moments that defined jfk's response to the nuclear arms race. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> and more now from our first ladies influence and image series with first lady laura bush. we spoke with her in 2013. this is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> what was your initial reaction the first time your husband said i think i'm going to run for president? >> well, i can't really remember exactly what my initial reaction was. i think it was a little bit slower than all of a sudden saying i'm going to run for president. he was governor and had been governor for one term and re-elected and i slowly think we both started talking about it.

he talked about it and of course other people were talking to him about it. i knew what it was like. i knew already what it would be like to run for president. i knew what it would be like to live in the white house. george and i had an advantage that only one other family has had so far, the john quincy adams family. because we'd seen somebody we loved in that office, and we visited him very often. we moved to washington in fact in 1987, rather, to work on president bush's campaign. and so i saw them then when they were campaigning nationwide, and they still had time to baby-sit barbara and jenna on a saturday night when george and i would want to go out to dinner. really that year and a half we lived in washington until president bush was elected in november of 1988. it was a wonderful bonding time for our family. it was the only time i ever lived in the same town with my in-laws.

and my mother-in-law and i really had a chance to bond. our little girls had a chance to get to know their grandparents in a way that they hadn't really because their grandfather had been vice president for the whole part of their life. they were born in 1981 right after he was elected vice president. so i knew really what it would be like, and my hesitation was because i knew what it would be like. i know that in politics you can be defined in a way that you're not. that's what we saw with president bush, and it was so stressing for us in 1992 when he lost because we saw him characterized in a way that we knew he wasn't, and that's just the risk you run. and it's also what you know it's going to be like, i think, which makes all the difficulty of it, the difficulty of being defined in a way that you're not or being criticized by your

opponents or even by your friends, you know, something that you can live with because you know that's just how it is in america. and one of it really great things about our country is that we can say whatever we want about the people who run for office. and even about our presidents when they're serving. >> is it tough to develop that thick skin that you need? >> it is. and of course it always bothers you. but on the other hand, i know george. and i know what he's like. just like we knew his dad. and we know what he's like as well. and so the criticisms in a lot of ways just, you know, are criticisms from people who don't know and who aren't with you

every day, of course, like i was with george every day. >> how do you grow into the first lady role? >> i think really it took me a long time to grow into it. i knew already. i'd watched my mother-in-law which was a huge advantage as well. i knew a lot of things which were the minor things about living in the white house. i knew you needed to pick a christmas theme in march so you'd be ready with the christmas decorations. i knew for the white house christmas card you needed to start quite early especially if you wanted to use an american artist to do the art for the christmas card. those were just things i already knew and it was a huge help to know those. not only did i know how to do those things that the first lady or at least i wanted to be involved in and i was interested in but i also knew everyone that worked there. george and i knew the butlers. we knew the ushers, we knew the white house florist. we knew all the people who served there for president after president. and that was a huge advantage for us. when we moved in that very first day there were lots of hugs with the butlers and the ushers that we'd known before, and of course president bush and barbara bush were with us on that first night at the white house. and all of george's brothers and

sisters and my mother and barbara and jenna, all of us were in the house together that very first night. and we all knew the people there. in fact, in 1981 or 1988, rather, when president trump was inaugurated, january of 1989 the white house florist met little barbara and jenna who were 7. and when they got too cold at the parade and they wanted to come into the white house before we had left the parade and president bush and barbara had left the parade, nancy clark, the white house florist met them at the door and took them down into the florist shop and helped to make a little bouquet for their bedrooms where they happen staying in the white house. so really for us it was a wonderful sense of security to already know everyone that worked there and to already have a friendship with them. >> mrs. bush growing up as laura welch in midland texas in the 1950s did you ever imagine the

life that you've had? >> never would have ever thought, you know, that i'd ever live in the white house, never expected to marry someone who would become president. and i think that's what happens to a lot of people. things happen in your life that you don't expect and a lot of them are great and wonderful, and of course some are not. but i would have never expected to live at the white house. and i will have to say i was a teacher, i was a librarian, that's what i always want today do when i was in the second grade. i truly made my favorite thing to do, reading, into my career. and did expect that. i went to undergraduate school for an education degree and then to graduate school for library science, and that's what i did expect in my life.

and that's what i wouldn't have thought would have helped when my husband became governor and then president. but actually it was really great preparation for a life in politics to have worked in public schools, to have taught in public schools and to have been a public school and even a public librarian. i worked for houston public library for a year. it was a great advantage to know what it was like to work in schools because education is such an important issue both for a governor but also for president. so that was very help fool to me and then of course having read a million stories to kids in all those years was good experience i think for speech giving. >> in your book "spoken from the heart" you talk about your grandmother welch -- your grandmother and your mother jenna welch, and their talents and their abilities.

>> my mother and my grandmother were both naturalists. my mother is 94. she's alive and lives in midland, texas. she's doing very well. i try to go out there every few weeks and see her. she's not traveling really anymore but she's doing great. but my mother and grandmother were both naturalists. they were very, very interested in gardening. they were interested in native plants. my mother became a bird-watcher when she was my girl scout leader and we got our bird badge. none of us remember it but she really got a lifelong interest in bird watching. and that was something that informed my life, that love of outdoors, the whole idea how beautiful the natural world is and especially native plants and the use of native plants in the landscape. so when lady bird johnson was first lady of the united states, i was always proud a texas first lady saw the beauty of the

natural world and wanted and encouraged people in all over our country to plant native plants and plant wild flowers on the highway. because they do the best there, because that is there natural habitat but also because they're beautiful. and every year when the daffodils bloom, i'm reminded of lady bird johnson because i know she wanted it to be that way. when we planned the bush library we wanted our 15 acre park that surrounds the bush center to be like a native prairie that would have been exactly what the settlers in north texas would have found when they came through here. we worked with the lady bird johnson center to develop turf grass we planted all around the bush library. it's a mixture of five native

turkey tx -- texas grasses. mainly buffalo grass that stays low but others as well. three grandmas and curly mesquite. and this is first application of it as a native turf grass. it should be able to stand up to the use that a college campus lawn would get and then also to not need to be watered and mowed very often. >> how did you get from smu from midland, texas? >> i went to look at a number of schools with my mother. i looked at texas tech which is where my dad went, and it's in lubbock, not far from midland where i grew up, and then with one of my really good high school friends we both said let's go to smu, and that's what we decided to do. i watched a lot of smu football players as a high school student and knew about smu really from its football program.

and then also of course i'm a methodist and this is methodist school. >> what was it like growing up in midland, texas, in the 1950s? >> well, it was a wonderful place to grow up. it's a safe and very loving community. a community you knew if you did anything wrong and some neighbors saw you they would tell on you. we were free to really go everywhere in midland. we rode our bikes to the little shopping center to eat lunch at the counter there, at the pharmacy drugstore. i had lots of really good friends i was with for all of those years, and i'm still very close to the people i grew up in midland. in fact, i hike every year and have for years with a group of four other midland friends of mine. we see each other all the time. it's really terrific now to with them because now it takes five of us to remember somebody's

name. but we also know each others history. we know all of our old boyfriends, all of the same things about each other because we were in elementary and junior high and high school together. and there's great security, really, in having friends that were your friends when you were a child and having that kind of history of friendship. georgia also grew up in midland. the bushes lived in midland until we were in the eighth grade and they took his oil company offshore and they moved to houston. so from elementary school those same great friends of mine were in the first grade and second grade with george and his friends that he played little league baseball with were my friends. and we used to invite all of them to the white house, all of those friends. we had a very really festive valentine dinner once with those friends of ours. and one of my friends who came from that dinner had breast cancer and she was dying and we

knew she died in april after that valentines. but it was really wonderful to have the chance to be with those friends and to know that they were our friends for our whole life, and they'd be our friends for the rest of our life. >> you even went hiking with that group of friends when you were first lady. >> that's right. we hiked for years before george became president, and we had entered the lottery, the concession lottery to hike in the tented camps of yosemite for about three years while george was governor, and our names were never drawn. so as soon as he was elected i called them and said guess what, we won the lottery. so in 2001 we hiked in yosemite which is one of our most beautiful national parks. we hiked from tented camp to tented camp and we didn't really displace anybody because we were always a day ahead of the other

we hiked one day before the upper camps opened. so that was really fun. we hiked in all the big national parks, yosemite and glacier and yellowstone, and zion, and denali and grand canyon. the grand canyon was the first national park we'd hiked in together many years ago. when george was president we all took our girls with us. barbara, one of my daughters was in africa working in a hospital then, so she didn't get to go, but jenna did, and that was a lot of fun. and so we still do that. we hiked in yellowstone this summer. we're repeating now a lot of the big parks. we've been back to glacier and back to yellowstone, and probably not to yosemite because it's just too hard for us at our age. >> have you been stop asked recognized? >> yes, we always do. we have one party as a fund-raiser. especially the big western parks have friends groups.

and so we -- this summer we had a big party at the superintendent's house for all the supporters of yellowstone national park to come, and that was fun. >> what did you enjoy most about being texas first lady? >> well, i loved being texas first lady because i loved my state. and i know my state so well having always lived here. the towns i visited when george was governor and i don't think i made it to every single county. i think there are 253 of them, but i did make it to almost every one, and in many cases it was nostalgic, be in a part of the state i would visit with my parents when we would go on summer vacations or it would be in a part of the state where my grandmother lived in el paso, for instance, or lubbock where my dad's mother lived. so i loved that. i also loved getting to see like

you do get to see in a state that every governor and every governor's spouse gets to see and that is the very best of your state and the most unlikely corners of the state. i would see the most terrific programs that texans had founded. a lot of literacy programs of course because that was a particular interest of mine but a lot of great programs that just groups, womens clubs had started to support, either child protective services for protection of children who were abused or who were in foster families that needed special care or, you know, literacy programs that were founded so anyone could come in and be taught how to read. and of course in our state we have a lot of people who don't read in english and want to learn to speak english and read in english. those programs were great to

see. i saw out in far west texas because you're a long way away from the biggest part of the city they go around to see if people can be tested to see if they have breast cancer because to get into the hospital close to them is a long drive. >> would you consider yourself a natural campaigner, a natural public person? >> i think i would now. i don't think i would have thought that to begin with. after all i am a librarian, and i would say i'm on introvert. i'm married to an extravert, which i like. one of things i loved most about george was he loved to talk and his sense of humor. i liked that a lot. i wanted to be married to someone who could entertain me for the rest of my life, and he has for sure. but i think there's a place even

for introverts in politics, and also it made me grow in a lot of ways to not be the shy person that i thought of myself as. >> do you remember the first time you had to give a public speech? >> george and i, the great joke is that we have the prenup. he had promised i would never have to give a political speech, and about three months into our marriage there i was on the steps of the courthouse giving the speech because he couldn't come. with all the other candidates for the congressional race he was running for, two democrats and three republicans and george had some obligation so he couldn't come. and of course the candidates themselves were the ones who were shaking their heads to me. you know, you can do it. that was sweet.ááááááááé row -- people are very kind, i

think, especially to the spouse of a candidate in our state. >> do you still get nervous before a speech? >> not that much anymore, but i also know i have to have a speech. i have to be prepared and really know what i'm going to talk about. and as long as i have a speech i think is a good speech i'm not that nervous. >> as an only child, what was it like marrying into the bush family? >> it was terrific, my wish on the star always is that i wanted brothers and sisters. my mother lost several pregnancies and i knew that was their great desire, that they really wanted a lot of children, so i did, too. i wanted those brothers and sisters. but then that's what i felt like i got when i married george and got his brother and sister and their spouses, of course. and his sister and her family and one of his brothers and his

family live in the washington, d.c. area, so we saw them all the time. and there's great emotional support really in having your family members around when you live in the white house, and i would notice that his brother would, you know, when times were tough would call and say let's watch the game this weekend and would come, and they wouldn't talk about the politics, but george and marvin could sit and watch a game, i think, and relax in a way that only you can with your brother, with your sister. and then i worked out several times a week with my sister-in-law margaret. she would drive in from alexandria to the white house early in the morning so we could work out together, that was really a lot of fun and also great emotional support for me. they all came to camp david with their children. they had a standing invitation, george told them. and so many times when we were going to camp david for the weekend they would come and that was a lot of fun.

we went to church there at the chapel at camp david, and they'd be there with us. >> how important during your presidency was the ranch at camp david? >> well, the ranch was very important to us, and of course we didn't go that often. i think we went almost every year that george was president and that was going to be there with them, with president bush and barbara where they were. we didn't go in 2005 after hurricane katrina. we had not gone that summer because we were just scheduled in a way we couldn't go, and we had scheduled it for the fall, but after hurricane katrina we didn't go at all that year. but part of going there in the summer was just to be with them, with president bush and bar. and that emotional support you get from being with your parents especially in such a familiar location that george had gone to his whole life with his parents

and with his grandparents. but the ranch was very important to us and that's where we vacationed, really, when we took the weeks off we would take off in august when the congress would go home for vacation we went to our ranch. and also for us that was our home, that was our furniture, that the house we had built, that was our property. and there was something also really -- i think in a way it was a break from living in the white house to be in our own home and that's what we used it for but we also used it to entertain a lot. i think we asked more than a dozen world leaders to the ranch, and it gave us a chance to show them what our life was like and what our state was like. and also it gave us a chance to entertain them in a way that was very personal. not that entertaining at the white house wasn't also personal. and of course people -- world leaders wanted to come to the

white house. but many of them visit the president at the white house. some had already visited president clinton at the white house. and so to come to our ranch was a special thing that we had i think to offer them. and they appreciated it. we're doing a big prairie restoration at our ranch. we had started it in 2000 when we bought the property. and that's one of the reasons i wanted to do this prairie here at the bush center because i wanted to let people in texas know what our state was like before it was plowed and grazed and built over and paved in many parts. and here at the bush center we're right by a central expressway. we're by a big freeway and we're able to see what this part of the state would have been like. that's what we've done there at the ranch. so we had a chance to show our guests, the heads of state that

came to visit us there what a central texas prairie would have been like. and so for a lot of them i remember for the australian prime minister that came, the whole aussie party that came with him wanted to talk about because they had had this very large wide open country like ours was. and they talked about how they restored their grasslands as well and what they did to do that. >> what was your approach to entertaining in the white house, and how do you go from one day being the first lady of texas to entertaining foreign leaders the next? >> well, that was really a very enjoyable part of living in the white house. and there's a huge team that work on entertaining. obviously the state department, the recommendations for state dinners come from the state department in many cases. and so you're working with them on the -- on the plans for the

state dinner on the invitation that goes out to the world leader to ask them to come. and then the white house social office, the social secretary gets involved as well and the white house florist and the white house chef. everyone's involved in trying to plan a dinner that you think would be -- the most american but also a way that makes a nod to the culture of the country whose world leader you're entertaining. it was really fun to work on those, make all those plans for him. we always did a tasting of the food -- the menu the chef had proposed. many times we would ask members of congress to come to the tasting and tell them they were guinea pigs for the state dinner that we were hosting, and of course they would be very forthright and say i don't think you should do this, i don't know if this dish is that tasty, and

they would be more forthcoming really i think than our friends would be, who would say that's great whatever you've got. and that was fun, really. that let us spread the pleasure of the state dinner out over a number of nights to do tastings and talk about what we were going to have. and then of course we would try to pick entertainment that represented the united states in a wonderful way. like the new orleans jazz band, for instance, that we invited to one of them. in a way to try actually show these heads of state what was important to us and what american music was important to us. and then for the whole state visit we would usually travel the day after the state visit with the head of state, when our very first state dinner was september 6, 2001. so it was right before september

11th, and it was with president fox and marta fox, and of course that the relationship that we expected to spend the most time on. we were from a state that had a long, long border with mexico, was the particular issue and interest to us, all the border issues. so the next day we traveled to chicago. we went to a show of a mexican-american art that was at the terra museum. we invited all the artists to come for a lunch afterwards, which was interesting, also this chance to be able to show both our art -- american art but that originated in her country in mexico to that first lady. loise himenez traveled with us and flew to the terra museum

because he had work in that show. i think george took -- i forgot where george took president fox the next day. then when the prime minister from japan came he happened to have a great love elvis presley. and we knew that. so for our gift we gave him an old jukebox filled with elvis pressley and he was thrilled to get that, and the next day we took him to graceland. and that was so much fun. we wore our gold framed elvis presley sunglasses and then we ate at the famous restaurant there after.

there, and had a little elvis impersonating sort of band that the prime minister sang with and sang "love me tender" with them and it was really fun. >> besides barbara bush what other first ladies have you studied and either adapted their style or not adapted their style? >> i think you really do study all the first ladies when you live there. and you know you live with their decorating choices, with their furniture, with the effects really of their lives there at the white house. and certainly in times when -- that are tough like ours after september 11th you think about the other families and how they coped with what was happening then. and certainly lincoln is the one you think about the most, the worst time in our country's history when brother fought against brother. and of course mary todd lincoln

was very unhappy. her brothers fought for the confederacy and she wished them dead and they did die. and then they lost a child while they lived there as well. and you can imagine what it was like for her to have those tragedies. and then you knew what it was like for him as well, a president at a time when our country was at war with itself. and one of the things that is comforting about livering -- living there with all the history that you live with is that you see how we've overcome in our country the challenges that we faced. i mean, you think about the long years of world war ii and the roosevelt who lived there then and other times in our history and how difficult it was for people and how we overcame those challenges. and so there's a certain comfort in knowing that while peace

isn't forever and neither is war and that we will be able to overcome these times of terrorism as well, that time passes and things change. and really i do think in our country things get better, and that's a reassuring idea while you're living there. >> you write in "spoken from the heart" about growing up in the era of civil rights, developing civil rights. what was that like for you? >> i was very involved really at least emotionally in the civil rights movement. i graduated from college in 1968, and i asked to teach, and when i got a job at dallas and in houston and austin and inner city schools because i wanted to work in inner city schools because of the way i thought especially african-american children had been left out. and that's what i did in houston. that was a predominantly african-american school.

nearly every one of my children i taught were african-american, and i felt that was what i could do. that was one way i could be involved in the civil rights movement. but i also grew up in a town in texas that named their new high school when it was new, named it robert e. lee. and i remember at the time thinking that was not appropriate, but, you know, it never occurred to me really to go to the school board and say anything. i was a child, i thought. i didn't think i had that. but i know at the time i discussed it with my mother and she thought there was one school board member who particularly wanted to name it robert e. lee. all of our other schools we went to in elementary school were named for texas heroes. they were all named for heroes of the alamo really.

and then our junior highs were named for the battles that led to the -- they were the battles of the texas revolution that led to texas being a country, the republican texas for ten years and then finally being annexed as a state, the united states. so somehow i didn't think robert e. lee fit in that group of texas heroes although they could have been red probates, who knows. anyway, that's what my school was named, and we were segregated. george washington carver was the name of the high school for african-americans in midland. and when we hosted the reunion, my high school reunion at the white house we had kids -- they were 60-year-old people by then from midland high school and

robert e. lee high school and george washington carver. and really that was the first time we'd ever met the students who were our age. >> did it surprise you at first 'd seen my mother-in-law and the platform she had to talk about literacy, which was her particular interest. i'd seen lady bird johnson and how she influenced me even here at home in texas because of her interest in native plants. but i didn't really know it until i made the president's radio address, the presidential radio address in that fall of 2001 after the terrorist attack to talk about what -- the way women and children were treated by the taliban and afghanistan. >> good morning, i'm laura bush.

and i'm delivering this week's radio address to kick off a worldwide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the al-qaeda terrorist network and the regime it supports in afghanistan, the taliban. that regime is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of afghanistan especially women are rejoicing. afghan women know through hard experience what the rest of the world is discovering, the brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorist. >> and right after that i made that -- did the radio address from our ranch. we were at our ranch that weekend, then i went to austin, where jenna where jenna was a freshman at the university of texas. we went shopping together at a department store. and the ladies who sold cosmetics at the department

store said thank you so much, ms. bush. thank you for speaking for the women of afghanistan. >> not only because our hearts break for the women and children in afghanistan but also because in afghanistan we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us. all of us have an obligation to speak out. we may come from different backgrounds and faiths but parents the world over love their children. we respect our mothers, our sisters, and daughters. fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture. it's the acceptance of our common humanity. >> and that's the first time i really realized that people heard me and what i said people listened to. so then i knew from then on although i think you don't ever really know it intellectually until maybe after you leave and see what the platform is. but lady bird johnson had that saying i quoted, that she had a podium and she was going to use it, and she did.

>> do you think you used yours? >> i hope so. i tried to use it. i tried to use it. i talked a lot about women in afghanistan. i still do. i'm worried now. >> you've traveled over there. >> i've been there three times while george was president. i'd love to again but i'm worried as we draw our troops down their rights which are fragile will be jeopardized. >> another issue you were involved in in the white house, you started the national book festival. the first one was on september 8, 2001. >> that's right. really that fall is when i felt like what i was working on was getting going, really. the first state dinner on september 6th for mexico, and then the first national book festival, which i'd hoped to bring to the white house. i started to texas book festival when george was governor and i thought it was just a natural

to have a book festival on the national mall. that's where it was. and it still goes on and draws lots and lots of people and still hugely popular. so that was that weekend, the weekend before the tuesday morning of september 11th. and even on that morning i was on my way to capitol hill the brief the senate education committee on early childhood education. i'd hosted a summit on early childhood education that summer, and i was going to brief that committee on early childhood education when i was getting into the car and my secret service agent leaned over to me and said a plane has just flown into the world trade center. we went ahead to the capitol. we got in the car. we assumed as we started driving it was some strange accident. but by the time we got to the

capitol we knew the second plane had hit, and we knew what it was. so i joined senator kennedy who was the chairman of the senate education committee in his office. and then in just a few minutes senator judd greg from new hampshire who's one of our closest friends joined me. the committee and so the three of us sat in senator kennedy's office and he talked the whole time and told stories about things in his office. he showed me and laughed at a letter he had framed that his brother jack had written to his mother that said teddy is getting fat. and he thought that was funny, and i've often wondered if that was just his reaction to something as shocking and as horrible because that was just the way he had to deal with it because of course he'd had many shocks in his life. or if he thought i would fall

apart and he thought the way he could keep things going was just to keep small talk and talking and keeping things going. but anyway then in a few minutes i left and went to a secure location. >> how did you leave? >> well, the secret service came to get me and said it's time to -- at first they were thinking they would take me back to the white house. and so they sort of had to regroup and figure out where i should go because obviously the people at the white house -- the staff at the white house was getting the word to run. and people in my office, young women who worked for me were kicking off their high heels and running from the white house. and i know they expected to have glamorous, really interesting jobs at the white house and no one ever thought they would have to run from the white house like they did. so, anyway, the secret service

came to get me and senator greg and senator kennedy walked me out to the door, and then i drove to the -- where i went really was the secret service building which had been -- whe really was the secret service building which had been reinforced and -- after the terrorist attacks in our embassies. and really, i guess, after the oklahoma city bombings, the federal buildings, a lot of them had been reinforced. and that one had been. and so that's where i went and spent the day. >> had you talked your husband or girls at that point? >> i can't remember. i wrote this down in the book because i had the logs from the day to remember. but i did talk to george once i got there and the girls and then, of course, my mother was the one i really wanted to call because i wanted my mother to say everything is going to be all right. and of course, i called her and said, everything is going to be all right, and i wanted her to

say, it certainly is. >> you had been first lady about seven months, 9/11 happens, as you describe. we're here in dallas, 50 years ago. jfk was shot in the city. where were you that day and what did you remember about jackie kennedy? >> i was in my class at robert e. lee high school. i was a senior in high school. i was in a class called the history of western thought. it was a philosophy class that you had to have certain scores to take. it was one class that a history professor taught. and he came in and told us that president kennedy had been shot. i went home for lunch that day and i went home to where my parents were and was with them then. then after that, you know, the funeral for that -- that

followed, i remember just lying on the couch in my den with my mother and dad in the room watching it and, you know, i was amazed really had her strength and she was very young. really young. i think she was only 32, if i'm not mistaken. and she really had such strength. not only did she have the strength to be able to withstand it with such grace and such poise, but she also was able to plan a state funeral at the most unexpected thing that would ever happen to a first lady in a way that i think was for our whole country was so beautifully and so memoriably planned that it happened in a lot of ways, everyone in our country as we watched. and she did too really with her

strength. >> did you find yourself becoming a role model or somebody that people looked at after 9/11 happened? >> i don't know that, really. i guess so. i think i hear it -- got letters from people that said that from people. i didn't expect to do that, really. i didn't -- and i'm sure it was just like she was.0r0r0r0r0r0r0 model. you didn't expect that people would watch you do that. you might expect that people would look at your clothes or how you entertained. billi but it doesn't occur to first ladies really that you're going to be a role model in that way, the grace you have, the strength you have to be able to handle and live through in a way that gives other people strength, the shocks that come in our history. >> mrs. bush, you write in "spoken from the heart" about a

difficult period, november 1963 and a loss of faith, your faith. why? >> i was in a car wreck that's -- i wrote about extensively in my book. and the whole time i was in the hospital, not injured, really. i had a cut on my leg and a broken ankle. i was praying that the other person in the car would be okay. and the other person in the car was one of my best friends which i didn't know. i didn't really recognize that at the site of the crash. his father came up, his father -- they lived just past where the car wreck was and i recognized his father. but i didn't understand that that was mike that was there. and i think because i prayed over and over and over for him to be okay and then he wasn't, you know, i thought, well, nobody listened.

god was not listening. my prayer wasn't answered. i went through a very long time of not believing and not believing that prayers could be answered. and it took me a long time, really, and a lot of growing up to come back to faith. >> and have you recovered your faith? >> and i have recovered my faith. and my faith was very helpful to me in those years, to george and me. we lived in the white house, it's really -- i can't imagine actually living there without a strong faith. and faith really in the goodness of obviously of the lord, but in the goodness of life and that was the quote that i used in the -- my christmas card that first year and it was the one that was in the book the week

after september 11th we went to camp david. everyone came. the cabinet was there with us as well and condi and they were all there that weekend. and our camp david chaplain who also happened to be a methodist minister has chosen, i believe i shall see the goodness of the lord in the land of the living. that was in the little program for camp david that weekend. and so i used that for our bible verse in our first christmas card. because that is what i thought we saw. we saw americans line up to literally give up themselves by lining up to give blood after september 11th. >> laura bush, how do you think you grew or changed in the role of first lady after 9/11? >> well, i think, you know, i guess, what happens to a lot of people is, you grow just because

you are strong, that you already were strong. and i was. and george is. and i didn't know that, maybe. i didn't really know the kind of strength i had, the kind of emotional strength. and physical, really. actually physical strength, that i had, the stamina that i had. i knew george had, but i wasn't so sure that i did. i think the way i grew is the way i found out really that i did have that kind of strength and i could go on and not only go on, but go on and help in any way i could, the people that were around me, or the people that are affected or the families that lost somebody on september 11th. our whole country, just as we came to terms with the idea that we were vulnerable, that we could have this kind of attack, that we didn't expect. that was the shock for us.

we had really never had anything on our homeland like that expect for pearl harbor. and that seemed remote to us then because it was world war ii and a long time ago. and i think that was the big announcement for all of us in your whole country and that was to actually imagine that that could happen to us. >> you talked about stamina. were there days at the white house when you were just so physically tired you wanted to quit? you wanted to say

we always just -- i think know how to take care of our health. we work out. george exercises. we do all the things that i think are what you need to do for emotional health as well as for your physical health. >> did you work out in the white house? >> i worked out in the white house. i had a trainer that came to the gym upstairs at the white house and my sister-in-law came -- always worked out with me. at the very end, the last couple of years after -- maybe the last year, i had a yoga instructor come and that's what i do now in love. >> you do yoga here in dallas? >> yes. >> at a class? >> i have an instructor that comes to my house. >> makes it easier. >> makes it easier, yeah.

>> mrs. bush, you were involved in education as an issue, no child left behind. has that been a successful program? >> i think it has been really successful. the important part of it is just the recognition that it is really a civil rights issues. that the kids who do get left behind are the ones who are in the poorest parts of towns. the ones whose parents don't speak english. the ones who are -- they're the ones who get shuffled through. and that's why it's very important to have accountability, to know how every child is doing. and that's the part that, of course, a lot of people complain about, the testing. but you have to have that. how else would you diagnose any problems. you would never go to your doctor and say you can't do tests on me to find out, you know, what's the matter with me.

you have to have accountability. and i think it's very, very important for school districts and for teachers and for principals and for states who design the curriculum and design the programs that they want their children to have in their states, to realize that accountability is a very important part of it. and one of the things you can tell, if you do testing, is which schools are successful and which aren't. and a lot of times, you find out the ones that aren't are the ones that are in the poorest parts of town. and you need to address that. school districts and parents needs to be advocates for their children and make sure that every school is successful and that every child in the united states gets a great education. it's our obligation as adults in the united states to make sure that every child discuss get a great education. we know it and we know all of

the -- we know all of the results. we're reading them and writing about how american students are 20th out of the 20 most -- biggest economies in math and in science. and we need to change that. and we can change that. we need to make sure that students get a really good education. >> how many hands did you shake as first lady? >> lots. how many pictures did i take? millions. >> millions. you had a full time photographer, all first ladies do and presidents do. did you get used to having your picture snapped at all times? >> sure. i guess so. there were probably a million terrible pictures of me out there. but i think it's just all a part of it and you really do get to get used to it. but not only do you get used to it, we know all of those people very well. those photographers that traveled with me, for instance, i know them and i know their children and i know their lives

and -- so it's not so much like you're with strangers all the time. you're with people that you know very well, that you like, that you remain friends with and some of those people have come with us to here, now, work here at the bush institute, in the bush center. and i stay in touch with many others that -- all around the country. when we just had the dedication of the bush library last april, all of the first ladies staff, all the different ones who worked there off and on or during those eight years came. we had a big party for the first lady staff right here. coffee, the day after the dedication, so i could see everybody and everybody brought -- in fact, i actually have a book that one person made of all the babies that had been born since 2001, since that first staff, all the first ladies' children that are --

they've all had since i first met them. >> that's the public side. you also had two teenage girls and a large bush family. how do you keep the public in the private separate? is it -- >> you do, really. the upstairs at the white house is your private space. it's the private apartment. i didn't bring furniture to it because i knew there was wonderful furniture to choose from to decorate with, to use upstairs. but i did bring one chest of drawers that had belonged to george's grandmother. that was just sort of for a sentimental reason. as soon as we got there, we -- my decorator who worked with me and an antique dealer from austin who is a good friend, went to the facility where the white house furniture is stored and we picked out different things and brought them up and tried them in spots. if we wanted to keep them there, needed to be recovered, we got things recovered.

and that's all paid for with private money. money that goes into the white house historical association and is used to -- it's a big foundation. actually i think it was start by jackie kennedy and a lot of first ladies since then have raised money for the white house historical association so that -- so you're not spending government money when you recover a chair for the white house. >> so that second floor, is that -- >> second and third floor. there are all of these little bedrooms on the third floor, a lot of little bedrooms. and the solarium that we all love that was added maybe in 1927. so that was where the girls would have parties. the first two rooms i did were the girls' bedrooms. a perfect suite of bedrooms, two lovely bedrooms, right down the hall from the president's bedroom, from our bedroom, that

other children had used. they were the rooms that chelsea clinton used and john and caroline kennedy had used and so they were perfect for barbara and jenna. and i put two double beds in each rooms so they could invite three girls each, and of course that happened a lot. barbara and jenna were freshman in college when george was elected. so they never really lived there with us. they stayed there, of course, whenever they came and there were many occasions when eight girls stayed in those two rooms when their friends would come far to visit or for weekends or for holidays. >> what renovations did you initiate at the white house? >> we worked on the lincoln bedroom which was so much fun and so interesting. and i worked with the white house historical association advisory board which is an

advisory board of art curators, a wallpaper expert, historians, in fact lonnie bunch was on that white house historical association advisory board. that's how i got to know him. he's now the director of the new african-american smithsonian museum that's going up right now on the mall in washington. and that was a really great -- had gotten to know him like i did working on all of those rooms. and i know he loved working on the lincoln bedroom. but the lincoln bedroom, when lincoln lived at the white house, was actually his office until teddy roosevelt built the west wing which he did to get out of the house. he had all of those wild kids upstairs in those rooms. the president officed on the second floor at the far end of the hall from the president's

bedrooms. and so when lincoln lived there, the room that's now set up as his bedroom was his office. it was the room he signed the emancipation proclamation in. after truman restored the white house, he moved all of the furniture associated with lincoln, the big lincoln bed and the other pieces of furniture that mary todd lincoln has ordered, moved them all to that space that had been lincoln's bedroom. so we redid it. we had a little square, about this big of the wallpaper that had been in that room when it was his office. we reproduced it. we knew -- we had the bill of sale of the carpet that had been bought during the time of the lincoln -- that lincoln lived there. so we went back to the same mill in england that had done that carpet for him. we didn't know for sure what -- which of the patterns that they sold that he had chosen because

we didn't have a picture of it. on the bill of sale, they said "g" and "o," and they thought was a green and oak carpet. we went back and had that done. >> what do we not know about the first lady and her role that you think the american public should know? >> i think the american public sees the first lady in very glamorous circumstances, usually, for a state dinner and a beautiful gown, some speech, whatever. but i think what they may not imagine looking at the white house from the outside is that it's actually a very normal life upstairs on that -- those two floors that are the white house residence. first ladies, probably, i know i did, lie on the couch and read a book.

in my case, my cat would always curl up next to me. that great window that everyone associates with the west side of the white house, the one that you see is wonderful to sit in that window in the late afternoon when i would be waiting for george to come home from the -- from work because the sun would come in and pour across that couch. it really is a nice couch to lie on and read a book. >> mrs. bush, there was a speech that you made in 2005, april of 2005, that you're well known for. it was a surprise to everybody. how long was that in planning? what was the speech and how long was that in the planning? >> george always said he's delighted to come to these press dinners. baloney! >> that was to the white house correspondents dinner, the famous dinner where as george says, everyone comes in and makes fun of the president and then the president comes on and makes fun of himself.

and so george had given very funny speeches. george is very funny and he had been very funny at every one of those dinners and there's not just the white house correspondents dinner and the gridiron dinner, and the alfalfa dinners, a lot of dinners where the president has to have a funny speech and make fun of himself. that year, george said i think, you know -- i can't even come up with another joke. why don't you do it this year. so i said, okay. >> did you say okay right away? >> i knew that i would -- obviously you work with joke writers. everyone works with joke writers for that speech and it would be funny. and it was funny. and i think it was shocking to people as well. i remember i was sitting next to the president of the white house correspondents who obviously didn't know i was going to spring up -- and so george stands up and makes some joke --

tries to make a lame joke and i jump up and push him off the way and say, no, no not that old joke again. when i did it, the people that were sitting by me gasped. they were shocked. i think they thought something was wrong. that i was jumping up like that to move over to the podium. but it was fun. anyway, that's when i called myself a desperate housewife. and it was funny in the united states and everyone understands it, i think, and knows that's a roast and that's -- that's what everyone at those white house correspondents dinners are like, everyone making fun of the president. but the people from overseas were shocked, i think. after that, when we would travel overseas, some world leader would say, are you a desperate housewife? >> i am married to the president of the united states and here's our typical evening. [ laughter ] >> 9:00, mr. excitement here is

sound asleep. and i'm watching "desperate housewives." [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] >> with lynn chaney. [ laughter ] >> ladies and gentlemen, i am a desperate housewife. [ laughter ] >> if those women on that show think they're desperate, they ought to be with george. [ laughter ] >> i think you compared your mother-in-law to in that speech. >> exactly. >> what was her reaction? >> you'll have to ask her. >> you talked about the first lady being seen glamorous, et cetera. are we too obsessed with your hair, makeup, clothes. >> yes, for sure. but i don't think we can get

around it. maybe when we finally when we have a first gentleman. and maybe we should be that way about the first gentleman also and critique the way they look all the time, their choice of tie or hairstyle or whatever. >> what's your advice for the first gentleman? >> stand back and be quiet. it will be interesting when it finally happens. i hope they'll take on men's health, perhaps. >> in your book you call this a parlor game. but if you had disagreement on policy issues with the policy, how would you get that across? or would you? >> no, no, i would of course. i would just tell him. but the parlor game part was the always trying to find out -- the press trying to know what do you think about it? and how does that differ from what your husband thinks about

it. and my answer was, i'm not the one. you didn't elect me. i don't have to tell you what i think about an issue. but on the other hand, there's plenty of debate on all the issues and i didn't have to be one of the people debating the president. and i think that's really the case. very few times do you see a spouse of a president, you know, making public her disagreements with the president. >> and you do write in your memoir from 2010, before the election season, i talked to george about not making gay marriage a significant issue, the 2004 election. >> well, i did. but i didn't tell anyone at the time. i did write about it. >> mrs. bush, should the first lady receive a salary? >> i don't think so. there are plenty of perks, believe me.

a chef. that was really great. i miss the chef. you know, i don't think so. no, i don't think so. and i think the -- the interesting question really is not should they receive a salary, but should they be able to work for a salary at their job that they might have already had. and i think that's what's -- what will have to come to terms with. should, you know -- certainly a first gentleman might continue to work at whatever he did, if he was a lawyer or whatever. and so i think that's really the question we should ask, is should she have a career during those years that her husband is president, in addition to serving as first lady. >> were you ready to leave washington? >> not really. i loved it. i love living in the white house. it was a huge honor and privilege, really, to be able to live there and so interesting to live there. there's -- it's a history lesson

every single day. and it's so beautiful and you might not know this, but the white house has a very magnificent art collection. and to be able to live with those -- that kind of art was a pleasure. i loved that. but on the other hand you know when you're inaugurated that four years later the term is up. and i think there's a certain acceptance that comes with that that made me begin to anticipate a normal life again. and a life back in dallas which is where we had lived when george was elected governor. and i started coming down here and looking for houses to buy before we left the white house. and so i started really to anticipate what that house would be like and what it would be like to live there and furnish it and all the things that i like to do. of course we immediately started thinking about building this, the presidential library. i invited all of the heads of the libraries to camp david. none of them had been there.

many of the library -- presidential library heads didn't know the president, that they -- whose library they work in because just only the more recent presidents do the -- you know, did people actually know the president. but none of the presidential library foundation heads are -- library directors had ever been to camp david. i invited them to come tour camp to see what it was like. the first presidential library is franklin roosevelt. and franklin roosevelt was also the one who first used camp david. i wanted advice for them, and i knew if i invited them there and they saw camp david, then when we had lunch together and the lodge where you have all of the meals at camp david, that they would be forthcoming and they were. i said, give me advice. what should we do now that we're planning ours? and they had a lot of advice. they talked about what you would

need to do to get things to your archives and how you could help nora who own and administer the -- all of the papers of the president and what you can do when you're building the library to make sure you don't have to go back and retro fit because of the rules that nora has. that was fun. it started to make me look forward to building this and working on this. even before we left the white house, we had picked our architect who is the dean of the yale architecture school and our landscape architect who is the landscape architect i used when we went for the redo of pennsylvania avenue in front of the white house, remember, it had been closed when we moved in. it was already closed because i think the plane had come in when president clinton was president.

but, anyway, we were just getting ready to open it back up when september 11th happened and we knew that pennsylvania avenue would stay closed. so he worked on that. and i knew of a project that he had done at wellesley where he used native plants and wildflowers and i knew that's what i wanted to do on the grounds. i started working with each of those committees, the design committee for the library and then the -- with the other presidential library directors and foundation members. so in a lot of ways, i started to anticipate what the next part of my life would be like. i say in speeches that now we're living what i call the after life in the state. george calls it the promise land. that's what texas is to us. it was great to be back home. >> it's from press reports, you've been very active in the library, in the institute in

getting it started. but what about when you're invited to speak or contribute to a political cause? what's your -- >> i do speak. i speak all over the country. i had a speech in germany last summer, but that was to the lion's club international with a lot of americans. but people from all parts of the world as well. and i choose the groups to speak to that i -- you know, know are doing a really great job. i speak to a lot of foundations of various types. this week, i spoke in ft. worth to a group -- alliance for children that does work for abused and neglected children that work with cps and other law enforcement to help children who have been removed from their homes. i speak to all different types of groups. i haven't really entered the political fray at all out of

personal choice, really. i hosted a launchen for ann romney at our house, but that was private. it was not in the press. it was reported in the press that i had the luncheon, but it was not a press event. george and i both have -- as you know, he's chosen not to speak up politically just because he doesn't think it's great for the presidency -- for former presidents to be opining on -- or second-guessing the choices that a president is making. >> three final questions, mrs. bush. africa is a choice you have made to continue your activity there. >> that's right. through the bush institute, we've chosen to work on the policy areas that were the most important to us when he was president and that's education, obviously, the economy, george is working on a free market -- trying to promote free enterprise and the free market

economy. global health because of the president's emergency plan for aids relief that george started when he was president and then we -- he has a special program to support the men and women of the united states military. and i have -- am chairman of the women's initiative and we've done some terrific fellowship program to bring women from the arab spring countries to the united states to work on leadership skills and then to be paired with an american woman that's in their same profession with the idea of how you build the sort of civil society that you need to support a democracy. we inherited all the things that support our democracy, all the institutions that support our democracy like a free press or free judiciary, independent judiciary. and all of these countries don't

have that. and it takes a very long time to build those sort of civil institutions that allow you to support a democracy and allow democracy to flourish. that's one of the things we're doing with the women's initiative. but we're also -- our global health initiative is pink ribbon, red ribbon. we've added the testing and treatment for cervical cancer and breast cancer to the aids platform that was established all across africa when george was president. women are living now, i think, many, many, many millions of people in africa who are hiv positive, are taking antivirals due in large part to the generosity of the american people and they're living with aids. but their women are dying with cervical cancer which is the leading cause of cancer death among women in africa. and cervical cancers is preventable.

there's a vaccine for the virus that causes cervical cancer. but you rarely hear of cervical cancer, because when found early, it's easy to remove the lesions. so we added that. we've been to africa three times since we've been home. we'll go again, i'm sure, this summer. we're refurbishing clinics and women are lining up and demanding to be tested for cervical cancer because they know someone who has died of cervical cancer. so that's been very interesting and it's just a way to spread the good work of the aids platform that george started when he was president. >> you met with michelle obama -- >> that's right. we hosted a first ladies conference as parts of our women's initiative. we hosted a first ladies conference and that happened to be when the obamas were there which was great. it's important and i think it's

worldwide for people around the world to see our presidents together and that's what they saw here when we -- all the presidents came for the opening of the library. george and i were meeting with the ethiopian health minister. when we were washington right after we came home, that night we were in washington because all of the presidents were coming to pay tribute to president bush for his points of light foundation. it was the last big fund raiser for points of light. i told the ethiopian prime minister that all the presidents were going to be there and president obama was going to send a video and he said, you just don't know. he said, you just don't know what that means to the rest of the world when you see all of the american presidents together. there's a solidarity to it. and really, the unity of the

idea no matter what your party -- that our presidents would come together i think is a good example for the rest of the world and that's what it was when michelle obama could come be with us for the first ladies conference but also when president bush and president obama laid the wreath together at the embassy there. >> do you feel a sorority with the other first ladies? >> yes. and we start to whisper to each other how the girls are doing or what room she just worked on, or that kind of thing. and the same, obviously, also when i'm with hillary clinton or any of the other first ladies. >> laura bush, you mentioned meeting michelle obama and the first ladies initiative. what is that? >> it's our chance to work with first ladies around the world to talk about the way first ladies can use their platforms worldwide. we have had for a number of

years in the united states probably since our very beginning and you all know this from your first ladies series, very active and involved first ladies who both support their husbands and their policies there husbands are working on, but also in many, many cases have their own initiatives. a lot of times to help women. a lot of times to help children. and what we want the first ladies from around the world to know is that they can also do that. that there is a role for first ladies to have, to talk about especially women's issues and especially issues that have to do with children. so we've started this first ladies initiative and we began with first ladies from africa with the conference that we hosted and we invited all of those african first ladies to a luncheon in new york when they were all there with their husbands for the united nations

general assembly. and many came, even more than came to africa for that luncheon. and we talked about two programs at that luncheon. it was really just to have a festive, friendly luncheon. we had wendy cop talk about teach for all, which is her international program for other countries to start teach for america type programs. and we had our daughter barbara come talk about her non-profit, global health corps. she got the idea really from wendy cop, from teach for america. but in this case she recruits young, smart college graduates to work in the health field. she partners with safe and secure and stable health organizations in africa and in the united nations and then they write a job description and she recruits young americans who partner with young people from

other parts of the worlds as fellows in global health corps. she has two young architects in rwanda who are designing a ventilation system for a hospital there. they're not just young health workers, but they're young people who can set up the technology for a clinic, for instance, just young people who can help health organizations build capacity. so we had this fun luncheon. and even one president came. she didn't have a first lady to send. so she joined us. and that was a thrill for me. i had been able to go to her inauguration in liberia when she was elected president of liberia. >> the series, as you mentioned, it's called influence and image. what do you think your influence and image legaciwise will be? >> well, the things i know will last that i think will last for a long time are the things like

the national book festival which just was this last month in washington and the texas book festival which was just this weekend in austin. i think those are both great and i hope they'll continue long after i'm gone to entertain people and introduce people to their favorite authors and introduce people who love reading. so i think that stays -- will stay for a long time. i hope that the basic principles of no child left behind which of course was george's legislation. but very, very strong bipartisan support for it. but i hope those principles, the principles of accountability, the principles of responsibility that we have to every student in the united states, that all of us, every adult has both to our own children, but to all children. i hope that those will last.

and then i -- you know, i hope -- this is much less tangible than a book festival. but i hope the kind of strength really and sort of compassion that i was able to bring after september 11th will be something that other people will both want to emulate but also will comfort people for a long time. >> laura bush, thank you for your time. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. tonight on american history tv, beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern, a look at the life of michelle obama. c-span in cooperation with the white house historical association produced a series on the first ladies, examining their privacy lives and the public roles they played. "first ladies: influence and image" features individual biographies of the women who served in the role of first lady over 44 administrations.

watch american history tv tonight and over the weekend on c-span3. >> if you enjoyed watching first ladies, pick up a copy of the book, "first ladies: influence and image" featuring profiles of the nation's first ladies through interviews with top historians. now available in paperback, hard cover, or as an e-book. american history tv, on c-span3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story t every weekend. coming up this weekend, saturday, at 2:00 p.m. eastern on oral histories, an interview with civil rights activist courtland cox. on sunday, at 4:00 p.m. eastern

on real america, the 1963 nbc news report, the american revolution of '63, a program on the status of the civil rights movement with protests from albany, georgia, birmingham, alabama, cambridge maryland, and englewood, new jersey, chicago and brooklyn. at 7:00 p.m., a discussion on congress, political parties, and polarization with historians and political scientists. at 8:00 p.m. on the presidency, author andrew cohen talks about his book, two days in june, john f. kennedy and the 48 hours that made history about two days, june 10th and 11th that define jfk's response to the nuclear arms race and civil rights. exploring the american story. watch american history tv, this weekend on c-span3.

and now, hillary clinton discusses her time as an attorney on the staff of the house judiciary committee during the impeachment inquiry of president richard nixon in 1974. this interview from the richard nixon presidential library and museum and was conducted by the former library director on july 9th, 2018. >> when you graduate from 1973, what do you expect to be doing in 1974? >> well, i expected to be doing what i started out doing when i graduated, which was to go to work for the children's defense fund. i had interned for her i think after my first year, maybe. and, again, i think that's right. i wanted to go to work with her so i moved to cambridge and began