After words programs on our web site, booktv. Org. And now a panel on the life and career of recentlyretired librarian of Congress James billington. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon. Please take your seats. My understanding is were live on cspan, so behave yourselves. Inform. [laughter] welcome to valentines day a bit early. Im jane harman, the president and ceo of the Wilson Center, and i cant and we cant imagine what the Wilson Center would look like today if nobody had been smart enough to put Jim Billington in charge. [applause] wed have no kennon institute, no wilson quarterly, two projects at the heart of what we do. Who knows how many friends, how much wisdom we would have missed out on. Jim played a special role in my own education, my russian education. We crossed paths while i was in moscow on a congressional delegation, and he took us all on a tour of the creme lip. Kremlin. Priceless. Jim, your command of russia, its history and its culture shows up everyone here. Y
That comes to mind . Hasne of the highlights the that i was covering mets in 1969 when they finally won. They wouldnt let me in the press box because i was a girl as they said in those days. I had already covered the indianapolis 500 where i had been the only woman in the country. I found this interesting because it was a magic place to work. Styleradley hired me for and it really transformed and revolutionized the paper business. It is not at all like it was then. You would do 2000word pieces and people would read them. That business of not being able to go into the press box to itand file my copy struck home and read smith, the great columnist wrote aps saying, isnt it time we change some of these rules . I felt it was a bit of moving on up for women. What excuse did they give . Because i was a woman. They just didnt have women in the press box. They just to say that if a woman was on a ship, it was bad news for the ship. I have no idea, but they just banned them. There were a lot of
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