>> mrs. taft had great ambition to washington the cultural center of the nation, and she came in as a very activist first lady in march 1989 but unfortunate on may 17, 1990, get a crippling stroke and it took away her speech for a good while. she had to relearn to talk, and there's and it goes with the present city with her saying, say that again darling. we can do that again. let's do it and trying to help her to recapture her speech. since she was such an interesting and intellectual woman in many ways, it was very sad that her speech was so impaired for so long. and that was the reason these letters exist, because in washington in the summer, if anyone has lived in washington knows, british diplomats use it to get hardship pay to being station in washington. so she would flee to the shore of massachusetts and the cold waters off cape cod and elsewhere, and he would write her and they take to her long letters every day in which he described the affairs of the state imposed happening to him, his

>> you've written about president mckinley and you have written out about the president taft and mrs. taft. and just a new book that is coming out that is not i get from oxford, theodore roosevelt. what is it about this era that attracts you? >> well, people use a lot of type and which i must say for handwriting property is very nice. i started studying at yale with a distinction story who just died last week, one of the great historians of the 20th century. they awakened in me, and i just find it the emergence of the modern united states, a party system, the issues they face that are so relevant today. it's a wonderful period with wonderful, funny stories, larger-than-life characters. so i dived in and have never come out and don't intend to come out. >> professor gould, are you a follower -- a fan of tr's? >> very much so. i think with a certain loving perspective i would like to have, i think sometimes people go overboard with different aspects of his life. so i tried in this little book, it's very short, a hundred passionate under 100 pages. the point is to give you the gist of the pre