Right . And im looking real close, and theres not a single hebrew letter on this entire thing. Theres not any letters. Like if you took the head of a pin and just went dot, dot, dot, thats all thats on there. And he say, you understand now, dont you . I say, i understand completely. And im walking backwards, security, right here. Considering last time im here i got the holy grail, i am a little disappointed that no one brought me the fountain of youth. Oh, you have it . Sometimes the good news is you get an amazing letter from someone, and a longtime reader of mine said, brad, i work at a museum in washington, d. C. That almost nobody knows about, and you have so see what our collection has here. And im like, listen, im really busy with the holy grail, so tell me what youve got. And he said to me weve got pieces of Abraham Lincolns skull, the skeleton of John Wilkes Booth and weve got the bullet that killed lincoln. They dont just have the artifacts, but they have pieces of some of the other ones as well. And when im there, you know, he opens up a drawer, and in the drawer are a bunch of bones. All these bones. Almost like you took a skeleton from your biology class and dumped them in a drawer, and i see a femur and other bones i cant remember the name because i only know femur. When i did that joke in florida, my uncle, whos a doctor, was like, theres an ulna. Im like, freaking relatives. [laughter] i opened the drawer, and he goes meet president garfield. Then he opens up another drawer and takes out this spongy jar. Any man that will give you a brain, right . Invite him to your party. Hes awesome, right . He gives out brains. And then his assistant opens up another drawer and takes out a leather kind of like a swatch of leather. When you go pie your sofa buy your sofa, they give you a little swatch, and i see theres writing on the letter, and i say whats the writing on this . She says to me, oh, thats the tattoo. Im like, the tattoo . I realize what im holding is not just someones leather, its someones skin. Anyone who gives you a brain and skin, invite them to your party, right . Theyre awesome. This museum is the National Museum of health and medicine, and what they have there, it used to be an Army Research facility. And what they used to do is if you were shot in the civil war and you died, and you got shot in the arm and you died, they would awe off your arm and send saw off your arm and send it to the Research Place and say figure out why you died. They couldnt figure it out. So they kept sawing off body parts parts and sent it off to this museum. They realized at germ therapy develops the reason youre dying is because of infections, blood poisoning. And when they figured that out, they now realize, they say, wait, were going to turn this Research Facility into a museum. And he said to me that the smithsonian has dorothys ruby red slippers, we got all the body parts. And thats a party, right . And they have, what happened was when lincoln was shot and they did the autopsy and they took his brain out, the bullet fell from his brain, clinked into the sink, and thats how they found it. When the assassins were killed, people love the assassins in an odd, creepy way. They were almost like saints, they wanted pieces of them. So they used to cut the lining of the coffins to get pieces of that, their hair, their clothes, anything they could to own a piece of this assassin. And thats what this museum is, thats what it holds. And when i was there, as he handed audiotape, i lost this thing. Were back. As he hands me this piece of skin, i see also on the corner a red diamond. And the red die london like you see on a playing card. And we all see playing cards all the time, right . Weve seen them our whole lives. This is how my brain works. Is every detail when Abraham Lincoln was shot, almost everything is cataloged and known. They can tell you what John Wilkes Booth had in his pants pocket, what the contents of his wallet were, what the name of his horse were and the color. Theyll tell you next to fords theater there was a bar, and John Wilkes Booth before he shot Abraham Lincoln went into this bar and ordered a drink. Theyll tell you exactly what kind of drink he orders. The only detail that is not known has to do with how John Wilkes Booth got the white house valet. John wilkes booth walks into ford theater, he runs into an employee of the white house. And heres the moment in history, all this guy has to do is stop John Wilkes Booth, and all of history changes. At that moment rather than stopping him, John Wilkes Booth hands this valet a card, and to this day the only detail that is not known about the lincoln assassination is what is on this mysterious card. And some people say its a calling card, and some people say its a business card. I remembered that, actually, business cards back then used to be playing cards. Playing cards used to be blank on one side, you used to write your name on the other side to identify yourself. At the university of pennsylvania you could use them to get into class, that was your id was a playing card that was blank on one side. So my brain goes like this you have a playing card that i can link now to John Wilkes Booth, and now i have a playing card that i can potentially link to the second assassin, charles giew toe, and now i have a thread. And i can weave that thread and pull it assassin to assassin. And, obviously, this is where the fiction takes over, but i start thinking about playing cards. Hearts and diamonds and clubs and spades, we all know them. But theyre symbols, and they mean something. Theyre not just there for decoration. You look at a dollar bill, it has a pyramid with an allseeing eye on top, right . Its a symbol. They put it there for a reason. It doesnt mean that the free masons are there to eat your babies and kill you, right . But it does mean something. And its the same with playing cards. And if you want to know what hearts and diamonds and clubs and spades really stand for, youll see it in the pages at least one theory in the fifth assassin. And thats where the book begins where i say what if a serial killer was me meticulously recreating the crimes of all the assassins . And instead of being four lone wolves, theyre all working together for the same secret cause and he wants to be the fifth assassin . So the book begins. For me personally, i become obsessed with assassins. I am like the haled and maude harold and maude of dead assan sins. In virginia theyre like, i dont get it. You cant make any jokes about jews in virginia. You can make a hanukkah joke, it dies. Its dead. And i have been crazy obsessed with assassins. And what you see, its interesting, when you talk to the secret service and you ask is them about people who tried to kill the president , theres almost nothing that the assassins have in common, right . Theyre every age range, old and young, rich and poor, every age range in between. Theres no rhyme or reason to it. But if you look at the four who were successful, you start to see the overlap. And, obvious, because its obviously, because its a smaller group, you see the pattern. And interestingly, all four assassins who are successfully killed a president is me meticulously neat. Theyre also barely known as troublemakers until, of course, that instant where they pull the trigger. Whats also interesting to me is they were all four men with a cause. And when they a couple years ago the government brought together a bunch of futurists, and they wanted to study whats the biggest threat thats going to happen to our national security, whats the biggest threat to america. It used to be, like, russia, the bomb, whatever you want to name it, and what they figured out 10 and 20 years from now the greatest threat will simply be an individual or a small group whos determined to die for their cause, right . And you dont have to invoke 9 11 to see what the damage can be. But when you look at assassins, they can be divided into two categories; hunters and howlers. And howlers make a lot of noise, and they call in bomb threats and say theyre going to kill us, but the good news is they rarely take action. Hunters are very different. Hunters plot, plan and execute. But heres whats fascinating is ha hunter that hunters have almost no interest in howling, and howlers have almost no interest in hunting. And if you look at the four assassins, all four of them are hunters. And that means the secret service, who i have so much respect for, they took me to their Training Facility out in maryland, it means that the person that they are looking for is the person who theyll never see coming, right . Thats a scary thought. Um, and along with asags sins assassins, you know, the funniest part is, its always the funniest part, the guy who took me into his museum, the guy who has all the body parts, i saw him in washington, d. C. , he was in the front row. Im like, heres the guy with all the dead body parts, he gave me the brain, i bring him up, i introduce him, everyone claps, i give him a big hug. And he whispers in my ear as im hugging him, i dont like hugging very much. [laughter] right . And im like that is the most awesome reaction. I want the guy who spends his day with body parts to to hate hugging. Im going the buy him an i hate hugging shirt. So i love the fact that hes there, and we get to do that with him. The other part i became obsessed with is, of course, president s. And the fun part of the research for me is a couple years ago, um, i got a letter from now former president clinton writing about one of the books was someone had because someone had sent him one of the books, and then i got one of the craziest, best fan letters from former president george h. W. Bush x. He read one of my normals, and he asked novels, and he asked if i would sign a copy for him. Im like, youre the leader of the free world, you get a free book. Youre the president. Very nice. Has me out to houston, i spend some time with the bushes, and barbara and george are like the sweetest, nicest people. They spent the first half hour that we were with them president bush tried to convince my wife that he invented the phase you the man, right . Thats a good joke. And my wifes like, do you know he invented the phrase you the man . Im like, he did not. Although he might have, i dont know, hes the president. But the nice part was as i was researching this book, i got to ask president bush questions about the white house and his time there. And, listen, i write fiction. I can make up anything i want, right . But we all know that there are only a few people on this planet who know what its like to live in the white house and know that someone out there is trying to to kill you. And thats pretty amazing. So i got to say to him, you know, are you scared, sir, were you scared at that moment . He was, like, not confused by the question, but almost like hed never heard it before. And hes like, no. Thats not the right word. He kept saying, no, no, no. And i asked him to describe it, and he said, you know, we had a lot of tense. Tense was easy, right . The white house is always tense. But scared . Scared is not there. And as i thought about it, it made perfect sense to me because its like that guy whos a construction worker and works on the top of a skyscraper. Eventually for that person being that high up all day long the fear of heights disappears. Its no longer part of the job. And we talked about what the assassins have in common. Also u. S. President s have things in common too. And when youre surrounded by that secret Service Every day and youre getting these reports every day, eventually that has to disappears that fear that you and i would all feel eventually becomes part of the job. And thats a good thing for me. So from obama to bush, that is a good thing. I think that fear does disappear, and im not sure i would do much better, but the details you see about the president in this week are base in this book are based on my interactions with bush and how e reacted. So when you see the president reacting here, its obviously much better to be informed by a real person. Fiction is its best when it has one foot in the gallery and in terms of the places, finally got to decamp david. I had never been to camp data before and i didnt even know it cant did it. The camp david of courts we have all heard of it but what is this place and what did they do their camp david has security that is better than the white house. What is going on there that they have better security in the white house and marines in secret service. Its amazing plus the apartheid that are out there when you look heres the great thing for them. Its really their second home, their getaway place and whats interesting isim they can ski shoot and play golf and bowling go swimming and have a great time but heres the best partym. No press allowed. You can allow them if you want but no press allowed. One of the secret service guys told me when president clinton took office he said i have really bad allergies. See wherec that seeket tunnelc comes out. I love wec get to do that. S and withat s i wont ruin chapter 97 but when you read the fifth assassin you will see where the secret tunnel comes out and i love the way it does that. With that said what i want to ds is i promised i would talk and take questions and is far more interested to take your questions. You can ask about decoded and ask about comics and about novels and you can ask about open heart surgery and i will make up an answer. I called it brad medicaller iss decode. Best of all time. What are we having for brad meltzers dinner. I like to have brad meltzers pasta. You can sleep on his couch. There you go. My favorite, probably my favorite episode with be the spirit of destiny. That you guyshil pack. I was wondering what your thoughts were since time had passed. The question is about the sphere of destiny. We did an episode of decode it that was about the sphere that christ died help he was on the crucifix, and the main part of the story is they say that all these different leaders throughout historied a the spear, and they used it to gain power, and and napoleon got and it aberdeen else wanted it, and at the enadolph hitler wanted it, and i dont believe it gives you magic power but when you tell my hitler wants this thing, i want to know about it. We had on that episode some theories on where it was we had man the reason we did that episode he contacted me years about it. Before we had the show. And told me i have a story about the spear of destiny, and he had kept the company of a u. S. President and his boss supposedly had stolen the spear of destiny that hitler had. Its supposedly in a museum in europe, and its a fake one, this and the real one as taken by his. In people say it was in a submarine, some people say he has it. The vat cap vatican says its there below the vatican, and they say they have it. Its amazing that even some people put so much into the faith of their particular spear. Everybody thinks they have the selected spear. As for where i think it is, obviously the vatican says they have it. My guy who came to us says he knows where it is. We tried to track down the one thing we left out of the show, he told us where he kept it, and we did try fine it but we couldnt verify that part. We dont want to say where it is until we can prove where it is. Im now disappoint instead of getting the hole hoely grail, none of you brought me the spear of destiny. If i knew where it was, i wouldnt be here talking to you id use it for my own evil powers. I dont know where it is. The vatican insists theirs is the one, and a lot of people say its in a submarine that went down a long time ago. So, maybe another episode we could do. Other questions . This is usually a hard crowd. Thanks for being here. Thank you. About decoded. Where do we stand with a new season and can you talk about any mysteries you would like to do over on the show . The question is do we get season three or not. Only in l. A. Do they want to know, did you get picked up . In virginia, they dont care. They dont know what a pickup is. I hate virginia. So, season we dont know yet. The air the twohour special on the end of the world in determination that the world is going to en, and i schedule my new novel the january. That marketing genius right trip. Know how this one ends. At it going to be okay. My favorite part of the episode, we had this nice guy who builds a bunker in wisconsin, and he takes us into the bunk sore when the apocalypse hits he survives and he has food and heres my generator and everything that is going to keep me alive, and here, check it out, yall, 42inch flat screen, and she is so psyched. Its like, were all dead and burning in flames and the apocalypse is upon us and he is like, dont worry, got the 42inch flat screen, and i got dvds. About decoded, for sure ounce of the next projects well be the next book. The next bikes a decoded book. A countdown of the top ten conspiracies and youll see is count them down. The book after that well be for those who read heroes, collections of heroes throughout hero i did for my on and my daughter, and we did stories like the Wright Brothers. Everytime the Wright Brothers went to fly their plane they brought extra materials for multiple crashes. Which meant everytime they went out they would file, crash and rebuild and crash and rebuild. And i want my sonned and tower to hear that store and if you dream big and work hard you can do anything in this world. So now were going to do an illustrated version of those heroes. And so were going to do, im ameliaaryhart. And im Abraham Lincoln and a line of childrens books for kid three to seven years ol, and those are the next childrens books, and then a sequel the fifth assassin. My next mock pick comic book project those tiny titans that its a cartoon comic book for little kids, and the back of every comic book they actually print artwork, and my daughter drew a picture of won wonder girl, and she was like, dad, can we get this in the comic . I said dont know. And thin called them and said, the fix it on, get my daughter drawing in there. And i know all of the people think their kids are the best artist. My kid is awesome. Draws wonder girl like nobodys business, and i love draws this amazing sevenyearold version of wonder girl. So they asked me, can you do a threepage story for us, pick a character, and i said i can do it if i can do it miswhere i fouryearold. So heres the story thats going to happen, is he picked a polar bear who rides a unicycle. I dont understand either. Go with it. And i said to him you till me what the polar bear is going to say and ill write around you. He says were going to fight with light sabres. And my character says, i think were going to have some trademark issues here, and he says, we are going to fight the trademark issues with light sabres. And im like, dont think you understand what trademark issues are, and my character says dish want to get his motivation, i say why are with fighting . And he says was beer evil. I said, are you all evil. He saysey. If say you ell son ground hogs day. Yes. Evil on handknack caw and christmas . He says yes, no. And at the enits just him yelling over and over again. And then chewbacca comes in and yesterday could comes in, and im thats a trademark issue, and its coming. Thats the next comic book. And then the fifth assassin sequel. Hello. So, it sounds like youre really busy, and to me is this a date . No, we arent. No date. I was just wonder hogue do you fine time for everything . Im a hopeful writer myself. How too you have team to write with your family and books its actually a very important question. Time management is obviously you can spend your entire life doing work and you can spend your entire life living your life and theres a difference. This is actually the first novel i wrote since my parents passed away, and if i learned anything when you write a novel, all the things you plan to put in the book, and you know the ending and then theres the things you dont plan on that go in there, and one of the things that went in here as i finished the first draft, i looked at the book and i was, what is this book at . And i was like, oh, i got it. Beechers is growing up. Up of of course, my parents are both gone. I had no choice but make this book about growing up, and if i learned anything from the love my parents gave me, it was the value of the time withure family. So i may do all these different projects but i do try never to work on the weekend, obviously if i have a speech or something i go out but i try never to work on the weekend,ings try never to miss practices. Toy always succeed in no. But those are where the priorities lie and if i dont write a book a year, if i want to write a become a year issue wouldnt see my kids or wife as much, and i like them. And i hope they like me. But theres a reason why im on the red eye right after i leave here, after doing a fiveday tour because tomorrow is baseball practice and i plan to be there are to it. So i will sleep on a plane tonight. So im struggling like every other father out there but that the most important part of it for me, and i absolutely learned that from my own parents. They were insane. My mother was insane my mom idea to say at the dipper table, id saw my own arm off for you. Im like, mom, were eating dinner. But that love is everything i am. Her love for me is my strength and foundation, and thats where it comes from. So thats the one lesson i have. Im sorry i can produce more product but you have to spend time with your family. Two more questions . In the front right here. Have to have the mic. So you dropped a hint about the sequel to the fifth assassin. Want to talk about that . I reveal the ending of the fifth assassin in the sequel. But to talk about it, i always knew this book was not going to be one book long. I designed beechers aring problems to last multibooks and i had over and over done, this the tenth justice, has a problem. But goes on. And i used to think if you did a sequel you were selling out. Sequel was a bad word, and what i realize is sometimes sequels are awful. If youre just writing them because you run out of ideas but the best stories tell the longer tale, and it takes a more complex problem to make it weave over multiple book skis realized i wasnt creating hard enough problems for the, whichs that would feed more than one greg. I was thinking the problem was the problem in front of enemy the bad efficient the best bad guy youll ever fight is against yourself. Always. And what youre seeing in beecher in each of these books, is a battle he is fighting within himself, and that will always be the hardest battle we fight but the most important battle because we all make the same mistakes over and over in our lives until we solve them. And thats our lifes journey, to learn how to stop making the same mistakes. One more hand. I just want to say i really enjoyed your Youtube Video on how to write your own obituary, and i want to the new decoded season, hoped you would touch on things like fema camp. Two points. One, about a Youtube Video we put up, actually my ted talk about writing your ohno bit area, and for those who dont know, couple years ago i worked to save the house where superman was created, and when a reporter for the wall street journal heard about it he said to merck brad, thats going to be in youre obituary. I was like, thank you for so clearly contemplating my death. But it struck me, whats going to be in my obituary . Did i matter . Was i northern what did i do . Did i make the world a better place . Whats in my obituary . And i was so taken by that, i couldnt shake the question. I went back a year later to that reporter, and i said to him, i want to hire you for a job. I want you to write my obituary. And he wrote it. And i wont tell you what is it in because thats the point of the talk but put in brad melster obid area, and if you think about who will remember you, youll know how youre going to be remembered and when you look at the legacy we all leave, its an important question you should be asking yourselves so take time and look at that in terms of fema camps, thats one of the top suggestions we get. Its amazing to see what people suggest for decoded. Jfk is number one. Fema camps, they want to know all these Different Things over and over. Its interesting because when we do the show, its always a mix. Not just my ideas, of course, its a true collaboration and we have great produceres, who i see here tonight, and people from History Channel who are amazing, its a true collaboration, we always try to get a good mix of things so its not all things from revolutionary wartime. But that one comes over and over. Its amazing how much its on the tip0sve peoples tongues. I saw one hand and i wanted to tell one last story. Okay. So one final story. A couple months ago, two months ago, i got to do a uso tour, and the us0 brought me over to kuwait and two other undisclosed military locations to enter tape the troops. They told me you i would meet them and spend time with them and do book talks and i was so honored to be asked. Day said you cant tell anyone where youre going, its kuwait, and then they made tshirts for the tour and on the tshirts were all the locations we were going, and i was like, this crack security in charge of our lives . So i cant tell you where we went unless im wearing the tshirt, but honored to good over. The best apart as we got there the week before our tour of authors, the International Thriller writers sends five authors every year to goer into taken the troops and we were the third group that got go over, and right before the got they had just seen the ultimate fighting champion guys, the cage fighting guys with no shirts on. The Dallas Council member cheerleaders, and then us. Right . It was really like, the guys with all the muscles, the women wearing nothing, and the authors who are here to read to you. My friend was like, can you tape the audible saying the moment you enter the room and they realize theres stuck with you . The reason i got involved with the uso is because ten years ago, wright after right after 9 11, guy on a submarine rote me an email and said know, im a submarines i cant tell youy, ute been the sub ma wean we have your book, the first council, and i want to tell you its really bring me a lot of peace and i want to say thank you, brad. I was like that the nicest email i have ever gotten. He would take time to thank me. I have to do something nice for this sailor. So, ten years ago i called my publisher and i said can i get 10,000 books donated to the us expo n and they were lake, yeah, and i was like, thank you, that was easy, and called another pusher, and another publisher, and over and over we got we got 40,000 books donated to the uso. So now Flash Forward two months ago. Ten years later. Im there with the uso, were in kuwait, and one of the members of the military says to me, brad, i just want to thank you for all those books you donated all those years ago, and i said to him how do you even know senate almost nobody knows about that. He said when i was stationed in iraq and afghanistan, we used to see stacks of your books and they always say courtesy of the uso so i now you dote nateed them. Said, no, youre getting it all wrong. Dont be thanking me, im here to tank you youre messing it up. And i i was so struck that when i came home i was like, have to track down that soldier, that sailor on that original submarine, find where he is. So i look at his email address. And i track him town and find a phone number and call him um. And i said, i dont now if you. Me, im brad meltzer, ten years ago you wrote me an email from a submarine and i want to know it get to involved in the uso and we donates books, and he listens to the whole story can and theres this odd creepy silence, and you known when youre in a conversation something is wrong, and im like, something as gone wrong. Did offend system and i say, are you okay . Because it was such an odd silence, and he says to me, not really. I said why, he says because a couple days ago my mother died from breast cancer. Now, what he doesnt know is my mother had tied from breast cancer. And at that moment, i stop and i say to him, i think im here to deliver a message to you. And he says whats the message . And i said, when my mom passed away, everyone tried to give me advice but nothing was helpful except one thing. They said to me, our mothers never leave us, ever. And now he starts crying. And because he is crying, im all teared up. And as im sitting there, im thinking, im not one of those new age people who believes in the magic moment but sometimes in life we feel so disconnected and sometimes we are profoundly connected, and this was obviously one of those moments. This guy had taken me like a boomer rang, and i came back ten years on the day he needs he more than any other, and i was struck. And the reason i tell you the story, thinking about the power of a thank you, and this is all i ask of you. When you leave here and were done, i want you to think of the person who helped you in your life and you owe a thank you to. I want you to think of that teacher in Junior High School or high school or the person who gave you the fir job, you were selling something, made the first sale to put think of the person, and thank them. I promise you, you will not ever believe what will come from it. And the amazing part of the story is when i told that story last week in washington, dc, also i got to the part where i said please thank another person, a person raised his hand and said i have to thank you forot how did for me on that submarine ten years ago, and it was the sailor from the submarine came to the signing. So the whole room is in tears and he comes running up, and i hug him and i will tell you in that moment he does not whisper in my ear issue dont like hugging very much. But this is the most important thing i will say to you is thank you. Thank you for coming here tonight and for supporting me. I want to thank leta, hosted me at my very first event here in los angeles when we had nobody atlanta it was a couple people and us, and took a chance on me from the start. So i love you for that. Thank you forking too that. [applause] i have family, friends from all walks of life here. From college and high school and other places that come, and people who work andy coded are here. So thank you. I have all my agents here and my manager is here, and from wme and from lou and unanimous and david and ari and phil and josh and all these amazing people who let me do what i do, and i never get to thank publicly so thank you for what you too. And all the people who come here, like you, come here every year, including even scoop here tonight and without that first help all those years ago in the white house i wouldnt be doing this. So, one last person i want to think, pause i never thank evidence him publicly and i want to show you what he looks like, scott, please come up here. Watch this. He doesnt know what im doing. Hes like, oh, crap. When you too your book, you do an audre book, and the first time did my audio book, i listen toed to the tape and they hired some famous person and it didnt sound like me. It was stilted and wasnt anything. Then the second thing they hired a woman because it was female lead character, and i listened to it. And the rhythms were off. Then i heard this voice. I dont have anything to read. I dont know what to say. I was like, that baritone is awesome. So this is actually the guy who does our audio book. He is my voice. So, i never, ever, ever get to thank him. So thank you. I love you. He just whispered in my ear, down like hugging very much but it sounded baritone and so macho. But thank you to everyone who came here tonight. I really do appreciate it. Especially those who come back and support these books and those who watch decoded and say im going to take a chance on a book. Thank you for coming. Within the confines of a book you can only do so much. So, want diversity. We wanted democrats and republicans, different parts of the country. To some extent we wanted different ages. We knew on the basis of nine, you cant make generalizations that are 100 certain, and we say as much in the book. Our conclusions are hypotheses but in order to make those, we needed a fairly diverse group. Theres a white house project that has been around for the last couple of election cycles s and they had eight in 08. So several of the women the white house project identified several years before the 2008 election, olympia know, Katherine Sebelius were in there, and barbara lee was here six years ago with her foundation, talked about locking at women governors. So we wanted to look at women governors who had been through some of barbara lees training as parts of the pipeline to the presidency. We also made the observation that when a male is elected to senatorship, immediately he is cast as a future president ial hopeful. Scott brown had not been sworn in yet in massachusetts and the url scott brown 2012. Com was already purchased. But so many women had been in washington for so many years, as legislators and working on important work, and yet their names never bubble to the top. And we were curious, why not . How did you decide you wanted to write this book . All threeoff you stud yesterday similar topics. How did the book actually come about . Your idea. Well, i guess it was my idea. I have been a political nerd since i was i dont know my parents still remember my sister and i in 1960 staging a nixonkennedy debate. And during all of those years of nerddom, all that fascinated me were the magazine issues that came out way in advance of a president ial election that would give you the eight or ten or 12 people who ought to be considered, and it simply struck me, after seeing so many of those issues, so many magazines, that women were not making it on to that list. They were not being thought to be president ial. They were thought for some reason not to be of president ial timber, and so as an academic, you ten to ask, well, why . And that for me was the ore gyp of the book. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Next, on book tv, thed debtor of scoop, recoup end the life and career of her late husband, jack nelson, who died in 2009 at the aim age of 8. She is joined by former president jimmy carter, former mayor of atlanta and u. S. Ambassador the united nations, andrew young, and former Justice Department spokesman in a discussion of jack nelsons memoir, scoopment. The evolution of a southern reporter its about an hour. Good evening everyone. Its go to have everyone here. Im hank and ill be moderating this wonderful panel tonight. I am the director othe Journalism Program at emery, and coauthor of a book about News Coverage the civil rights movement. Featured jack quite prominently. First of all, i want to thank the Carter Library and museum for hosting this, and for cosponsoring it. And also the Emery University library, particularly the manuscript archives and rare books library, which houses the papers and the wisdom of a