From the heart which the news york times called a deeply felt kingly observed account and mrs. Bush conjures a hometown with enormous detail later system and feeling. Tonight mrs. Bush will be interviewed by Cokie Roberts and we are all delighted to look on her back to the Smithsonian Associates event. Copies of mrs. Bushs book which she has already signed are available in the lobby. Because of her schedule there will not be any personalization of the books after the program. Before we begin i would like to remind all of you to have your cell phones or Electronic Devices silenced and im going to do that with mine too. [laughter] additionally no photos are allowed during the program from cell phone cameras or any other cameras. We appreciate your cooperation on both of these items. As ive mentioned we are pleased to have Cokie Roberts. Conversation with mrs. Bush are cookies a senior news analyst for npr news where she was a Congressional Correspondent for more than 10 years. Additionally she is a political commentator for abc news. Her countless awards for more than 40 years in broadcasting just been inducted into the broadcasting and cable hall of fame cable hall of fame in american women in radio and television cited her as one of the 50 greatest women in broadcast history. Copiously out of several books including we are our mothers the otters an account of womens roles and relationships throughout American History and certainly an appropriate topic for tonights program. I can tell how proud i am to have worked with cokies mom who is here with us today. Lindy was a member of congress a distinguished member of congress and a member of the smithsonians board of regents and the stalwart promoter and supporter of americas Cultural Heritage both in orleans and indeed across the nation. Welcome lindsay boss. [applause] is a distinct honor and privilege to introduce ms. Laura bush presents or eight years as first lady of the nicest bushs continued her active involvement in key issues including education and health care and human rights. She recently hosted a global conference on the needs of women at the newly opened george w. Bush institute in dallas where she directs her global and Womens Initiative project. Mrs. Bush career as a teacher and librarian in particular partial to that because my wife is a teacher, her early career as librarian has helped shape her lifelong interest in letters he and education. During her tenure and white as she focused on Early Childhood development as an enthusiastic proponent of teacher improvement pro cam such as teach for america of the new teacher project and as first lady mrs. Bush helped launch the very Popular Library of Congress FirstNational Book festival 2001 which continues every year and attracts hundreds of thousands of people to the mall every september. In 2006 she took her passion opal to nearly 40 nations through a special summit to address the worldwide literacy crisis. For nearly threequarters of a billion adults cannot. Shes honorary ambassador for the u. N. Literacy decade in the 2005 she made a historic trip to afghanistan visiting the newly opened womens Teacher Training Institute in kabul that she helped establish. And she took friends on lowkey trips to the National Museum of American History and the National Design museum in new york and hosted the National Design awards at the white house and she graciously loaned the white house copy of the gettysburg address which usually resides in the lincoln bedroom to the smithsonian for the opening of the American History museum so millions of americans could have access to that wonderful document now serves on the board of the National Museum of africanAmerican History ladies and gentlemen please welcome Cokie Roberts and laura bush. [applause] thank you so much. Thank you everybody. Thank you very much and i did really love to visit all the smithsonian museums and institutions. They were our neighborhood museums they were so wonderful and such a huge asset to the United States. I am thrilled to be here at the institution of the Smithsonian Institution and to see so many friends. They give very much for coming out tonight. I know theres a lot of people who worked in the Administration Volunteers here to open all those letters. Thank you for everything you did thank you for coming out to welcome me tonight. Im thrilled to be back and see all of you. You may not know i actually lived in washington twice before george and i moved into the white house. We lived in washington in 1987 and 88 when george was working on his dads campaign the first in washington was the summer of 1969 when one of my good friends from Southern Methodist university and i headed east to see what life outside texas would be like. [laughter] we ended up in washington. She got a job at the old garfinkels Department Store and i decided to try my luck at getting a job on capitol hill. I set up with an interview with the congressman from my home district of midland and he represented midland texas for as long as the district had been a district, almost 35 years. The congressman invited me for an interview he looked over my resume and asked if i could type or take shorthand. [laughter] i said no. I took a quick course of typing in Summer School in high school but i pay a lot of attention. The congressman then asked if he thought if i thought my father would consider sending me to secretarial school. [laughter] i thought about what my father had just spent to send me to smu and i said no again. [laughter] and the congressman gently suggested that without being able to type or take shorthand i was not qualified for a position in his office. Had i been a typist however, in the summer of 1969, i might very well have become a congressional staffer in washington. Instead i returned to texas and to Public School teaching and was very happy. Had i stayed in washington i might never have met george w. Bush. So in retrospect im grateful i was turned down by capitol hill. [laughter] [applause] and i would like to take just a few minutes to share with you something from my book how george and i met in midland texas and how both without realizing it began our journey to washington dc. For one year my friends husband joey was telling me he wanted to introduce me to one of his friends. She went to high school and lived with me. After spending a few years in a childhood friend after the oil business george bush was scouring county courthouse records for land that might be leased for drilling wells. I was in no rush i had a vague memory of george from the seventh grade almost 20 years before. [laughter] his dad ran for senate and then lost in 70 when i first went to houston i assumed georgia be very interested in politics while i was not. And then to leave behind it is spent and exhausted world i put on a blue sundress and drove the car around the corner and walked up to the door of the townhouse. Even the roof was cedar brown. The cicadas had this study were along with the air conditioning. It was just the four of us poor. Sitting out back eating hamburgers we laughed and talked until midnight. The next day the phone rang. It was george saying lets go play miniature golf. So we did with the others as our chaperones. It was built among a veritable forest of elm trees which had grown tall and graceful even in the west texas ground. We played golf under the stars and left again and i went back to austin and george started to visit on the weekends. Sometimes he would fly over on a friday night or he would drive that he came every weekend except for the very end of august when he left for maine to see his family. Barbara bush loves to tell the story he spent exactly one day in kennebunkport that summer. When he called my apartment she says some guy answered and he raced with the plane and came right back down. [laughter] by the end of the month george asked me to marry him. We were dating only six or seven weeks but we overlap so completely in the world is so intertwined it says if we knew each other our whole lives. I love how he made me laugh. I knew in my heart that he was the one. I looked at him and said yes. That sunday night when george arrived in midland, he headed to speak to my parents. One week later on a sunday morning we drove to houston to meet his parents. He introduced me with the news that we were getting married. [laughter] after lunch at the bushes home should georges dad pulled out the calendar looking over each weekend that fall in a few minutes we picked a date. November 5th, 1977. One day after my birthday and one day before the anniversary of that awful accident and only three weeks away. No time even to order printed wedding invitations my mother did all of our invitations by hand. Joey and jan dated for years before they got married neither of them dreamed their invitation to dinner would lead us to the altar in three months. Perhaps it wouldnt have if when we were growing up in midland and on the opposite sides of the chateau and almost any other moment prior to that night but at that particular moment both of us were hoping to find someone. We were not looking for someone to date we both wanted children and we were ready to build a future. Those were the facts of our lives when we went to dinner that night. It was the right timing for both of us. Of course not everyone in midland agrees. As i was packing to leave Austin Reagan and billy were selling their house. One week before the wedding and mother from a friend of mine came to see their house. She wanted to buy it for her daughter. Reagan said we will be in midland and without a second of hesitation this woman said yes, can you imagine the most eligible bachelor in midland marrying the old maid of midland. [laughter] reagan was speechless. But i thought it was funny. After all i am four months last two days younger than george. And we made the drive and never imagined making back to live in midland. The frost had already settled on the land. They stood dark and empty against the sky i slowed and watch in silence as they went their migratory way south at the tree that had extended its branches for rest and refuge. It was a beautiful wedding gift on the long ride toward home. We were married on a saturday morning at the First Methodist Church in midland the church i had gone to all my childhood. When i was baptized as a baby where i learned to sing in the choir ours was brief especially because there were no bridesmaids to add those few extra minutes walking down the aisle. It was perfect for the old maid and the eligible bachelor. [laughter] in of the new hilton hotel barb and george posted in the menu is chicken and rice for dinner was served my mother flinched our wedding reception was to be post ceremony luncheon at the racquet club the next day and mother and the caterer had settled on check on chicken and rice. [laughter] mother and barbara never thought to compare menus. The next morning mother call the caterer at the crack of done on crack of dawn to see if anything could be changed pasta instead of rice . But the meal was already in motion so our guests a chicken and rice all over again. [laughter] the morning after my 31st birthday i stepped into the chapel george was waiting for me at the altar when he stood up to give the toast he wept george and his father are deeply sentimental men that wouldve scare the depth the their carrying how much and how deeply how much their own hearts opened. George h. W. Bush didnt even try to get the test on a toast and barbara spoke with the family. [laughter] that morning the stainedglass window sparkled with light casting pretty patterns over the wooden chapel pews it was i later learned exactly 31 steps down the aisle into the rest of my life. [applause] thank you all very much. And Cokie Roberts. As you know i am an enormous laura bush fan. [applause] and i have admired your work but this book is delightful. One of the nice things of the passage that you read is it gives a couple of things. You are a voracious reader. And as you get into the descriptions of texas and your childhood in midland, was there a style you had in mind quick. Not specifically but i did wanted to be a literary memoir. I do love to read. Every kind of book but especially literature. I did want this to be that way. Not a specific style but i wanted to paint the picture. In the short sentence structure . I do like plane and straight writing. That is what appeals to me. And may be with dad affect with the landscape itself. In addition to meeting your husband your good friends appear all through your book. It struck me the whole time you were here your girlfriends from your childhood have remained your really close friends. How important has that then to your life and success . All friends were very important to george and me a very big support in politics. Reagan was in the second grade with george and i met her in fourth grade. She on her mother married seven times only to three different man. [laughter] but she moved from school to school and then into another house and then she transferred and you have a long history of friendship with all those friends from when we were introduced and many others. And we still see and george loves to tell the story the first time they came up each of them to the oval office and said i cant believe im here. And then they look at him. [laughter] and with a long history of friendship like that, they have known this their whole lives, they know everything about us, we were friends long before politics and they are still our friends with great emotional support with those friendships. Reagans mother was wanda. My mother married three times and her philosophy was all of life is one big date. [laughter] when you are married you have to date the man you are married to the before and after him you are free to do what you please. [laughter] you reference a horrible accident and you have written about that in the book. I did and i had to. Obviously the largest tragedy by far in my life and obviously mike douglas his family and our friends because he was a friend of all of us. He dated reagan. And was one of my best friends. He and i talked on the phone every night for years. It was a terrible tragedy to not see a stop sign on a dark country road until too late. By some very odd chance of coincidence i guess, he happened to be coming on the other road. I didnt know i had his car. I was thrown from the car but my friend to get out and walk to the side and then when i got up and i could walk i had a broken ankle but i didnt know it for a few days. And then another car came up the man got out and went over to the person lying on the ground who was mike. We didnt know that at the time. My friend said i think thats his father providing as a persons father i said no it couldnt be his father. That is mr. Douglas. And then when we took him to the hospital we were in a room with the cloth drapes separating us. Very minor injuries. Nobody was there with us but the naked hear them crying on the other side of the curtain. And when i got home my parents told me it was michael but i had started to already figure that out. It was a huge tragedy and a life lesson thats very hard lesson to learn. That things happen to you or you cause things to happen. If you take it back theres nothing you could ever do about it. Its just a fact and accept it with whatever grace you accept it with. But you havent talked about it before now. No. I had. In the 2000 raised it came out in the newspaper i was asked about it several times. I just reread an article Oprah Magazine oprah did in her magazine when she asked me about it. I wasnt asked that often so i never talked about it. People knew because i would get letters from Family Members of someone of a young person involved in a car accident with the death and they would ask me to write to the young person with words of encouragement. So i did and i would always suggest they would get some type of counseling of a pastor or counselor. But i didnt do that nobody ever suggested for me at the time to do that. Nobody really talked about it. Reagan and i did but its something you just swallow. That the whole town new. Of course everyone knew. So does that help when you met george bush that he knew when you didnt have to talk about it quick. May be that we did talk about it because i wanted him to know. I didnt know he would ever run for office but i wanted him to know that for sure in case that would ever in some way affect his political run. Suppose your daughters married someone they just met. That was really reckless. [laughter] that our parents were thrilled. They were hoping for grandchildren that i was 31 the night before we got married so they were happy and then had the same background growing up just blocks from each other and then we lived in the same apartment complex in houston without running into each other. So it really was like we have known each other our whole lives and we knew all the same people. There werent any surprises really. Ever . Nothing in our background. [laughter] and then you find out hes running for congress. That was fun for the congressman that i interviewed with. [laughter] [applause] he taught us all where to sit. [laughter] but anyway he was retiring in 1978 so george thought what the heck. And to travel up and down the panhandle so lubbock and odessa were the big oil towns and the rest was a farming district. I remember talking about a story and that you said the speeches were terrific. When george was running for congress georges mother gave me advice and said dont criticize his speeches. She criticized her georges speech and he went come home for weeks with letters saying it was the best speech he had ever given. [laughter] so i took it to heart i never criticized him and one night we were driving home from lubbock just pulling into our drivewa