no idea what she was doing. she was making it up out of whole cloth. she recruited her volunteers and her camp counselors in the local catholic schools to build kind of equipment she needed. she recruited prisoners from wharton reformer to. i don't think that would happen today, exactly. people in for very serious crimes, kidnapping, murder, who were working alongside these little catholic schoolgirls out in the backyard and, eunice thought it was all just grand because just like these children deserved a chance, so did those inmates. if you are, if you made mistakes in your life, she was somebody who believed in second chances.

we didn't have the laws in place we have now. you could never get away with the kind of things she did but as far as we know nobody got murdered. everything went along pretty swimmingly. if you look at pictures from that era of camp shriver where buses would role up in the morning, they would salute the flag, they said the pledge of allegiance. there is like her own little children, tim was a toddler. maria, bobby, not much older, her mother said, go out and play. and so their playmates were really disabled children who were wearing helmets and banging their heads on trees, and children in wheelchair playing catch. they were swimming with children who had never been in a swimming pool before because she believed anybody could do anything. and those children were black. they were brown. they were white.

they were all hues of the rainbow in 1962. it was not particularly conventional. what i learned in researching this book is how often eunice got there first. she got there before her brothers on almost every issue that we associate them with. she was working in washington at the state department in 1945, two years before jack arrived in washington as a lackluster freshman congressman. she was his roommate in georgetown where they held wonderful, political salons and dinner parties and she was working for the justice department. quarterbacking a task force on juvenile delinquency which became her great passion. it wasn't until 1961 that bobby kennedy discovered juvenile delinquency when he was attorney general and he created a task force. who do you think told him to

create that task force? eunice went to jack, jack went to bobby. he says eunice says we need to look the juvenile delinquency issue. in biography after biography of the boys that i read, eunice is portrayed as a pain in the ass. they got that part right. they got that part right. [laughter]. what they didn't get right that this notion that president kennedy listened to his sister he was such an annoyance he wanted to get her off the phone. what if he was listening to her, issues that mattered to eunice kennedy shriver she knew what worked and she knew what didn't work and she didn't want to waste anytime. she wanted him to focus on stuff that mattered. and he did. he has no record of caring about this issue at all in the united states congress. lackluster career in the house. a little better in the senate but in the senate he was on the

committee that would have heard the very first piece of federal legislation that was designed to give federal dollars to train teachers in special education. jack kennedy walked out of the hearing before the testimony began. much to the annoyance of the special ed community, that knew what the rest of the country did not, that this issue touched the kennedy family as well. but what all his advocates didn't know, they would have an advocate in the kennedy family much more committed than any politician would ever be. before he took the oath, as president of the united states, she had already secured from jack a promise that he would create a presidential commission to look at this issue and to draft legislation to fix it. to close those institutions which these kids were housed.

to put money into special education. to make sure they had the right to a seat in a public school classroom, which, by the way, they didn't have until 1975. they wouldn't have had that without the change in public perception that eunice brought through special olympics. the commission lasted for two years. it spent the first year figuring out what the problems were and trying to design solutions to fix them. one of the problems she told jack was, there is nothing in the national institute of health that is committed to studying child development. we don't understand where these problems come from. we need to study prenatal conditions. we need to study infancy. we need an institute for child health and human development. the national institute of health wasn't interested. sort of a threat to, to general

medicine which felt like health is health, whether you're a child or an adult. of course now we know that's not true at all. and eunice believed with no medical training that it was not true. that the needs of children and the needs in the womb and the needs early after birth were very distinct and needed a distinct group of scientists to study them. jack remain unconvinced. so she took him sailing in nantucket sound which i guess all major decisions in the kennedy administration get made. out there on the water, and she says to jack, jack, you know what i'm asking for is something you have to think about in personal ways. you and jackie have had two enormous losses. jackie at that point lost a child to a miscarriage. she had had a still-birth. patrick had not yet been born. those two losses, eunice said,

should convince you, we don't know enough about why women miscarry. we don't know enough about still-births. i thought you were just occupied with mental retardation? she said, it is all of the piece and we now have what is called the eunice eunice kennedy shrivr institute for child health and human development t was created during the kennedy administration because she saw what so many people in medicine could not see. ironically when patrick was born, he died shortly after birth. he died of membrane disease which is a lung disease that no children die of today because at the institute of child health and human development, research into the development of lungs in the womb had progressed to such a way that it is a nonstarter

now as a serious threat to children. we owe that to eunice. so we think of her as the special olympics but it is much, much, larger than that. her advocacy touched all of our lives without our knowing it. any of us who carry ad child owe a debt to her. she was a, she was a massive contradiction. my idea that she was a lovely lady who had this great charitable heart, i mean it is half-true. she was certainly compassionate and empathetic to these children. she was largely an absent mother. while writing pieces for the ladies home journal about how motherhood was the most sacred profession and that these women's liberation feminists were devaluing motherhood, she was probably writing that in the car on her way to work. so, lots of women who have very

active and busy lives can see the contradictions, and she certainly couldn't see it in herself. but she was a fighter and she fought all of her life, not just for this population, but for pregnant teenagers, for troubled kids. she was on the front lines of everything. we look at the kennedy legacy and we see ted's 47 years in the united states senate. we don't see how many pieces of legislation that bear his name came from a conversation at the dinner table with eunice kennedy shriver, including the 1975 law that required school districts to give a seat in a classroom to a disabled child, including the americans with disabilities act. that law which fundamentally changed the relationship of people with intellectual and physical disabilities to the world around them owes a lot to

eunice kennedy shriver. it is now a violation of their civil rights to deny them a place in the work place, a home, an apartment in an apartment building. they can walk, or roll their wheelchairs across the street now because we have curbs that allow that. the same rights extend to people with intellectual disabilities. i would like to say that 1984 ceremony in which she was honored, what other people might think of as retirement age, with the presidential medal of freedom was the end of eunice's career. she might have learned to relax, had it been, but that was not the end of her career. she went on for two more decades to fight this fight. in the fall of 2008, six months before her death, she threw the last big gala at her gorgeous

mansion in potomac, maryland, for best buddies. that is a corollary with the special olympics, where able-bodied people are matched up with those with intellectual disabilities for friendship. something that she conceived the a a dorm room at georgetown, and funding it of course through the kennedy foundation. the last big gala to celebrate that achievement by anthony raised 3 1/2 million dollars for that effort. she was old and she was tired in 2008. so she slipped away from the party. she went upstairs in the elevator that she had installed for rosemary, because it was eunice, after joe kennedy suffered a debilitating stroke, that silenced his very powerful

stroke, who brought rosemary back into the center of that family. she swam again at hyannisport. she came to visit in maryland with the shrivers. she at dinner at ted's, on eunice's arm. she brought her back to the heart of the family and she said there until she died in 2005 with all of her siblings at her side at s.a.t. coleta's. -- st. coleta's. she goes to the bedroom, props herself up, with typical fashion, with pencils out of her hair, all kinds of scattershot ways, has a scattering of legal pads on her bed. she summons lowell weicker to her bedside, former governor and senator from connecticut, father of a child with intellectual disabilities, now an adult. lowell weicker goes to her side thinking this will be a friendly

chat. he knows she is in ailing health. by now ted has been diagnosed with the brain tumor that would take his life the following summer. he said, you walked into the room and there she is, as fierce as she has ever been, saying, oh, what are we going to do about these amendments to the americans with disabilities act? i'm worried? what if tom harkin retires? what will we do without orrin hatch? [laughter]. he said i was tempted to sit on the edge of her bed but sort of frightened, she was so loud. so they hashed out politics to the very end of her life. she was fighting the fight. one thing that eunice learned, and i think passed on to the five children that continue that work, was, that passing legislation in this town is

never the end. it's the beginning. you have to fight for every reappropriation. you have to be on the front lines all the time. the battle is never over, it is never over. people forget. so you can never forget. and she didn't. so that is my little eunice spiel. i always find at these events that you guys are much smarter and have better questions. over to you. [applause] questions, questions, please. you're shy in washington, really? good. >> i'm not shy because i'm irish. >> oh. >> i'm only shy because -- [inaudible]. >> exactly. you won't get an argument from

me. i actually was standing because, i wanted to thank you, that is one of the best talks i have heard and i enjoyed every minute. >> thank you. >> i thank you for speaking to us, and not just to give us a really enjoyable talk. i want to thank you for bringing alive for us in such a vivid way, such an important person. funny enough, your word echo the words of a child -- for sale down in the bookstore here. the card says, caught my eye. coming up here. quote from dr. suess. it says just the quote. why fit in when you can stand out. >> great. >> clearly eunice stood out and fitting in was not important to her. not only that, she disdained the effort to fit in and make it

look like all of the family were fine. >> right. >> that is what holds all of us back. and so thank you for inspiring us with such an inspiring story of, and such inspiring woman. and for in doing that, you encourage, i mean all of us to go out and forget about fitting in and do what we need to do even if it does require standing out. so thank you. >> great. you give a better speech than i do. [applause] yeah, you do. you know i think you hit on something that is really true about eunice. she was a real character in addition to everything else. she wore moth-eaten trousers and men's trousers and men's shoes. she stood 5'10" and weighed 109-pound. her mother would send her these very churlish notes. i saw you on television and your pants were too tight in the seat. i need to teach you how to wear

pearls on a blouse. and eunice didn't care about any of that. she really, superficial didn't matter to her. so maria told me she used to ask her mother please park down the street when she picked her up from school because her mother would be looking wild with pencils in her hair, which she never combed. and she had a convertible so the top would be down, it would be even crazier. she would have other brothers and dogs in the car. she would think, hoe, why can't she look all those nicely curved is a bausch been washington ladies. -- coifed. >> i always like your stuff in the globe. >> thank you. >> did the 1972 presidential nomination look on the out look on those things at all? >> what i touch about the in the book that she is incredible

political strategist. she fought a lot of fights that she didn't win and she knew when to walk away when she circled around and come back. she realized before sergeant shriver realized that '72 would end badly. her press secretary for the campaign wherever they went as things were getting dicey, she would say, as long as we're her let's go visit with, whatever the local institution for disabled children was, or let's go to the local special olympics. marvelous of photographs of her throughout the fall of 1972 doing push-ups with special olympians and playing basketball. you are thinking, wait a minute, wasn't there a campaign going on? i know internally said, we've lost that, so let's do this. >> -- mental condition? >> i found a wonderful telegram

in her papers. the kids gave me access to 33 boxes of her private papers that even they hadn't read. tim shriver's remark i'm not entirely sure you want to get into those boxes desperately, if i had to guess they are just vhs tapes of maria on tv [laughter]. not a single one. there wasn't a single one. in there was a tell graham that she and sarge begged to eagleton, not to drop out this is opportunity. let's talk about depression. if you stayed in this would be a great gift to the country. so she was brave. she was brave. she defied convention. she didn't prevail obviously in that case but instinct was there. hi. >> hello, thank you so much for this. my question builds off the scope of the last question, how would

you say eunice kennedy shriver ander her husband influenced each other over the course of their lives? >> it was one of the great political partnerships ever, ever. it was odd romans. she was very tough -- romance. i'm more like my father. he knows how to talk to the common man. you're always quoting theologians. which he did do quite a bit actually. they pushed each other. pulled each other. he was the maternal part of that family, sarge. he was a warm, tender, wonderful human being. the kids say every night at dinner when they were ever home which was not that often, he would raise his glass of fine french wine and say, children, you raise your milk, we're going to toast the most beautiful woman, the most wonderful woman in the world. i would invariably say, and then

your mother would -- they would dissolve into laughter. no, no. mommy did not reply. mommy did not toast him. but she loved him. see, even more than her love for him, she respected him enormously because she and he came out of the same catholic faith tradition of social justice and that was their fight. they were in it together. the truth be told she never would have married sergeant shriver, she would have never married anyone if her father hadn't engineered it. for decades father theodore he sb erg, some of you may know, head of notre dame, a great civil rights fighter for our times. he talk abouted story how joe kennedy called him in 1952 to ask him to have a little chat with eunice, who was working in

chicago working at home for juvenile delinquent girls, run by the nuns. eunice had it in her mind she would join the convent, because it was one place where she saw the powerful women got to run the show. that had enormous appeal for eunice. and she was pretty committed to it. i found a classmate of hers in london where she was at a convent boarding school when joe kennedy was the ambassador to great britain, who is now herself a nun. i say, eileen, i have to tell you when we were in school together everybody thought eunice had a vocation. i certainly thought she had more likely vocation than i did. now she's sister of the sacred heart. it couldn't be because joe kennedy's plans for his sons were that one of them was going to be the first president of the united states and you're not going to elect the first catholic president of the united states on the arm of a woman in

a full length black veil and white wimple. can you see the optics of that? not working for him. [laughter]. it's a vision indeed. but it was a vision that was never going to happen. he had actually thrown sergeant and her together. sarge worked for him at the merchandise dice mart. was immediately smitten with eunice and very, very bright. only one of the kennedy sisters to have more than a catholic education. she graduated from stanford. she is substantive thinker and person as was sarge shriver, yale, yale law school. joe help -- hoped the spark would take spontaneously. yeah, it did for sarge. it didn't for eunice. they dated seven years. by which joe got impatient and called on ted hessberg.

father hessberg called her down from chicago to notre dame. and said, eunice you have a vocation but it's not for the convent. your vocation is to marry sergeant shriver and have his children. he told that story 100 different times to 100 different priests but would never say it on the record. if you see the kennedy biographies you see this soft-shoe he doesn't exactly deny it. sarge won her over with his wonderful charm, blah, blah. the year before father hessberg died, after three priests told me the story independently, one said, call him eileen, tell the story, it is time what really happened. i called him, asked the question, long pause, well you know, eileen, they're all dead. [laughter]. they were.

i can't heard anybody to tell the truth. i said exactly that. i said, didn't you feel a little queasy being joe's deliveryman? and he said, i would have, i would have except that i knew what a wonderful man he was. and i knew how passionate she was. and how much she admired him. i would thought it would work. and work it did. it worked beautifully. he. as i say she was tough on him. a senator who shall be nameless, if i could resurrect anybody that was dead, to have a dinner, sargent shriver, i would do that in a heartbeat. if there is one woman i would never resurrect -- [laughter]. ever. it was eunice. she was tough.

she was tough. >> i just want to thank you for writing this book. i have a 36-year-old goddaughter who four years ago moved home to connecticut to, because she wanted her parents to have some assistance with her 31-year-old sister who has down syndrome and every sunday, when the weather like this, she takes rebecca to her swim practice for special olympics. >> exactly. >> the whole family of course goes to the swim meets. so it is great to have a resource like this, that i can read about the person who made all of this possible. and you know it's, also made me realize again, my goddaughter was put in my life to make me a better person, not the other way around. >> there is something to be said for that. the very first special olympics was 50 years ago this summer. it is having the 50th anniversary year.

and that first year in soldier field in chicago, only about 100 parents turned up to see the 1000 children who participated. special olympics now, it tracks hundreds of thousands of people to its competitions all around the globe. in china, in russia, in places in the mid-east where not too long ago these children were locked away. she did that. she did that. what she did that is magical to me she encouraged parents to be proud of their children, all of their children. so that's great. >> thank you for he will at thing, giving this intensely-moving talk and for telling her story. it is fitting that your biography will be on the shelf next to that great biography of sarge published. >> fabulous. >> that is a good word.

>> this is a little shorter. you might read it. >> i would like to ask you, a question about another way in which eunice and sarge defied the conventions of their class and of their milieu. >> yes. >> in 1992 during the democratic national convention they signed a full-page ad in the "new york times," signed by a lot of other people, hue carrie, robert casey, democratic governors from pennsylvania. the story of america became and a story of every more inclues sufficient society. the u.s. welcomed immigrants, protected workers, freed slaves, franchised women, ensured civil rights of all the citizens, made public space accessible to the handicap all the service of ideals of justice. then in 1973 the u.s. supreme court in its abortion decisions drastically reversed this pattern of expanding inclusion.

in these conclusions seven unelected justices performed the most men to us act of exclusion in our history. they deprived every human being for the first nine months of his or her life of the most fundamental human right of all, the right to life. you don't hear much about us in the newspapers but there are a lot of progressive elizabeth warren democrats who agree with eunice shriver, that legal abortion is not progressive. and decides this "new york times" ad, which is a matter of public record, did you find private letters, or other evidence of eunice shriver's anti-abortion views? >> you couldn't look at any part of her life and not see her anti-abortion views. eunice shriver was nothing if not consistent in her life. she opposed abortion, just as she opposed capital punishment. there is a theory in the catholic church which she was grounded, the seamless garment theory, which all of life is

part of one seamless garment. you can't rend part of it away for another part. but eunice shriver was a political pragmatist and although she abhorred the roe decision, tried unsuccessfully when the democratic party became supporters to get teddy stay on board. ted's original position was in opposition to abortion. after '73 and the roe decision he and the democratic party changed places. one thing looking at woman like eunice kennedy shriver, she looked at some of the most extraordinary times in history. we forget opposition to abortion was originally position, a liberal progressive position. the black panther party denounced abortion as genocide. in their view it was a way for the white power structure to keep down the population of

african-americans in the country. eunice's opposition cale from her deep, deep catholicism. she never wavered on it. she never stopped trying to convince teddy he was wrong. but i think it would be a big fight in her psyche, whether she was a stronger democrat or a stronger catholic. her personal decision never changed. she never hid it. she accepted award feminist tore tore -- for life. it was her conviction after considerable political thought that roe would not be overturned. i deal a lot with her abortion position. i don't happen to share it but i respect enormously where it came from. she was sympathetic to people in those positions. ethel kennedy told me, during a very difficult conversation

about abortion, about this issue eunice was in physical pain every day of her life. she had all kinds of metabolic issues going on in her body just like jack kennedy. she suffered for women that found themselves in a position for seeking abortion. ethel kennedy said to my, what every one i interviewed, even former senator who would never want to have dinner with her again, she didn't judge. she didn't judge. so she was able to hold her own beliefs very closely and be public about them, but not judge other. >> when did the spark first go off in your mind you needed to write this book and how long ago was that? >> way too long ago.

it's been a long ride. i will tell you what the first inspiration was. you might not know eunice kennedy decide two weeks before her brother ted. thinking about possibility of this book, i looked up those obituaries, recount this in the introduction to the book. "new york times" obituary for teddy was enormous. hers was on the front page, gave her credit for the special olympics but didn't explore nearly the legacy that she left but i had to note that in the many, many photographs of the family that ran with senator kennedy's obituary, all the women were either misidentified or omitted entirely. they identified rosemary as kathleen. they left eunice out of another picture. they, and correction that ran the following day, said

everything to me about her and her struggle to be seen, not just in her family, but in the world! it is a struggle we're still experiencing now as i said. she got one sentence on the cnn six-part series. and i thought, wow, invisible or interchangeable? that was your lot if you were one of joe kennedy's daughters. i guess that is why i wrote it. >> good for you. >> well, i will also say thank you, thank you, thank you, for this incredible book on the most incredible woman. as you were talking, i just said, oh, my god, there are some things i want to say here. i want to put a bunch of little notes here. i remember one of the last times i saw eunice with her catholicism and her devotion to catholicism. she also, one much her most favorite theologians was

chardann. the literally the vatican would not allow his papers to be published. she championed him forever. i understand when will we do with maria. she met this bodybuilder. i run a experiment in international living which sargent shriver was an experimenter in the 1930s. joe, come on down, what can we do? so i literally said listen, we can call my peace corps senegal lease director if he will have maria in the summer in senegal. >> get her out of town. >> so i said, that is a great idea. well the funny thing is, do you realize eunice was sleeping on the sofa in his room, i hadn't even noticed her. she had this coat over her. she jumped up said, great idea, she is only 18, i think this is

fabulous. so she just sent maria to senegal which was amazing. >> it didn't work though. she came back. >> she came back. another time, i'm one of nine children in an irish catholic family. i'm also a middle child which maria, which eunice actually identified for me. i didn't realize we were had that same thing. but i brought my daughter, my daughter, my sister to the last special olympics recreated in her backyard. here she was in her 80s -- >> in the pool. >> said, let's do it again. so started the special olympics which was for at least three years. i said, well, this is the time i can bring my sister from connecticut and bring her to special olympics. there is eunice out there, like 85 years old, swimming with the olympians, playing touch football. hugging my sister. talking to every one.

i mean, just the energy was beyond comprehension. she had the energy and created until the year she died. insisted on all that. what else did i want to say? last thing my mother who was so impressed with eunice that she got her masters in special education from st. joseph college in heart for the, connecticut. >> wow. >> one of the reasons was is that eunice actually was, ended up being the speaker at her graduation. >> that is great. >> she was so incredibly impressed with her, that you know, for the rest of her life she worked with special olympics. all i can say is, right now i'm working with peace corps volunteers to work on 50th anniversary of the peace corps for the sargent shriver global messengers. he spent the last two decades of his life working for special

olympics i'm sure under the tutelage of his wife. >> i'm not sure tutelage but the hammer for sure. the hammer for sure. >> anyway, thank you. this was brilliant and i will buy even more copies. thank you so, so much. >> thank you for coming. thanks for the work you're doing >> i have a question, it may touch on a delicate subject. >> sure. >> it seems it me like eunice was one of the early people to suffer from the glass ceiling and the glass ceiling was eminating from inside of her family. if joe had given the same quality and quantity of support to eunice, that he gave to joe , jr., jack, bob, ted, whoever, i would like for to you comment on

that. >> right. i mean who knows what she could have done. i mean it was not just the kennedy family. it was the world itself that was mired in sexism in that era. i mean it is hard for any woman in the mid 20th century america to be seen and to have opportunities. would sheave loved to have been the one joe chose to run in the 11th congressional district in massachusetts? yes. she would have. would she have made a better congressman than jack did, there is no question of that. [laughter]. >> she would have made a better senator? >> people say she would have made a better senator and a better, you hear president. i don't think she could have gotten elected. she, she didn't have a politic streak. by politic, i mean she was inpolitic. she said what she thought and

really didn't care what you thought. i don't think you could have ever tamed that in her. now they say that of bobby. bobby was ruthless. bobby was tough. bobby infuriated people. he left a mess in his wake that somebody had to go smooth all the feathers he had ruffled but he was a kennedy man. a kennedy man could do that. i don't think any woman today can do that. she would not have tamed herself to run for elective office. to the end of her life she had more respect for people who were elected to public office than for anything she had accomplished. people would ask her, maria asked her in her dying weeks, mommy you must be so proud of all you have done, all accomplished. but i was never that good for public office. no, you weren't, but i think the nature of, the nature of the woman, that was difficult, that

was irritating, that would have made her a really bad candidate in this age of optics and all that, made her a fierce advocate, a fierce, fierce advocate. she never would have accomplished what she did. if she hadn't been asking a agressive as she was. senators told me they would quake when aides would say, eunice was coming. oh, one of her aides described her method of operation when she went to get a appropriation she wanted. she didn't come in sit in a chair and talk to the senator. she put her ass on his desk and inched her way closer and closer to his face. she would say, and this did what we're going to do. and this is what we're going to write. and, she never asked. she demanded. and she, got what she wanted most of the time. partly because she was intimidating as hell and also

because she used her name to great advantage. she learned public relations from her father. she used that kennedy name to great, great effect. for people who had no voice. she didn't have to do that she could have had a lovely, leisurely life, except she would have died. eunice was not capable of rest and relaxation. bobby shriver said they taught us some things, our parents, they never taught us to sit down. [laughter]. anyway -- >> when did you learn to imitate her? or did you always do it? [laughter] >> right now. >> you're really good. >> i listened to a lot of audiotapes of mrs. shriver. >> did you hear that voice a little bit when you were doing research? >> actually, i always felt like she was, over my shoulder. >> i bet she was. >> kim shriver has kept her office exactly as it was at the

special olympics. it even has the same stuff in the trash that was there the last time she was there. and it is locked. i asked if i could go in. and he said, are you sure? and i went in, and you know, there is all this wonderful memorabilia on the walls, including letters from rosemary when she was a child that are framed on the wall. and, as i walked around the room, a book fell off the bookshelf. and i, he left me in there alone. i thought, with the doorknob trying to get myself out of there. she was in there. she would not have liked me. i don't know how to sail. i don't know how to play touch football. i don't weigh 105 pounds. i was sort of everything that she would have looked at and saw sloth, you know? [laughter]. she used to say that to her

kids, if the television was on and they're sitting on the couch, she would turn off the tv, say, up, up, out. her expression was, get on to yourself. what the hell does that mean? get on to yourself. they knew what it meant. get at it. go to work. contribute. make a contribution. don't be self-indulgent. i kind of like to sit on the couch and watch tv. there you have it. so, that's it. anyone else? >> what book fell off? >> i didn't look. i didn't stick around and find out. i just wanted to get the hell out of there. [laughter] >> what do you think she would say about 45? >> well i know what she would do about 45. she wouldn't be hashtag resist. she would be in the oval office saying you know, i don't know what you're doing over here and over here but the americans with disabilities act needs to be reauthorized, and i need this

and this and this. she didn't care who was in the oval office. she didn't care who the president was. whether it was a republican or democrat, she was in his face. in the mid 90s when clinton orchestrated what he called welfare reform, she didn't see anything reformist about it, because it would have taken benefits away from parents with children with intellectual disabilities. she didn't beat around the bush. went up to the white house with his domestic policy advisor, elena kagan, a whom who has a different job. after she gave elena kagan earful. she went in the oval office gave clinton an earful. guess what happened? the money was restored and bill got rewritten. she cared about the big picture and you only have so much time and energy in the world and

focused her on these people. she protected them for 50 years. you're welcome. thank you. thank you for coming. i'm very grateful. a most beautiful day. thank you. [applause] [inaudible]. [laughter] >> booktv tapes hundreds of author programs around the country all year long. here is a look at some events we're covering this week. we're here at the nation's capital at the national press club for fox news's bret baier exploring ronald reagan's efforts to end the cold war. wednesday we're at the lbj presidential library in austin,

texas, to hear cnn chief washington correspondent jake tapper on his novel about capitol hill. also that evening we're in philadelphia at the free library where radio and tv host michael smear cornish shares his thoughts on political climate. we hear peter stark to detail the early military career of george washington. and saturday we're at the reagan library in california with former white house social secretaries jeremy bernard and lee burman, sharing thoughts on professional and public civility. that is look at some of the events booktv will cover this week. many of these events are open to the public. look for them to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. . .