it will be recorded that ray lamar -- ray blanton was his own worst enemy. broad this on himself, there was no other choice. the united states attorney today did what he had to do when they heard from the united states attorney, i think lamar alexander did what he had to do. >> the attorney general who assured me in the afternoon that if i took office under these circumstances it was constitutionally valid. after the information was presented to each of us, we agreed that this would be -- from my perspective what occurred. >> we have dave schiller standing by at the supreme court building with lt. governor john wilder. >> the district attorney called myself from florida and governor alexander advised us he had certain information that led him to believe there were a number of persons who were going to be hardened and/or commuted shortly. we had no choice. >> when did governor blanton find out this ceremony was about to take place? >> you is advised of this shortly before it happened. >> standing by with speaker of the house. >> the man you just bore in is a

ray blanton is a democrat. one of the things that can go wrong is that this may be misinterpreted as a political takeover speed can i just say on that, the thing that i learned in doing this research was about it was so not a republican to. i mean, -- republican trying to pick because of for the principal were, the two speakers both very senior democrats, it was hal hardin, as lamar just said, no democrat was a star rising faster than hal, bill leech certainly democrat. and joe henry at the end of the day. spent joe haddock of the chief justice -- >> of the supreme court who administered -- >> he compared his election to a plague of locusts. [laughter] he was right about that. >> bob haney was here earlier, his brother, joe henry, these are sons of chief justice joe henry. joe, jr. told me that when they were kids there dad, when it's time to go leaving get in the car, he said the last one to the car is a republican. [laughter] so my point is simply, what became clinton was at the end of the day, during the aft

one thing they found was an envelope hand addressed to me with ray blanton's return address on it, and in it was the key to the governor's office. he had mailed that to me. >> and later on that night i went back to my office, and we had code da phones in those days with the blinking red lights, and i pushed the button, and it was governor's highway patrolman, i guess -- i can't remember his name. he said, mr. hardin, this is so and so. the governor wants you to call him. and it was a very point i can't moment -- poignant moment. talk about resistance, i think one person that did resist was the governor's counsel who was walking out of his office with the commutations -- >> louis stopped him, right? >> and louis -- >> tell that story. >> well, eddie sisk had been arrested the muddle of the month before -- the middle of the month before, and so robert hill ard of nashville was the governor's legal counsel. so when tommy and bill koch and louis donaldson went up to secure the capitol, they made their way down to judge lille ard's office on the ground floor, and he was preparing some final

hunt is a political consultant and speech writer and recounts the removal of tennessee governor ray blanton from office in 1979, next on booktv. the author reports that the former three term governor was taking money for political pardons. this is a little over an hour. >> tonight we've all come together to relive a moment in history. to be more accurate, we're going somewhere five and six hours