Role of first lady over 44 administrations. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend. Good evening, everyone. To all of our friends here and those watching by cspan and on Facebook Live. My name is stewart mclaruin and im the president of the White House Historical association. Its my privilege to welcome you to Decatur House and to the White House Historical association. Tonights program is very exciting and we are honored to partner with our good friends at the Richard Nixon foundation. We would like to welcome dr. Jim cavanaugh of the Nixon Foundation and his wife ester in the front row. Hugh hewitt the president of the Nixon Foundation you will hear from in a few moments. We have many distinguished guests with us here, many former officials from the nixon and other administrations and staff and friends of the Nixon Foundation and were honored to have you here tonight. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Patricia Nixon becoming the first lady of the United States.
To do here. I have always been reluctant to say this truly could be one of the most important things we as members of this committee do. The world is experiencing today and what the american and as is americas face is one of the most significant challenges that a lot of us will face in our lifetime. The bad news, the really bad news is that its entirely possible that it will happen again. I say this of course because the experts tell us that this virus that made the leap from one species to another can very easily happen again and if there are 2000 of these viruses out there you have no idea what they can do when they get into a human being. Thats what experts and scientists tell us have identified within their branch about 2000 different viruses. Having said that we need to look forward and i want to stress what im trying to do with this and what about all of us are trying to do, to look forward. There are a lot of hearings going on and a lot of hyperbowl going on and a lot of blame a
The Nixon Library has presented first ladies exhibits before and offered lerk offered lectures topics but we havent offered a first ladies exhibit and luncheon and lecture series all combined. When planning and coordinating the concept we analyzed the needs and quickly noted the need for a specialized guest curator. Carl anthony is one of the nations foremost experts on president ial wives. Hes penned over a dozen of books and has the privilege of interviewing the clintons, laura bush, as well as the nixons and the fords. His accolades are vast and many. The staff have enjoyed a long friendship and professional relationship with carl. In many ways we consider you part of the family, carl. When we called him back in april to propose the idea of a first ladies exhibit, lecture and len luncheon series, his enthusiasm was contagious. Please join me in welcoming carl anthony. Thank you for all of you who are here today. Many of you here for all of the lectures. A special thanks also to chri
Biography is alienating those the way the visual presentation there, the way they are written so i wanted the reader to feel like they had never read the president ial biography that they had everything they needed at the beginning of the book at the beginning of each section to equip them to feel as though they were the experts so that was part of it, i did think a lot about my reader and the other part, washington has been called by an adams family series editor, president ial editor. They edit the papers. Called him that to my face. [laughter] adams which you cant compare, there too much fun. The thing is, you can break him out of this mode, he can be fun and interesting but you have to have fun with them, its a whole different thing but a lot of the things you see are the way i organized it in my head when i was trying to make sure that things across and i decided to be vulnerable and share with everyone. I do think there are certain things that help you understand, i can tell you
Governors not doing enough and how important the National Guard is area and i think he is, hes making a partisan issue where i think in the past seen president s reach out and try to be compassionate and to win people togetherinstead of divide them. So i think thats been something weve seen with the pandemic and with these recent protests. How did your book come about, whats the genesis of it . Ive written a book called the residence and a couple of other books about the white house and ive always been fascinated by what happens behind the scenes on inauguration day. To me thats just a dramatic day in our history when one new family moves in another family moves out the public is looking at this west front of the capital and you know that this swearingin ceremony that we all watch, but really behindthescenes theres controlled chaos at the white house. And theres this last inauguration i was fascinated by the obamas taking off in the helicopter as right after President Trump was sworn i