and mom to her credit, she was no one like many wives, she was back home making sure we got to the dentist and we got our homework done and got to football practice, wrestling practice. the glue that held the kids together while her dad was out to be a public servant. it was later in the presidency that she finally had a chance to blossom or shine and get her chance in the spotlight. during dad's time being a congressman, she drove the family. it is interesting because -- in every family there would be a blowup and one of us would get in trouble and we would get in trouble a lot. it would be, wait until your father gets home. we knew by the time he got home, the storm would blow over. he wanted to come home and be the good guy. my heart went out to mom.

she had to keep the whole ship in the right direction. >> what was her personality like? >> mom was a jokester, fun loving. she had a background in the arts dance. she was very expressive and wanted us as children to be expressive. i spent 25 years in film and tv business as an actor. i have to think what ever that calling was for me came not from dad's side but from mom. >> how successful was she -- you did have a typical -- how did going to the white house change that at all? >> looking back, we were fortunate.

if you were a member of the bush or reagan family, there was almost an expectation that at some point, your father was going to run for president or be president. not with gerald ford. he was a house minority leader and wanted to be speaker of house. there was never any pressure on us that he would be president. it happened overnight, very quickly. we barely had time to comb our hair. within days, nixon resigned. we moved to the white house. to our advantage as a person, there was no chance to worry about it. it happened so quickly. that allowed us to come in and not have a chance to change. we got to be ourselves. >> how old were you? >> i was 18 when dad became president.

i was getting ready. i was two or three weeks away from going to duke university. all of a sudden, i get 10 secret service guys. that is not the group you hope to hang with at 18. i kept having visions of moving into the freshman dorm at duke and 10 guys with machine guns do not work for me. i said, i am not ready to go to college. take a year off. they let me. i took my 10 secret service agents. i moved to montana to work on ranches. i fell in love with the west. it changed my life. >> did the white house change your mom at all?

>> i do not think so. it did not silence her. [laughter] if i were in her position, i would've gotten there a bit afraid to speak my mind. she was not intimidated. she spoke her mind and continued to speak her mind and spoke out on issues that first ladies had never spoken out before. sometimes it went against her. people were offended. they thought - we have never seen a first lady talk like that. others applauded her for saying you are like me. a mother of kids. you go through all of the same things. she was very brave to be herself. >> i know you were out of montana. you came back. is it possible to have a semblance of a normal life living in the white house? >> if you are surrounded by

>> if you are surrounded by family -- i was at age 18 and i had friendships that were established. i had people i could depend on and two older brothers. and the younger sister. my heart went out to chelsea clinton, who at the end of the day, she had no siblings and was surrounded by adults and probably lived in the governor's mansion before that. if my life was weirder that day, i could turn my brother and sister - is it as strange for you as it is for me? chelsea, i do not think had that circle. she was surrounded by adults. we were very fortunate. >> the prom in the white house. >> everybody went, didn't they?

there's always the debate. are you going to the prom this year? [laughter] >> your mom must've had something to do the planning. what did the public not getting chance to see concerning your mom? >> mom, again, was part of our family that she and dad so many times showed us a relationship where you could differ in opinion and yet still love each other a great deal. that is the thing i appreciated most about mom and dad. i remember when mom got behind equal rights for women. that was not part of the republican platform or democratic to be fair. dad listened and let her do her thing. as a son to watch them, have that relationship where they respected each other and supported each other, was a

wonderful thing. there's a great story about dad was in a meeting in the west wing during the campaign with some of the political types, not the administration. he and mom had been talking about the e.r.a. and other things. somebody said, mr. president, do you think there is any chance you would go speak to your wife and asked her to kind of tone it down for the next couple of months until we get through the campaign? dad smiled and pointed over to the east wing and said, that is where her office is and i know she is in there. if anybody will like to speak to her, you are more than welcome. he said no one got up. that was his way of supporting her.

he always supported her in being able to speak her mind. >> famous stories in the white house. -- family stories in the white house. there have to be very rich ones. >> first of all, you have to remember after dad got sworn in, the day nixon resigned, everybody remembers the image of nixon's helicopter and saying goodbye on the steps. we go into the east room where dad puts his hand on the bible. mom holds the bible. we are sitting there. we take a family portrait in the oval office. nixon has cleared off his desk. what people do not remember is we did not get to move in because nixon -- we lived in our own little home in alexandria, virginia in suburbia. because nixon resigned so unexpectedly, they were not able

to pack up all of the belongings. they left their daughter and son-in-law to pack up. it took seven or eight days. we went back to our little house in virginia. dad had become president of the united states. we were in the dinner around the table. mom was cooking and she looked over and said, jerry, something is wrong here. you just became president of the united states and i am still cooking. that was our reality for the next seven or eight days. >> did the betty ford that the country came to know accurately reflect the betty ford that was your mother? >> yeah, yeah. for some reason, just the way her life unfolded she was challenged with two major issues. first, breast cancer and

alcoholism. within the first 30 days of dad's administration, you had the resignation and the economy in shambles. mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. you have to remember at that time in 1974 people do not talk about breast cancer. you literally did not say the word "breast." it was a closet disease for women. here you have an image of mom and dad standing there in front of the press holding hands saying we are going to take the shame of the disease and be very transparent. -- take the shame off of this disease and be very transparent. that was important to her as a person to be able -- she did not choose it but to be that role model and she did well. of the hundreds of thousands of

letters she got, women who said thank you for helping to take the shame of the disease. -- shame off of this disease. and saying i went in and got the exam and we caught it early. the letters that dad got. this was the amazing thing. dad received letters from men saying thank you, mr. president for showing me how to stand and support my wife. this was kind of groundbreaking new things as far as breast cancer went. right after the presidency, after dad lost to jimmy carter, mom found herself out to their talking about alcohol and drugs because of through an in -- she went through and intervention that the family did in dealing with her own addiction to alcohol and pain

medication. took the shame of that for women. the stereotype at that time of the alcoholic was a skid row bum. no one thought here's a former first lady raising her hand as saying, hi, my name is betty and i'm an alcoholic. you have two huge issues that mom got to be a part of. if she were here today, she would tell you that she was probably an ordinary woman caught in a very extraordinary time. she did what she supposed to do. >> it was hard to imagine a president who have more impact than your mother did. >> those type of issues. president dealing with war and the economy. mom was dealing with health issues that affected a lot of people. >> did y'all know she was having

some of the issues while she was first lady? >> i think we sensed something during the presidency because she had legitimate pain from several pinched nerves and she was getting medication. what we did not know was the combination of alcohol and those medications produce that cocktail that took away some of her sharpness. eventually, it had to play out. it had to get to the other side of the presidency where it created a time for mom after the presidency where she was not first lady. she was out in california. dad was traveling a lot. they were building a new home and the kids were all gone. over months, she developed a melancholy that turned into depression, pulled back from life and started canceling

appointments and not showing up. sleeping in late. slurred speech. that takes months and we did not know what we were looking at. we were like millions of other families. what is wrong with mom? it was not the education about alcoholism and drug dependency that there is now. it took -- dad searched through several doctors before he finally found a doctor that have -- had the courage to say, i think your wife's an alcoholic. that was not the image anybody accepted. finally found the right doctor, dad had the courage to say, we will do this intervention. the whole family went in and did the intervention with mom. at that time, i had never heard the word intervention. now, you have tv shows. it was a different time. we did it. dad led the intervention.

my memory of that is very clear. we walked in the door that morning with all of the kids and dad surprised mom. he took her hand and said that betty, we are here because we love you. the kids want their mother back and i want my wife back. those interventions are tough. that is tough, hard, hard stuff. a lot of tears, a lot of crying, a lot of raised voices. a lot more hugs and denial. it goes back and forth. it's a tug-of-war. dad never gave up. betty, we love you, trust us. we woke her up and she did the work. >> how receptive was she? >> as typical of any intervention, at times you are receptive and then there is denial. when we got to the other side

which took several hours, she was very receptive. we woke her up. we cannot to do the work. she did the work. it is hard, hard work. i went through alcoholism 10 years after mom. i was right behind her. i know what she went through. she would tell you today, your disease of alcoholism, it's outside the door doing push-ups waiting for you. it's a lifelong commitment. she did the work and woke up. that morning, nobody ever thought there will be a betty ford center. we were strictly fighting to get our mom back and dad was fighting to get his wife back. to see the other side of that, years later, for her after she had sobriety for a while, felt

comfortable enough to put her name on a treatment center that today has had about 90,000 people. nonprofit. her mission of affordable health to help people to get healthy and sober. she was very proud of that. >> when she announced that she had breast cancer, i remember going through footage and your father, he choked up. did they go through a process together because of such a bugaboo at that time, what type of process did she go through? do you think she knew she was having this influence over people? >> i do not think she knew she had the influence on to letters

-- until the letters and cards started coming in. at that moment you are fighting for your life. she would tell you, it was all that support, thousands of letters and cards they kept her spirits up. i remembered she shared with me there were letters she got from men who said, i have been through this with my wife and my wife had a mastectomy and i love her even more today than i did. that was encouragement. she knew her relationship with dad. they have been married for 25 years at that point. she knew if he lost a leg, she would not leave him and if she lost a breast, he would not leave her. there was a wonderful moment that she talked about when she got home and she was at the white house, she was concerned, she was worried she would not be able to wear her evening dresses anymore and be part of helping

at the white house at state dinners and things like that. she was having a few insecurities. dad, in his wonderful way, he said, do not be silly. if you cannot wear them cut the low, wear them cut low in the back. it was a wonderful laughter. their appreciation of each other and humor. they were a great team. >> they did a lot to heal the country at that time. what role did she play in the that, and your family? >> i think -- there was a lot of healing that went on. much of it was recognized later. it goes back to the nixon pardon. the same time that the dad gave a nixon the pardon or offered the pardon, he did the same for the people who went to canada.

he stood in front of the veterans of foreign wars and gave the speech. and he knew he was not going to get an applause. this whole thing was about grace and mercy. if you cannot make grace and mercy that broad and big, we are not trying to show a nation. it wasn't just about nixon. it was about bringing draft avoiders home. things like that. it was about family. years later, it was recognized as the healing of the nation. mom played a role in that she was your average housewife that ended up in the white house. she spoke like that. people appreciated that. administrations before that were more formal. that was not who mom was. they were a package. great buttons for the campaign

in 1976 that told you how popular she was -- jerry's wife, betty's husband for president. that is what it was. betty's husband for president. she was more popular than him at the time. >> last question. she did his concession speech. that is historical. how is history going to view your mom? >> she gave the speech because the days before the final election, dad was giving so many speeches and he lost his voice. the next morning we are standing in the oval office getting ready and dad could not speak. he had totally lost his voice. mom was there and the kids were there. she was reading the note. and looking back as a family, it

showed what a team they were. it seemed very natural when he was not available, she could step in. i look at the cancer thing and the alcoholism. they were like a team -- like climbing a mountain. climbing mount everest, you get to 27,000 feet and your partner gets sick and you could go to the top without them or wait until they get well. dad waited for mom to get well when she had breast cancer. he waited until she got sober and went through treatment for alcoholism. for him, it meant nothing to get to the top if she was not with him. that was the one true thing -- the wonderful thing about the relationship.

>> our website has more about the first lady's. chronicling the life and executive mansion during the years of each of the first ladies. find out more at www.c-span.org /firstladies. asour message was this, mothers, we are concerned. as first ladies, we are committed. as citizens of the world, we pledge to do all that is possible to stop this scourge. however different we may appear, there is far more that unites us than divides us. and we are here to find common may help bringwe new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world. >> all of you are such a vital part of that very conversation, because in the coming years, all

of you will be building the businesses. you will be making the discoveries and drafting the laws and policies that will move our countries and our world forward for decades to come. starting january 13, our original series, first ladies, influence and image returns with the five most recent first ladies, from nancy reagan through michelle obama. monday, live on c-span and c- span3 and also on c-span radio and at www.c-span.org. come a few moments discussion of what happened during the first days of coverage under the affordable care act. in about 40 minutes, officials medicare andt medicaid services say the affordable care act has had impact on a slowdown health care spending. rosalynnr first lady party and steve ford. the former president gerald ford

and first lady betty ford. host: welcome back. -- a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow here on c-span. -- general ray odierno speaks about the future of the army. that is at 1 p.m. eastern. at 2 p.m. eastern, the senate subcommittee on civil and human rights looks at refugees from the civil war in syria. it includes representatives from the state and homeland security departments. now i discussion of what happened during the first days of coverage under the affordable care act. "washington journal," this is 40 minutes. host: welcome back. our next guest is elise viebeck, she covers health care. guest: thank you for having me. host: walk us through how this