in a house on wyoming avenue. that he is asked to establish arranged -- a relationship. it is a good working relationship. he doesn't know she works british intelligence. eventually, she tells him she is helping the americans. that sort of appeals to him. there is a problem now. remember, the fbi is watching her. they could unravel everything. what if they came to the house? they do. one day, when she was making love to alberto, the fbi knocked on the door. -- they are now -- they are now in a house on wyoming avenue. it is a good working relationship. -- she had to let him out and upstairs window. he climbed onto the garage roof. he is hanging onto the roof and drops to the ground. betty is worried about this happening again. she does not want this to happen to the captain.

she will make a move. a more discreet location. a hotel on connecticut avenue. this is perfec it would have been better if she had started here because it has multiple entrances. they are meeting at the hotel, making love. "i must have the naval ciphers." "i am not able to get into the code room." "please!" this is the way we shall handle it. i will get into the code room. ok.

a plan is set afoot. her contact is mr. huntington. she knows him as mr. hunter. he's going to organize this. it is not just going to be betty and the captain who will go into the french embassy to get the naval codes. a gentleman called the georgia cracker will assist them. i love that name. he is a canadian, actually. i am not sure how close he ever got to georgia. he will open a safe, remove the codebooks. they will take them to a room they have set up at the hotel. betty was at the hotel one day and knock on the door. "exterminator." she thinks it is the ei. a man says he is here to check -- "box." he goes over the room with a fine tooth comb. they set up a safe room in another apartment. this is where the codebooks will

be opened, photographed, and dusted for fingerprints. then, returned to the embassy. this is the plan. the problem is at the embassy, there is a nightwatchman with a large guard dog. the captain, betty's appeal to his strong, french sentiments -- "you will help france." he says he will work late and his girlfriend will join him.

he tells the security guard, "can you look the other way? i am married and this is my girlfriend and this is the only place we can meet." the guard accepts that. for a few weeks, the captain and his girlfriend spend time on a sofa in his office. they keep up the fiction they are having this affair at the office. but it works. the guard is used to them. the dog is now used to them. cynthia is worried about the guard dog but she feels all right. it is the date of the break in.

cynthia and the captain arrive at the embassy. the oss safe man is going to be let in through a window. they go in, see the guard, everything is usual. she gives the guard champagne. there is a drug in the champagne. she refers to it as something sleepy but later she said she knew it was nebutol. she puts some in the dogs water dish. the dog was ok. now, the drug is taking effect. they are still on the couch.

everybody is falling asleep, the dog, the guard. they go to the window, leapt the georgia cracker in. he is working on the safe. this is a really ancient safe. these locks are not tumbling like they should. he finally gets it open but it is around 4:00 a.m. there is no time to remove the books, photographed them, and get them back in the safe. they will have to go in again. could cynthia learn to crack a safe? yes. yes, she could. the georgia cracker works with her. he cannot go back the second time. they go back the second time. betty tries to get the safe open and cannot. she has been at it for a long time. she is upset.

they know the fbi agents are across the street watching the embassy. the second time, they did not drug the guard. betty says to the captain, get undressed. he says, we are just pretending. but they need to be relisted -- look realistic now. she takes all of her clothes off, and she is wearing only pearls. [laughter] the door opens, the guard shines a flashlight on her. that he is standing there, stark naked, pearls. "oh, i'm so sorry." he goes back out. she throws on his lip.

charles once her to get dressed. she was the kind of girl who went shopping without underclothes on. if a girlfriend remarked, you should wear underwear. she said, i don't have time for things like that. she starts working on the safe. she cannot get it open. now they will have to try another time. the georgia cracker will have to be enlisted again. he worked with her but they know they will have to go in another time. the next time, the georgia cracker is in and opens the safe. they get out the codebooks. they give them the codebooks. he hands them to cynthia. he drops out the window and she drops them down to him.

they are photographed, fingerprints wiped off, returned to the embassy. she puts them in the safe. spins the tumbler. success. the cipher codes once obtained and photographed were sent to london. they got there within 24 hours. the oss use them during the allied north african landing. success. cynthia was eventually transferred to oss from the british. bill donovan, head of the oss approved her to continue working until the end of the war. he felt this collaboration had worked pretty well. now, what to do about the embassy? they needed to remove staff from the embassy. where could they put them?

the hotel hershey. you might think of hershey candy. you may not know or you may know that during the war, hershey made the bulk of their chocolate for the army. there also housed the french diplomats. they kept them in the hotel hershey after they had to be removed from washington. they kept them there in style. betty wanted to join charles at the hotel hershey. the story have to be concocted. she would pose as his long-lost daughter. his wife was approached by intelligence and she went along with this scheme. her daughter had died. betty would be posing as her late daughter. charles would write at this point he did not even know his wife had a daughter. [laughter]

betty will come to the hotel hershey. this worked briefly at the hotel where you can live quite comfortably. flowers delivered daily, all of the food you want. remember this is rationing in wartime in america but everything was given to them.

you can use a medical excuse to go into town anytime you wanted. she would use that all the time. she would say she feels terrible. she goes into harrisburg meeting with intelligence, giving them information she has acquired. then, charles wife catches charles and betty in bed. she rages so loudly you can hear it throughout the hotel. betty has to be sent away. she tried to sneak back to see charles. she was caught on the grounds and they said, you have to leave. she said "i am just a naughty girl." eventually, after the war, betty and charles were married. he took her to his castle in france. i want to say they lived happily ever after but they did not. so i will end it here because it gets sad later on. this is cynthia. she wrote "i hope and believe i was a patriot."

i believe she was. i look at her face, staring out at some unknown person through the years and i think, your story needs to be told. who would be good to play her in a movie? my son said steve carell. [laughter] even with prosthetics, i don't know about that. so, thank you for listening to the tale. [applause] >> i think this is almost downton abbey and 50 shades of grey meet the imitation game. ms. zanin: it feels very downton abbey to me. a brief note about her child. she did see tony has a young man before he shipped to the korean war.

he had grown into a beautiful young person and unfortunately he died fighting to the last minute. he died with honors and was a true hero. she was comforted by that. but it just breaks your heart when he think about the baby being taken away from her. she is so lady edith, i can't stand it. >> questions for natalie? about cynthia? or elizabeth. >> we have one here. >> i didn't remember from the beginning, what year was she born? ms. zanin: 1910. >> she was in her early 30's during the 1940's. ms. zanin: yes. age did not dim her. >> what happened to her

daughter? ms. zanin: her daughter died. denise was very unhappy. as you can imagine. her mother abandoned her and went off to live her life. in some ways, i think betty is repeating what cora did to her. cora ignored the children in favor of her social world. betty is doing the same thing. she is able at some point to compartmentalize and to say, that part of my life, goodbye. done. i am going to work with intelligence. almost as if denise doesn't exist for her. >> natalie, and how did the diaries -- were they in possession of the family? you made a number of references to the diaries. ms. zanin: i have not had my hands on the diaries.

i have seen excerpts. i think the families have been. -- the family has them. >> you are a great storyteller. are you really not going to tell us the end of the story? ms. zanin: i will tell you. but it is not sexy and it is sad. betty and charles were very happy for a while. then, the restlessness crept in. she wanted to be useful and she was literally in a castle on top of a mountain. she was bored. she tried to alleviate the boredom. she kept up with old friends in intelligence, a lot of letter writing. eventually, she became ill. she died -- it was a very slow and painful death. i told you it was sad. charles also died not long after. he was electrocuted by his electric blanket, which then set

fire to the castle. i told you it was awful. i did not want to tell you. when i read that in the notes, i thought, oh my gosh, i am ending it after hotel hershey. and then i said to my husband, your electric blanket is never coming out of the package. [laughter] >> right over here. >> two questions. he started talking about british intelligence and then all the sudden, oss. did they pass her over to oss? ms. zanin: they were cooperating at that point, and i think it

was a mutual benefit for them to work together. i believe oss might have had something, i cannot confirm, something to do with the fbi detail that watched the embassy. not being as alert as they should have been. certainly, if you are fbi and watching people every night going into the embassy as couples, that would be someone to -- yeah. i believe later on, the fbi may have bugged her hotel room but i am not an hundred percent certain. that would make sense to me, if they would go in. >> did her father and or mother have a lot of money? it sounds like they really had -- he was not just a military officer. ms. zanin: they did well. they were -- in newport, rhode island, they really moved in yachting circles. those boats require a lot of money. yeah, they did. >> one back here.

>> it was already answered. >> right there. >> over 20 years ago, i read mary lovell's book. i was wondering what you thought. ms. zanin: i did look at that book. i got a sense she did not really like her subject. it is thorough and beautifully detailed. there was a sense as i read it that she was not that fond of betty. from the first moment i started reading about betty, i thought i just love this woman. it is beautifully detailed. it is worth reading. it is called "cast no shadow." there is one that is out of print by montgomery hyde. "cynthia," but you can get it through -- i do know what to plug anybody, but --

[whispers] amazon. [laughter] it is very conversational. he is talking with betty shortly before she dies. she leaves a lot of things out. she is still in her flirtatious mode. she wants to come across well to hyde. she is not as detailed about certain things that, yeah, he probably was more interested in. she never named her lover carlos to him. she kept referring to him as antonio. [laughter] >> yes, right here. >> was there an exchange of embassy personnel between the vichy and our embassy in paris? were they kept prisoners? ms. zanin: they were kept

prisoners the whole time and some of them who want to become americans were allowed to do so. some were shipped off to warm springs. the people of her she -- of hershey understandably less than thrilled. stories were circulating through harrisburg about how the french are living in the hotel. the things they are getting to eat that you can't get in hershey. after a while, people were very open with their pro-nazi sympathies, it was deemed that should be moved out of the hotel. then, the hotel goes back to being a proper hotel. >> natalie, thank you so much for a fascinating story. [applause] let me thank the smithsonian volunteers for joining us

throughout the series. thank you. [applause] have a great rest of your day. be careful on the red line. [laughter] >> at age 25 she was one of the wealthiest widows in the colonies and by age 40 she was considered an enemy by the british. later she became our nation's first first lady at the age of 57. martha washington. on the c-span original series first ladies: influence an image. looking at the lives of first ladies from martha washington to michelle obama.

on american history tv on c-span3. as a complement to the series, c-span from new books -- first ladies historians on the lives of iconic american women. creating an illuminating entertaining, and inspiring read. it's available as an hardcover or an e-book through your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. challenging the new fcc internet rules, five organizations have filed lawsuits against the fcc. we will speak with the president and ceo of one of those organizations, walter mccormick, and a supporter of the rules christopher lewis, vice president of public affairs at public knowledge. >> we are challenging the classification from an intermittent -- from an information service to a telecommunication service

pursuant to 19th-century railroad regulation. common law was originally applied to railroads covert truck is -- railroads, trucking companies, and airlines. it delays deployment, slowed innovation, and it really chilled investment. crist for lewis: we both agree that net neutrality protections are important. we do did -- we do disagree on the rules that the fcc enacted and have now become force of law. we think that after a decade of working towards a way to have these economies this is the

strongest federal protection we have seen. >> monday night on the communicators on c-span's here. >> each week american history tv visits museums and is for places. you are looking at peterson house and washington, d.c. where president abram lincoln passed away -- abraham lincoln passed away. up next, the boarding house across the street from ford's theatre where abraham lincoln was shot 150 years ago. >> at about 10:00 10:15, ford's theater opened. people came out screaming. i first they thought the theater was on fire.

then they heard that the president was shot. that got the attention of the members of the boarding house. torch frances lived on the first floor. he came out and walked into the street and he could only get half way across and people were screaming. he walked right up to the president's body, and was being taken across the street. and other border henry, heard the noise, too. he saw the commotion, and he heard the shouts that lincoln had been shot. he could not get to ford's theater. so many people were outside in the street. he went up the stairs. he stood of the top of the staircase. he was up there watching as the shoulders pounded on the door of the house next door. they could not get in. he saw there was lincoln in the middle of the street being carried by soldiers and they did not know where to take the president. everyone inside got a candle and shouted, bring him in here.

the doctor heard that and shouted to the officers and soldiers, take the president to that house. they crossed the street and came up the stairs. and so, as lincoln was being carried up the staircase, he was still alive, unconscious. and the sight of abraham lincoln here at the top of the staircase was the last time the american people saw him alive. the doctor came in this door. and he told saffron, take us to your best room. the hallway is narrow. it was already filled with the lincoln entourage, the doctors the soldiers. there was a narrow staircase on the right. he knew the best room was the front parlor, occupied by george , so he reached for the door here. it was locked. he went down to the second door here. this door was locked.

he was inside frantically getting dressed. she had seen the president being brought to the house, so she was already dressed for bed, so she went to put on her close. she did not unlock this door either. all that was left was this little room at the back of the hallway, which was occupied by a civil war soldier, but he was out for the evening. so, they led them to the back room. you can see how narrow the hallway he is. there is barely enough room for soldiers to stand on each side of lincoln and carried him down the hallway. they took him into this room and laid him on a spindle bed in the corner. >> here are a few of the book festivals we will be covering the spring on c-span tv.

this weekend we are live from the university of southern california for the los angeles times festival of books with discussions on science american history, and crime. we also have conversations with authors and be taking your calls throughout the weekend. the last weekend of the month we will be in maryland for the maryland state book festival hearing from james rison. then we will be at the gaithersburg book festival. and then we will close out may at book expo america in new york city where the publishing industry showcases their overcoming books -- their upcoming books. then the printers row lit fest with pulitzer prize winning author lawrence right. that's the spring's book festivals on c-span tv.

>> congress established the veterans history project is a part over the full life project at the library of congress. it collects oral histories and makes them accessible to the public. up next week hear from senator thomas carper of delaware, a new flight officer. -- who was a naval flight officer during the vietnam war. >> good afternoon, senator. i am dave winkler. this is my colleague. we are here with the veterans history program to discuss your career in the navy reserve. today is the 14th of september and we are on capitol hill. thank you for your time. i would like to open up the floor with a question, talking about your youth and your interest in the military and what eventually lead you to the navy rotc program.

senator tom carper: my wife says that i never grew up and i hope in a sense that i never do. i grew up in virginia, my dad worked for nationwide insurance. it was in gamble, virginia on the north carolina border. i was in the boy scouts. my father encouraged me to attend and i did scout when i was 12 or so. the first time i ever sat in an airplane was at the civil air patrol, indicated that took off beside me. off into the wild blue yonder. i was always intrigued with the military, my dad had been a chief petty officer in world war ii and in my family, nobody ever