minorities, 9, to be exact. now we have 119. >> did you have very many women? . .

>> there is a lot of important work to be done between now on your end. >> how would you consider 1989 versus what is happening today? >> there are a bunch more -- there is more white-collar crime, more fraud, more corruption, more identity theft,

so when i became district attorney, there were 46 murders in manhattan. last year, there were 62. it freed up resources to deal with the new kinds of crime. 9% of all the cases are identity theft. there is a whole area of immigration fraud, and the way the federal government handles immigration cases is a national disgrace. we set up this special unit to deal with that. immigrants, when they are victims or witnesses, they are free to testify. we have a policy. we will not refer any case to federal authorities so they can use their power to such an extent.

>> thank you very much. >> judge sotomayor's confirmation hearing is set to begin on the 13th. you can watch this again or learn more about the judge at c- span.org. join us again next week, saturday evenings at 7 eastern on c-span. you are watching c-span, critic for you as a public service by america's cable companies. up next, authors gathered to remember the two time winner of the pulitzer prize, john updike.

>> john updike died this past january at the age of 71. he was a member of the kennedy library, remembered by family and friends. this is just over an hour. >> let me begin by acknowledging the sponsors of the forum, including the lead

sponsor, bank of america, boston capital, and our media sponsors. on what would have been -- on what was his last visit to his home state of massachusetts, john f. kennedy travel to amherst college to dedicate to robert frost. it by the minute otters demand remembered. we're here to honor and remember john updike. in the words of president kennedy, the contributions of artists like updike are not to our spirit or bully for insight, not to our self esteem, but to ourself comprehension. for artists and writers established the basic truths that must serve as the touchstone of our judgment. i want to thank all of the speakers who are here today, members of the updike family for their participation and support of the events, to amy mcdonald,

conceived and organized this event, 2 c-span, for broadcasting distribute nationally, for our colleagues in new england for their collaboration on literary events, and to our embassy -- master of ceremonies, christopher leighton. he has lent his voice to the intellectual and cultural life of this city. over time, he has covered presidential campaigns for the york times, anchored the nightly news, and is currently the source of an internet radio program. in the introduction to a collection of early hemingway stories, updike said that his main debt was to hemingway. it was he that showed us how

much complexity dialogue can convey and how much poetry was indecent was announced. he left york city, describing it as a demimonde of agents and would be is an nonparticipants that he felt and nutritious -- not to be nutritious. and he found satisfying the description of literary new york as a bottle of tapeworms trying to feed on each other. settling in massachusetts, where he was a neighbor and friend to many, including some gathered here today, he once told the "paris review," , when i write, i aim of the least of kansas." 8 countryish boy, finding them, speaking to them. i recall my own introduction, growing up in maine, to heaven when an update -- hemingway and updike.

we read works by both. a remarkable thing for this country boy to discover a remarkably large to world through literature. my stories were written on a manual typewriter in a one-room office between a lawyer and the test and, above a cozy corner restaurant. around noon, the smell of food would rise and i would try to hold on another hour before i ran downstairs. after giving up cigarettes, i spoke nickel cigarillos. the boxes piled up. . .

[applause] >> thank you all. it is a great honor to be here. it is still hard to believe that john updike, the great notice our of our lives is gone, and why else do we notice things at all except to play the game in our heads of comparing notes with john updike on, say, barack

and michelle and their broadway night out? >> it is harder to play that game anymore, and we miss him. it is really impossible not to believe that in some dimension of the spirit that john is not in this room today, and that sort of stuttering chuckle and that infectious, furtive, ironic, never dismiss the air of pleasure in almost everything. it makes something of this day. and i just want to say it is a little hard to account for why i am here at all. i am not an updike scholar by a longshot. i did play one round of 18 holes at -- with turkey -- with our production director. i was not a close friend by any

means. i am that dreaded character known as the fan. i started a little late with the books. i was a young husband and father when couples into the universe with conversation, and in my 30's and '40's i came to adopt a john updike as a sort of guide to being an american guy, in this mysterious and sometimes disconcerting world. i marveled at his prose. i wrote to him once that i thought he might get overpraised, in fact, for the polish of his sentences and not raise enough for his courage. the guts of a burglar in exploring the strangeness, the power, the beauty of sex, for example, the longing for art, the thirst for a living god. then it dawned on me at his death that i love john updike much the way he loved ted

williams, with that hard, blue glow of high purpose, for holding out for a level of care taken with work and himself and his art, when the only thing at stake was the tissue thin difference between the thing done well and the thing done ill. along the way it turned out in my line of work that john updike was a dream to interview on television or on radio. in his back toward in georgetown one time or talking about white evans, the red sox right field. -- about dwight evans. there were so many other times, for example in the gallery filled with cartoons and covers from "the new yorker." often when you interview john

updike, it would be at first the playful, incredibly smart consciousness of the man himself, the very model of the learned, expressive human being, and then afterward would come off and a post card wondering whether his jacket was too blue, or some other bit of television remorse. it is just a privilege to be introducing those of much weightier authority than my own and to share in this collective noticing that life is a little less interesting in johnson's sudden absence. to begin, nicholson baker is a novelist of those which established his reputation for a photojournalist in fiction. his big book, "human smoke," answered it. it is a sort of documented history of the use of weapons of mass destruction, and one of the

great iraq war books, to me. "you and i" was a book like not i had ever read between that happens -- about what happens between the reader and writer. it establishes the fact that nicholson baker is that rare writer who can send up himself, of his subject, tell the whole truth, and making love everybody more than you could have imagined. nicholson baker. [applause] >> thank you. i heard a little chirp come from my computer. it was like the beat of a hospital heart monitor, except that there was only one. it was software telling me that an email had arrived, and then a second later there appeared fading and a little ghostly

rectangle down in the right hand corner, which named the center of the mellon david subject line. it was a man and i did not know very well, who had sent me many e-mail's about his political opinions and his health troubles. the subject line which appeared and then faded,. it said something incomprehensible that was not in english, but was in some horrible language of euphemism. it said, condolences on updikes passing. i thought, passing? what does that mean? are we talking about death, about the death of john updike? he is not dead. he is very much in the middle of things. he has just had a book out, as always, as would always be true. but i checked, and is said he had been sick and apparently had

very politely, and without making any sort of public scene, without any forewarning to people outside his closest circle, died. and sitting there at the desk, i did what you do when you have lost your glasses or your wallet or some crucially important document that you need, like a note to the principles. i felt around on the desk top of my mind for what i had a john updike, what i could substitute for the living as of the man, and i did not have anything that would serve, because the tremendous thing about him was that he was alive and writing and revising in reviewing some big wrongheaded biography expect and releasing another small piece of his own remembered past, perhaps slightly disguised as fictionalized. he was in the midst of being a writing person, as well as being

a human being who has a wife and a former wife and children and editors and fans. that is what i wanted from him, and that is what i did not have, evidence of his ongoingness. the computer started jerking again, and their editors to wanted me to write something about him immediately, and remembers, an obituary. a long time ago i published a book that was about him, sort of. therefore i guess i was thought of as an expert on updike. when i was not, i was just a mourner, like anyone else. so i said no, i am sorry. i am just said. that is all i have to offer, just my own sadness. what i think of now, though, is a time when i saw him in the boston public garden more than 20 years ago. it was a cold, overcast late

afternoon in the '80s, and there was a man walking toward me on the path. it was a narrow path, and i knew who it was. it was the famous john updike. we were over past the statue of george washington in the part of the garden that has fewer trees. it is always colder and when you are than other parts, and i had to figure out what to do. he was wearing a tweed jacket, button up tightly, and a scarf and hat. he obviously had somewhere to go, as i did not, really. if i stopped and i said, mr. updike? he would have politely stopped and we would have had every conversation. i would maybe said that i like his writing, that he had signed one of his books for once and i had sent a fan letter but i had not put a return address on it because i did not want to compel him to answer. in the letter i told him that my

girlfriend who had since become my fiancee had dug out of a wicker basket a story of his and given it to me and i had read two-thirds of it and decided, walking under the awning of a tuxedo shop in a moment of passing shade, that i wanted very much to write him and to tell him how happy it made me to know that he was out there working, but i could not stop him on his path and tell him all that because he was on his way somewhere. so i decided, instead, that i would just nod. i would pack everything i knew about him into my nod. [laughter] everett memoranda had about packed dirt and the harvard lampoon and the drawing class at oxford and the office upstairs at ipswich, all that knowledge of him i would cram into one smiling, knowing nod.

and that is what i did. and he nodded back, little and certainly, i think. he was not sure. maybe he knew me. then later in a letter, he said , didn't we meet once on arlington street? he remembered mine nod. what a memory on that guy. his very best book is his memoirs, health consciousness. he was best when he was truest, and the most amazing thing about his truthfulness is its level of finish, of polish, because we all have faults. they are slumped on the couch and they are not at their very best. in fact, they are not completely shapen and they are not all that clean, necessarily. they are living in a halfway

house of what you have to say. what updike does is he sends them an invitation. it is tasteful, understanding it -- understated, but beautifully engraved. he says, the favor of a reply is requested. please accompany john updike to the official writing of his next piece on whatever it is, on the car radio, on the monument to the united states, on william dean howells, who he said served his time to well. please attend this essay. at the bottom it says very quietly, black tie. formalwear. that is what you want from an essay. you want these thoughts to have done their best, to have at least rent their outfits and present themselves to the world in their best guise. in not come as you are, updike said. come in black tie.

-- do not come as you are. they obliged him repeatedly. they said ok, rsvp, we will be there. again she could say we had a correspondence over the years in that he wrote me letters and i wrote him letters that began, dear john. i once wanted to have a cup of coffee with him, and i think he'd prefer to have -- he preferred to write a letter. and who can blame him? there was one thing that i really wanted to write him about four years and never did -- for years and never did. i wanted to write him that i had read one of his stories aloud to my daughter who was then about 13. i read her story called "the city." it is about a man who is on a business trip and he has a spot of in digestion and then turns out to be worse than in

digestion, excruciatingly painful. he goes to the hospital, and it is his appendix. the whole story is just a very simple but well described account of his hospital stay in a city that he never ends up seeing. as i was reading it to my daughter, i came to the moment in the story that are remembered from when i first read it. the man is lying in his hospital room in the middle of the night, and he hears people moaning on either side of him. then there is a son of -- the sound of tiny retching, and then there is a sentence, carson was comforted by these evidences him that at least he had penetrated into a circle acknowledged ruin. the word "ruin"there is so amazingly good, so well-placed.

maybe it was that i gave a special inflexion as i read it aloud, but i do not think so. my daughter said, that is good. right at that moment, she liked, and she was excited by the very same phrase in the story that i had been excited by. it seemed so reassuring to know that there is sometimes an absolute moment in a story that many people will independently discover and remember, even across generations, and that this may have been one of those moments. i wish i had told him that in the letter, and now i will never get to do that, so i tell it to you, with sorrow. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, nick maker. steve bergman is an md psychiatrist, he is a writer, he is a recovering basketball star, and was for many years a golf buddy of john updike's. he wrote the huge leak internally best-selling story of medical school called "house of god." he also, with his wife, wrote a play that will never die, i think, about the founders of alcoholics anonymous. his newest book is a novel called "the spirit of the place ,"and it has won awards. jocks know things about jocks, i look forward to what steve is

going to tell us. >> thank you. this is a short story of a long friendship. john was the second writer i ever met. it was 1979. my personal had come out. he was 46, i was 34. we met at the house of the two riders. my first impression was clouded by nervous awe, but it was summer, and our conversation turned to golf. a week later, i was out on a public golf course packed with beer swilling guys whose wings were converted from hockey. there had been a mistake and we were able to buy some, a six sum, actually. another young -- we were a fivesome. one couple would walk along with their arms around each other's waist, a true updikean touch.

you can tell everything about a person by the way they play a sport. last night i calculated that in 30 years, john and i spent at least by thousand hours playing golf. we had a regular force and an often played with his son, david, now also a dear friend. -- we had a regular foresome. john was meticulous, are scorekeeper, cherishing the little yellow golf pencils. he was cruel, picking up pencils and tees all along the ground. for an uncontrolled and deviance into the raw sensuality of woods and briars and swamps and lakes and sand traps, reliable to a fault on the greens, capable of astonishing flights of golf poetry and sudden crashes into a golf trash, and really funny. once when we were teamed up against the other two and i complained of a bad back, he

said, steve, i wanted to know, if it is a choice between helping the team and hurting your back, i wanted to hurt your back. -- i want you to hurt your back. >> we would always talk about his medical questions. we always had our literature and career chat, what we were reading and writing, the folly of both popular literary taste, with the gossip was. often he would repeat something i said and i knew i would soon see it in a book or short story. he had an astonishing i and gathered details. he made sure he knew the name of the last three to turn color. harry's condo in florida in "rabbit at rest " was my parents', whom john state with in order to be sure he got it right. janet and i became another foursome, celebrating christmas

at their home with their mixed families. soon there start arriving book after book and private editions as for their presence, as well as cartoons and drawings such as a set of four golf balls on each a cartoon of the face of a member of our foursome. one night genet insisted that john and i take the myers briggs personality inventory -- janet insisted. i came out as a writer. he came out as an office worker or clark. [laughter] so much for psych testing. we went to a fortune teller who came out with the same conclusion. every book he sent had an inscription, often blaming me "for steve, during this novel by suggesting it an inquiring after it constantly and making me talk it's lovely essence away."

48 niago for steve, without whos piece would have been composed with much less distraction." but to each of these, he added with affection, "john was the most loyal friend i ever had. he would always show up for events and listen attentively to my publishing was. if we had not talked on the phone for a while, he would always call. imagine a man who would call. when my publisher asked him if he would write the introduction to an addition of my novel, to my surprise, he said yes, and included it in one of his anthologies. in postcards and letters and half joking inscriptions in the books, he pointed out my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, always in an encouraging way. i never saw him beyonyawn, and e

never lost his temper. once at dinner at home when he was so angry that he pointedly left his napkin dropped a full 5 inches from his hand to the table. he was the most generous of critics. only in the last few years that i ever hear him voiced irritation at a writer. one in particular, who shall remain nameless. he talked freely with me about the craft. i learned an enormous amount from him. we had a secret joke. in "the witches of eastbrook," he wrote "the new young editor of the word slipped on a frozen state outside the barbershop and broke his leg. " in my next novel, -- when i receive his last novel, sure enough, there toby bergman was

again. the last few years of our friendship, because of various orthopedic surgeries on my part, were not on the golf course. we would meet for lunch at the harvard faculty club. he timed our lunches to his librium boxes of his personal papers to the library. john was always wonderfully humble. he was modest, but with a rock- solid confidence. once after a novel had gotten pan, i asked how he handled it. they are talking about my novel, he said, not about me. last summer we had a belated joint birthday lunch at a hunt club where he never seemed quite comfortable. i noted his old man's wrinkled and scarred face, but when i looked into his eyes, those eyes, i recognize the signature of boyish joy of being alive and at play for another great day. he and i, too small-town boys

sitting there in a grown-ups exclusive club, eating our sandwiches of bone china on a starched white tablecloth. the sun shone hot on the 18th green, lighting it up as if it were made of crushed emeralds. over lunch we laugh hard, happy to see each other again and delighted with their good fortune in live, talking about everything as best friends do, and in parking, he with his general handshaking slight stammer. i turned and saw him walking away slightly stooped, snowy hair shining in the sunlight, but with a bounce in his step as he swung his putter along, heading toward the green to practice. that is the last time i ever saw him. there was the last post card in november. he told me about his diagnosis and a few other things about the care his family was showing him. after that, he drew back into himself. i knew that the sadness and aggressiveness of his cancer had

been a shock to his self-image, and into that simply does not happen to those who, despite their bodies, phil young, feel in touch with in his transcendent line in one of his points, are having at the start but not the end of life. -- our heaven at the start. i kept in touch through david and the notes i wrote john. they are all different kinds of love in the world, and john wrote brilliantly about most of them. he taught me a lot about the love and friendship, and i find myself thinking about him most days as if he is still around. and then realizing he is not, missing him pretty bad. when you did not get to say goodbye, there is a hole in your heart, sometimes for a long time. so i just want to say goodbye, john, i love you. you will live with me and all of

us here today for the rest of our lives. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, steve. charles mcgrath, known as chip, is mary mcgrath's big brother, she being an exemplary radio producer and formidable golfer. ship is a writer at large for a good the new york times," but he is known for his service as editor of "the new york times" book review as a kind of definitive literary editor. john used to kid mary about him, called chip the custodian of american literature. he reminds me a little bit of that wonderful cd of bill evans

entitled "everybody loves bill evans." everybody loves chip mcgrath, and writers are generally inclined to distrust their editors, but they love chip mcgrath. he was a friend of john updike who read a lot of his work before it went into "the new yorker." he got extraordinary chance to deliver john updike's last book of points in the audio book. it is a great pleasure to introduce chip mcgrath. [applause] >> i sometimes think that john updike is responsible for much of the happiness and satisfaction in my life. it began when i started reading him. it has always been a pleasure of his writing. i started in high school, and i even sort of imagined i was the

updike characters. i think i prefer his adolescence to mind. by the time i was in college, i was such an idolater that it seem to me that the great man needed to know about me. so i made a pilgrimage to ipswich. i took the bus from new haven to boston and then the trains to the -- the train to the north shore. i got there about dinnertime, when it occurred to me that the great men would probably be sitting down and his family. what i say to him? i did not have a clue, so i got back on the train and went home. [laughter] i often think from that and characteristic act of restraint so many of the blessings in my life. i actually got to know updike, to work at the magazine he wrote for, even to edit him on occasion. like so many young writers and editors, i got a couple of those magical postcards with john's address rubber-stamp in the upper left corner, offering some generous words of encouragement. john lived far removed from new york, the so-called literary

capital, and yet in many ways he was still the one man center of literary life in this country, reading, reviewing, carrying on extensive correspondence. he was a foremost literary critic. writers everywhere cherishes example and long for his approval. but i would like today to talk about a part of updike that is less often discussed, his poetry, what he called the thready backside of his life's tapestry. i am ashamed to say that until just recently, i took this part of his work a little bit for granted and tended to undervalue it. almost everyone did, except the poetry community, and they were mostly annoyed. you have your novels, your stories, your essays, the official attitude seemed to be. why do have to do this, too? i remember that even howard moss, himself a very good poet, used to take a certain satisfaction in pointing out the flaws in john's work.

that was professional resentment, but with so many of us slow to appreciate john's verse? he was particularly self- effacing about his poetry, as if anticipating rejection. he used to send his poetry submissions with a stamped, self-addressed envelope and accompany them with a little self deprecatory know. he used a rubber stamp again, and it is not hard to imagine him as a literary tradesmen, stamping his wares every morning and launching them in the mail and waiting to see what came back. he loved the mechanical part of correspondents. long after he had become famous and successful, he still thrilled to a letter or phone call of acceptance. i think that placing a point sometimes tickled him even more than selling a story. in the preface to his collected poems he wrote, "the idea of first, a poetry, has always come

during for years been working primarily in prose, stood at my elbow as a standing invitation to the highest kind of verbal exercise, the most satisfying, the most archaic, the most elusive of critical control." another reason johns poetry may be undervalued is that he began as a practitioner of light verse, that now all but vanished for, and never entirely gave it up. he is often a light verse writer the way jams merrill is. most of his poetry in habits the end of the spectrum that is clever, funny, even a little chatty, rather it be less than soulful and unadorned. he often slides invisibly from the playful to the elegiac and back again. nothing could be more serious than the opening suite of poems in "end point," the last book of poetry.

it is his last surprise for his loyal readers. possibly it was a surprise for him, to, this book of heart breaking, beautiful poems written as he knew he was dying. as henry james would have said, nothing was wasted on john. all of experience was material waiting to be transformed into art, and he did it right to the end. in some ways he resembles thomas hardy, who at the end of his life turned away from fiction and dedicated himself solely to poetry. updike wrote fiction almost to the in, but who would have guessed his last testament, so to speak, is a volume of poetry so great that it would have a claim on us and on austerity even if he had never written a word of prose. i do not want to dwell on the heart wrecking candor and self reflection of his last points. i will in by mentioning something else, the music. that he was a great descriptive poet goes without saying. it may be another reason his poems were sometimes undervalued.

in his prose you always find passages with an ability to transcend. he was not a show of. sometimes you have to listen carefully to hear this music. i did not begin to hear it properly or appreciated until recently when i was asked to read the audio book version of "in point." i thought i knew his poetry greenwell, but sitting in a booth -- i thought i knew his poetry pretty well. but i heard things going on that i did not know were there. echoes of frost and hopkins, language as dense an evocative as the world he described. here i would like to read a point that in many ways reenact exactly what he talks about, which is basically the ark of our lives themselves, an attempt to break free and soar in the inevitable fall back to earth.

>> bird caught in my dear netting." the head must have seemed as ever, small edible matter, only a bird's eye could see, mixed with a brownish red needles and earth. a safe, quiet caves such as nature affords the meek, the featherhead alert to what it sought, bright eyes starting everywhere, but above, where net had been laid. then, at some moment, mercifully unwitnessed, an attempt to rise higher, to fly, met by an all but invisible women, beating wings pinned, ground instinct and 9. the freedom of impossibly clothes, all about. how many starved hours of struggle to resume in fits of life's irritation did it take to seal and sew shut the very bright eyes and untie the tiny wild on of the heart? i cannot know, discovering this

wad of fluff in his corner of netting gear cannot shoot through nor gravity defined bird bones and break. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, chip. and bearnaise had a head start. she is the great niece -- ann bernays. she is the great niece of sigmund freud. she has written non-fiction, some of it with her husband he, like "the language of names," and "back then." she has also been a leading lady and guardian angel of letters around boston and cambridge ever since she arrived from new york in 1959 around the start of the new england era of john updike. she and john were friends from

the 1950's. ann bernays, please. [applause] >> i am not going to read a talk. i am just going to make a few small, personal statements and do some remembering. there is a tendency, i think, a temptation to make a god out of a man who writes like a god, and i hope that will not happen. i hope that all these wonderful people today, with their memories and their anecdotes, will help us keep in mind that this was an incredible man as well as an incredible writer. my relationship, as chris said st,, started when i moved to

cambridge in 1959. we met him the first year we are in cambridge at a party. i was absolutely dumbstruck. i was all stricken and i could not talk to him. i think my being that tongue tied in his presence kept our relationship will like this, so that we never became real buddies. but i worshipped him. i think, on his part, it was amused toleration of me, that is, because i kept asking him to do things all the time, and sometimes he did them and sometimes he did not. one time he came onto a panel that i had arranged that was on rejection. he sat up there. i wondered if any of you were there is, but it was kind of

extraordinary, because john said how he felt when he got rejected, and the mouths dropped. if john updike it rejected, then it is ok for me to get rejected, too. i am not sure i believed him. i am going to do three anecdotes' and a postcard. this is sad about the post cards, because i know between my husband and i, we have maybe a couple of dozen post cards, only one of which i could find he. he used to have a rubber stamp here. this one has his name printed on thit. that was 2000. the first anecdote concerns my teaching at the harvard extension school. i asked john to come in and talk to the students, and he said

yes. so he came in. it was in our living room, and he sat down. they were all looking at him, expecting wisdom, which he eventually delivered. he did turn to each one of them and say, now i expect you not to make workshops a way of life. [laughter] the second one is when we went away, my husband and i, for the weekend, and we came back on sunday night. spored daughter, who says she does not remember this, but i have my husband to prove that it actually happened. it was between marriages, and he lived in a little apartment on beacon hill, i think. he did not have television sets, so hester hurt us coming into the house and she ran to the door and said john updike is in

the kitchen watching television. he is watching golf. [laughter] so we went in there, had not seen him for a while, and he turned around and went, "shh." the last one is so adorable, it makes me cry now. it was again in that little apartment on beacon hill. he said, anne, i have a very serious question to ask you. there is some bread in the icebox, and there is a little bit of green on the outside. he said, is it all right if i eat it? and here is the post card. it is february 17, 2000, not so

long ago. a " dear anne, i miss you and joe, but do spare me -- i had been asking him various things, will you come to this or that, all semiofficial things, but do spare me a, gallows, b, the black ties, c, literary trails. i look forward to you and your husband's memories of new york in the 1950's. i was there from 1955 through 1957 and remember of loathing norman mailer's fulminations in "the village voice." now i love him. the wonders of that time works. all best, john. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, anne. william pritchard it is a professor of english. he has been teaching novels, plays, and points for more than 50 years. he did not exist, john updike would have invented him, i think. it was womb pritchard who was first -- william pritchard who was first in the field with a sweeping, critical review and appreciation of john updike, american man of letters, which i just reread. it is judicious, enthusiastic, meticulous, and profoundly understanding. it is a great comfort to us fans. william pritchard. [applause] >> thank you, christopher. 36 years ago, i'd rather john updike with a couple of pieces i

had written in which he was quoted were reviewed. his quick response emboldened me to continue bothering him periodically. when i asked if he would accept, if offered, an honorary degree from amherst college, he said yes, provided no speaking, speechifying, was involved, and suggested that just as a nation should conserve its fossil fuel, a writer should try to conserve his face and voice. he did know speechifying and the commencement of that in 1983, but had to deal with to speech challenges, both mentally and gracefully. the first occurred as we ascended steps to the college presidents garden, where drinks would be served. at the tops of a friend, the wife of a pack of a colleague whom i introduced to updike and martha. without a pause, the friend informed and novelist and her mother is very much dislike his latest a " rabbit is rich."

doubt was for its sex. a small, a twinkle, and, "i trust she will not be here tonight? " i introduced him to a thickheaded trustee whose business success has left small time for literary matters. he asked updike, what do you do? >> "i am a freelance writer," was the reply. later that evening we had a small party at our house, and among those in attendance were to novelists -- two novelists. when updike wrote to thank you for looking after him, he noted, your post dinner party was a lot of fun. maureen howard had panned "marry me." but knows what other slights had been perpetrated, but we sat down cozy as kindergarteners on their first day, determined to

be good, a steady and craft loyalty. [laughter] in anticipation, he had pictured the commencement ceremony itself held outdoors as sun drenched and laced with chamber music. alas, the only music consisted of two hymns to amherst, and soon after it commenced, a steady rain had begun to fall. when i over eagerly sent him a letter i had written defending him against some aspersions and revere cast on his recent work, in the midst of another rally replied, he noted, you credit me with a couple dozen engaging in, sometimes moving short stories. when i published more than zero hundred, that i hope were rather more than engaging -- more than 100. never had the word "engaging" looked wore shabby to me. he was a teacher of fiction. when i published a book about my

life as a student and teacher, mostly conducted at the same institution, he reminded me that he was not a teacher. i found your gracious me more about all those m. hurst year slightly harrowing in the way i fine colleges harrowing. everything is so dear, the neo- gothic buildings, the intelligent and witty faculty, and the shiny eyed students looking up and being fed. all celebrants of the golden days of college. he was careful not to sentimentalize his own, not unhappy years as a harvard undergraduate. about a seminar i once offered divided equally between his work and bill roth's, he professed to being made nervous by the syllabus. just looking at it aroused letters in my stomach. thinking of all that reading, i picture you and your 21 students a bit like those people in

jericho's wrath to the medusa, gesturing and staring in different directions while the damn thing sinks under you. he went on to muse, i keep wandering if i were in amherst student, what i'd sign up for your course? i would learn a lot, no doubt it. a smidgen of doubt surfaced in me. what was i doing, a harrowing him with a syllabus from one of those colleges with shiny eyed students looking up and being fed? maybe i should have been giving in spenser's faerie queen. when i determined to write a book about him, i asked if he had any objection to the enterprise. he said blessings on me as long as it was not a biography. as the book went along, he professed concern for my situation. the thought of you conscientiously trudging through my oeuve wants me -- haunts me.

had done this to the unstoppable producer? he said he had cooked up one more book on the misadventures of henry back. his response to the finished book was full and generous. he began, there i am, thanks to you, my name is two and a half inches high, and my youthful self post in march grass. he guessed that he was more heroic back then, burton was sharp angst he did it burdened with sharp angst. when the book was reprinted by years later with an introduction, commenting briefly on the books he had written since i first account, he noted humorously that i whisk through

the last five years. he got the reluctant impression that i had become a burden to you, a task that never ends. a kind of hectoring taskmaster like the school master, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school. i heard from a year ago when he was pleased to deliver a book of stories for publication. like so many others, i was stunned at the beginning of this year to learn he was seriously ill. the fact a he had not acknowledged a recent note should have told me something. a few years ago i mentioned to him my sadness of the debt of a poet. -- the death of a poet. he replied he was sorry to hear of the death, but ask, at the age of 81, how bad are we supposed to feel? somewhat bad, i think. about his own death, we might be justified in stealing someone

that, but the books are there. -- in feeling somewhat bad, but the books are there. thank you. [applause] >> the last word comes from the family, as it should. elizabeth updike is the eldest of the four updike kids. she is a painter and she teaches art in concord, massachusetts. elizabeth. [applause] >> i want to thank amie macdonell, mr. puttnam, and all are wonderful speakers for this event. i see my father's family seated here and sprinkled back there

and i am sure we join you in appreciation. i have a small reflection, followed by a point. poetry is about all i do read of my father. i am the same age as my father's career. we got started together in 1955. his books stacked on top of each other now would be about my height. recent photos taken of our father and his four children suggest, given the way we are standing side by side, a row of books. so, as i try to come to terms with the absence of my father, it helps to think of his body of work as a sort of have sibling, both familiar and strange, a thing to be awed and annoyed by, a competing force, perhaps, but ultimately and especially now, a way of knowing more deeply the man i have been yearning for since he began slipping away, first to his desk and his muse,

then to fame, to the rhythms and lifestyle of his other family, while we were preoccupied with ours. and finally to his illness and death in january. . our father couldn't help it. it becoming the darling of american literature was a natural transition to make after growing up a brilliant and good- natured, the only child and house of for adoring adults. redirecting the flow of attention to his four children, growing up in the turbulent

'60s, he juggled his gift and his family for the 20 years we shared a threshold. we had a good and memorable childhood spent in parallel play with our father's riding. my siblings and i like to come across characters and places bearing resemblance to lend what we know. we like his humor, his family a slant on things, edged with irony or reference or irritation. his sensitive descriptions of everyday objects or moments that others might dismiss. we like to see that we share a sensibility with him. in any case, his discipline and focus as a writer ensure is that we have continuous access to him. even when reading him sometimes makes his grande, we have a powerful line to tug on again and again. our mother who married my father and a huge act of faith

before his career path was even clear, together with him, give us the freedom to find our way to be artistic and be ourselves. as unwitting apprentices to the ways of our parents, we had become comfortable with the creative process and with our news. perhaps we are all, everybody, half siblings to our parents work. we can take another credit or blame, but we can choose a quality of theirs, a way of being in the world, and use it to see -- and use it as we see fit. in that way, it departed parent, whether leaving behind a body of work or pair of shoes never completely slips away. and i have chosen from "americana" the poem "rainbow."

on the rest atmosphere's curved edge, struck by the reemergence son and oversize glorious coinage, meant fresh from violent to read it, if cereal and routed -- the serial -- ethereal and rooted. it leaves a strange confetti of itself, bright dots of pure rekindled color. what on earth? lobster markers. thank you.

>> thank you, elizabeth. thank you, everybody. each one of these marvelous lines conjures up others that had almost forgotten. just a couple quick thoughts and we're done. i think of a friend of john saying to me years ago, you want to know what moon dust feels like under your feet? don't send the astronauts, said john updike -- send john updike. i am looking for the definitive collection of john's postcards. thank you all for -- and praised god for john updike. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> president obama leaves sunday for a weeklong trip to russia, italy, and ghana. he will be meeting with people in russia. the president will be in italy for the big g-8 summit. ghana will be the last stop on the president's trip. check our web site, c-span.org for the latest. >> this weekend on c-span 2's "book tv."

live from george washington's mount vernon estate, tomorrow at noon eastern. and america's need to drive like crazy. afterwards, nobel peace prize recipient. find out what else is on on the boo -- booktv.org. >> still to come tonight, the unveiling of a new statue of ronald reagan in the u.s. capitol. later, astronauts of apollo adrian night to remember their orbit around the moon in december of 1968. after that, a chance to see authors and friends to -- gathering to remember john updike. tomorrow on "washington journal." alexander hefner along with matt lewis talk about political news

of the day and how new media is changing journalism. . keckley discusses consumer health-care issues. and the situation in iraq as u.s. troops leave. "washington journal." live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c- span. >> these places remind me of modern cathedrals that donors would build wings on, hoping they would go to heaven. >> he would like to see a few changes to the higher education system. >> i think, for example, prince and philosophy -- i think that these wonderfully concentrated islands of talent and wealth and should be opened up to society.

>> "lost in the aristocracy." you can also listen to settle a radio or download the podcast. >> any statue of ronald reagan was unveiled in the capitol rotunda last month. nancy reagan, nancy pelosi, harry reid, and mitch mcconnell took part in this 50-minute ceremony. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome members of the united states senate, the house of representatives, the speaker of the house, honored guests, and mrs. ronald reagan.

>> today, we're gathered to honor president reagan with the unveiling of the statue in the

capital. please all stand and remains errant -- remain standing for the opening ceremony. >> please remain standing for the presentation of colors by the united states armed forces color guard, and remained standing as reverend barry black against the invocation. -- it gives the invocation. -- gives the invocation. ♪

♪ o say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hail as the twilight's last gleaming

whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets' red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪

♪ >> please be seated.

>> let us pray. lord, the light of lights. how majestic is your name and all the earth? we marvel that you care about humanity and have crowned us with glory and honor. today, accept our gratitude for this congressional tribute to president ronald reagan whose love for freedom inspired our nation to embrace our best

. and to lift liberty's lamp until freedom's light was seen around the world. may this statue, in his honor , remind us of amercica's opportunity to motiveate us to discover your will. give us grace to love what you command, and to desire what you have promised. brant that guided by your light, that we may reach the light that never fades, that illumined by

your truth, we may reach the truth that is complete. we pray in your holy name, amen. >> ladies and gentlemen, the hon. john boehner. >> mrs. reagan, madam speaker, honored guests and colleagues. let me first say a big thank-you to the california delegation, especially jerry lewis and ken calvert for all of their efforts to make this day possible. on october 27, 1964, ronald reagan gave a nationally televised address supporting barry goldwater, the republican

nominee for president. while goldwater was later defeated by lyndon johnson, many americans watching that day immediately sensed that reagan would one day become president. the title of reagan's speech was "a time for choosing." would people vote for self- government or would they be submitting themselves to be ruled by elites and a far, distant capital. regin's poke at social engineers was a companies -- was accompanied by america pose a great as abroad. he reminded americans that they did have a destiny. as california governor in the '60s and '70s, ronald reagan proved over and over that he had the mind of a committed

conservative and the temperament of an he displayed his unmistakable skill of american conceptualism. it was not just a vision that moves people his way. it was also his town. he was always quick with a smile or a self-deprecating joke. he once said, i have left orders to be awakened in case of a national emergency. even if i am at a cabinet meeting. he clearly had the polls and the respect of the average american. ronald reagan developed an alliance with margaret thatcher, pope john paul the second, and these three get the individuals led the west out of what has been called the nightmare years of the 1970's. together, they literally changed the world for the better.

today, we honor president reagan goes a lifetime of achievement, and we honor his legacy of economic and political freedom. early in his presidency, he fought to enact a set of tax cuts altered in part by fellow conservative who would be honored to be year today. -- to be here today. the tax cuts that reagan enacted drop rates that were as high as 70%. this allowed on corporate doors to build, expand, and create jobs. his economic policies inspired the largest peacetime expansion in u.s. history. the growth was predicated on free trade, low taxes, deregulation, and curbing runaway inflation i recently had

an opportunity to tour the reagan ranch in santa barbara. i noticed the desk that president reagan used to signed the tax cuts into law. the free-market policies set in motion on that very table was responsible for creating some 35 million new jobs in america through 1999. this is another part of ronald reagan's legacy. this is a piece of rock from the berlin wall. those walls came down because of ronald reagan's relentless commitment to freedom and his insistence on american victory in the cold war. he was unafraid to sit the soviets were actually the evil empire. reagan rejected the moral relativism to his day that was blind to the distinction between jenny and freedom.

ronald reagan saw america as the city on a hill. set apart by god intended us to be free. his first inaugural address, he said that freedom and the dignity of the individual had been more available and more assured here than at any other place on earth. three years later, commemorating the fallen warriors of omaha beach, reagan said that we will always remember. we will always be proud. we will always be prepared so that we may always be free. today, our freedom is defended by an aircraft carrier and 5500 settlers on the uss ronald reagan -- and the 1500' sailor n

the uss ronald reagan. if you study the man, you see the rhythm of life described by shakespeare. all the world's stage and all the men and women are merely players. one man, in his time, would play many parts. ronald reagan played his part to brilliantly, with words into deeds. he inspired his countryman. we're honored to to add his likeness to this great paul -- to this great whohall. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the republican later -- leader of the united states senate, mitch mcconnell.

>> friends, fellow members of congress, trustees of the ronald reagan presidential foundation, mrs. reagan. today, we celebrate a great man's life. as we dedicate this statute in this place of honor, we affirm that man's treasured place in our hearts and our nation's storied history. many today are too young to remember what a difference he made but rather than recite the history lesson, let me just say this. when america fought our best days lay behind us, ronald

reagan showed they still lay ahead. when the world sought freedom was in retreat, ronald reagan proved that liberty was still the strongest force in history. and when many thought freedom should negotiate should tear it -- should negotiate with any. of ray and had the courage to call tierney by its name and say freedom when ronald reagan is remembered as one of the giants of the 20th-century. he deserves our admiration, and he deserves this statute. the real ronald reagan stood taller than anyone. we know the source of that strength. she is here with us. nancy, together, you and

president reagan lifted our nation when we needed them not -- when we needed it the most. and america is still grateful. you will always have a special place in our hearts. when ronald reagan began the journey that led to the sunset of his life, he remained optimistic about america even then. and as he put it some memorably in a handwritten letter to the nation, i know that for america, there will always be a bright dawn ahead. holding firm to the ideals that he embraced throughout his remarkable life, we can say the same. and inspired by the example of ronald wilson reagan, we can pay

even greater tribute than a monument that we dedicate here today. we can build that hopeful future that he always saw before him. that is a living tribute leo this great man -- we owe this great man. it is the memory that this nation that he loved deserves. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, majority leader of the united states senate, the hon. harry reid. >> his earliest days as an

actor entertaining crowds on the las vegas strip to his profound partnership, my state has always felt close to president reagan. the same week ronald reagan became governor of california, he first sought the presidency. and when president reagan was down the street in the white house, po work here in the united states and that as a senior senator. paul was president reagan's #1 confidante in the senate. when the president ask for things important, he went to paul. when he sent paul to the philippines, he brought that nation back from the brink of civil war. he is with us today to honor his good friend.

he was so close to president reagan, that he called him the first friend. we know that no one was more important to president reagan and his loving, below the first lady, nancy. ms. reagan, it is wonderful to see you. we had a wonderful time visiting here, exchanging stories about ronald reagan. but you're here today, smiling as always, but president reagan goes inside. jazz fagan said that when a car of the statue that we're about to -- chas fagan said that when he carved the statue that we are about to see, he pictured reagan laughing at one of his jokes. this is where the president began his first term by telling the country that those in iran were on their way home.

as temperatures outside sank in the single digits, president reagan began his second term. it was the first and only time the president has taken an oath of office in the capitol rotunda. on that better, cold day, his confidence warned in reassured america up. history is a ribbon, always unfurling. history is a journey. as we continue our journey with those who traveled before us. his travels from dixon, ill., hollywood, loss vegas, washington, and beyond, he leaves a legacy. throughout that time, nevada has always been called -- proud to call ronald reagan and neighbor, a leader, and a friend.

>> ladies and gentlemen, the speaker of the united states house of representatives, the hon. nancy pelosi. >> it is a distinct honor, i know from my colleagues as well as myself, to welcome some many distinguished guests on this very special day in the capital. the unveiling of the statue in the capital is always exciting. rarely are we able to do it in the presence of an immediate family member. it is usually about history. today, it is a great privilege for all of us to be joined by the former first lady, mrs. ronald reagan, nancy reagan. we're honored to have you here.

president reagan and mrs. reagan had one of the great love stories of all time. and the american people benefited from that. the support, the love that mrs. reagan gave the president were a source of joy to the american people and again, of strength to the president of the united states. mrs. reagan, with your presence here today, i hope you know that we honor you, not only for your support of the president, but for turning that support and love into action. it is your support for stem cell research that has made a significant difference in the lives of many american people. it has saved lives, it has found cures, it has given hope to people.

it is appropriate that we gather here with leaders on both sides of the aisle and both chambers of the house. i am pleased that my predecessor, speaker dennis has church is here. thank you for joining us. we're also joined by the former governor of california and mrs. wilson. president reagan understood that bipartisanship was important in all of our debates. mr. michael, how are you? bob michael. and steny hoyer, our leader.

the president understood the value of bipartisanship and stability in the debates. he never questioned the motives of a person because he knew people in public office love our country and acted on behalf of the american people. his friendship with another speaker, tip o'neill, is legendary. that friendship was based on, among other things, their irish heritage. it was characterized by grace, by charm, and by teamwork. i would like to share, as a californian, a special pride we take as californians in the unveiling of the statute today. jerry lewis probably knows this story. when president reagan was governor of california, he went over to the chamber to deliver

the state of the state address. it happened to be around the time of his birthday, so the legislators will than a birthday cake. the president proceeded to blow out the candles and someone called out to him and said, governor, did you make a wish? without missing a beat, he said, yes. but it didn't come true. the speaker of the assembly was someone who he did not share much political ground. he said, he's still there. [laughter] in august 2006, that same state legislator voted overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way to establish ronald reagan's statue

as our second california statute in the capital of the united states. and so here we are today. we're standing next to the statute of president eisenhower over here. when we dedicated this statue not that long ago, members of president eisenhower's family was here. they told us that he wanted to be depicted in his general's in the form as he was addressing the troops before d-day. president eisenhower, president reagan, and all of us to take the oath of office know that our first responsibility is to protect and defend the american people. that is why it is so appropriate that president reagan's statue has contained within it, chunks of the berlin wall as a symbol of his

commitment to national security and his success. [applause] president reagan said that we must not only preserve the flame of freedom, but we must cast its warmth and light further than those who came before us. that is our responsibility. with the unveiling of the statute today, we know that all who come after us, the respect, the steam, and the admiration that california, this congress, and the american people have for president ronald reagan.

thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, the united states army chorus. [singing] ♪ oh, beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain for purple mountain majesties above the frigid plane -- fruited plain america, america, god shed

your grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to sihning sea -- shining sea ♪ ♪ ♪ and mercy more than life america, america, may god thy

glory find in all success -- ♪ ♪ america, america america, america ♪ ♪ oh, beutiful ♪

♪ america, america god shed his grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea ♪ ♪ from sea from sea to shining sea ♪

[applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, mr. frederick ryan jr., chairman of trustees for the ronald reagan

presidential foundation. >> with a spectacular performance by the u.s. army corps is. [applause] on behalf of the ron reagan presidential foundation, i would like to take this opportunity to convey our appreciation to the bipartisan congressional leadership that both houses of congress for arnold -- for honoring ronald reagan in the special way. in the same spirit of reaching across the political aisle, congress has just passed, and yesterday president obama has signed, legislation creating a national commission on the ronald reagan centennial. it will recognize president reagan goes accomplishments and celebrate his legacy on the occasion of his upcoming one hundredth birthday. in many ways, we at the reagan foundation view this event today as the kickoff of the reagan centennial celebration. our warm and sincere appreciation for speaker policy

-- pelosi for hosting us today. [applause] in building -- in building the presidential library and establishing the ronald reagan foundation, it was the president goes a desire that these organizations always be looking forward and not back. always focusing more on the future than the past. because ronald reagan's core beliefs and principles are timeless. every bit as relevant today as they were nearly three decades ago when he was elected president. the statue we are about to see is truly spectacular. however, we gather here today for a purpose far more important than unveiling a new piece of art. today, we remember ronald reagan's great contributions to our country and perpetuate his legacy of placing his like this year in the dome of american democracy.

president reagan would certainly be humbled, but incredibly proud to receive the special honor from the country he loves. and i know he would insist that this recognition is not just about one man. but about the values that he stood for, and the people who worked with him to make our country and the world a better place. we are delighted that with us today are so many people who were part of that great time in our country's history. these are more than just great staffers, members of congress, the men and women who form the body and backbone of our country's history, first as president reagan goes the chief of staff and as his secretary of

treasury, his trusted friend and colleague, james baker. [applause] >> thank you very much, fred. madam speaker, mcconnell, moehner -- boehner, nancy, ladies and gentlemen. i speak for everyone here when i say thank you for magnificent service as our nation's first lady. most of all, for the love and support you gave our fortieth president. because you created that secure space from which he ventured forth to change america and to change the world.

and so as the ceremony honors him, nancy, it also honors you. [applause] now ladies and gentlemen, there are many people who deserve recognition for this beautiful sculpture of president reagan. including all the members of congress who honored him with their presence here today. but two other individuals played specially important roles. first of all, john rogers. we're here today because of his financial generosity as the patron for this magnificent bronze. john, you serve president reagan with great distinction, both an office and out of office. and now you have served his memory and his legacy.

second, the chairman of the board of trustees of the ronald reagan presidential foundation, fred, it was the foundation's vision and that president reagan belong here in this hall. it was through your perseverance that turn that vision into reality. you and the foundation have been a truly remarkable job. ladies and gentlemen, if anyone belongs in this national hall collection, it is ronald wilson reagan. [applause] like samuel adams, he was an american patriot. like henry clay, he was a superb orator.

like george washington, he was a truly great president. and like will rogers, because the gipper and oklahoma's favorite son had a lot in common, they both starred in the movies, they both loved horses, and they both were great at telling a joke. when ronald reagan walked into the oval office and january 20, 91, our nation have faced a number of crises. vietnam', watergate, unemployment, and public confidence was low. experts said that america's best days were behind us, and we ought to lower our expectations. ronald reagan and his boundless optimism would have none of that. we are not doomed to an

inevitable decline, he said at his first inaugural. we have every right to dream and to dream heroic dreams. and so, ladies and gentlemen, we did. president reagan demonstrated the power of big ideas. he was guided by deeply held core values, principles about taxes, spending, and national defence. and most of all, about the essential goodness of the american people and the greatness of america itself. he never wavered from those beliefs. at the same time, this idealist was also a principal of pragmatist. he would fight the good fight, and when he won all that could be one, he would accept the

compromises that are dictated oftentimes by political reality, declare victory, and move on. so you say, how did he do it? when he left office in 1989, the 1970's was but a distant memory. america oppose the economy would be six years into a boom that would continue almost two decades longer with only the briefest of recessions, truly minor ones by historic standards, until our present difficulties began. when he left office in january 1989, america's pre-eminence in the world had been fully restored. he had strengthened our military. he had talked earnestly and productively with our historic adversaries in moscow. the fall of the berlin wall 10 months later was a testament to the wisdom of his policies.

after restoring our economy and restoring our confidence in setting the stage for the end of the cold war, ronald reagan retired from politics and retired from public life. when the lord calls me home, whenever that may be, i will lead with the greatest love of this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future you will remember, we did him a final farewell five years ago, right here in this capital. with the deepest respect and with love, and with tears, and with a renewed appreciation of what he had done for the united states of america. that shining city on a hill that he saw so clearly and that he

loved so very dearly. and now, fittingly, comes this magnificent bronze statue of this great american. it will stand forever as a silent sentry in these hallowed halls to teach our children and our children's again and our grandchildren about that which once was and to inspire them with visions of that which can be again, today, tomorrow, and done to the generations, may god bless america and ronald wilson reagan. thank you. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome mrs. ronald reagan. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you so much.

i have some many people to think, but i really particularly want to thank nancy pelosi for all she did to organize this, bring it together, make it happen, i am very grateful to her and to everybody else, too. but especially to nancy. the statue is a wonderful lightness of ronnie. he would be so proud. you know, the last time that i was in this room was for ronnie's service. so it's nice to be back under

happier circumstances. i want to thank everybody for being here, for your support, your thoughts, kind wishes, and the lovely singing. so beautiful. thank you so much. that's it. [laughter] [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please

remain seated for the unveiling of the statue. >> ladies and gentlemen, the statue of ronald reagan. [applause]

>> lest our heads and pray for god's blessing. oh god, source of patriot dreams and strength of heroes proved. we're confident that this perception of president reagan's statue here in the capital will remind people of the many blessings shed on the great state of california. all visit here -- all who visit here are blessed along with nancy reagan, collaborators, and

generations to come who will see this work and remember the words and work of the president of the united states of america. everyone will be blessed who hears this exhortation of ronald reagan and takes it to heart. let us be shy no longer. let us go to our strength. let us offer hope. let us tell the world that a new wage is not only possible but probable. for the sake of peace and justice, but as a move toward world in which all people are at last free. -- determine their own destiny.

may god bless you all, and god bless america. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for joining as today. please remain in your seats for the departure of the official party. . [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, thank

you for attending today's ceremony. >> here is a look at our schedule. coming up next, astronauts of apollo 8 reunite to remember their order around the moon in december of 1968. after that, authors and friends gathered to remember the two- time winner of the pulitzer prize, john updike, and later, another chance to see the unveiling of the new statue of ronald reagan on the u.s. capitol. >> congress returns next week from their july 4 recess with lots of business to complete before leaving again for their august recess. the house returns at 2:00 p.m.

eastern on tuesday. on their agenda, agriculture spending, a bill that includes $100 billion for mandatory programs such as food stamps, farm subsidies, and rural development. also a bill to expand small business innovation. see the house live on c-span. and the senate is back on monday at 2:00 p.m. eastern to resume work on legislative branch spending for 2010 with votes on amendments scheduled to begin at 5:30. once that is complete, they will move onto homeland security spending for 2010. off the floor, the senate health committee will continue working up their version of the health care bill, and minnesota senator let al franken is scheduled to meet with majority leader harry reid on monday. live coverage of the senate is always on c-span2. this weekend on,"

nobel peace prize recipient on the problems facing africa. find out what else is on at booktv.org. >> in december 1968, apollo 8 orbited the moon. seven months later, apollo 11 landed on the moon. the apollo 08 astronauts, frank borman, james lovell, and anders orbited the earth. this is about an hour and 10 minutes. >> we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of nasa and the centennial of the birth of president lyndon johnson, who co-sponsored the legislation that created nasa. later as president, lbj guided the apollo program for congress to make sure it was funded.

1968 was a particularly difficult year, with the assassinations, riots in cities, and a major setback in vietnam. in december, at the end of that terrible year, our hearts were lifted by the crew of apollo 8 reading from genesis and bringing us that wonderful picture of earth prize that allowed us to see, for the first time, how fragile and wonderful our world really is. of the many precious objects we house in the lbj library, one of my very favorites is this picture of our rise signed by the three apollo astronauts and given to president johnson. president johnson sent pictures to every head of state throughout the world, even with those with whom we had no diplomatic relationships, even including ho chi minh. this is during the vietnam war. we had spent a lot of time trying to make direct contact with 02 men, trying to talk with

him. lbj thought, come reason with us and maybe we can get this to work. we actually got a thank you card from ho chi minh by way of berlin. it says in french, thank you for sending the photographs of the moon taken by apollo 8. that is also in the library. it is a very precious thing, i think. before our moderator, jim hart, leads us into the panel, it is my pleasure to welcome lynda johnson robb to the podium with some personal thoughts. [applause] >> on behalf of the johnson family, i am so honored to be here in person to thank you for coming. as studies have said, you are fought rejigger flight razor

spirit so much. i told my husband, you do not know what 1968 was like. you were lucky you were in vietnam. [laughter] i did not even mean to be funny. your flight was the second-best thing that happened in 1968, only behind the birth of lucinda robb. i told her today, the senate, do you remember, you were two months old -- lucinda, your two months old, on that christmas day. she was born on october 25. she said not very well. but we feel a deep connection to you all, and we thank you so much for the spirit that she raised for all of us. daddy cared very much about the space program. i remember walking down to the graveyard and looking up, and daddy was saying, see that

sputnik up there? we have got to do something. we about to have our own space program. from then on, the space program was one of his children. he cared so much about it, and he was so proud of you all. i was there the day that he presented to all with the nasa -- i don't even know the distinguished medal, i have to look at my notes to tell you what it is supposed to be called. but i remember being there. you just raised all of our spirits. last week, or the 13th, actually, tom brokaw was here speaking about the 1960's. he said that -- i have to quote him here, if i can find it. i have lost the card. oh, here it is.

well, i have lost the card. [laughter] i just got back from big band, and where these men could not have been as far away as big bend. he also was talking to us, and he said that when captain lovell put his thumb up and said that it covered the entire view of earth, making us realize how insignificant we all are, and i think we are all much more aware of that now than we even were in 1968, it reminds us of all the challenges we had then and all the challenges that we have now, to take care of our wonderful planet earth. i look forward to hearing all

the things you are going to say, so i am going to go sit down. [applause] [applause] >> you had to be 40 years old to have even been born at the time, and you need to be 50 or 60 to understand what was happening. let me set the stage about what was happening in 1968 and 1969. we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the actual landing of the moon this july. there are a lot of folks here who work behind the scenes at nasa, mostly at houston and at the kennedy space center. i will tell you a little secret. among the folks at nasa and the

folks in my business to cover the space program, we each had a favorite flight. if you were a scientist, you sort of like apollo 17 because jack smith, who was a geologist, was on that flight. if you are seminal, like apollo 14, because alan shepard, the first man in space -- if you are sentimental, you like apollo 14. i got to go with pete conrad and al bain whose paintings are on exhibition. then there was a apollo 11, which was the first landing on the moon. most people however the not know that much about what we're going to talk about tonight, apollo 8. in the apollo program, there was a carefully laid out sequence of events of test flights, each step stickiness closer and closer to the moon. each flight had a set of parameters and goals that were

to be attained and then we would move on to the next flight. during the middle 1960's, 1968, there were some problems that developed with the lunar module's. they were running behind on schedule. the flight that these guys were on was intended to be something totally different. it was going to be a full test flight of all the equipment that was going to be used on the apollo lunar flights. if you recall during those days, you were never a few hours from safety if anything went wrong. a decision was made and held closely at nasa to go ahead and use this flight to do something really, in my terms, dramatic.

for nasa, it was a logical step. it meant to scrap a program that they were going to use and actually go to the moon, and even though they did not have a little landing module, to his circle all the systems that were going to be used later on. it was the first time that anybody at flout on at the big rocks it -- the big saturn 5 rocket. it was 36 stories tall. it weighed 7.5 million pounds. most of it highly volatile fuel. the man flights from the previous flight at a lot of problems. while there were getting ready to go, a hurricane came through and brushed up the side of florida.

the rocket itself was hit by lightning, i think. anything else that went wrong? any further tensions that could possibly be built there. the decision was made at the nasa folks that these three guys said, "yes, sir, we are ready. let's go." that was one of the things that impressed me so much from covering nasa, the can-do spirit that i saw from the beginning to the end of that. i think the reason why this room is full tonight is that we look back on that time and it is personified not only by these three guys, but another 100 or so city in the first five or six rows that were a big part of it, too. with that status at, i would like to begin to let you hear the two-story -- with the state said, i would like to begin to lead you to the true story from the folks here this evening.

>> one of the ways you can really get in trouble in the astronaut program is to say that the astronauts think this or that. john glenn used to really irritate me, because i did not think like john glenn and all. [laughter] but i have checked with my two wonderful companions, and they agree with me that we really owe a debt of gratitude to the apollo alumni here. you've not received your the credit you have deserved. we would not be here without you. it chokes me just thinking of the trust that we had in you. one guy really personifies it. of all the people who made nasa work, the real giants, there is one left, and that is chris- craft. i just want to thank you. [applause]

[applause] >> when i hear today about how these young people are so wonderful, that is nonsense. they were not any better than you guys. the average age was 24 years. you guys were the best, and you could do a helluva lot better job than anyone today, and we appreciate you. [applause] >> we have another half-hour to go here. let's walk through the flight. i said a minute ago that the previous saturn 5 that had been launched prior to you guys, it was a few months, had had a lot of problems. e third stage was going to send you to the mood. -- moon.

it did not fire. they did another little thing called a pogo. what was up logo? how could a 30-story building pogo? >> one of the test flights was that we had an engine that went into a vibration sort of thing on the structure, and we were afraid that if it disintegrated, it would ruin the whole day of the flight. [laughter] this is something that the engineers that designed the rocket said we had that soft -- had that solved, we had the confidence in saturn 5, and the decision of the nasa people of the times changed from an earth orbital to from the earth to

the mood. the pogo situation was taking care of. that by the way happened on apollo 13. >> a little bit on that 8, too. >> we will get 13 in a little bit. you were the first three guys who sat in this machine and launched into space. let me back up a little bit. what went through your mind what i told you that you're going to not to the orbital flight, but you are actually going to do this circle flight? >> actually, it was a little disappointed -- i was a little disappointed, because i was training in the lunar module,

and i thought if you could get apollo 8 out of the way, you could go on to the apollo 14 or something. i did not realize it would permit me to the command module position. i was a little disappointed, but as frank said every goatley, apollo was a program of science all that much. sure, we picked up rocks and did exploration. it was another battle of the cold war. if it had not been for the russians, we would not at the public support to pay the taxes it required to be to the dirty commies -- beat the dirty commies. [laughter] i was quite pleased with the opportunity of being an air force officer that had a chance of being involved in apollo 8.

>> what was the cold war like during that time, and what were we doing to counter that? >> if i could answer that question, it was perceived that the soviets were more technically advanced with regards to space flight. after all, they went into orbit and sheppard just went into a 15 minute flight. they put up two people, and we had not gone up to them. the idea was that the technology, and the prestige, of being a leader in this technology, was very, very important. i think it is. if you want to be a leader in the world. it was not until the time i flight started to go, where we started to do eva and working up to that program, that we were

catching up to them. the epitome was apollo 8 going to the mound, and we now know from discussions with the russians that they were active in a litter program, and they had almost decided to send two people circumnavigating the moon. they had two flights around the moon in 1968. we had information about that. that is what the decision was made for us to go to the moon. while they were deciding whether to send two cosmonauts to also circumnavigate the moon. >> was that the reason why it was sort of kept a secret, your flight, until a few weeks before it happen? >> i think it was kept secret

for good reason, because the flight plan generated in houston had it go up and be approved by the nasa headquarters, and then by president johnson. but i don't think we fully realize often enough the impact that president johnson had on the space program. president kennedy announced it and he got all the credit for it. president johnson as head of the space capsule really brought the lunar flight forward. he had won a four relationship with another pilot who is now dead, -- had a wonderful relationship with another pilot who is now dead, jim webb.

he had so much trust in him. it was a wonderful, wonderful management. i often thought that if the defense department had him instead of mcnamara, they would be a helluva lot better off. [laughter] we were fortunate to have them at the top, because they listen to the people, they picked the people, they knew what they were doing, they listened to them. >> apollo 7 had to be successful. once the final test was done, then the decision, of course, was made for apollo 8 to go to the month. >> were you confident that it was going to work? >> personally, i had a lot of confidence in nasa, the people designing the boosters, the aerospace industry. frank put a lot of time in getting apollo back contract -- putting apollo back on track. i had a lot of confidence, but i did not think it was a slam

dunk. there was 1/3 chance of a totally successful mission. there was 1/3 chance of an apology mission, where you did not -- of an apollo 13 mission, where you did not accomplish the goal. as i said, the cold war was alive and well. you cannot really understand apollo without putting it in the context of the cold war. i thought that was pretty good odds. i did not think was totally safe, but i had the confidence it was going to be as good as it could be keep in mind that we had simulated -- these

people are a little masochistic in the kinds of things they thought about, how to screw things up. we were on the ground and you had 60 problems at once. you simulated, as far as i knew, when i was sitting there waiting for the lift of the mission, that we have covered everything, and frank knows how to twist the handle if the past to. that no sooner the off but it shook the so hard and made so much noise, which we have not stimulated at all. i thought, schucks, did we really miss this one? [laughter] frank was smart enough to take his hand off the abort handle, because i felt like i was a rat in the jaws of a big carrier. >> we compressed into four months the training that takes about 18 months.

bill was competent with the systems. i was the overall reentry tide. i had complete confidence in these key -- these two people. i could not have a better crew and jim and bill. i had complete confidence. i really did. i wanted to come back earlier, because i was convinced -- gemini 7 -- that the fuel cells were not going to work. my main concern is that somehow the crew would screw up. [laughter] >> you mean those two? >> no, the three of us. >> tell them about the handle. >> you sit here, and if you turn it up, you are gone. [laughter] >> tell me how it works.

>> you only use that on the launch phase. if the market catches on fire or something, there is something that the commander can throw. the g force is about 20 g's. you do not want to do that. you do not want to do that. >> i did not have or about anybody else. >> it was a perfect mission. >> i was disappointed, because the people on the ground, the engineers, made apollo 8 so perfect, that i cannot demonstrate what a great guy i was to fix it. [laughter] >> my view is that -- of course, i wasn't on the mission to begin with. my colleague was the third person on the crew of apollo 8 at the time -- maybe it was

apollo 9 at the time. i forget. i was sort of the oddball guy out. one decision was made to go to the moon -- when the decision was made to go to the moon, personally, i was elated, because i was not looking forward to another. orbital fate with -- i was not looking forward to another on earth orbital flight with frank borman. [laughter] >> the way things are now, we could get married. [laughter] >> where do i go from here? [laughter] >> don't ask. >> what they are referring to -- gemini flights were precursors to apollo. it was very small, half the size of a volkswagen.

it was a 14-day mission, right? all those flights were, again, stepping stone to the apollo, and mostly it was involved in developing right to techniques, because we knew at that point that it was going to have to be rendezvous -- the decision had been made it to do it looter rendezvous -- lunar rendezvous. all these things had to work right, and it was that experience that made it a success. let us keep going through the flight here. you not gone through launch -- you had gotten through launch. you got into earth orbit, began to check out the systems. the third stage of it at the

fire to send you on a trajectory to the moon. that last time it was tried, it did not fire. what was going on in the lead up to that? tell us how that went. >> i never thought about it not working. i just figured it was going to work. >> with that watch, just watching it burning and burning -- >> watching it go up and up and up -- >> you did not worry about it not letting up, did you? >> well, we worried about it lighting off, being slowing down and captured by the men, and lighting the maneuvering engine to get away from the moon. >> if that thing did not >> you are getting ahead of the story.

>> as i recall, i know you keep me honest, but it was a quiet, smooth burn. >> you were moving with a slight g force. >> this maneuver was called translunar injection. nasa had these wonderful acronyms for everything. i always felt my job was like a simultaneous translator at the united nations. i would listen to the nascent thing in one ear and supposedly english came out my mouth. some days it did not, and some days it did. you have now done something that no man has ever done, the three of you. you have broken the gravity of the earth and are moving to another celestial body, and she was quoting tom brokaw while ago, saying you could look out the window and see -- what was it like to look out the window and see the earth gradually getting smaller and smaller and

smaller, and knowing everybody was there? >> we had jettisoned the third stage, and it is kind of like you are a kid in the third grade and you're watching the clock. you cannot see it move, but if you looked away and looked back, it got a little smaller. we knew we were moving. >> to me, it looked like looking at the earth when we had the initial velocity -- it looked like an automobile going through the tunnel and looking at the back window and seeing the entrance gets smaller and smaller and smaller as we went down through the tunnel. very similar. the velocity was very great at that particular time and slow down as we went out. >> how fast were you going? >> 23,000 miles per hour. not quite escape velocity.

>> now comes a time of quietude. you have two days with not much to do? >> we might as well get it out right now -- i got motion sick and puked. [laughter] >> frank, we were not going to say anything. >> when nasa was thinking about canceling the mission and all that -- we would have had a radio failure if -- if you said that up, chris, no way. i got over it in a hurry. i think it was clearly -- although i did not think so the time, because i fought for two weeks -- i had never been sick except in the airplane when it was over. [laughter] i think it was the motion

sickness. >> i convinced frank that we ought to give the ground some kind of signal. i had it at all that stuff away. -- i had to back all that stuff away. [laughter] we had a tape recorder that the ground could command on on a private channel. i got frank on the tape recorder and i figured -- i made some comment about, "you guys should check the tape sometimes." i do not know where chuck was. maybe he was sound asleep. eight hours later, all hell broke loose. they finally listened to the tape recorder. by this time, frank and recovered. >> we were not going to cancel. we would have shut down the radio and kept going. we knew what happened. [laughter] >> this is another thing they

never told us journalists -- we never knew about this until many years later. you mentioned doctor barry. the astronauts physician for many years is here tonight. that motion sickness did not just happen to you. it happened to several other people. it was not like airsickness, was it? >> i just got nauseated, i thought it was because -- i had never taken pills come out and i -- i believe now i probably had a motion sickness. >> i think it was a common phenomenon. if you are not careful, if you start moving sideways and things like that, you can get nauseous. >> you and bill both sides felt queasy. -- both said you felt queasy. >> my job was to collect the helmets. i did two of them and i said,

"i am lying down." >> did you get sick on 13? >> surprisingly not. but not a, i felt a little nauseous. -- but on 8, i felt a little nauseous. you grin and bear it and your stomach gets used to it. >> weightless is a much different feeling than motion sickness, though, isn't it? this is something that only a few guys in the world, and women, have been able to experience. explain. >> well, you don't have the weight of moving around. you can do things with a push of your finger, and once you get used to zero gravity, there is no up or down, really.

it depends on your own orientation with respect to inside the spacecraft. actually, it is a nice environment. i think that anybody here could go out and be in zero gravity. it is coming back to earth that is the strenuous part of space flight. >> initially, the heart is used to pumping blood from your feet to your head, while you are walking around. for me, my ears were pounding. it was not that comfortable. after a while, the hard said, "why am i doing this?" after about two days, it but doing it. when i got off that aircraft carrier, after 6.5 days in space, i had a hard time getting up the ladder going to the bridge to shake the admiral's had. my heart started banging away. it is like laying in bed for a long time. you got to exercise.

it is comfortable, but it has its disadvantages. >> you have to give a lot of credit to the people on the space station who stay up there that long. there is no way on god's green earth that you could get up there for as long as those people -- [laughter] you could only look out the window and say ooh and ah so long. [laughter] >> i never thought about it that way. [laughter] ok, i swear to you, frank, i was not going to bring up the issue -- >> i brought it up for you. >> now we come to a very interesting point in the flight -- you are coming to the moon, you have to fired into the but you into lunar orbit -- you have to fire into the engine to put you into lunar orbit, you

cannot see anything, you are in the dark, you are out of contact with the grounds. what is going on there and what is going on in your mind? >> we are going backwards to the moon, and the simulator guys will remember that fact was psychotic -- excuse me, concerned. [laughter] concerned about the so-called los, loss of signal time, because he rightly determined that if the people on the ground worse but enough to know when the spacecraft would go -- people on the ground were smart enough to know when the spacecraft would go behind the moon, they were smart enough to know we would not hit it on the backside. during all of the simulations -- "make sure you got that time now." -- -- i think -- they mark to the time up.

he was checking the clock. we came up and sure enough, the radio went dead right at that instant. frank said, "boy, that is our belief." icet, "frank, those are not our bodies there. it will cut that radio off." [laughter] he will -- he called me a three-letter word abbreviation. >> the level was amazingly accurate. although we depended and use the radar for navigation, we were pretty sure we were on track. >> and that is true. as are a matter of -- as a matter of fact, it worked perfectly.

the time did stop when we said it was going to. the communication was shut off at the proper time the engine, of course, was controlled by the computer. we had the right town down. we were behind the moon, so the ground had no idea what we were doing. the engine lipscomb as -- the engine lit, and as it slowed us down, he saw the readouts on the computer, and i read off the orbit around the moon. it was just where we wanted to be. the engine work perfectly. >> how were you navigating at that point? >> a lot of what i had to do was keep the gyros -- i had to take sightings on the stars. i will admit i don't think i did, too. >> if you don't, i will. [laughter] >> i want had a lot of the past. -- i want to head him off at the past. >> he will tell his version and

i will tell my. >> we had to do the work all the time, and the way i did it was down at the computer, and the computer was, by today's standards, a very elementary, but in those days, it was a great little device. i would go into the computer, and i would tell the computer that i wanted to site on a start. i went in there, and there were 37 of them, i'd pick number of them to decide on. it was behind the work force of our moon, it would come up and say, "-- if it were be hind and the earth or the sun rhythm, it would come up and say, "a, a dummy, he cannot do that when doctors i could punch a button and it will report to the ankles of the time.

i did this with three stars. it was great. we were transferring this information down to the ground so that we could see how well this whole system was working. i got so that i was playing it almost like a pianist playing a stine way. the information was coming down very accurate. on the way home, i got too fast. i was playing with that thinking that i was very great at doing this job. i went in and punched to the wrong button. instead of saying that i wanted to align the laptop, i punched the button that told the computer and the guidance system was back -- that we were back at the launch pad ready to take off. [laughter]

it went zap, and everything went blank, and we lost all of our attitude reference, with respect to the celestial sphere. these guys were having fits, wondering when we were ever going to get back. >> frank was sleeping. i was on watch. i kind of just is waiting there. suddenly, the level goes oops. [laughter] coincidently, the attitude reference ball starts to move. i had been the cap-com and i was kind primed to stuck thrusters. but with a deadly, about the time he said troops, -- coincidentally, another time -- around the time he said oops, thruster fire. the ball was moving once i did a -- the light on the dust -- the light was going the wrong way.

i used to the array of light in the spacecraft to study it out. by that time, frank was getting a lot of help. [laughter] >> we had never planned -- >> only out three hours until reentry, too. >> we never planned to induce the attitude reference on apollo. there was a backup procedure. i went to the window to manually get the spacecraft around, and looked at the start and said, "ok, is that regulus?" >> there was a lot like enduring crystals floating with us around home. >> it was amazing, because

>> we did a back up procedure that turned out to be very accurate. >> jim could reorient the platform. the platform was designed at mit. the initial thought was, we would let the initial platform run the whole time. we would turn it off except for when we were burning up -- in other words, we would get the platform up, orient that curve for everyone, further rocket, and turned the platform of. >> i did not like that, based on my experience, when it is working, leave it alone. this shows you how wonderful nasa was at the time. i wrote a letter to the apollo program officer saying -- i got a letter back from mit. it was two pages. -- describing all the reasons. "p.s., if i were running on this mission, i would let the damn thing run, too."

[laughter] [applause] you don't understand how close he came to buying the farm on 13, too. >> is oops a prelude to "houston, we have a problem"? [laughter] now for the most interesting times of the flight. you are now in a safe orbit around the moon. it might not have been the first time when you saw the earth rise. was that like, that wonderful picture we see over here?

>> we were on the third revolution. we have been going backwards and upside down. we did not see it for the first two or three revolutions. i think we had something burned in the meantime. i was busy taking pictures in the backside of the moon. the detailed photographic plan had nothing about taking pictures of the earth. as the spacecraft came around, and the appeared to be rising, actually -- the earth appeared to be rising, actually, frank saw it, i saw it. he started screaming to throw him a camera. finally, i turned this big camera around, and just started snapping pictures, unfortunately, one of them was chosen to be the -- and unfortunately, one of them was chosen by nasa to be the pick -- and fortunately, one of them was chosen by nasa to be the

picture. >> that is not the complete story. [laughter] "that is not in the flight plan at." isn't that true? >> no. [laughter] you know, i was a captain. i was going to do my job. >> only supposed to take pictures of the moon. >> it was amazing to me that we spent all this time with photographing the mood and understanding -- i even named a bunch of lunar craters. after about a third revolution, the mood was clearly a boring place. it was nothing but hold the polls and polls upon holes. -- nothing but holes and holes

and holes upon holes. >> i think that was one the greatest experiences and things we brought back from the flight, our perspective in the universe and the solar system, and the body we all lived in, and that was really like the spacecraft with about 6 billion astronauts all striving for the safe things -- striving for the same things out of life. >> -- christmas eve -- took turns with the first chapters of the book of genesis, the home base of three great religions. whose idea was that? i guess you guys know what a thrill it if most people to

hear that -- what a thrill. gave most people hear that. -- what a thrill it gave most people to hear that. >> we were told by nasa we would have the largest audience ever heard by a human voice before,>> the only instructions that we got from nasa -- can you imagine this happening today -- was do something inappropriate -- was to something appropriate. [laughter] >> boy, from what we have heard tonight, that was a risk. [laughter] >> well, we all knew sy, and he went to one of his friends, a newspaperman. they stayed up all night trying to figure out something. his wife came are brown, and said, -- his wife came around, and said, open " you idiot, the answer is in the first chapters of genesis."

i came back and asked jim and bill about it and they thought it was appropriate. >> i did it not so much as a religious story, but to set the tone for one man can first left the earth. -- for when mankind first left the earth. >> it could not have been scripted better than how it actually turned out to be. a lot of it was coincidence. the determination of the time we had to go to the moon, the timing of it, was on december 21. we orbit the moon on christmas eve. those of you who remember 1968, it was a very troubled year in this country, with the war and assassinations and riots. we were able at the very end to

circle the moon and do something positive and at the same time come up with a saying that was so appropriate at that time. >> as much as anything else that gets played over and over, "one small step," but you also hear the genesis reading and you get the pictures. ok, we're almost to the end. we have a couple of microphones out here. >> can i add one more thing? >> let me finish one thing. we would get you a chance to answer some questions. i'm sorry. >> we were about the moon, and we were going to get the bird to get out from behind the mine. -- the burn to get out from behind the moon. going back to the sad thing about the time signal, that if we made -- the same thing about the time sicko, that if we made the successful burn, we would get out early.

if the engine did not like, there would be a distinct difference in time. one of my jobs was to orient the antenna every time we would come around and make sure it was pointed at the earth when we popped out. the engine burned just right, and we could just see them and moving away -- just see the moon, moving like a bit -- see the moon and moving away. i forgot to reorient the antenna. around the time we would have had radio contact, it turned around. it was a lot of heart failure down here. i owe all you guys a drink, and i'm buying. [laughter] [applause]

>> there is one more story about that that i have never repeated. it sticks in my mind what i think about this. when we got set up to make that burn, lovell had to hit the button to start the countdown. he has cut his finger pointed and he looks at me and says, "are you sure you want to do this?" [laughter] you remember that? >> the computer said, about five seconds, and it came up with a number that said, "are you really sure you want to make this thing?" and frank borman says, "punched the button." >> he is reaching over to punch it. [laughter] >> there are couple of questions before we go out to the audience. there is a microphone over here and i think one over here. if you have a burning question, we will come to you in just a

minute. there are a couple of things we need to talk about here. what you guys think about -- what you guys think about a program that will take us back there, and a discussion of going on to mars? is that a good thing? should we have got 40 years ago, kept the program going? >> i, frankly, was a little disappointed that they canceled skylab so quickly. you are going to go back to the moon someday. nasa seems to have a good plan, in my mind. but keep in mind that we don't have a cold war. the cold war was a major stimulus to apollo. as much as everybody wants a nice picture for hubble and exploring the moon again, i don't think we have the same

groundswell of taxpayer support for it. as far as going to mars, it is a long way. these guys are going to be out of shape when they get there. i would hope that when we finally figured out how to do it, we could do not as americans beating the chinese or some silly things like that, but do it as humans, going from the home planet to the next planet, and that does not seem to be happening. >> i cannot quite agree with that. i think there is a lot of cooperation now with a lot of the country's working together as a consortium. the short-term problem right now is the fact that shortly, the shuttle system will be taken out of service, retired, and we will

rely on the russians for maybe the next four, five years to supply the space station, and hopefully the space station is complete. i think the modules can only be put up by the order. -- by the orbiter. that is the short-term problem. .

>> i am an old guy, and i am probably more skeptical. they may be building windmills' instead. >> the three of you guys, and myself to a certain extent, were born during the depression. how did that affect the way you thought about things, and as you came into this great world of technology, it was quite a trek from where you guys started to wear you ended up. >> i feel very, very fortunate. of course, i was born in 1928. that was just before the depression lifted. we did not have very much money. i lost my father at a very early age. i could not go to college, i did

not have the money to go to college until i got into a naval aviation program, an rotc program that eventually led me to the academy. so that is how i got my education. i did things that i always dreamed about but never thought i would get there. i was always interested in rockets, and i was unable aviator. it was something i wanted to do, and the two things came together in the space program. i was in the original selection back in 1958 for the original mercury people. there were 32 of us. pete conrad and i were in there. we did not make it, was very much disappointed, and then when jim and i came around, i was selected. so i feel happy. i think i had a very fine career coming out of the depression and the conditions i was then to where i am now. >>