residents like representative norton can trace their families back to former slaves. who entered this district seeking freedom >> we agree with him. , budgetrt home rule autonomy. the people in the district made the right choice. they put alamo forms norton and frederick douglass in this capital. i do not see either of them leaving until all of the district residents get their voice. [applause] ceremony at the capitol tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span.

let us not be blind to our differences. let us also direct attention to our common interests, and the means by which those differences can be resolved. if we cannot in no differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. all three men are citizens. men are citizens. -- she's a much -- he's a much for president. at the same time, he is building

up defenses and seeking a way towards peace with this university speech. 's the 50th anniversary of jfk speeches. >> coming up, john roberts on his book "rating the first lady's." the president ceo of the associated press speaks at the national rest club. -- press club. following season one of c-span series "first ladies: influence and image" our series continues. this is one hour.

>> i wanted to ask a question. before i do that, i prefaced it by saying i would like to get a show of hands from people. if you could take a look, am i just right for the season? [laughter] maybe in florida. anybody who things i am, raise your hands. anybody who thinks it is premature? thank you. welcome to the world of first ladies. generally, when we look at first ladies, we talked about in terms of their fashion sense, whether it is mainly eisenhower's famous \it is mainly eisenhower's famous pink, and we think about how they have influenced society and think about them as white house hostesses and we pay more attention to things like how they dress and whether they are appropriately dressed and how much power they have over the events that shape our future and country.

when i started to write about first ladies, i decided i was more interested in a different aspect of their job in the white house. i was not so much interested in finding out how they entertained, what they did at state dinners, but i wanted to know how they have shaped history, how did they work as part of the political partnership. and were they in fact political partners? or were first ladies really just social appendixes to the presidency. the historical record is a bit mixed. as you look at first ladies, you can find a tremendous amount of information about what they served at a state dinner, how they rated the centerpieces on the table, what kind of clothing they wore. we know when harriet lane was introduced, her dress had 100 yards of lace in it, if you can imagine. i cannot quite figure out, how do you get 100 yards of lace into a dress but she did it.

she had artificial flowers woven into her hair. we know what her makeup was like. all of this information was chronicled back in the 19th century and is preserved in newspapers and books published as long back as 1881, when we had the first comprehensive book on first ladies to ever appear. what is harder to find is the role that first ladies had in shaping contemporary events in political campaigns. it is there. because i am a campaign animal, i started out in politics, as pat mentioned, quite early. i loved it. i got the political bug. i wanted to know what these ladies did on campaigns. the first place i looked. the reason is because i had experienced a first lady on a campaign in 1980 and i knew they are not passive partners, at least not the one i work for.

[laughter] nancy reagan, who is one of my favorite first ladies, was a strong, assertive partner in a political marriage. she stayed that way from the first time ronald reagan ran for governor until his final reelection campaign. in the 1980 campaign, she made her influence felt everywhere. those of us who worked on the staff knew well she had a point of view about his schedule, the activities of where he went and what he said. she shaped the speeches and she had a point of view regarding the press and how they treated her and how they treated him and she had favorites and enemies. our job was to know the difference and make sure we ran a campaign that reflected the way they, as a couple, wanted it to be run. i was fairly certain this was probably not a unique phenomenon, that, if i look hard, i would find first ladies had a hand in a lot of other

interesting things in our history. there are so many i cannot begin to get into, but the one area i want to focus on tonight is skeletons and scandals and how first ladies handle political crises. not all the political crises are about close but some of them are. anyone who remembers the early 1980s knows how much trouble nancy reagan got into over close. looking back on it, it is kind of a silly thing that her poll ratings became so negative just over the issue of assignor clothing in the white house. i was reading an article the other day about the oscars. it turns out the clothes and purse designers and accessory designers fight to get a celebrity to carry their product. there is a whole industry that is sprung up about creating gift rooms in hotels where the celebrities stay at the oscars and the celebrities can come in and pick up any freebies they want.

in fact, so many things are given away to them in the hopes they will wear it once and be photographed that the irs is talking about trying to figure out what the value of that is so they can tax them for it. back in 1981, when nancy reagan got in trouble over designer clothes that were lent to her but not returned, it was a serious political matter. she was not the first. going back to mary lincoln, clothes had been a problem for women in the white house. i do not know if we have any lincoln scholars in the room tonight. i am sure there are people familiar with that presidency. there was one time where in a single month she bought three kinds of different gloves. there was one time, in a single month, when she heads and 1000 pairs of gloves. when she left the white house, she was terribly in debt. she was getting these clothes from merchants all around dc on

credit. then she would stand her staff out to beat up on the merchants to get them to forgive the debt. they wanted to be paid. she ended up trying to auction off her clothes after she left the white house. she was in many ways one of the most fascinating first ladies simply because of the multiple aspects of arson alley that were dysfunctional -- aspects of personality that were dysfunctional. she had two suitors who might have been presidents, both douglas and lake and and she chose lincoln because she felt he was the one who could win -- ellis and lincoln and she chose lincoln because she felt he was the one who could win. she made julia grant back away

from her in a room as if she were royalty. you never turn your back on royalty. she may have had problems with close and money and spending, but they never amounted to a political crisis in her presidency. i call it her presidency because i think it really was. she was absolutely a partner in that undertaking. she sat in on cabinet meetings and made recommendations on when to hire and fire cabinet members. she was very much involved in the day-to-day aspects of his political career and his governance. i began to wonder if this was true in the 19th century. going as far back as abigail adams and martha washington, you find that first ladies laid an active role in the white house and in the campaigns that it

took to get there. have a gail adams was a campaign strategist for her husband -- abigail adams was a campaign strategist for her husband. they would talk incessantly about all addicts of the day,, legislation that needed to be passed, -- when he needed to do to win more support. this hidden history, to me, is one of the most fascinating and overlooked areas of presidential history. one of the parts that i'm drawn to very much are the aspects of political crisis and how people get through a bad crisis. when you think about political crises come i think impeachment is about at the top of the list. i don't know if any of you read if any of you followed the

recent impeachment trial in the senate, but i was not familiar with the earlier impeachments, like the johnson impeachment in the 19th century. some of karl johnson, it turns out, was an adviser to her husband much in the way that hillary clinton was to bill clinton in the more recent impeachment. i was in washington during that impeachment to do tv shows. when i read what happened in the johnson presidency, i was struck by the similarities between hillary and eliza. she had, for a reef time in the civil war, been a war refugee here -- for a brief time in the civil war, been a war refugee.

lincoln at first gave him a governorship and then later made him vice president. unfortunately for eliza johnson and the family, at the time he was first made a territorial governor for lincoln, she was in confederates occupied territory in tennessee. for about two months, she had to get across the lines. her family would sleep in barnes and on the roadside. they would get to a point where two armies would meet only to be turned back by confederate commanders and have to find another way through. eventually, she managed to reunite with her husband. a tough woman. this is not the kind of woman who would easily give up in an impeachment crisis. but the impeachment crisis came about because i'm a few remember your history, johnson tried to remove secretary of war stanton and stanton refused to vacate the office and congress passed a law that said that the president

did have the right to finish a tenure early. they decided to have a showdown. they pushed it by trying to get rid of stanton. he was the toughest of the cabinet in how to deal with the south. johnson didn't want to see the south plundered. stanton wanted to plunder the south. this led to a showdown that lasted several months. in which utilize a mccardle johnson, on a daily basis, met with her husband, talked about who he could rely on and who you couldn't, help figure out who his allies were and his enemies. they were in that thing together all the way through. in her own way, she was like a hillary clinton. i think hillary was brilliant in

handling this most recent impeachment crisis. the right wing conspiracy was perfect. politically, it was brilliantly done. i say that without regard to artists and affiliation. i work for a republican president. but i am not up here to talk about who is right and who is wrong on the politics of it, in terms of democrats and republicans. i'm just talking about managing an impeachment crisis and admiring very good handiwork. however, i think, when it comes to crisis management, probably my all-time favorite is gloria harding. the harding president was one of those presidencies that look to grade at the time. he was a popular president. he had tremendous public support. and he managed, for a good time,

to fool people. what people couldn't see was how corrupt that the administration was from the inside out. it's modern-day equivalent would be like allowing enron to drill a strategic oil reserve. that is exactly what was happening with teapot film. the members of harding's cabinet were taking oil reserves and secretly selling them off to oil companies. mrs. harding, who came from an interesting journalistic background, she was a tough newspaper woman. she was probably part of the entire corrupt affair that was the harding white house. they had a circle of cronies that was called the ohio gang. they were figuring out literally how to loot the country. the veterans bureau secretary

probably stole about $200 million in money that was supposed to go toward world war i veterans. the ohio gang openly sold all sorts of government licenses and commissions and they literally set up shop on k street. they went in the door at. you paid them some money and you got whatever you wanted. the corruption was unparalleled and we haven't seen anything remotely close to it. even aber mocks 80 -- even aber muff -- even abramoff's fees are nothing by comparison. i have known him for a long time. i was astonished to find out some of the things that he had been a two. -- he had been up to. historically, the harding administration went far beyond that. and florence harding managed to the sets of political crises

much would've then warren harding did. i had a lot of problems. they had to figure out how to handle some of this when it first began. they had to tell some of the ringleaders, when they were going to be caught, that they had 24 hours to clear out of the country. in more than one case, it worked. coffee went and evade being aggressive -- being arrested. it worked until one whistleblower committed suicide or was killed, but most likely committed suicide. florence harding decided that it would be best to put more distance between themselves in washington. they went on a whistle stop tour of washington and california. this is when harding fell ill and died. that brought everything out into the open. she spent the that are part of

months burning records. she went to white house records, personal bank records command took all the evidence that she felt could be misinterpreted -- and i think that was [laughter] and it was burned, gone just like that. so those are a couple of vignettes that i want to throw out there about first ladies and scandals to whet your appetite for the question-and-answer section. but also to show that first ladies are not simply in the white house to pursue charitable causes or philanthropic activities. most of them do and most of them take a philanthropic activity for political reason, but they really are are political creatures just like their husbands. very few marriages withstand politics at that level unless both artie's to the marriage

want to be -- both parties to the marriage want to be in the game. there is too much pressure. it's too intense and it is too hard to do. by the time you make it to the white house, for the most part, they are both fully committed to the game in the business of all it takes. -- up politics. i think it's time we started taking first lady seriously and looking harder at what they do, what role they play. i would even like to see first ladies debate when we have presidential campaigns. [laughter] for years, we found out what the first lady's recipe for baking cookies is. let's find out what their recipe is for handling some of the real issues. with that, i welcome any questions. >> on i've noticed in as far as what i have interpreted myself, do you think that a person like nancy reagan, following that

relationship, was so determined to protect her husband, to keep them safe, to keep them out of harms way and then i take a person like hillary clinton who i think was in tune to capitalize on the advantages of where her husband was and manipulate it to where she could capitalize and progress on her own agenda. >> that is what she is doing. >> there are two different forms of doing it. i think george bush talks to his wife. there is not a husband in the world who doesn't sit down and talk to his wife. what do you think of hillary clinton versus a nancy reagan

type of approach? >> it is a good illustration when you look at the differences between the two, partly the generational phenomenon, i think. but the nancy reagan-ronald reagan partnership was more like the james polk and sarah polk partnership. they had a tree nuptial agreement. when he proposed to her, she said yes provided he did not interfere with his running for the senate. she correctly figured out that come as speaker of the house, he was the most important politician in the land, more so than andrew jackson because the speakers who has to translate the agenda into real legislation. his nickname was young hickory and andrew jackson was old hickory. they worked as a team.

sarah polk helped write his speeches. she talked all it took -- he talked politics with the other members of congress to see how they were leaning. she would sound them out. she would help get legislation through. nancy reagan is more in that kind of mold. she was throughout the career in sacramento and washington both attuned to ronald reagan's agenda and how to get that agenda in act it. -- that agenda enacted. she was an intellectual. she had strong views with regard to the soviet union come out with how to pursue arms-control initiatives, views on issues like south africa. and she made them known. namely inside the closed circle. she didn't take her differences of opinion public. but inside the white house itself, she was not at all reticent about getting involved

in political matters that mattered most to her. she didn't have any separate ambition. i think the difference with hillary clinton and bill clinton is that these were two people who came together in a different era, both of them very competent, one of them perhaps more politically astute than the other. i think that she was maybe the one who was more politically astute. and she was determined to do carry on in her own right afterwards and has made a fascinating transition that no other first lady has even attempted. perhaps the closest to it would be a lenore roosevelt in the sense that she did carry on with an independent political career after fdr's death, going into the un as a delegate and becoming an activist on the world scene. but i think it is partly a generational thing. i would imagine that we will see more of the hillary model of first ladies in the future.

women will have their own career and their own independent objectives and will use the position of first lady to advance. laura bush looks to be the opposite of what i said should happen because she is a in a much more traditional role right now. but there is a pendulum effect. every time we have a really activist first lady who is controversial, we tend to be followed with a first lady who has a much more traditional role. after eleanor roosevelt, bess truman did her best to avoid controversy to and so did eisenhower. after florence harding, grace coolidge did her best to stay out of the limelight. even though i think we are evolving toward a more openly political first lady role, it will be a slow devolution. and every so often, it will shift back. >> is it true that mrs. wilson virtually ran the country during

her husband's disability? >> yes, the second mrs. wilson did. edith galt wilson. it is a time they called the regency, her reason see. it lasted from seven number 1919 until january 1920. he was convalescent, stricken probably with a stroke. there was some controversy over what -- over what caused it. initially, the fact that he had been stricken had been kept secret, even from the vice president. his doctor knew. she knew. people in the cabinet figured out something was wrong because they would come by and demand to see the president to get some important issue addressed and no one would be allowed in to see him. she would listen to them and she would go into the room and she would come out of the room and she would relay what she said he told her. [laughter] in some cases, some of the cabinet members figured out it couldn't be so because they

didn't think wilson would decide this on whatever the particular issue was. historians are a little bit uncertain over whether she was translating his wishes or whether she was in fact doing what she thought was best. there is some evidence that he should have listened to her more carefully if indeed she was running the country because his most important priority was getting the league of nations treaty ratified. and he came down to a very close vote. and the senate majority, the democratic leader in the senate came to meet with them to advise him that he needed to compromise with the republican isolationists if they were going to the get the treaty ratified. she wanted to compromise and he refused to. so her political judgment was probably the better in a case. if he had -- he might've had the crowning a compliment that he sought. she actually claimed not to have

voted in the most recent election and was apolitical as far as anyone can tell. but after she met him, she became very involved in politics. she would attend debates in the house of representatives. she read everything she could. she boned up on it and learned and became vital to him. she even bothered to learn communications codes so that she could translate the wartime cables that came into the white house. they all came encoded. she would translate the cables for him and take his instructions and put them in code and send them back out to the military. this very unusual woman, who claimed not to be involved in politics at all, once she was there at the seat of our, grabbed hold of it and went with it. yes. >> thank you for your presentation.

what about mrs. carter? my memory of her was of ruling the roost. i wonder if that is true. >> i think she got an unfair press in the sense that first ladies who really do become involved in politics openly draw a lot of criticism during and she would attend some cabinet meetings and that was highly controversial in the 1970s. i remember very well that her mere attendance suggested to some people that she viewed herself as an equal to members of the cabinet. and by the way, i should say word about that. there's no place in the world that is more hierarchical than the white house. it is an absolute rigid hierarchy. you go into the cabinet word -- cabinet room, he each person has his or her own chair. they are free to take the chairs within when they leave the

government, but they have to pay for the chair. i don't know what the current cost is. it used to be $1200. the polar very careful about those chairs. and staff never sit at the cabinet table. if you look at the pictures when you see the resident unique cabinet meeting, you will notice, in the cabinet room, that there are rows of chairs that line the room itself during you will see people sitting -- itself during you will see people sitting in those chairs line the room itself. you will see people sitting in those chairs. they are staffed. when you realize that there is a hierarchical sense that drives a white house and you see a wide sitting at the table, you can see -- and you see a wife sitting at the table, you can see how some people got their hackles up. helen taft would bar dreaded to

cabinet meetings to if she didn't know what was going on and wanted to know, she would sit down and learn. it is not an unusual thing. but mrs. carter was seen doing it publicly. it was something that would -- that became publicly known. in terms of how she handled the job of being first lady, she was probably one of the most professional. it has been common since the 1930s for first ladies to have a professional staff usually consisting of a press secretary, scheduler, maybe a social secretary, speechwriters, but rosslyn carter took it to a new level of professionalism. she actually designed a hollis e plan for her east wing office -- four -- she actually designed a policy plan for her east wing office. she was very active in some tough areas.

she was tough and having to deal with mental health, mental disability. education. and she took it seriously. that also drew a lot of scrutiny at that time when i think people were not quite ready for another activist first lady. and she got a lot of criticism for that. but i think she did a great job in terms of being a partner in that presidency. when you have a one term presidency that sales at the end, it's kind of hard to say that the presidency itself was a success and therefore hard to say that the first lady was a success. but as a political pro, she was good. >> [indiscernible] >> the camp david accords were a brilliant achievement, absolutely brilliant. i think we probably all wish today that we had been able to see those accords built on

before we got to the point where we are today. the carter presidency is underrated in some respects come a certainly on the romantic front. he is the only resident who has been able to achieve anything like that, getting egypt to recognize israel, getting israel to agree to begin to pull back from #i. it was fantastic -- from mount sinai. it was fantastic. question talked about the difficulty that nancy reagan had with buying china and all of this. and that jacqueline kennedy had a rapport with the press. i wonder, in today's world, -- in today's world, with the media, nothing is not cap from the wreck in public for more than a minute, whether it isn't critical to build your relationship with the media and whether that could entirely

change or success or failure as a first lady. >> you are taking thoughts right out of my head. that is part of what i did in politics for many years. i worked with the press and i worked on image and advertising. i am a big believer that, if you are in politics, you need to build bridges to the press and understand how the press works. it is especially true for first ladies. there is a long history of first ladies being active with the press. we tend to think that it is only fairly. -- only recently that they have been scrutinized. but julie grant would sit down with newspaper or reporters along with ulysses s. grant. she would participate and not just talking about what they were going to do at the state dinner and how they would pay for the 25-course dinners. you do learn some fascinating things about first ladies and entertaining. the grant residency takes the cake.

their dinners literally were 25- course dinners. you might have as many as 10 different varieties of wine with one of these dinners. they cost thousands upon thousands of dollars, far exceeding the president's annual salary. and there was no entertainment budget at the budget -- at the house -- and there was no entertainment budget at the white house at the time. julia grant was caught up taking $2500 in cash in an envelope, which has never been explained where that came from. [laughter] but first ladies who were good with the press to have something in common and is that some of them worked in the press. jackie kennedy was a reporter for a while. florence harding actually ran a newspaper. florence took over the newspaper for a while. she decided she liked it so much that she stayed with it.

after she left the white house, she went to running that newspaper. she really understood the press. when she went into the white house, she joked with the members of the press, talked with the boys come as she called them, off the record so that she could be quoted when she want to but not when she didn't want to. she knew how the working press operated her and she they needed photographs. she was great at providing them with photo ops and getting herself in the papers. there is a -- that is a trick that edith roosevelt also used. she knew the press were dying to get pictures of her kids, the family. so she would hire photographers to take the pictures and release them so that the rest was fed. they had the requirements met. and meeting the requirements of the press is one of the key things for a first lady if you want to be able to get along with them. you first have to understand them and then you have to give them what they need to get the

job done. i used to do some of this in presidential trip planning. the reagan white house is probably appropriately famous for the fact that we knew how to handle the press very well. mike deaver was an absolute genius in this. i'm irked -- i worked with him on a number presidential trips where we had to figure out how to get our message across. when you know what the press needs and your respect those needs, you generally will get good rest. you're going to get better press than a few stiff the press can celebrities have finally figured this out. they are now staging pictures for the paparazzi so they don't have to put up with pictures they don't want being in print. >> do you honestly feel that the press coverage today is more adversarial than it was 15-20 years ago?

we have 24-hour media all the time, so they have to create news. at times, i think they create, you know, news that is more confusing than it really is an official. >> i actually think that the relationship between the presidency and the press has gotten a little bit less adversarial. probably the height of it was right after watergate in the 1970s. when i began working with the press in 1980, on the presidential level, the campaign level, there was almost an attitude among reporters that come if you are in politics, you had to be covering up something among reporters that, if you are in politics, you had to be covering up something. i have detected in the last couple of years this

politicization -- these polemic position where there is the press told on one side and press on the other. and then there was the perception that cnn was a similar type news outlet for the clinton administration, very pro-administration. those characterizations are not entirely fair, but it is a rough characterization that is true. i think the press is a little bit adversarial -- a little bit less adversarial today as a result. salaries in the press corps have gone up tremendously. back in the 1970s, reporters made a living wage. today, the celebrities of the media make millions of dollars a year. it is not a you -- it is not unusual for reporters to be earning a decent six figures. the salaries in dc are on par

with top members of government. so as they become more and more part of america's elite, i think it shows in their coverage. i am astonished occasionally at some of the lack of interest that the press seems to show on details of stories that are really very big. i still do some work now producing for television. i guess i am critiquing my own profession a bit. whatever part of the blame is mine, i accept it. yes. >> she seemed so devoted, but a deer in the headlines here >> you know, i liked pat nixon a lot. she had a really tough life and came from an external area background, a very humble background. she was born in ely, nevada. i had been to that part.

i lived in nevada for a while. ely, nevada is an old mining town. it is cold in the winter and it is sweltering hot in the summer. she was born there basically in a miners shack. it had a canvas roof. her mother died early. she basically had to raise her siblings herself. she was extraordinarily lucky to get into college and find a way to pay for it. from that very humble background, she ended up being next to, you know, the commander-in-chief and the president of the united states and maybe a little bit of the deer in the headlights comes from that. she certainly didn't grow up in those kinds of our full circles. in terms of the politics, i have

to say that she, again, was very active in her husband's campaigns when he ran for senate. she helped write his speeches. she went door-to-door with literature. she helped devise some of the tax strategies that were controversial in california. people said it was a really dirty campaign and she was there slinging the mud. toward the end, when the watergate crisis slowly unfolded, i think she probably fell into a bit of depression. >> i worked closely with john mclachlan, the speechwriter in the nixon white house. he felt that she had fallen into depression at that point. so strong woman, extra neri background, and i admire her in many -- extraordinary background, and i admire her in many respects. >> in 1999, file that a

conference of the presidential library to experience how the relationship between lbj and his wife lady bird [indiscernible] the archivists allowed us to listen in to some of the conversations that had been taped from telephone conversations between lbj and his wife while he was meeting with cabinet members. she was scolding him. what is your take on her as a first lady? >> they are all interesting come i guess. i am fascinated by them. but in her case, it is true. she was extremely bright. she grew up in a family that had quite a bit of money. she had a great education. she met lbj when he was in texas. he basically told her during a weekend courtship that she was

going to be his wife. he was an extremely determined suitor. in fact, so was richard nixon. when he met pat nixon, he pulled the same thing. it was practically be for state and he said we are going to get married one of these days. strange things happen between people who are driven to become presidents and their spouses. she threw herself into his work. she was one of the first wives to take a job in the senate, on the senate payroll. she ran his office. she later ended up buying a lot of media stations, radio and television in texas. again, one of the first leaders who understood how the press works. that helped him quite a lot. they were a partnership from the beginning, i would say.

johnson was in some ways more of a stubborn president. i don't think he always listened to her. but i do know, in terms of working out the politics of the day, they did a lot of talking and he at least heard her. >> jacqueline kennedy by contrast, i think of her [indiscernible] is that the correct impression of her was she also enwrapped in politics? >> she is an absolute cultural icon. no question about that. she campaigned. she would go out on the campaign trail. but she was pregnant. the only reason she curtailed her campaigning in the 1960 election was because her pregnancy was getting advanced and her doctors told her she

needed to take it a little more easy. in that sense, she was a political wife. she got out and she didn't do as much as lady bird johnson. 80 bird johnson was one of the real active campaigners. in fact, the democratic convention was built to must dates in such a way that would feature her in that convention. later, when lbj had a fallout in the southern states because of the civil rights act, she did a whistle stop train stuart -- train tour and it worked. it was very successful. in that sense, no, jacqueline kennedy was not as political a spouse. she helped him with some policy related things. she spoke french fluently. in 1959-1960, 1961, indochina was becoming a problem here in the best hooks on vietnam were

in french -- becoming a problem. the best books on vietnam were in french. she would translate them into english so the president could read them. as a candidate, i believe she did this before he was actually in the white house. so she was not as much involved in the day-to-day politics and that became a problem as first lady. she didn't understand why people would put on her schedule that she had to have her lunch with the congressional wives and that is a pretty congressional thing for the first lady to do. they are invited to a lunch at the white house and the first lady hosts it. jackie kennedy did not want do that. she wanted to do something more active. she became notorious at bailing on these events and calling on lady bird johnson to stand in

her place. so lady bird would have to run to the west wing and fill-in whenever jackie decided to do something else. we will never know, but i think she would have been a little bit of a rebellious spirit if the kennedy administration had gone on longer. and it might have caused some fallout, some flak. you can only snowball of those bde goes in washington so many times before -- you can only snub all of those egos in washington so may times before it comes back at you. >> do you know if there has ever been a second lady or a vice president with an influential role? was there every week first lady? >> that is a good question.

there have been some weak first latest -- first ladies who did not do much of their duties. but i don't know of many vice presidential wives who stepped in other than in the kennedy administration. that is a good question. you have given me something to look at. >> why do you think that american politics are threatened by such an intelligent woman? [laughter] >> you know, i was asked that question on a tv show just today. we were -- the topic was whether or not we would have a woman

president in 2008. if you look at other industrial countries and even other undeveloped countries, you see that women have been heads of state. the percentage of women in the legislature has an much higher in other countries than here. i think the reason for that is that we are such -- in a way, we are not a highly politicized country. we are a society. because of that, we haven't had a lot of women in politics until very recently. and it is a new phenomenon. i think new phenomenon's scare people. we have a lot of intelligent women out there now, both in state legislatures and congress and in the corporate world, in the military. it will be really interesting in five or 10 years. i think we will see women running for office who have military experience that is more extensive than some of the men they will be running against.

i don't know if that answers your question fully. >> will you comment on the [indiscernible] >> of course. it is a funny thing. when i was writing the book, i had to make a decision -- which first ladies should i include and which not? some include only the spouses of residents and they are considered to be first ladies. no one else's. it seems kind of interesting because rachel jackson died before he got to the white house. yet you pick up a book on first ladies and here is her biography and she never served a day in her life and then you have somebody like it if lane and and jefferson's wife had died the time -- died by the time he became president. he had other women, daughters and friends, take over the duties of first lady. in terms of the historical contribution, i think harriet

lane deserved to share credit in the diplomacy of the buchanan presidency. how many people here have gone through the experience of arranging a wedding where you have a split in the family or have had divorces or people who are unhappy with each other and you have to figure out how to make sure that uncle joe doesn't sit next to and whoever -- next to aunt whoever or there will be a fight. this was a problem that every white house event because of the tensions in the country. if you put two politicians next to each other who had come from diametrically opposite sides of the argument that they up in the congress, they might be each other with canes. and if they were going to it in that congress, they might do it in the white house. you had the problem with the

seating charts of keeping rivals separated from one another so that you could have a white house event that didn't deteriorate into bloodshed. in a way, i think she deserves a lot of credit for that time for which the country did not descend into war but tried to contain the forces that were pulling it apart while seeking some other solution. it is not a trivial a congressman. in terms of legislation, there is 90 of evidence that harriet lane sounded out legislators -- there is plenty of evidence that harriet lane sounded out legislators. that is a useful role. in politics, you often don't want to ask someone to be on your side unless you are sure that they will be on your side or unless you know that the press will be. if in passing his tax cuts in 1981, reagan had to do a deal on sugar subsidies with one senator. we knew in advance that sugar

subsidies would be the price to get the tax cuts through and that was the only way it would happen. that is how politics works. it is all horsetrading. if you can have somebody find out what kind of horse do want, how big, what color? that is too big of a horse for what you're going to give me. summit he has to do that work for the resident during the president is the closer. -- for the president. the president is the closer. harriet lane did that. so first ladies who get actively involved in the politics and find out who the supporters are, where the problems are, who can be brought over, who is on the fence, what it takes to bring them over, that is the kind of political partnership that she was. >> how do you envision

[indiscernible] [laughter] >> if that happens, it will be an absolutely fascinating turn of events. first off, he is a two-term former president. how can you ignore that? and one shouldn't. if she were president and he were first man from a first gentleman -- i don't know what we will call him -- [laughter] the country didn't know what to call first ladies for a long time. when refers competence a book on first ladies came out in 1981, it was just just called "the ladies of the white house." for a file, they were called sometimes democratic queens.

[laughter] and that often would be leveled with an insult. in the early days of the country, if you said you are acting like a queen, you're saying that you are acting like those people we discovered it in the revolution. so for getting whatever he might be called, here you have a former president who is deeply knowledgeable about policy matters and political personalities. he has dealt with all of these people. i can't imagine that he wouldn't have an influence on policy. i can't imagine that she wouldn't consult him or you simply equate. he would be an asset. if i could sort of think of a political dream couple, it would be one in which i have a shadow president that i can use to double the level of activity that i can get done in a day. one of the worst problems you have in politics at that level

in the white house or time limits. there is only so much anybody can do in the 10-12 hour day. but you have him there and her and you can double up. and people will deal with him because he has stature in his own right as well. madame president has the power. you have the potential to be twice as effective. i was dealing with a man who wanted to become prime minister of have to stand. his one big complaint was a schedule, that he just could not get control of it because the pakistani society was such that everybody wants to deal with the top man and the top man only. so this poor guy was overwhelmed. he was absolutely overwhelmed during he was drowning. but if you have a of bill clinton and hillary clinton, you would never have that problem. so with the country tolerate it? i don't know. i can imagine that there will be some criticism.

but on the other hand, it is tough to say that someone who won the presidency twice isn't entitled to have a pretty strong voice in that house. >> [indiscernible] [laughter] >> that would be the hard part. he wouldn't want to go back. i think i probably used up all of our time. [applause] thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] of the firstes season are available online at www.c-span.org/firstladies. >> first ladies have the

capacity for personifying. this is a pattern in american politics. there are two things. their women, real people who absolutely do things. then there is this secondary custody of being a perform assigned -- personifying figure. many efforts later has come and realized that this thing is larger-than-life. that is something dolly figured out. she was a figurehead for her husband's administration. she made the white house into a symbol. this, but innow 1814 the british are going to burn the capital city. all of this work that she put in to help the public identify with the house, the white house under her term, is going to pay off. there is going be assertive nationalism around the world. -- the war. monday night, and a clock

eastern. -- 9:00 eastern. next, leaders an associated press ceo talks about the government's seizure of telephone records. after that, and discussion of prayer in public schools. >> on wednesday, congressional leaders along with the vice president joe biden honored for two donuts -- frederick douglass. it included john boehner and nancy pelosi. and mitch mcconnell. washington d.c. delegates eleanor holmes norton and ms. nettie washington douglass