conscientiousness help their husbands -- the presidency. host: "burst ladies, the saga of presidents and their power." as we close, a say this every week. we're working with the historical society and thank you to those in the car phot -- garfield home in ohio, but also the white house historical association, who have been a partner for us. we have a biography but that have printed and we have a special edition for those who want to read more. find it on our website. thank you for being with us for "first ladies" on the garfield an arthritic ministration. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

inwhile visiting washington 1885, and france's received -- frances received a marriage proposal from grover cleveland. one year later they married in the blue room becoming the only president and first lady to be married in the wte house.

a closer look at the life of a frances cleveland, live on memorial day on c-span and, c- span 3, and c-span radio. our website has more about the first lady's including a special section, welcome to the white house, produced by our partners at the white house historical association. in the whiteife house during each of their tenure. we're offering a special edition of "first ladies of the white house of america." it is now available for the discounted price of $12.95 plus shipping at c-span.org/products. >> in 1848 we have an unusual and remarkable situation here.

suddenly, gold is discovered and the reason why the cantonese were the first to hear about it is because there were already some chinese here. in a flash, thousands of men began to board ships to hit the gold mountain, which california was ago -- known as then, the gold mountain. there were tales of men walking looking for gold and filling their pockets. it sound extreme and fabulous, but since no one was looking for it, no one saw it. quickly the surface gold was all cannot -- all picked up. 120,000 people showed up in one year right here. this was the situation. if you take a look at this photograph, you will see from the shore line looking out that

the bay is completely filled with ships. these ships were there because the passengers got out to look for gold and then the sailors got out abandoning the ships. then the arguments begin. to has a right to mine the gold? california was an american territory in the are you on the americans have the right, so they began to push out everyone else including chileans, mexicans, russians, anyone who was not american. >> from sam fransisco's chinatown, part two looking at the immigration experience, sunday con c-span part of american history tv on c-span3. now, a conversation on media coverage of national security issues. reporters from "the new york and others on covering

homeland security. the bipartisan policy center hosted this one our conversation. cox good morning, everybody. it's a pleasure to welcome you here to the bipartisan policy center. a pleasure to be here on behalf of the chairs of our homeland security program who are sponsoring this morning's events. the car aspirations of our work in homeland security is to be an active and bipartisan voice looking at these situations. there are a lot of fame's that animate this conversation but there's nothing so much compelling more dynamic as this question between security and liberty. it is a theme that has been at andcore of our imagination we will be wrestling with it for

a millennium to come. today will focus of assuring a classified material. this is an issue very much in the news highlighted by the aggressive efforts of the justice department's recent leak investigation. need to strike the right balance here and it has been very elusive. the government hides what it can become a pleading necessity as long as it can. the press finds out what it can come up pleading a right to know. this morning, we will hear from both sides of the equation. we have two incredibly known storytellers and journalists who have made careers telling all the facts and a government official who has spent years knowing facts. i look forward to a dynamic and complex conversation. i'm thrilled to be joined by my

lemack, whoarrie will be monitoring today's discussion. >> thank you for coming here today. we have all seen a big change in how we talk about classified material and leaks. some would argue that the president had been leaking far too many things, rather it was on the raid that led osama bin in yemend, the legion creating more controversy in the past with leak -- week with the subpoena for the associated press phone conversations. this has created bipartisan bicameral support. chambliss, feinstein, rupersberger all coming together. at the same time, we have an

administration that has also overseen an unprecedented number of prosecutions. six officials have been prosecuted more than other administrations combined. i'm very glad to be here to answer the questions of what the public needs to know, and more importantly, who decides? barrett from "the wall street journal," dana priet post," andashington sharing on the security council, frances townsend. and another pulitzer prize winner from the "new york times," david singer." i would like to stop the questions with dana. i'm hoping we really have a

conversation. in the "frontline" interview, but you say you try to figure out how to get as much information to the public without damaging national security. how did you decide what was and was not damaging to? national security? >> this is an issue close to my heart. i do think it's very important to probe this issue of this line, in my mind, that i try to have -- the public's right and my responsibility to bring information to the public in the realm of national security because it is the most important thing that the government does. we should know what they're doing in our name. there's a line where you can cross iter lives, or endanger

operations, which is a very important but controversial question, too, because that's a little more difficult to assess. framework, since no person is never quoted in the stories i have written about the cia, because they would be fired, jailed, or investigated, how does the public have the credibility? how do i have credibility in the public's i about the stories on writing? one thing we try to do is to give some detail about whatever it is, in one case, the cia secret prisons. how can i give readers as much detail as i can let them know that the story is a real and it comes from people with experience without giving so

much detail that it would actually give enemies an or would threaten personnel overseas, those sorts of things? that is where you walked up to the line. it is a judgment call on the part of it -- luckily not just me, but the executive editor of "the washington post." with my and putt and usually it input from the person who's trying to say, do not publish x, y, and z, or not the entire article which makes it very difficult to deal with because by that time, i have invested a lot of time and we have already made the decision that secret prisons is an admiration of what we believe we stand for in instances of the united states and a country governed by the rule of law. we already made the decision that the fact that there are secret prisons is something that

we do want to write about. sharing with to the government the details in the story, which is what my m.o., and all the reporters who worked at "the washington post" do. in the and economic call to public affairs person because that is where the "unofficial "proceed year begins. that person hopefully have some experience in this and is taking down all the details. i'm reading the story to them, but i'm telling them the bits and pieces in this story and the overall context of the story. they then take it up their chain of command. that's how it is supposed to work. the chain of command would send a message down. it goes from there. in every case, it's different. in the most elaborate instances,

which is secret prisons had conversations with a person higher than that and then we brought in our editors and they had conversations with the cia director and some of his advisers. in that case, it eventually went to the president and his national security advisers who had conversations with our editor and our general counsel, all the while we are in a handicapped position. the government is saying, don't do this will damage national security -- and we say -- why? we asked for more concrete information and usually the answer is no. usually, what is damaging if we're not putting names or locations, precise locations, is willidea that secrets damage the reputation of the united states vis-a-vis other

intelligence services who think they cannot trust the united states and therefore they will not deal with them anymore. we take that seriously, but i have learned over time and with the help of what i would call my concigliare, subjects like terrorism are so important and they're particularly important for allies in the work together with the united states regardless of what sort of happens in the more superficial public realm, that while there may be bombs in the road in that relationship and people might be angry that theain secrets are out, in short-term, medium-term, it has not damaged those relationships. again, when you weigh the is, it can temporarily but in the long stake, combating terrorism,s at

countries eventually tend to come back together. i will stop there and we can get more detail if you want, but there is a give-and-take. sometimes it doesn't work at all because the person on the other hand has inexperienced doing this and does not know exactly where in their agency to go or how to think about it in a sophisticated way, and that puts the burden on us. i can tell you some funny stories, funny in retrospect, where we sort of had to do our own judgment call because the was unable and inexperienced in working through these issues. >> before we get to the government's perspective, i want to turn to david. if he did talk about some experiences you have had with the wikileaks negotiation and you're working on how to classify materials and also to

touch on how you make the decisions? he released it, and other things you have held for some time and then released it. how does that work? when you decide it's ok to put something out for the public? >> thank you. one ofcess is very much negotiation. i usually find that as a surprise, the most people, even to some journalists, who do not normally operate in this territory because, we can look at some documents and imagine something that could be a national security threat, there are moments when there is something they're hidden from you and i will give you an example from wikileaks. it was in some ways one of the easiest cases. i would say the pakistan in a clear case or the olympic games, the cyber program against iran, they were probably among the harder cases, so we will

start with the easiest. in wikileaks, you all know the basis of the story. the documents all moved, we now know, from a private to have access to a computer system with all of the state department cables and everything else. a good separate conversation -- and why is that private have access to every document for the state department when five years before, it was really all the available to senior directors at the nsc and above the? that would be a separate interesting situation. he gave them to julian assange. he did not give them directly to "the new york times." he had some issues concerning a profile at the time that it had been published about the way he operated and his personal life which turned out to be vivid, so as a result he gave them to "the guardian" and they gave them to

us. they gave them to was for a very specific reason. they thought we would have a much better stance at being able to engage the u.s. government than a british paper could. good guess. soworked for three months or working through 250,000 documents -- i did not read them all -- we built a search engine that not only did what you would do in a google search, but look at the way that the documents were classified, who they're going to, what length of time there were classified, and that enabled us to sort them by a level of importance. a lot of things in the documents, but we were looking at 150 cables out of 250,000, but to give you a sense, because it's important to this conversation, of how poorly the classification system works,

these were mostly at the secret level, the lowest level. i would say it somewhere in the order rose 15%-20% of these cables -- and i'm not kidding here -- newspaper articles that have been published in the local kong,in portugal, hong somewhere, but someone in the embassy read, put it into a cable, and in its way out the door stamped secret on it even though it had appeared in the local newspaper that night. as we go further into the discussions, and made the point to our friends in the u.s. government that you cannot expect journalists to take seriously the classification system that takes the wrong newspaper articles and stamps them as secret and puts them back in a file. we went through the 150 or so wrotents, and we later

from more as the heir of spring and fall the because i have not been smart enough to look at cables from tunisia thinking -- who would care about to be sure, right? care about tunisia? there were things we looked at ourselves. for example, the names of any chinese dissidents going into the embassy in china. not only the names but the times that those meetings took place, knowing that the chinese would match those up. even then, we were ready to write and give the government about six or seven days notice. it was the week of thanksgiving 2011. or 2010. on a monday to them morning. we were prepared with legal briefs if they were born to try

to stop us. we figured there would be 24 hours of getting their heads around that we had all 250,000 documents. it took them a little longer than that. we met with them the wednesday night before thanksgiving as everyone was trying to get out of town. we told it would be meeting of three or four and there were about 40 members of the state department and three of us. we introduced ourselves, most people in that the back row would not say who they were or where they were from, so we had a good guess of what was going on. cannotrst said, you publish anything. then they said it could not publish anything with foreign names. i said these are state department cables. there are a lot of foreigners. then they tried to make the argument that some things should be deleted just because they

were embarrassing. we were using the standards that donald described. if it was going to threaten someone's life, and ongoing operation of they could make a compelling case, then we would certainly be willing to work along with about. king toldhat a saudi an american diplomat that the way to deal with iran was to cut off the head of the snake, they did not want us to publish that in a way that would be embarrassing for the saudi king. we said that he could handle it. mere embarrassment is not a standard for leaving something out of print. there were some things we did take out. i got a call long after that meeting was over when we were getting to publish a story about libya the following week. gaddafi was still in and we did not know that he was going to

have a really rough year. one of the cables made a reference to somebody, who i can now say this in public, was apparently, and it was not clear from the cable, an asset to the u.s. intelligence community for many years. the u.s. government official called me and said, if gaddafi read the name of this guy, even if he is not identified, he's going to put him against the wall and shoot him. no problem. we took that name out. was not central to anything we were doing. channel reason that the private communication that i referred to asked to remain open. if we're conveying no other thought, it is that the biggest damage being done by the prosecution of wikileaks right

now is that it threatens to shut down that channel of communication. if that happens, sooner or later, something pretty bad is going to happen. as one government official said to me in the context of lenore -- another story, there's no way we can sit down and have this conversation with you about what we think our security threats without discussing classified material. i said, you know what? you are right. the other choice is also not good. we're using our best judgment without the knowledge that someone named in there could be at risk. >> that is something i wanted to touch base with you, devlin. this erosion of trust. >> there has been an erosion of trust. the outside world tends to view these conversations as the first

amendment versus safety. there are these two camps and a big moat between them. i view it very differently, and then guessing you do, too. and aare two camps discussion about how each side can do their job without blowing up the other side, essentially. my personal view is that there has been an erosion of the trust in that conversation so you're getting more things like what we're seeing now, leak investigations. in my opinion, but a very broad leak investigation. the example i would use is that i am just a reporter in new york that got lost in d.c. and that's the drama put on a lot of this. not the long ago, about a

decade ago, there is a false report circulating that a guy had been caught. nothing more than that, just that they got him. there were about half an hour away from the nightly news. try to think back to a time when this was the most important news event of the day. there was a very furious scramble to contact all the major news organizations and make sure they did not go on there with the report that the guy had been caught. there was a very real fear that the actual gunman, turns out there were 2, would immediately go out and shoot someone to prove he was out there. in the space of about 20 minutes, law enforcement agencies in america were able to get that message out and get no one of any substance to reports that there had been an arrest. i think you can make a reasonable argument that it

probably saved someone's life that might. fast forward to boston, and i think what was most alarming to there turned out to be a false report of an arrest. that lingered and stayed in the space for a number of hours. i'm not casting aspersions on anyone because we are all working on things that are difficult. be a happier human being in general. in the space of several hours, there was a lot of confusion about whether there was a person captured or not. what that says is that the trust relationship has eroded to the point where there is no longer a person in each house to can call up someone else in the other house to say that is wrong -- kill it. and have the person on the other line said, don. i believe you. we know each other. that worries me for the future

because, one, you could get a situation like the sniper case if it happened again. does someone go out with that and get killed? or in a broader sort of social media context, not just old medium, twitter put a lot of awful things out during hurricanes and that could in gotry got had -- could have people killed. but if 9/11 happened today? would more people's lives be saved because of twitter or read more people be killed because of twitter? things that i grapple with. and with thensible b invoices in the world, hopefully we do with being a voice is, how we try to do the most constructive thing to both inform the public cannot jeopardize anyone? what worries me again, just get back to the point of trying to

make 20 minutes ago when i started talking, i feel like the trust relationship is eroding and it's a very dangerous thing. can you talk about your position being in government on the other side and now being a journalist? you have seen both sides. at the end of the day, we're talking about leaks. should they be prosecuted? start for my government perspective. is a source of enormous frustration when you are on the government side because you're holding accountable for prevention and being from in that very difficult mission. you have the median nipping at your heels looking to pull threads and constantly pulling on a friend that would require a you to react and respond. during my time in government, i

was privileged to work with dana and david. talk about a trusted relationship. in the green room, we hugged hello. i was there when she was working on her piece on this secret prisons and there was a very mature, adult conversation and there is also a recognition when those conversations start. it may begin with a public should officer, but it never stay there. dana knows that. if she does not see it moving

how much i'm willing to share to persuade them is a function of how damaging the release of the story is going to be. and just to make sure that as we would say showing all leg gets me somewhere, i want to be sure that it is not just the reporter who is very personally invested and the publication of the story, i want to make sure the editors and executive

editors are involved. i want someone who is more dispassionate can help the balance, listening to what i have to say. i will tell you more often than not while it is enormously tostrating, it gets reasonable place. when that balance is but it is reasonable. the most recent story we've seen last week is the subpoena. there's no question based on what i know about the operation that was compromised. you ask yourself, you heard us talk about this process. this is a piece of information about an erosion of trust. it came out in dribs and drabs. they gave enough to make the

second and third step. that is a problem. that requires people on the government side to calibrate who they are talking to. you may be able to say to local reporter that you have absolute control. there was never risk to the united states but to a national security reporter that deals in information and security it is patently obvious when someone senior in the government says that. there is only to mean -- two that that means. those are the-you made both. those of the only two possibilities. while the official may not have intended to say that, to brag that they had complete control . told a much more finely detailed

story than they could have what it. we were talking in the greenroom. it was a lack of experience. it is a lack of maturity in terms of understanding who you are talking to and understanding what the implications of that are. we do-i am very concerned about the erosion of trust. oftentimes if there is a story out there because there was a former senior arab official will be the person who gets the call from the government when it gets haywire. it is a horrible place for the government to be. thisannot try to massage one. you're really lost your opportunity. typically the government goes dark and then you cannot get anything out of them and a bad story gets perpetuated. that is a problem. i do think the government is when it writes especially when there is a leak of information.

my concern is that there is also a process. you heard the journalists appear explain to you the process pre- publication. when there is a leak investigation there is a similar channel by which prickly legally, respecting the first amendment, consistent with department of justice guidelines, that a leak investigation can be pursued. in terms of the relationship of trust it is important that is narrowly defined. the government use every means short of subpoenas and wiretaps and when they're going to do that not only did they follow their internal process but that is the time when it is incumbent to open that channel. there have got to be a relationship of trust the where the conversation begins.

>> to the ap investigation look like that to deal? now andpeak to sources havet was narrowly, you missed the upper today to tell that story. you need to give people confidence that you understood why the complete brushless -- breathlessness over this. though that has been said to hae ,issed the upper today to me i am skeptical. i have not seen anything that reassures me. >> there were two other factors in here to build on what france said. sometimes reporters here things in briefings and they put two and two together and get more than four. in this case. it is outside

evidence. the first big disclosure in this case? it was when when the technologil air that made in the summer 2010. a worm that had made it into the computer system got out and broke free. , i am skeptical. i imagine as you am all getting out of the cage. suddenly replicating around the world was the most sophisticated computer virus anybody in the computer world had ever seen. this did not look like the work of teenage hackers. when you tore apart the program had at jad it

sell by date. teenagers do not make programs self destruct. analysts picking apart th e program. by which ahodology terrorist would build a bomb. why were they looking for the bombs? because there would be the signature and that and how it was constructed. it is true and comes to cyber- cases as well. that is where we started. who had a copy of that entire

program went to the doubt? the iranians. not accuse stretch of land. while the government thinks it is in complete control of the set of information, accidents happen. they work with other governments. most operations and terrorism and cyber, and drones, all involve other governments. different agendas. there was this model in washington that all information the reporters get comes within a 12 block radius of the west wing. we have not adjusted our concept. to the fact we have allies, we have partners and people make

mistakes. >> aware -- what we're talking about here are leaks and i am curious to get your perspective. should they be prosecuted and if so, hal? to goe about your methods after whoever leaked this material. i would like to know who-what the government should be doing. other things should not necessarily be secret. to remind myself that -that is not mysh choice. we had to go behind the wall.

david's point about overseas leakages. if i were within the everette i begin to think a lot about how your putting operations together. what rowling needs to be secret. what is going to remain secret? as we saw, 99 percent was publicly available information. and allowed us to create a universe of material that was surprising to us. and that surprised the government when we showed that to them. had to do with agencies. the government does not have a

clue what is available in an unclassified realm and u.s. these factors together that we're talking about a global liaison relationship. it cannot reasonably think that drawn strikes will remain secret. clueespecially this for a long r 9/11 when you have a senior court reporter to have been doing this for a long time. you would think that would factor in. what is going to hurt us ever comes out. even which should remain secret. leastone program is the covert covert program in america. it can tell that by the fact and the president got out started discussing the drug program. on late night comedy

shows. they wrap themselves in this concept that everything about the program had to remain classified even though it was blindingly obvious. to anybody on the ground in pakistan. it does raise the question, would we have as a government, would there have been some benefit to american diplomacy, american ability to explain its own policy. how the ambassador in islamabad able to get out on pakistani tv and say this was not a random strike.

going after these five bad people who were living in your territory. instead the embassy had to say no comment. ok. there were legal constraints. plenty of debate of how that dronethere were legal program [] is under one set of authorities that requires you not to acknoit does raise the q, would wewledge it. that is what caused disorder if odd twist themselves into knots

not technology yet-- not to acknowledging it. one could argue for it. reporthink the senate's should be classified there is a huge conspiracy around the world where people think there are drones in their country. report i do want to tell you, i think it should be out there and knowing how much detail is in

it. in the end, we could not sanitize certainly the findings and recommeationsthat is the first thing you look at. there may be a way to get this piece is out there in an unclassified way that will allow their to be this kind of debate. there ought to be a discussion and debate. i think the government actually benefits when the public voices heard on policy issues. absent a public debate during their level best, members of both parties to try and make these judgments on your behalf the best they can. when you're in there inside the bubble of the west wing, you're trying real hard to make those judgments, there may be a dialogue with members of

congress to try and advise you and get their input, but you're always better off under standing how does the public want those capabilities deployed on their behalf. that becomes a role. when the camera is trained keep the secret, the role that the press plays a that in fostering that public debate. you have worked for three different organizations. >> cc any differences? this,n you get into there's not much variation.

about unlike what is happening, i do feel like you're talking about a confined in limited group of people who for better or worse get to know each other a little better and work it out among themselves. think there is a liberal, a fresh voice on national security. space.working the same this will be a function of you have to be crazy to do some of the stuff for a living. covering icebergs. you see some of it. you'll never see all of it. to the way you're just making, a lot of these operations will down to i can tell you why you're wrong but i cannot tell you that. you have the traces and what do

you do when you reached the limit of i cannot tell you. angelique should never be prosecuted. part of the reason i think that is any time you get one of these roads the obvious question is what was the harm? i need to know the actual, specific harm. the cannot tell me what the harm is or the sticks are, i personally do not feel much of a vested interest in taking your word for it. that gets back to the trust issue. said was that no one would sit and talk to ameri can diplomats. i am sure to this day there are people who are reluctant to tlak

to some -talk to some diplomats. a lot of diplomats send e-mail. -do not send e-mail. it would not be in a big database tha t someone could download. you ask senior government officials, let's match that with damage done. libya had --r to would have been

living fairly quickly. that the arab spring was about to happen. when you compare the set of warnings we got from the damage done, it was pretty over the top. i'm not arguing for a minute that that means there's never damage done. france made a compelling case. there may have been something operational. i do not know. i did not work on that story. i am not as familiar with the details of it. damage can be done. it is incumbent on the u.s. clear as ato be as kidney.

>> that is the public space. how much does the public space impact what you'll do? and ich of what you do expect the answer-is this awful vs. reactive given how much media time you have to fill at harmony diggs of the internet space you have to fill.

>> boston saw some of the stuff presented to us. do.ffects what we intove all moved cyberspace and that is great and we brought our credibility to things like twitter. part of me spent a lot of time thinking about what does twitter bring to us? what happens on twitter affects how we do our jobs in real time. that is something i worry about a lot. the simplest example, police scanners are now, you can listen to any police scanner to the internet. be a thing that reporters did. no one ever reported anything of a police scanner. it is crazy.

fair -- fear. then you can figure it through policreporting. sandy, people put on twitter over and over that coney island hospital was on for fire. that goes, we as deep breaths. because there are human reactions that go in when there -somethingng that that happens. i worry that the freneticness of

the web spills over into what we do. >> [inaudible] i think you live with that risk. you can possibly say it is better to be fast then to be wrong. it is better to be fast and to be right. i do not know anyone who preaches that as a value in the business. it is hope that there's enough people of good judgment who work hard enough and get it right. again i think that goes back to the trust relationship and what i view as their russian of that. back in the d.c. sniper case, the top that with the law enforcement agencies for years, this is how you do it. you kill that thing before it hurts anyone. they did not do that this time. that worries me a lot. i do not pretend to know the reasons why they did not do it this time. i find it very stressful. >> anyone else on the panel have

an answer? still some merit in being right. raid was anladen interesting example. i had put myself on an airplane to brussels to go to nato. while this entire thing was unfolding. but as i heard the cat litter on, when the word first order out there might be -- in my be bin laden, twitter was full of this. tweeteda reporter had or re-tweeted an account that he had seen the mib bin laden. on the times' website, even though cable tv was running and so forth, i was about an hour

before we put up the first story. because helene cooper was going about the old village of thing of trying to find people who would now and get sources on at that there were confident in the story. or we behind as a result? absolutely. this of look different if it turned out that had not been bin laden. it was what the president had feared. there were times when you have to say you're going to take the hit. most of what we do is more protection oriented work.

the series that donna did. those for projects of the year or more. the work that we did on 8 q a.q. khan. that was another year's project before went into print with our first story. what i worry about in the journalistic world is the compete more with all the social media is making sure that there is a space for people to work on something for year. before they publish something. that is the bigger risk to that weative journalism

get caught up in the first that we do not spend the time it takes to do deport. >> not only are we not out on twitter, you're trying to make sure that david does not hear what i am working on and vice versa. it takes a long time for these things to build. >> we have time for one more question. in the back. that we get caught up in the first that we do not spend the time it takes to do deport. >> not only are we not out on microphone over here. >> i have a question about the case.e moscow-u.s.-cia secretary andd russia. russianeen paraded on television.

i am happy subscriber to york newspapers here but i have not read anything interested in there. read in lots of russian media is that because you do not have any leads? are you preparing something big microphonefor the next weekend? tsarnaevnto what the brother were about. what was that about? agreement? tacit i do not know the answer to that question. we're reporting on it. and these are not easy tease to pull all the time. they were working on a number of different things.

have not printed them yet. >> it would have been unlikely to the extent these journalists were working their sources, it is not likely they could have vogel wasy much until out of russia. you would not have wanted to put him in harm's way. say it doesn't surprise me you have not read anyting yet. the government has been remarkably unremarkable. my sense it was about removing

him and getting him home. will find out more sand. -- we will find out more soon. >> this implies that someone is out there handing over things and it does not work that way. -i do not know if i can pull this off. i do not know if i can get more confirmation and i really feel that way. despite the fact that it seems like there's a lot of information out there, it is not easy to get. is this concept that has been generated by the movies. reporters are sitting at their desks or sitting on the back porch with a martini and someone

calls and asks to meet in a parking garage and get a document done. i worked for the near times for 31 years. i have not got that phone call yet. i am still waiting. an accumulation information.of only when you come back here and government officials or findings. when you get them in europe or washington or asia or wherever. and put it together that you manage to then be able to leverage out other information here. you try to keep secret the are happy they get out. i will give you one short example. khan case. the a.q.

the bush administration were describing his activities. they did not want to upset the pakistani is. -- pakistans. they had some other reason. we went out and did our reporting for a year, we thelished this long story, pakistani foreign minister set i have not read the story but it is a pack of lies. today'srested a.q. khan letter. i was i calls and said to think you for publishing the story. we do not think the pakistanis

would have locked him up without that. i said thanks for all the help. andyou have heard danna n david talk. makes it sound easy. it is about relationships. policyrecognizing the officials. the most important conversations are happening on the margins of a cocktail party or a starbucks on the sidelines. there -- they are happening there and it may be an innocent conversation that generates an idea for lead but one of these reporters goes and checks with the source and begins to weave the fabric of the finished piece. that you read in one of their is

papers. it is all about as the most businesses relationships. with that i think we can continue talking about this issue. i want to thank the members of .he panel i want to thank the advance panel for putting this together. and thank you. > the first bill he has introduced. creating private financing for infrastructure projects.

more about benghazi with a former foreign service officer posted in libya. "exit theauthor of colonel." 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> john kerry talked about last year's attack on the u.s. consulate at about security for u.s. diplomats. he made his remarks at the national foreign affairs training center. [applause]

>> rbi's task but i am really happy to spend a few minutes. thank you very much, madame ambassador, for your wonderful start ship of the fsi. it was a great pleasure for me to be able to join you at the .raduation of the 100 class be here with undersecretary pat kennedy. was much on top of this agenda. and our chief of security. thanks for being here. one of the things i have is you can train men and

women for the assignment she will take on when you leave here. does that exceedingly well. we have some senior officers here and people from other agencies here who have been out in the field. the fact is i think you know this. now trading here. none of us who stand up in front can teach thek to special instinct that brings you here as a dash to a life of public service. the comes from your sense of the self-yourself as americans and your understand that the understanding of it -- your

understanding. your dedication to our country and our determination to make the world better. ofse are the singular traits very special people. who are the face to the world in ways that so many of our fellow citizens will never know or understand. ago i more than 100 days was privileged and honored to become your colleague and joined the state department, joined the state department family which is what it is. when it took the oath of office .nd began my service this is the same oath that our investors take and it is the same one that people in the whotary and other states are on the front line.

wayne solly scored to support and defend the constitution. with that both i assure you and i think you understand this. we also pledge to defend and support each other. a way to know that every damn privilege to be here in this position i have no greater , no greater responsibility than insuring that we do all the weekend within reason and capacity to protect you. moller -- suicide bomber killed the family. i spoke at a memorial service which we dedicated a beautiful fountain. his name means flowing waters. he had guarded the gates of that embassy for 20 years and now

everyone, he moved in to challenge an intruder who was walking in door and that is where he gave his life. so bravely, acting quickly to save the lives of others. smeddinghoff. she would have come to be part of this training this summer. but a week and a half after she helped organize my vist, she was gone. she was killed while delivering children.school risks wee of the take. i think of them every single

day. you are deeply aware of these challenges. i am enormously appreciative. president obama shares a deep and abiding respect for and understanding of what you undergo and the challenges you undertake. we are enormously appreciative of the fearlessness that you somehow muster as to confront these challenges. in the shadows of the attack in of thantan fanned anger last year's terrorist attack in benghazi which killed ambassador chris stevens and three other reckons, will understand it is how difficult-important is to protect our people. that is why i held both classified and unclassified briefings to make sure that we understood what went wrong. ensuredo all we could to

it would not happen again. this is why i am committed to implementing every single one of in theommendations report. everyen never eliminate last risk but can never stop working to mitigate those risks as much as possible. right now we're working to upgrade our capacities. we're bringing in more security personnel. where enhancing our training per -- we are enhancing our training. responsibility is protecting people. emergency make

extradition more central. living in embassies and consulates in making sure that the concern about safety and security always gets the attention and needs and deserves. in addition to doing what we're doing to be sent abroad we as a nation need to engage in the larger conversation about the inherent dangers of diplomacy, ever mindful that will undertake them clear eyed and will undertake them for reason. must remember this conversation that we need to engage our country and is not a new one. the dangers of diplomacy are not unique to this moment. serving in our diplomatic missions did not become dangerous that night in benghazi. is not a new phenomenon.

the reason we continue to do this work is embedded in our dna as americans. it is part of our patriotic pioneering character. the memorial wall in the lobby of the state department which vice-president biden and i stood at a few days ago as we unveil the additional names of the -- that has been added, that wall in the state department bears 244 games. been-chrishristie s stevens.t most gave their lives long before september 11, 2012 or events ofs timber 11 of 2001.

the first black on the wall and foggy bottom is dedicated to a man named william palfrey. he was lost at sea when the constitution that we suffer to defend was still a decade away from even being written. lost iner says that we beirut and bosnia and baghdad attacks like that in our embassy in nairobi. in 1998. in farour officers capital cities. even in peaceful times. though we cannot count all their names, the waters the families and loved ones. who served and sacrificed in four places. was in the foreign service. we were stationed in berlin.

on the line that divided east and west. i saw hitler's bunker protruding up. the crossings were dangerous and the families were often trying from east to west. itwas athe first black on the d became more dangerous when the wall went up. people tried to get across to find freedom and liberty. this composition is not new. i believe it is more important than ever today. when we think about and grieve about an honor the bravery that we see in your predecessors and your peers, we cannot at the same time wonder why or be

surprised that there is danger. are bringing light to the world we have to go to the dark places. need to maximize our fork -- foreign policy to strengthen america. if you're right to represent the united states and countries to which your about trouble, you just need to be accessible to people on the ground. and everytime you do reach out, every time you touch a citizen in another country, every time he carried the face of america and the values of america and whatever kind of communication have, you are making our country stronger. you are building the future.

we need to remind our fellow americans we're engaged with the rest of the world because that is in our vital interest. we have to be there. -- not there,e filled by will be others with different goals. wet is the way we make sure don't have to send our kids to war. solve work together to problems that can only be sold across borders, transnational by reaching out and joining the global community. show up in places where no one else wants to go and when we succeed they're

building a safer city, forging a stronger trade partnership, helping a child to grow up understanding what america truly stands for run of the learning from a hateful propaganda package or false ideology, when we do that, in our interests are advanced, our values understanding are upheld, and the risks that we take a worth it. the skeptics might try to suggest to you is not worth it. there will tell us stay inside the embassy or even stay in the cities. stands not what america for. build the future by hiding. we cannot do this work by stay

away. bywill never overcome threat shrinking away from them. in countries with weak rule of law and dysfunctional governments we have an interest in helping people to build a stronger democratic institution, to take advantage of opportunities and treat the futures they choose for themselves. wese are the places where have the most to gain. aboutday i get reports the various threats that we're facing. iere will be times when decide that the threat in a certain place is great enough that we need to adjust our courage and take extra precautions at least for a while. and we do every half. that is the reality. those will be the exceptional cases. retreating behind the wire cannot be the way that we do business. and that is free today in a news to share with america. not pull back.

we're going to keep practicing what my father called foreign policy outdoors. working directly with men and women around the world from a government official to local leaders to civil society groups and ordinary people on the street. we're going to build the people to people relationships that help to foster trust and understanding between cultures. we'll bring that -- make that in disman even stronger. chris stevens understood that. he enjoyed and he respected the people that he met. whether it was in this country or abroad. when he was 17, he went to spain with the american field service and he then lived in the mountains of morocco as a volunteer english teacher with the peace corps. one young student of him -- of his became a teacher because of

english. chris divens taiex the young man in a point in his life. he made lasting friendships there were built on mutual respect. the band's got a glimpse of the best of the united states, the decency and respect for others regardless of race, religion, or cultural beliefs. chris was fortunate to live the world as i considered myself to have been and as you are. most people do not have the opportunity to do what you do. spend time abroad beating people of another language and immersed inply their lives but today we also have digital bridges to connect different cultures. i do not dismayed facebook and twitter. the educational and cultural affairs bureau runs a virtual exchange program that connects teachers and students in the u.s. with their counterparts in

the least and north africa. the students are working together on line, learning from each other about their cultures and history and therefore urging western relationships. i am excited to tell you that we are right the world now workingy 'family.is stevens we believe this network could lead to the largest ever increase in people to people exchanges between united states, the least, and north africa. we believe it will dramatically the number of divoersitdiversity of young peo. hese are the kind of connections that led libyans to crowd into the streets of benghazi after the attack.

spontaneously, tens of thousands carrying signs thinking of the united states. they went out there not to shut terrible things about derica. they went out to mourn his death and celebrate democracy and to say thank-you to crest at america. as i wasld war ii growing up in berlin and elsewhere, i watched our country invest in other people in the future. we watched germany and japan turn into a powerhouse allies of the united states today. southched countries like korea which was under siege which for years received aid from the united states have now donor country. giving aid to other people to follow in the example that we set. all this has been geared toward

understanding. that is what we have to continue to do today. only fromdo our work behind brooks and berk wire. we have to be out there where people are. in fact we have to think creatively about expanding our tools and capabilities so that we can address the issues that drive young people to despair. ultimately, to terrorism. tunisia.ened in when a fruit to vendor self immolated himself and those kids tweeted each other and communicated through text messages. when they did that there were not the results of some ideology. of a were not the results religious extremist surprise. there were young people trying to reach the future they have

seen here and in other parts of the world. that was a generational revolution. expressing the aspirations of people for better future. diplomacy and security do not have to be trade-offs. -they have work to strike a balance. advancing or policies and interests in accordance with security measures necessitated by the threats to u.s. interests. later this week, president obama will discuss our counter- counterterrorism strategy and he will discuss this balance which the administration has tried to strike. the challenges of the 21st century are more complex than they were in the latter part of last century. the opportunity that we face are greater than any we have encountered in our history.

i am convinced trade your here because you believe the u.s. must continue to play a leading role. we need to make the case for what we must do. we need to show the american arele the diplomacy efforts worth investing in because they jobsd to returns to us and and our economy. as russian ships with people and security of our nation. we need to hold all of our elected officials accountable for making these efforts a priority and that includes the congress. this is a congress that reminds all the time that they are a co- equal branch of the government and they should because the hon. -- aess is to play a world role on the world stage as well. leading on the middle east. providing the resources and support and the investments that

could make the risks that we take today worthwhile. overseas, we need to keep deepening the relationships, friendships, and forging relationships that will benefit the american people around the world. i think there isn't one of you sitting here that doesn't understand these principles because that is why you're sitting here. you live them abroad and you will. ane at home, we have obligation to share them with our fellow citizens because they need to be part of this journey, even though they may never leave their hometown to do so. that is why i came here this morning. to emphasize and underscore that we are determined to stand up for our values, our interests, and our futures because those values and interests, justice and freedom, opportunity for all people, they have always been a

beacon for people who aspire to a better life. that is what history has shown us. after world war ii, or in the depths of the cold war, and that remains true today. we are going to continue to be out there, not just because that defines us as americans emma but because we know that is how you build a world that respects human rights, dignity, promotes rule of law, and ultimately fosters opportunity for those burgeoning populations of young people, more and more of them, under the age of 30, the dominant portion of populations across the middle east and elsewhere, all of whom need jobs and the future. our democracy will be strengthened when our allies are strong. when we engage with their governments as well as with men and women in all walks of life.

men and women, as you leave here, crowd as you are, join us. let's tell the story. let's do so proudly. as you never forget why you take the risks that you do, i want you to know that none of us, not -- greg,greg thomas not any of us will stop fighting for the resources you need to undertake this great enterprise. thank you for being part of it, and thank you for sharing some thoughts of me this morning. i appreciate it. thank you. [applause] >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service i .our television provider

coming up, we will look at the life of lucretia garfield, wife of president james garfield. he is our nation's 20th commander-in-chief and the second president to be assassinated. we will also hear about mary arthur mcelroy served as white house hostess during her president chester arthur's administration. in 90 minutes, a panel of journalists discuss media coverage and national security issues. ♪ it's only in recent years that a lot of scholarship has that theirthe fact marriage was in its early phases. >> i think in the early years,

james found her a bit distant and cold. as the years went by, she had a tremendous influence on him. >> they spend a lot of time on their children. i thought that education was unemancipated factor. mrs. garfield adored her time at she wasbition, but specifically interested in the latest scientific technologies of the day. 's death,es garfield citizens raised hundreds of thousands of dollars that were turned over to lucretia garfield. in today's dollars, that would equate to somewhere around $8 million. >> her character was extreme enough -- extremely strong. she had a rectitude that was invulnerable. was: lucretia garfield born in ohio and in 1832. her life spans antebellum america to the progressive era of the early 20th century. a supporter of women's rights and deeply interested in

politics, she and president james garfield entered the white house on march 4, 1881 after a very close election. however, what plans she had as first lady were soon cut short by an assassin's bullet. good evening, and welcome to "first ladies: image and image." ther the assassination, next person to come into the white house, chester arthur, did not have a first lady. job was understand -- to help us understand, we have carl anthony. he is the author of "americans first families." the circumstances of garfield election helped to seal the president's fate. tell us the story of where the party politics were at the time. guest: so many of the large issues that had continued in post-civil war era were really in large mode put to rest.

the transcontinental railroad by this time had been completed, the troops had been removed from the south during reconstruction. a lot of focus was basically on , and thatmoney struggle within the republican party for who would control the who wouldch meant control the positions that were appointed positions that were at the discretion of people at power, it ended up being a power struggle in the party between an ohio-based party, which is james garfield's party, and rutherford hayes was not only from the same part of ohio but the same kind of thinking, and what were called the stalwarts, which were new york- based. you see certain states really emerge throughout history holding onto power within a

particular party. in new york, that was headed by a man who became a united states senator. this was the struggle. you see then, of course, the person who ends up shooting president garfield, drainage, charles patel, but probably screaming with the gun in his .and, "i am a stalwart now arthur is president." host: garfield himself with is -- was a compromise candidate. after many ballots at a republican convention. when they came to the white house, where they accepted? guest: they were largely accepted. this is where lucretia played a vital role. a lot of it was a matter of cobbling together a cabinet where everybody would be happy,

that the new york wing would be happy, that garfield now as leader of the party in the .ountry would be satisfied you had lucretia garfield playing a little bit of an espionage role in the postelection, pre-inauguration or she goes to new york under the alias of mrs. greenfield, and is really there to deal with this guy she doesn't like, , and negotiating members of the cabinet of who would be appointed and who wouldn't. host: garfield after winning says this -- "it is a terrible responsibility to come to him and me." did she want to become first lady? guest: she did not want to become first lady for herself. she very strongly believed in her husband.

they had really been through everything. they lost two children. they had marital problems. 1880, time he has run in they are very clear and very square on the same page in terms of their values. they both shared a lot of intellectual and literary pursuits. that was a mutual passion which during the tough times kept them together, but she was, at the time she got the news that he won the nomination, she was scrubbing the floor. she did not want to pose for photographs. she was very reluctant. she did, and of course, the first images we start to see and paraphernalia during the .ampaign, she wrote a private letter to some friends and said, the truth is, i do not want to go to that

place, but i really believe that my husband is the right man to lead the country. host: we will be taking you to the garfield's home in ohio. it is available for you to visit, run by the national parks service. if you are ever in the state near cleveland, make a point of visiting it. we will show you as much as we can. there is what it looks like. that front porch became very the firstause it was front porch campaign. how did the front porch campaign come about? of thei do not know 100% details, except at the time where they lived, it was relatively rural. groups of people relate coming to hear the candidate speak. whole thing of the with these front porch campaigns. interestingly enough, most of them took place, all of them took place in the midwest. lincoln's in springfield, harding's and mckinley's in ohio just the garfield.

lucretia garfield, what was interesting was because it was technically the property of her private home, her being seen by the voters, the people coming in on horses and buggies to hear garfield anything at find all unusual about the presence of his wife at what was a campaign rally because it was also her home. host: we are going to learn more about the front porch campaign in this video. [video clip] >> this is the site of the nation's very first front porch campaign. james garfield would come out here and gives -- give speeches to people who had gathered here from the front part of the property. lucretia's role was more concentrated on the inside. standing in the front hallway of the garfield home probably seems like stock -- a strange place to start talking about garfield's widely hailed front porch campaign of 1880. in fact, this was the part of

the house where lucretia garfield spent a lot of her time during the 1880 campaign. james a garfield went to chicago to nominate someone else for president. he wasn't expecting to be a candidate. lucretia garfield had no expectation that over the next five months number between 17 and 20,000 people would show up at her home and her property in ohio. when these people started to show up, that many people obviously unexpected, uninvited, started to cause a lot of damage to the outside of the property. they were racing all over the property, yanking things on the ground to take-home take-home souvenirs. lucretia garfield was very concerned about what was on the outside of the property, not inside the family home. she spent a lot of time in this front hallway, keeping an eye on the front door, and she was the gatekeeper. making sure that no one she did not want in the house was able to get into the house. you see the front steps.

james garfield's office was at the top of these steps. he would spend a lot of time in the office. at some point during the day, a lot of times he would come down the steps and go to the front door to stand up the front porch, talk to people gathered out there, and eventually give speeches as part of his front porch campaign. i like to imagine lucretia following behind him and locking the door as he went outside because she was so adamant that people not get inside the home. they had a young family they were very concerned about. they also had just finished a major renovation of the house. lucretia had just gotten the house the way she wanted it did she did not want people coming in to cause the same kind of damage inside that she saw going on outside. we know that lucretia garfield was a very gracious host to people that did come into the home. she very often would greet them here in the front hallway and offer them what she called standing refreshment, which meant she was very gracious. she talk to them for a few moments with a cold glass of water or lemonade, but

conspicuously no chair to sit in because she did not -- she did not want them to overstay their welcome. we have a phone line set aside for you to call in. we will get to call for a couple of minutes. you can also tweet us to use the #firstladies. here's a comment from our facebook page -- guest: really great -- great question. a lot of bits of evidence that cumulatively show us that lucretia garfield was perhaps the first first lady to really have a strong conscientiousness about being part of a historical tradition of first ladies. in her diary, to my knowledge,

the only diary kept by a first lady, she records an incident where one of her guests comes in and tells her about the night of the fall of richmond and being with mary lincoln. she writes in her diary that these little sorts of stories are the kinds of things she begins to accumulate and feels that there are some ghosts of the house. we will talk more about her -- she has a sense of sorority with the first ladies who came after her. host: on twitter -- guest: she thought of it as her home. in fact, later on when a well was being built in the back -- i can't remember, there was another structure -- she actually studied the engineering

plans, and she was just an -- just incredibly interested in so much and taught herself. she would say things like, i have built a home on my own, i have done it all, and i know what is going on, and i can get the structure out back built quicker and less expensively than is being done right now. she later on changed what was essentially a farmhouse into a victorian mansion. again, that is in the years of her widowhood. she had another beautiful home standing in pasadena, california. very forwardas thinking. here is something that james garfield thought about her as they were political partners. unstampedable.s there has not been one solitary

instance of my public career when i suffered in the smallest degree for any remark she ever made." tell us a bit more about that unstampedable character. guest: you know, it did not come easy. she was one of those people who spent a lot of time thinking. she always tried to be highly rational in her opinions, when she formed them, and in her concepts of people and ideas and subjects, whatever it might be, current events, history. this was a little bit of a problem early on when they were theirng and even in marriage because a lot of people including her husband felt that she was not emotionally expressive. but when she had given something a lot of thought, and

she was clear about how she felt, then she would express herself. her letters, i might add, are beautiful. this is a real self-motivated woman who realized that education was going to be the key to not only her success but her happiness. firstone of the very decisions she had to make was about temperance and whether or not she and the president would follow the no alcohol policy .et by the hayes it will you tell us about that decision she made, the garfield's made, and how significant it was politically? host: it ended up, true to what she said, not having a significant impact politically. but the threat was made to her by a woman who came and said, you must continue the no alcohol .olicy of the hayes

lucretia garfield said, thanks, but no thanks. i sort of feel that by my doing , by not little thing serving alcohol to my guest, it will take on enormous importance in the press and give it far more attention than it needs. she herself drink wine. then this woman threatens him, well, this is going to affect the republican party. mrs. garfield said politely, i don't think it really is. host: this decision and the pressure for it came around the arrival of the official portrait of lucy hayes. we talked about this picture in the last program. do about thebig to- money being raised to do this portrait. it was presented to the

fait d'compli.a the white house wasn't going to deny it. nor did they think that it would be wise in terms of public relations to deny the portrait of their most immediate predecessor, the wife of their most immediate presses -- predecessor. -- controversy as you know the percentage of money they were raising was being spent for the women's christian temperance union, other projects, so it had a slight taint of scandal. kathy robinson wants to know on twitter -- guest: there was very little time for lucretia garfield to in they become popular

sense of functioning as a first lady the way we think it. .he inauguration was march 4 by the end of april, she has contracted malaria. , there is even a fear she .ight die in the white house president garfield, just president for three months, writes of how he was unable to work with fear that this was going to be, that something would happen to his wife. it is only after he a shot in that the press really begins to focus on lucretia garfield and she becomes, not just a national, but an herrnational heroine for behavior, calm this, and control as the president is attempting recuperation. is robertfirst call

watching us in chicago. caller: good evening. i have one simple question. at the time garfield became president, his salary was $50,000. i was just wondering if mrs. garfield received the balance of the salary after he passed on. guest: yes, she did it. she also received his pension as a former member of congress, and she received, as susan oftioned, that large amount public funds which were raised. a presidentialed widow's pension. she had quite a bit of income coming from several directions. host: next is a call from bill watching us in columbus, ohio. in ohio where up

the garfield estate is. i passed it all the time, and i somethinghere being on the property where he threw up. is it still there? guest: that i do not know. host: have you visited the house? caller: surprisingly, i never dated. i lived -- never did. i live there. thanks for calling. sorry couldn't answer your question. talking about her involvement in the selection of the cabinet, we said earlier that she was deeply involved and interested in -- in partisan politics. very briefly, where did she develop that keen political sense and how did she use it to advise the president? guest: she started developing that once they moved to washington, dc when he was a member of congress.

they lost their first child, a girl, their last born, a little boy. they had a lot of tough times. during his service in the civil when he came to washington, they were separated again. she was not going to put up with it. they decided to build a home in camengton, and when she to washington as a congressional wife, she began attending debates on capitol hill. she was there during the 1876 election dispute commission. to a literaryong society, but this was really her political -- when her political education began, during the congressional years. she also put room aside just for theelf to paint and read in house they built washington, but politics really became -- i

would say it was her primary interest -- it wasn't her primary interest, but one of several primary interests. she was interested in everything. the issue of the cabinet really circles around the controversial appointments of the secretary of .tate, james blaine mrs. garfield is really the advocate for him. that theblaine writes knowledge that mrs. garfield once be in the cabinet is just as important to me as knowing that you, the president, want me in the cabinet. host: here's the quote exactly -- that says something about her influence, at least on the president. absolutely. i would also say partisanship

and these splinter things within parties, she was not a policy person. she was not somebody who was looking at policy and saying, you should support this or not support that. she was looking that members of the cabinet who are supposed to be running the government, but from a point of partisan political royalty -- loyalty. , keep yourt saying friends close, your enemies closer. she was always looking at, how are these men going to potentially affect her husband's career? host: in the end, it seems they mixed the cabinet would have stalwarts and half the rest. guest: to a degree. i the time of cook -- by the time of garfield's assassination, there is a sense of remorse. this guy that shot him didn't openly as a political -- out of political partisanship. it was sort of horrifying to people.

it also involved vice president arthur, who was sort of representative of the wing at the assassin claimed to be associated with. host: we should be specific about this. the brief tenure of this presidency, 186 days in total. because of his lengthy decline -- we will tell that story later -- he was only functional for 121 days of that. this is a really brief time, not much time to establish opinions and in the public at large. you mentioned earlier -- david moore doc is asking on twitter -- guest: absolutely. clinicaln the sense -- political in-- we do not have a

record of him coming to her with legislative decisions. host: you mentioned earlier that civil service reform was becoming unimportant issue. people who saw the movie see how" we'll patronage jobs were used to influence the president. what was the bubbling controversy over patronage and what was the reform people wanted to employ? , with you have this garfield assassination and death, you have this man coming to the white house. everybody was like, talk about a man who benefited from political patronage. chester alan arthur was never elected to any political office. he was the collector of the port of new york. he had a high position in new york state during the civil war, but it was all political patronage. roscoe conkling, the kingmaker of the stalwarts in new york, thanks, now the doors will open

and we will get all the political funds. president arthur says, no, i'm going to change my stripes, and we are going to be honest. chester arthur is the man who initiates the first civil sommers -- so -- civil service reforms. we learned that charles could tell was always described as a frustrated office seeker. his biglso tied into allegiance with the other faction of the gop. his example of coming to the office, to the white house, and looking for jobs. how does that process work in the 1880s? guest: it is extraordinary to think that not even 20 years after the assassination of resident can that there could -- president lincoln that there could be such lax security at the white house. as you and many viewers know, the way the white house was set up at the time, there was the ground floor where there were no restored rooms, functioning

as kitchens and places to keep china, and then there is the main floor. with the east room and green -- redd read room, room. there are three hallways. the hallway that is at the furthest end, where the family rooms were, in the middle section and the east and where the presidential offices. members of the public who had some vague connection from a senator or congressman tom and even if they did not, would be able to go up the stairs, check in with the doorkeeper, and weight in this hallway with s, filled with cigar smoke, and hope to see when the

president secretary's pressing their case, usually with letters of introduction, claiming how great and wonderful they were and how they deserved some kind of minor federal position. we're not talking about people coming in there to be cabinet members or postmaster of this or that.ter of that at -- this is the kind of stuff a president was having to deal with while he was in his office, and the private sector -- and the private sector is -- secretaries were trying to do with it. .etot was one of them he never got to press his case. he took it personally. clearly. the garfield strauch to the white house a big and happy family. on our next visit to their home in ohio, we will learn more about the garfield family. [video clip] >> this is the parlor. this is the way it looked

during james garfield 1880 campaign. this was indeed both a former -- formal parlor and a family room. james and lucretia spent a lot of time with their children. two children to , arabella and edward. those children died before the family moved here. their five children all had the benefit of having two very intelligent parents who strongly believed in education. they felt education was an emancipating factor and that led to the key to success. we have molly's piano. in the family parlor, you see a lot of books. their children loved to read as well.

some of their favorite authors were dickens. and also william shakespeare. the family would sit by the fireplace and read to one another. that was one of their favorite activities. we are here in the family dining room. this is an interesting art piece. it won an award at the philadelphia centennial. mrs. garfield absolutely adored her time at the exhibition. she visited all of the tents. she was interested in the latest sciences and technologies of the day. she would write pages and pages of what she saw at the site. she was very intelligent, she loved the sciences. dinnertime was a very important time of the day.

it was a time for them all to get together and talk about what they were doing. the garfields would use this time to educate the children. sometimes garfield would bring a book to the table, words that were often mispronounced and quiz the children. made everything an educational experience. >> we learned about the kind of parents they were. tell the story of how they met. >> it is really quite fascinating, so many minor chords in it. this sense of equality to it. both of them saw each other as equals. lucretia garfield was the great granddaughter of a german immigrant.

her parents were very religious. they were members of the disciple of christ. her father was one of the founders of the eclectic institute. they believed in education of women. this is a fascinating phenomenon in ohio. you see this with all of the presidents' wives born and raised in ohio, equal education for women. lucretia garfield went through grade school, went to the eclectic institute. she studied the classics, she learned how to speak greek and latin and french and german. she studied science, biology, mathematics, history, philosophy. right away, if you can think of passion coming to the world of ideas, there was a passion struck between the two of them.

james garfield came from a very poor family. he never knew his father. he had been a canal boy, one of those young guys who would walk with the mules and pull the canal boats. everything they got, they greatly appreciated. she felt that education was the answer. he was her teacher at the eclectic institute. he went to williams college and they began a correspondence. that is where you begin -- it is the world of ideas that begin to separate them and bring them together. they argueed over ideas. one of those ideas with the fact there was another woman that she met at his graduation from williams college.

that became a point of contention. >> we have a sense of that with a letter that she wrote to james garfield about the relationship it was touch and go. >> what is really interesting is even though she very much loved him, she also looked out for herself. she is going to become a teacher and she determined that she would work and earn her own salary. she did not want to be a burden on her father. if she never got married, had to depend on anyone else. she not only becomes a teacher, but an interest of art is born

in her. she becomes an art teacher. this is all right before she gets married. he has another affair. he has a full-blown affair with a woman in new york. that nearly does in the marriage. >> stanley is watching us in ohio. what is your question? >> thank you for c-span. i really do like the presidential series. i visited the home here about six days ago and was really impressed with the furnishings in the home. did mrs. garfield furnish the home and build the library herself before the president died?

>> you know, yes. the interior, it was by her hand. most importantly, in answering your question, she had built onto it after his death that fireproof safe, which is part of the house, specifically to house and protect and preserve his letters and papers. she had been planning on writing a biography about him herself and she never lived to do that. > later, those letters were published before being donated. i know in the show we have spoken about first ladies who burned papers. lucretia garfield had such a sense of history, she kept papers. even the ones that might prove embarrassing or personal that related to her marriage.

she had a sense of herself and her husband beyond their own lives as historical figures. >> let's hear james garfield's side of the story. he wrote to her -- they eventually do get married. the early days of their marriage, they were together for six weeks out of six years. his tenure in the civil war, followed by his election in congress. how does this marriage get to the point where they were functioning as a couple? >> the first child died. it was a little girl. she gave birth seven times. their last child died. i believe it was her physical presence.

what is fascinating about her in building this house, she created a room for herself. even though she was a devoted mother, there are a couple of letters where she says, it really gets on your nerves and it hurts your ego to think that your whole life after this education is being spent -- i cannot remember the word she uses. these little terrors are all that occupy your time. she began to develop her passion

for art and painting, reading and writing. she was quite an essayist, none of it for publication, but she had this room. they also joined the burns literary society. >> david is listening from chicago. >> president arthur burned his personal papers along with his white house papers. he got so little publicity on this action. why the difference between the two? i am looking forward to your book on mckinley this spring. >> thank you very much. president arthur, there are some indications that it was his son who may have had more of a hand in that. arthur himself did feel very intensely about protecting his privacy.

we will be talking a little bit about the arthurs. the issue was in terms of the hardings, the air of suspicion coming on the heels of the various political scandals. suggest some kind of malfeasance and that was not the case. >> back to the story of lucretia garfield, we learned how often her husband was away, leaving her with all of those children to raise on her own. she talks about the frustration of being the one who has to make the decisions. >> my darling, i cannot conceive of any possible reason why he should be such a trial to my life.

i cannot be patient with him anymore than i can submit to patience with some extreme physical torture. what he will ever become, i do not know. it is horrible to be a man, but the driving misery of being a woman is almost as bad. to be half civilized and obliged to spend the largest part of the time the victim of young barbarians keeps one in perpetual torment. >> somehow they made it all work and brought all of those children to the white house. we have a photograph of the family in the white house. it was a brief tenure. what was family life like in the white house?

>> it was healthy, funny, humorous, there was no treacly sentiment. nobody was trying to use them as examples of good living. the two older boys were to be going to college, but they were so close, they remained in the house and they studied there. there were two little boys who were kind of terrors. and a very beautiful openhearted daughter, who kept a little diary when she was in the white house. it was a poignant document because it talks about her father's assassination. the grandmother was also there,

garfield's mother. garfield's mother came to live there. she had raised her son to be president and even when mrs. garfield was ill, some speculation about who should be able to return as hostess, there were some suggestions that old mother garfield would come to the white house and take over. there are some suggestions that that idea did not go over too well. >> a lot of first ladies have a cause of their own. >> really interesting. there is one suggestion, and it is written in a letter by one of the first people in the united states, a woman, who was both

blind and deaf, who had achieved higher education and was in touch with mrs. garfield. there was some suggestion that mrs. garfield was interested in working with people who were sight impaired or hearing- impaired and developing educational outlets for them. but the one project we know about is going to the library of congress to do research on the white house. bringing a sense of history. the people at this point, 80 years the white house has been standing, and all of the families have lived there. now you are having one and two and three generations worth of stories.

she has a sense of history and the history of the house. a fascinating lists of artists and writers that she intended to invite to the white house. >> next is thomas in new york. >> hello, can you hear me? >> i am sorry, but you have to turn the tv volume down. we will move on to one quick video which talks about her artistic ability and things like the white house china. >> here in the family dining room, we have the family china, which is the china they used at the white house. i will take one out. it has the g monogram on it.

the garfields were not rich people. they brought their best stuff with them. they would have used this china at home and at the white house. this would have been their formal dinnerware. we have quite a collection here of the china that exists. it is a pretty impressive set, china painting was very popular. the very top row were hand- painted by lucretia garfield. mrs. garfield was very up on the latest trends and style of the day and she had a very good eye for art. she taught painting for a while. around the fireplace are hand- painted tiles. she painted the two top corner tiles.

james garfield said that his wife had faultless taste. she chose her furniture very carefully. >> did she have the opportunity to host any events? >> she hosted a regular reception and it is fascinating that at one of those, a man by the name of charles, who would shoot the president two months later, met her and recorded having a very pleasant conversation with her and liking her. of course, she gets malaria. there is fear that she might die. as she is recovering, it is thought she would do better at

the jersey shore. he is waiting for him at the railroad station and sees him escorting mrs. garfield and he cannot bring himself to shoot the president. >> that is in june. i want to pause for dramatic effect. >> the president is on his way to new jersey to join his wife and he is then going to go up to massachusetts. two of the boys are back in ohio with her grandmother. the president's daughter is with her mother. and he shoots the president. right away, he sees the wife of james blaine. he tells her to wire lucretia. she is overwhelmed at first and

she almost faints. she has to be held up by men on either side of her. she composes herself and says to the doctor, what will it take to make sure he is cured? and they say, a miracle. and she says, that is what will happen. >> this was july in washington, d.c. how does this affect the care? >> they know he has a bullet. there is a rudimentary air-

conditioning system up from the ground floor. >> they do that specifically. >> ideas for inventions, but all kinds of kooky recipes and potions are being sent to mrs. garfield. mrs. garfield was fantastic in that she was able to compartmentalize and had the wherewithal to put out this word that everything was fine. this was a very important thing. she asked that everything

written about him be sent to her for review. vice president arthur made no rumblings about assuming any presidential duties. he respected her. you begin to see generated first in the country and then around the world the most amazing articles about this woman's courage, this woman's intelligence, her fortitude, how it was pervading the white house. cheering up the president. then there were the technology of the day, you saw images of mrs. garfield, her down in the kitchen preparing food for him. it was a little bit of hyperbole because it was a desperate

situation. alexander graham bell offered to bring in a newfangled magnetic electromagnetic machine to find the bullet. >> he was trying to trace a metal bullet. is it true president garfield died not from the gunshot but from bacteria from dirty instruments used by the doctor? >> the bullet was dirty. he might have eventually died. it is circumstantial situation. i will say he had one woman doctor. after the federal government paid the doctors, they paid the woman doctor half the amount and

mrs. garfield wrote a letter and was outraged. the woman doctor received the same amount as the male doctors. >> thank you, c-span, for the program. during that timeframe, would they have known the rockefellers and the vanderbilts? >> chester arthur and his wife did. i would not doubt that she would've had contact with them. >> thank you. was there a big age difference between the president and mrs. garfield? >> i do not recall. i think it was five years or less.

>> the president was shot again july 2 and he lingered until september. the decision was made to move him to the jersey shore. >> the very place he had been headed to see her. that is where he dies, in her presence. she gets a letter from julia tyler. i wanted to emphasize that -- a sorority of presidential spouses. >> the funeral. set the stage for this

victorian-era funeral. >> what says it all is the way the white house looked. mrs. garfield was strong throughout. she did not break down, unlike mary lincoln, who was unable to emotionally withstand the public display of this. mrs. garfield began designing and working with the ideas of what his tomb would be like in ohio.

>> jacqueline kennedy took that model and became very much involved in the planning of the funeral process. >> the legacy. lucretia garfield, we mentioned the papers she was preserving. she approved statues. she was really hands-on whenever it had anything to do with them. >> how did the children react to their father's assassination? >> i do not remember the ages and they were not all there when he died. two of the boys were young. there were two other boys, college-age.

>> the amazing thing is that there is a fund drive for the garfield family. somewhere between $350 and $360,000 raised for the family. >> extraordinary. >> were people sending money from all over the place? >> she really captured people's imaginations. it was a brief moment in our history. it was so different from the way people reacted to mary lincoln. because of mrs. garfield's being awarded almost immediately by congress a presidential widow's pension of $5,000 a year, that also benefited the other surviving presidential widows.

true to form, mrs. lincoln's reaction was, i am sure somebody is going to put the kibosh on that and i will not ever get my money. julia tyler wrote an anonymous letter to the press, this is wonderful, but i think it should be double that amount. >> thank you for the series. we were watching cbs one morning. who was the only president buried aboveground? they said garfield. we took the car and we drove up there. there is his monument. it has steel bars. it has the american flag draped over it.

a beautiful bronze statue upstairs, it is a beautiful place. >> i do not know if he is the only president buried aboveground. thank you for the recommendation. we are trying to interest people in learning more about american history. another video. this is returning to the ohio home of the garfields. we will learn how she began to preserve her husband's memory. >> after james garfield's death, she started to make her life and her family's life again in this

house and on this property. she started to make a lot of changes to the property. she started using the upstairs bedroom a lot more frequently. she converted the downstairs kitchen into an open reception room and had the kitchen moved into the back part of the house. most significantly was the construction of the presidential library. she started to make a lot of changes to the property. i am standing in the room that he used as an office for the years that he was living here in the house. lucretia garfield called this the general snuggery. this room looks pretty much how it did. she did make a few minor changes

in here, "in memorium" is carved in the wood. it does have an interesting double meaning. it was also the title of james and lucretia's favorite poem. he became a first-time member of the house of representatives. the first born child, eliza died. she was only two or three. this was very tragic and it brought them much closer together than they have been. two weeks or so after the daughter's death, he told lucretia that he had been not reading this poem, "in memorial" by alfred lord tennyson.

it should bring him as much comfort as it did to him. when lucretia garfield had it carved in the wood in his office after his death, she was of knowledge and not only his tragic death at a young age, only 49 when he was assassinated, but also the love of literature with the tennyson poem. host: later on, we will come back to the years after the white house with lucretia garfield. with the assassination of her husband in september, chester arthur, the political opponent on the opposite side of the republican party, suddenly found himself president.

he found himself without a wife and a vice president. what was the transition like? guest: the focus really remained for so long in september and well into october, november chester arthur lived his permanent home in new york city on lexington avenue. he, himself, was still in a state of very deep mourning, because his wife, ellen, died in january 1880. she came from a powerful family. she knew dolly madison when she was a little girl.

they went to st. john's church on lafayette square. when she was 5-10, she knew dolly madison. her father was a very famous naval commandants who took a ship on a commercial ship that went down. it was an act of bravery because he made sure that all the passengers on board got off a first. his widow and his daughter, their only child, then living in new york city were given all sorts of war armor's, a monument to him at annapolis naval academy. alan arthur is really interesting.

she does not become first lady, but she influences the administration. very similar to racial jackson the way that she was the ghost, the memory of her. chester arthur made several appointments, four we know of, specifically of people who had known his wife. one was a cousin in the office of the attorney general made assistant attorney general. another was in the treasury. it was very controversial that he named the superintendent of the naval academy, he appointed a friend of theirs, a childhood friend of his wife's. he created a political problem in the senate, like the prerogative of appointing mayors, is ceremonial role

played out in the white house, but are for insisted in making that appointment because it was a friend of his and alan's. he kept her picture on the wall, fresh flowers, he had a stained- glass window put in at st. john's church so he could see it from his bedroom window in the white house. there was some remorse, perhaps, because he was quite married to his career and his political advancement and mrs. arthur was an accomplished singer who died of pneumonia while he was in albany on political business. you come in without a wife, without a vice president and his 10-year-old daughters living with his sister in albany. the press at the time began speculating in a series of articles to would be the lady of the white house.

host: the man was wealthy, very stylish. he lived quite a life in new york city. he had this tragedy of being a widower. you could see there would be a press line that the it press would be very interested in. guest: it was a little unseemly because there are a lot of wealthy women are women who wanted to be wealthy who began flirtatiously appearing where ever president arthur was. he had no interest whatsoever in remarrying. he really became depressed. he basically said, i'm not going to have a first lady. no one will take the role of my wife. he starts having the social events once the social season begins again, when congress comes back in the session, and it is like first lady for a day.

he has these events were a cabinet wife, a senate wife, none of it is really quite working and the following year, 1883, new year's day, his sister from albany comes down. there is an indication that he nearly had a terminal illness and he wanted to be close to his daughter. they came down from new york. at the time, she was being taken care of by her aunt, mary arthur, nicknamed mali. host: so that is the same person. on twitter -- guest: she lived in the white house with her brother. host: how protective of they've were they of the little girl?

guest: part of the reason arthur kept her away from the white house for nearly one year making sure that she lived either at her home, his home in new york city, and he was having that remodeled, so she went to live with an aunt and there were two other girls, jessie and may, who came to live with their mother in the white house. host: what is your question? caller: if president garfield had been shot in our modern times with our technology, do you think he would have been saved? guest: i would just venture a guess to say yes. the simple removal of a bullet, he would be able to detect where it was in the system.

host: arthur may have been severely depressed by the loss of his wife, but they entertained lavishly in the white house and he undertook an amazing redecoration of the white house that was don by louis tiffany. if you think of a tiffany lamp with all the colors, think about that in the white house. what did it look like when it was don? >> the elephant in the room, the thing you could not ignore, was this wall of tiffany glass. it was put up a nine now what is the main hall, the central hall of the state for. you come in from the main entrance, the north entrance of the white house into technically the lobby, the entrance, and today you see white columns and it opens up and the doors to the blue room immediately, the red room, the green room, but in those days the draft was so bad and people were complaining, he put up this wall of garish, victorian tiffany glass.

>> that is garish by our tastes, but it was high style at the time. guest: it did not even last 20 years. the teddy roosevelt won and that wall smashed to bits. host: it was not preserved? guest: no. host: this was a busy time in the country. we have a few highlights of the administration and some of the issues that the are from administration was dealing with, with out a vice-president in office, the chinese exclusion act, the presidential veto of the carriage of passengers at see bill, the river and harbor act, and pendleton civil service reform act.

we talked earlier about civil service reform being the key issue of the time. what happened with the about box guest: -- what happened with that? guest: just like social security, to some degree civil rights, things come in increments and descended of being the first major piece of legislation that started to make the first real prevention of the spoils system of basically the political system. remember, federal employees could be fired. people who work in the treasury building. we think of those people today as career bureaucrats are people

working as federal employees, they could all be fired and whoever was in power would then appoint whoever they wanted. it was not only unfair but it was inefficient. arthur really takes those first steps and he puts the first efforts in in terms of building a modern u.s. navy. while the chinese exclusion act was really an awful thing in terms of just about right active bigotry, are for have supported something that was far less stressed than what passed. there was a worse proposal out there. arthur gets a bad rap sometimes. host: did arthur keep garfield's cabinet? who was his most important advisor?

guest: i do not recall. he did initially through the new year, but i cannot recall specifically the individual members of his cabinet that continued on. when you speak of the garfield administration, you are really talking more about the our for-- arthur administration. host: rachel on facebook -- what measures were taken to insure the safety after the assassination? guest: none. there are guards at the front door, but it still had this sort of lazy, old hotel quality to it. even with arthur's restoration redecoration, there was one reason why he was very protective of his daughter. in is not done so the 1886 new

year's day reception, two months before he leaves, that he allows his daughter to publicly appear. host: in alaska, welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you. this is a great show. i heard something many years ago and i don't know if it's true. garfield had the ability to take from each hand and simultaneously write the same thing in greek and latin. is this true? guest: from all i have learned, that was true. he was ambidextrous. host: were of the styles as progressive as chester? were they as progressive in their style?

guest: alan arthur was. she was very fashionable, very rich largely for the wealth of her mother, and very ambitious. there are a lot of stories about how she really got behind -- she really did not like that politics kept him away from home so often, but on the other hand, she was a very socially ambitious woman and ambitious for the career. even though she was a selling around one of her very close first cousins, because she was an only child, she was very close to her double cousins, her parents' siblings who had married, so double cousins. during the civil war, chester arthur was able to secure the release of union presence of one of her cousins, but she went to abraham lincoln's 1865 inaugural.

she attended the white house wedding of nelly grant. she knew the parents of theodore roosevelt in new york city. she bought at the best stores. they took summers in cooperstown, n.y., and in newport. molly arthur was a little bit more, i would not use the term pedestrian, but she was just not interested. host: last question on the arthur administration, on mary arthur, the sister, she had a very strong opinion on women's suffrage. how influential was she in this non-official white house hostess role? guest: it really showed us that the country had come to expect a female presence, whether it was a wife, sister, daughter. she really walk the fine line. she made public appearances, sometimes on around, sometimes

only with him. i think he almost was kind of ambivalent about how public a role she should take. her support of the anti-suffrage movement occurred after the white house. there was some coverage of it. i will add that she was also a great advocate of civil rights. in her home in albany, she not only welcomed as a dinner guest but as an overnight guest and booker t. washington. host: we have 12 minutes left. as arthur finishes three years, lucretia is establishing herself as a widow and enormous the popular first lady. how did she do that? people are curious about her moved to pasadena, calif..

guest: she could not take the cold winters in colorado anymore. she maintained a home in washington as a presidential widow. host: at the house should continue to work on. guest: there were times when she would lease the house or property because it was just more feasible. her brother was the manager of the house, but california in the 1880's, there was a real opening up as a sort of a promised land, sunshine, and a lot of california was settled by wealthy midwesterners. she went out to pasadena in 1900 and she was distantly related to two famous architects, green and green, known for the california craftsman style architecture.

she had a great interest in architecture so she worked rate closely with them in designing this extraordinary craftsman mansion which is still standing as a private home and it really became a kind of a showplace. she was even in one of the carriages for the vip's in the early pasadena rose parade. she had a very full life in california. host: you made the point that she was interested in so much. one of our viewers on facebook says, --

what do you think of her taste? guest: i'm not the best to ask about taste, but along those lines she was also an advocate for women's suffrage. she did not come out publicly, just let the issue of temperance. she thought it would make much more controversy than need be, but her daughter also said that her mother truly be -- believed in equality of the genders. you also see her when former president theodore roosevelt in 1912 is mounting a campaign against the incumbent president, she supports the roosevelt. she comes out at an appearance in los angeles. host: tawney in pleasantville, n.y. caller: one of the books i ever read was "destiny of the republic," and there were some

money facts, but the three that are brought to my attention tonight where abraham lincoln's son tad's involvement in three presidential assassinations, not necessarily involved but being in the area. you showed an artist's sketch that carried garfield to the house where he passed away. i'm wondering if you can tell the story of how the car got there. lastly, there is a part in the area, seven presidents park, and they might have to make it 8 president's part now that president obama have visited. why have so many presidents gone to the jersey shore? guest: it was fashionable. the salt air was thought to be recuperative period in order to

reach of the house, they have to lay an exit track so the strength to go right up to the house. guest: he mentioned all the presidents. during the years of the carter administration, these are the first ladies who were brought -- alive -- tyler, polk, lane, lincoln, lucy hayes, and lucretia garfield. we see a bonding across political parties among women who served in the white house. was that happening at this time? guest: we could credit good old molly mcelroy, who is she is credited for everything, she invited them to publicly receive with her as co-hosts. mrs. lincoln and tyler were in the news. with molly mcelroy leaving the role of first lady and handing it over to cleveland, a bachelor

of thoseister would be assuming the role, there's a lot of press about these two sisters. at the same time, in conjunction with all of this, the very first book is written on the history of first ladies and it is a collective biography called "ladies of the white house" by her name escapes me. it is a very famous book. host: lucretia outlived her husband by many years. we will return one last time to the house in ohio and learn more about the house. [video clip] >> if james a. garfield were to walk in this house, they he

would not recognize it. this was actually the kitchen. after his death, lucretia made major changes. this was changed into the open reception room. the most significant change she made with the construction of the very first presidential memorial library. as begin to the top of the steps here before we go into the memorial library, we come first to the memorial landing and we find one of her favorite portraits of her husband. this was done by a good friend of the garfield and it shows james a. garfield as a major general during the american civil war. this is the room lucretia garfield came up with to really memorialize her husband, keep his memory alive for herself, for their children, and for the country. all over the room, you see books that belonged to james a. garfield. this is a beautiful piece that

was sent to mrs. garfield completely unsolicited by someone in italy. it's a beautiful memorial piece with an image of james garfield surrounded by flowers. it is all actually made with small stones cracked together and was one of her favorite pieces. we have a very beautiful marble bust of james a. garfield of this was also sculpted by an italian and given to her around 1883, two years after his death. here we have what lucretia called the memory room. she has constructed along with the library in 1885-1886 where she is stored his official documents and papers. she had them down and stored it really to keep them for posterity. been a lot of very interesting items. most significantly but is the

wreath of on the shelf. it was lying on his casket while he was laying in the capitol building in washington, d.c. it was sent to mrs. garfield the of the british delegation from queen victoria along with a nice hand written note of sympathy from the queen. the garfields used this room a lot. it was not one of those beautiful rooms that you could not go into more touch anything. you see lucretia's writing desk year. she spent a lot of time here. she used a black border stationery. she used it for the rest of her life to denote a lifelong morning for a husband. here, in front of the large windows, two of the garfield children were married in 19 -- 1888. harry garfield, the oldest son, and molly, the only surviving garfield daughter both married their respective fiance's in a double wedding ceremony right

here in front of the windows of the library. host: lucretia garfield made it into the new century. she died in 1918 at the ripe old age of 85. how did she live those post- white house years? how should she be in the pantheon of first ladies? guest: her tenure was so brief. she was the first to be self- conscious and often not destroy the papers and keep a diary of a white house days. she is best thought of as a former first lady in terms of her career. there are a lot of similarities between her and jaclyn kennedy in terms of committing to the legacy of their husbands and yet, also, not allowing the lives of the lives of their children to be weighed down by grief. guest: we are looking at some photographs of a large family. you know if any other family members went into politics? guest: one of his sons was in the order roosevelt's cabinet and another was in woodrow wilson's.

she died one year into world war i, and she was doing work as a volunteer with the red cross in pasadena when she died. there is some suggestion that she decided to go from republican to progressive despite the democratic because president wilson give her son a job in the cabinet. host: on that note, we say thank you. you have spent your historical career focusing on the first lady's as we closed here, how did you get interested? why you think it's interesting for people to learn about first ladies? guest: they have a natural influence on the thinking of their husbands. their intelligence, their wisdom, and sometimes their ability to see the larger picture that their husbands themselves cannot was, for so

many years, neglected. there were always written off as mannequins for closing who had nice dishes. -- mannequins for clothing. their intelligence, efforts, and conscientiousness help their husbands -- the presidency. host: "first ladies, the saga of presidents and their power." as we close, a say this every week. we're working with the historical society and thank you to those in the car phot -- garfield home in ohio, but also the white house historical association, who have been a partner for us. we have a biography but that have printed and we have a special edition for those who want to read more. you can find it on our website.

thank you for being with us for "first ladies" on the garfield an arthritic ministration. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

rex while visiting washington at the age of 20, francis fulsome received a marriage proposal from the president of the united states, grover cleveland. it little over a year later, they married in the white house is lou room and became the only president and first lady to be married at the white house. . they, we will get a closer look at the life of francis cleveland. our website has more about first ladies, including a special section, welcome to the white house, produced by the white house historical so so she is -- association. we are offering a special edition of the book, first ladies of the united states of america, presenting about goofy

and portrait of the first ladies. it includes thoughts from ofhelle obama on the role first ladies throughout history. now for $12.95 plus shipping. 1848, we have a remarkable situation here. andenly, gold is discovered the reason why cantonese were the first to hear about it, there already were some chinese here. news spread to southern china and in a flash, house and the ships andto board head for the cold mountain, as california is known. first year of men walking through the field, looking for gold nuggets and filling their pockets with gold nuggets. fabulous, extreme and but the reality was, since nobody was looking, nobody saw it. when they started looking,

they found it in abundance. very quickly, that service gold was all taken up. what was to happen, he believed 120,000 people showed up in one year. 1849, this was the situation. take a look at this grainy photograph, you will see from the shoreline looking out, the bay is completely filled with ships. ts.re is a forest of ship mass off to lookrs got for gold, then the sailors got off to look for gold. then the arguments begin. who has a right to mine the gold? california was an american territory. they argued that only americans have a right to mine the gold. they begin to push out everyone else, the chileans, the mexicans, the russians, anybody who was not an american. the chinese are amongst those being pushed out.

>> from san francisco's chinatown, part two, looking at the chinese immigration experience. sunday at 7:00 p.m. eastern, part of three days of american history tv this memorial day weekend on c-span3. >> now, a conversation on media coverage of national security issues. reporters from "the new york times," and others on covering homeland security. the bipartisan policy center hourd this one our-- conversation. >> good morning, everybody. it's a pleasure to welcome you here to the bipartisan policy center. a pleasure to be here on behalf of the chairs of our homeland security program who are sponsoring this morning's events. the core aspirations of our work in homeland security is to be an active and bipartisan voice looking at these situations. there are a lot of fame's that animate this conversation but there's nothing so much compelling more dynamic as this

question between security and liberty. it is a theme that has been at the core of our imagination and we will be wrestling with it for a millennium to come. today will focus of assuring a classified material. this is an issue very much in the news highlighted by the aggressive efforts of the justice department's recent leak investigation. we need to strike the right balance here and it has been very elusive. the government hides what it can become a pleading necessity as long as it can. the press finds out what it can come up pleading a right to know. this morning, we will hear from both sides of the equation. we have two incredibly known storytellers and journalists who have made careers telling all

the facts and a government official who has spent years knowing facts. i look forward to a dynamic and complex conversation. i'm thrilled to be joined by my colleague, carie lemack, who will be monitoring today's discussion. >> thank you for coming here today. we have all seen a big change in how we talk about classified material and leaks. some would argue that the president had been leaking far too many things, rather it was on the raid that led osama bin laden dead, the legion in yemen creating more controversy in the past with leak -- week with the subpoena for the associated press phone conversations. this has created bipartisan bicameral support. we have chambliss, feinstein, rupersberger all coming together.

at the same time, we have an administration that has also overseen an unprecedented number of prosecutions. six officials have been prosecuted more than other administrations combined. i'm very glad to be here to answer the questions of what the public needs to know, and more importantly, who decides? we have devlin barrett from "the wall street journal," dana priet from "the washington post," and sharing on the security council, frances townsend. and another pulitzer prize winner from the "new york times," david singer." i would like to stop the--

startthe questions with dana. i'm hoping we really have a conversation. dana, in the "frontline" interview, but you say you try to figure out how to get as much information to the public without damaging national security. how did you decide what was and was not damaging to? -- to national security? >> this is an issue close to my heart. i do think it's very important to probe this issue of this line, in my mind, that i try to have -- the public's right and my responsibility to bring information to the public in the

realm of national security because it is the most important thing that the government does. we should know what they're doing in our name. there's a line where you can cross it and you would actually endanger lives, or endanger operations, which is a very important but controversial question, too, because that's a little more difficult to assess. in a general framework, since no person is never quoted in the stories i have written about the cia, because they would be fired, jailed, or investigated, how does the public have the credibility? how do i have credibility in the public's i about the stories on writing? one thing we try to do is to give some detail about whatever it is, in one case, the cia secret prisons.

how can i give readers as much detail as i can let them know that the story is a real and it comes from people with experience without giving so much detail that it would actually give enemies an advantage or would threaten personnel overseas, those sorts of things? that is where you walked up to the line. it is a judgment call on the part of it -- luckily not just me, but the executive editor of "the washington post." with my input and usually it input from the person who's trying to say, do not publish x, y, and z, or not the entire article which makes it very difficult to deal with because by that time, i have invested a lot of time and we have already made the decision that secret prisons is an admiration of what we believe we stand for in instances of the united states and a country governed by the rule of law.

we already made the decision that the fact that there are secret prisons is something that we do want to write about. it comes down to sharing with the government the details in the story, which is what my m.o., and all the reporters who worked at "the washington post" do. in the and economic call to public affairs person because that is where the "unofficial"proceed year begins. that person hopefully have some experience in this and is taking down all the details. i'm reading the story to them, but i'm telling them the bits and pieces in this story and the

overall context of the story. they then take it up their chain of command. that's how it is supposed to work. the chain of command would send a message down. it goes from there. in every case, it's different. in the most elaborate instances, which is secret prisons represents i had conversations with a person higher than that and then we brought in our editors and they had conversations with the cia director and some of his advisers. in that case, it eventually went to the president and his national security advisers who had conversations with our editor and our general counsel, all the while we are in a handicapped position. the government is saying, don't do this will damage national security -- and we say -- why? we asked for more concrete information and usually the answer is no. usually, what is damaging if we're not putting names or locations, precise locations, is this idea that secrets will

damage the reputation of the united states vis-a-vis other intelligence services who think they cannot trust the united states and therefore they will not deal with them anymore. we take that seriously, but i have learned over time and with the help of what i would call my conciliar -- concigliare, subjects like terrorism are so important and they're particularly important for allies in the work together with the united states regardless of what sort of happens in the more superficial public realm, that while there may be bombs in the road in that relationship and people might be angry that certain secrets are out, in the short-term, medium-term, it has not damaged those relationships.

again, when you weigh the is, it can temporarily but in the long term, when you weigh what is at stake, combating terrorism, countries eventually tend to come back together. i will stop there and we can get more detail if you want, but there is a give-and-take. sometimes it doesn't work at all because the person on the other hand has inexperienced doing this and does not know exactly where in their agency to go or how to think about it in a

sophisticated way, and that puts the burden on us. i can tell you some funny stories, funny in retrospect, where we sort of had to do our own judgment call because the government was unable and inexperienced in working through these issues. >> before we get to the government's perspective, i want to turn to david. if he did talk about some experiences you have had with the wikileaks negotiation and you're working on how to classify materials and also to touch on how you make the decisions? he released it, and other things you have held for some time and then released it. how does that work? when you decide it's ok to put something out for the public? >> thank you. the process is very much one of negotiation. i usually find that as a surprise, the most people, even to some journalists, who do not normally operate in this territory because, we can look at some documents and imagine something that could be a national security threat, there are moments when there is something they're hidden from you and i will give you an example from wikileaks.

it was in some ways one of the easiest cases. i would say the pakistan in a clear case or the olympic games, the cyber program against iran, they were probably among the harder cases, so we will start with the easiest. in wikileaks, you all know the basis of the story. the documents all moved, we now know, from a private who had access to a computer system with all of the state department cables and everything else. a good separate conversation -- and why is that private have access to every document for the state department when five years before, it was really all the available to senior directors at the nsc and above the? that would be a separate interesting situation. he gave them to julian assange. he did not give them directly to "the new york times." he had some issues concerning a profile at the time that it had been published about the way he operated and his personal life which turned out to be vivid, so

as a result he gave them to "the guardian" and they gave them to us. they gave them to was for a very specific reason. they thought we would have a much better stance at being able to engage the u.s. government than a british paper could. good guess. we worked for three months or so working through 250,000 documents -- i did not read them all -- we built a search engine that not only did what you would do in a google search, but look at the way that the documents were classified, who they're going to, what length of time there were classified, and that enabled us to sort them by a level of importance. a lot of things in the

dome at 150 cables out of 250,000, but to give you a sense, because it's important to this conversation, of how poorly the classification system works, these were mostly at the secret level, the lowest level. i would say it somewhere in the order rose 15%-20% of these cables -- and i'm not kidding here -- newspaper articles that have been published in the local press in portugal, hong kong, somewhere, but someone in the embassy read, put it into a cable, and in its way out the door stamped secret on it even though it had appeared in the local newspaper that night. as we go further into the discussions, and made the point to our friends in the u.s. government that you cannot expect journalists to take

seriously the classification system that takes the wrong newspaper articles and stamps them as secret and puts them back in a file. as we went through the 150 or so documents, and we later wrote from more as the heir of spring and fall the because i have not been smart enough to look at cables from tunisia thinking -- who would care about to be sure, right? -- it would care about tunisia? there were things we looked at ourselves. for example, the names of any chinese dissidents going into the embassy in china. not only the names but the times that those meetings took place, knowing that the chinese would match those up. even then, we were ready to write and give the government about six or seven days notice. it was the week of thanksgiving 2011. or 2010. we give them to them on a monday morning.

we were prepared with legal briefs if they were born to try to stop us. we figured there would be 24 hours of getting their heads around that we had all 250,000 documents. it took them a little longer than that. we met with them the wednesday night before thanksgiving as everyone was trying to get out of town. we told it would be meeting of three or four and there were about 40 members of the state department and three of us. as we introduced ourselves, most people in that the back row would not say who they were or where they were from, so we had a good guess of what was going on. they first said, you cannot

publish anything. then they said it could not publish anything with foreign names. i said these are state department cables. there are a lot of foreigners. then they tried to make the argument that some things should be deleted just because they were embarrassing. we were using the standards that donald described. if it was going to threaten someone's life, and ongoing operation of they could make a compelling case, then we would certainly be willing to work along with about. the fact that a saudi king told an american diplomat that the way to deal with iran was to cut off the head of the snake, they did not want us to publish that in a way that would be embarrassing for the saudi king. we said that he could handle it. mere embarrassment is not a standard for leaving something out of print.

there were some things we did take out. i got a call long after that meeting was over when we were getting to publish a story about libya the following week. gaddafi was still in and we did not know that he was going to have a really rough year. one of the cables made a reference to somebody, who i can now say this in public, was apparently, and it was not clear from the cable, an asset to the u.s. intelligence community for many years. the u.s. government official called me and said, if gaddafi read the name of this guy, even if he is not identified, he's going to put him against the wall and shoot him. no problem. we took that name out. was not central to anything we were doing. it was a reason that the channel

private communication that i referred to asked to remain open. if we're conveying no other thought, it is that the biggest damage being done by the prosecution of wikileaks right now is that it threatens to shut down that channel of communication. if that happens, sooner or later, something pretty bad is going to happen. as one government official said to me in the context of lenore another story, there's no way we can sit down and have this conversation with you about what we think our security threats without discussing classified material. i said, you know what? you are right. the other choice is also not good. we're using our best judgment without the knowledge that someone named in there could be

at risk. >> that is something i wanted to touch base with you, devlin. this erosion of trust. >> there has been an erosion of trust. the outside world tends to view these conversations as the first amendment versus safety. there are these two camps and a big moat between them. i view it very differently, and then guessing you do, too. there are two camps and a discussion about how each side can do their job without blowing up the other side, essentially. my personal view is that there has been an erosion of the trust in that conversation so you're getting more things like what we're seeing now, leak investigations. in my opinion, but a very broad focused leak investigation.

the example i would use is that i am just a reporter in new york that got lost in d.c. and that's the drama put on a lot of this. it was not the long ago, about a decade ago, there is a false report circulating that a guy had been caught. nothing more than that, just that they got him. there were about half an hour away from the nightly news. try to think back to a time when this was the most important news event of the day. there was a very furious scramble to contact all the major news organizations and make sure they did not go on there with the report that the guy had been caught. there was a very real fear that the actual gunman, turns out

there were 2, would immediately go out and shoot someone to prove he was out there. in the space of about 20 minutes, law enforcement agencies in america were able to get that message out and get no one of any substance to reports that there had been an arrest. i think you can make a reasonable argument that it probably saved someone's life that might. fast forward to boston, and i think what was most alarming to me is there turned out to be a false report of an arrest. that lingered and stayed in the that lingered and stayed in the space for a number of hours. i'm not casting aspersions on anyone because we are all working on things that are difficult. i would be a happier human being in general. in the space of several hours, there was a lot of confusion about whether there was a person