>> rachel is the deputy managing editor of political. she said that she be be overseeing coverage of major story like the killing of osama bin laden. before that you may know her as the managing editor of journalist review. next to rachel we have our next guest. she has gone over to the mainstream and she is eligible for the panel. so did jim agreed to step in and we really appreciate him being here. he is a white house reporter for the huffington post. also part of leadership on capitol hill. she has spent 40 years with the legislative and executive branches. probably a walk in the park for her because she started out with the texas state legislator legislature. again, we thank you for that. next to her he is the bureau chief head in washington, he started as a reporter's reporter. about how he likes we like to describe. he is a third-generation newsman. down at the under the table is alex mueller, who gives us a different perspective. he gives us a graphic perspective and he has background in graphic design and journalism. both were rollcall and for the hill. we have experienced much of the industry. those are our panelists. we are very happy to have all of them here. , i am not going to make any kind of presentation. but we would just like to throw out some questions, to jump and come an analyst at jumping in with each other and we will talk about whatever you want to talk about. i would like to ask the panelist to talk about how you do things differently so how is this effective in communicating politics? >> i would like to say that we threw out the mold in terms of stories when we created politifact. we thought that the inverted term and was not going to be the way that they had a whole different form of journalism. it was something where the information was communicated both through an individual and fact check article and also through the collectives. you can see that she has been checked 60 sometimes and she has been rated false. and so you learn something about her and it tells something about the original articles. as we set this up, this tracks the president's campaign promises and we have decided that we would not be slaves to the old form of journalism. we would create something new. >> we will go in order. >> i work for politico which is covering politics and policy and it has expanded a little bit. it continues to expand. we are very much directed at the fast and smart and we do it quicker we are directing it very much as influence makers inside that win out we are explaining things and it has been a real shift to go to the inside perspective this is a way that is punchy and conversational. and this is how we tell our compelling story. >> the we all know what it is. we know if you have a frontpage website, it is kind of like a screening of all kinds of issues out there together. but for me, covering politics is great for a couple of reasons. one reason because you can take an issue that is in the daily grind of news and we have the ability to run with a wire story to kind of get this. that we can put that up and then separately we can actually go do something related to it. that is probably not necessarily the way that someone else would report on it. one thing we focused on is sequestration. it has lost a lot of its wow factor. it is something that has been really fun for me. and they have focused on this subject. and we will talk to families for instance, like in tennessee who are struggling. because their kids are out of the program and they don't know how they will get by every day. and this is part of the daily news current topics. it's a different angle. i like to think of it as more of a injected human aspect of some of these broader policy issues that hit you over the head. so i guess for me, that is one of the main things that i feel like makes it a little bit different from a political reporting standpoint. >> this is obviously aimed at the youth, he canceled a 40 years old, a broad range of people, but it is interesting that we have two things to focus on. the first is that we focus on telling the stories that were in the way that will be viral. this will be part of the front page or facebook. things that we consider on the front page. that requires us to find ways to explain inside the beltway, kind of stories, congressional stories and your average person may not understand or have any kind of real reason to care. and it has been an interesting challenge, we don't always write stories with commodity news kind of stuff, we really try to find ways to extricate those stories in a different manner. interesting things that people are saying or doing as a way to tell their stories. you know, i think everyone has seen us as a general news and entertainment site. i'm sure we have the opposite way of going to this and you may not know who eric cantor is. and for instance why you should care about the fact that media is a way to broaden people's understanding with what was going on with politics. >> at rollcall our bread-and-butter will affect the community in general. we have been doing that for a long time and we are broadening our web presence right now. we are hoping to do a pretty great job of that. the people that live and work on capitol hill. >> how do you kind of bridge that gap so we need to help people that are not inside the beltway understand how this works. >> well, for us, we are very conscious on twitter, facebook, websites like that. so we see something top of and we did this this includes communicating things to each other and also to the broader national audience so this is a particular story or video that someone put on youtube, something like that. we definitely use it as a source. but you know, i think all of us are like this. we are trying to have these very traditional notions it is a new sort of tool to find out what people maybe are interested in. >> we have a more specific audience, politico focuses on these people who are absolutely in the room, making the policy. but we were more likely to also rely on a professor that could tell you about the dynamics or the overview. we wanted to get as close to the action as we could. we look at the original roll call vote. and so we put a heavy emphasis on original reporting. i think unlike some of the other panelists. our metabolism is not quite as -- it's not quite as feverish. but our goal is to do a thorough fact check. sometimes that takes a day and to be as thorough as we can. to take it back and check on them. to rely on secondhand sources. >> so this is something like walking up to someone like marco rubio come you can talk about how he is supporting them immigration reform. but it's also making other people and their party happy. i can talk to him directly. there is a huge rally outside and a big tea party was happening. you can finally imagine what the responses were. but those were separate issues from a different perspective. from a sourcing standpoint, some of my favorite stories are talking to people who came to the capital, those who live in town. that are struggling with kinds of policies. you're talking to people who are not in a bubble. you can get some great stories. i think huffington is sourcing to people. so why not talk to them. >> let's talk about what is happening this week at "the washington post." another is speculation that this could change. i'm kind of interested in your thoughts. >> jeffrey bezos was able to sort of see the future and build amazon before people knew that they wanted to order things online. and i think that that is what has been needed in journalism. anything that they said was pitch perfect in terms of the balance between his commitment to the great journalism post that he is already done and also plenty of clues therefore the future who wanted to see what they were going to do. so i think it's a very positive thing. >> "the washington post" has always been incredible at covering regions. and it is he just kind of have to wonder how they are going to evolve without new mindset. >> i'm a little apprehensive they are onto the paper full-time now and they are concerning. i'm concerned that that move towards a more focus perspective with a younger demographic be helped or hurt by that. especially when their mind is not about local it off and this includes coverage in washington in general and even sports in washington. especially when it comes to reading about a sports team that you like, like the redskins or the nationals. this may not be answered for months or years. on the same and come i do think that the post has been struggling a little bit. and having somebody who said once that such a created online commerce could really create a new renaissance for the post and for all of the old newspapers, which i think is very important. i don't think that they should die. i think that they play a very important role in our society. they are institutions. so i think that that will be a new digital environment and it will be great. >> i think that some things never change. i grew up around here as well. and i have high hopes. some people are kind of excited. i think something had to give and we will see what happens. >> i think it is hard to overstate how seismic this is. their names are synonymous with watergate and what the pentagon papers and the kind of journalism that inspires a generation. so it really feels like a dramatic turn in the industry and built around what a publications and i think there is a sign that there is no more traditional journalism in the sense that we are used to thinking about we think of this in a different age and we have a different period. related to people in way that they can absorb it and get excited about it and the way that they wanted. for big metropolitan papers like "the washington post" and the boston globe and so many others that have been in the news, facing the circulation decline and pressures of on profitability, they have to find a way to thrive if they are going to remain viable at the same time there is a need to transform and succeed in the new world. i think sometimes as an innovator it is easier to take an existing institution and entrenched bureaucracy and figure out how to make that into a new state. that will be an interesting and successful process for them. >> yes, honestly they are coming from different places. and this is a very good point. this is something that you have all mentioned going along the lines here. which is getting the people outside the belly to prepare and see how this matters to them and to see how it is important. i'm wondering if we could go over that. the committee is offering some examples that have worked really well in engaging the audience. how'd he do that and what do you do with that feedback. you know, this is like the stories that you're in a newsroom. it has to be done in october before an election. and hardly anyone reads it because it's not appealing to people. so we came up with this idea. so we go out and do the research. and then get together and have a methodology for this. it is very effective at doing this because it drives people crazy. they go just bonkers about the ratings. they are having discussions about policy. which i guarantee is not happening one of the problems is we've made the transition into the digital age is the expectation we have this in the way it works. and i don't think that they will. >> i think that is a terrific point. you can write this and that happens today, this kind of story or that kind of story and expect anyone to care about it. we do look at it in this way we do use that and it is a committee hearing and as the president has mentioned, the publication. the measures that we look at on top of this. and this will be a delay for employers and obamacare is a mandate as well. we will do that for the best way to coordinate them with politico as well. >> i would say that we have very engaging contact for most of the storage. one of the things was when the senate voted down a background checks bill. there was outcry and people that can believe it. you know, why can't we have this. if you have a story coming personal story about it being accepted, here's a phone number and leave a message. you know, here we go, here's her name and number and we will call you back. we got hundreds of people who call. all of these stories are personal. one of my colleagues went through and we figured out a dozen other stories and we reach out to the 12 people all over the country. they submitted photos. it was like 10 images on the front of the page. and it was just people. it is people that have been affected by gun violence. when you hover the cursor over one of their faces, it would take you directly there and you could hear the audio. and then the people that were not in this bubble tell the story that resonates more broadly and this is getting people to tell stories that they have to read about. the kind of connects the two fields in it way. >> one is in mid-december, over the fiscal cliff fight. i originally did a story about how members were not feeling much pressure from the public. and i have compared this with the point in the fight with the debt ceiling fight in 2011. despite the fact that they had just gone through the grueling election. no one likes to talk about this. especially at christmas. it is indicative of a shift that is going on. so the fights are kind of these fights that are life-and-death. and we want to keep people engaged with what is going on. one of the things that we tried to do that helps with that what i do to illustrate this is one who is working on the contractor and he is divorced and has kids. and he took this job in washington dc. it can be 20% of your pay in some cases. that is what was going to be for him. that reality forced him to reenlist in the military. because they get sort of a year without having to pay taxes. the average american is being forced into these terrible decisions. and this includes the chief justice with the fisa court. he is one of the highest-ranking judges about growing up, about what that meant for him as a justice and how he views this. how he views the legal system. i think that this sort of put a human face on this and what happened is a nice way to sort of show that. >> i agree with john when he mentioned that people seem to be more plugged into politics now than they have ever been before. >> this is important. and this could provide an independent viewpoint or look at what is going on in washington. that is simplifying this. nuanced enough. the were not boiling it down to something where they are not getting anything out of it. i was talking about lawmaker wealth on capitol hill. you know, especially when you talk about this and you can see easily just how this works. again, you can look and see a lot of the people have been on capitol hill. of course, we are talking about this and we are talking about this resource come in this fantastic resource for those to work with her state lawmakers. it affects the decision-making words purely just a resource to learn information about it. and that is the sort of resource that we pride ourselves on. >> he made like $200 lester on his butt. [laughter] >> each of you has worked summerhouse so we are talking about how that is different for you personally. this includes how can we help students prepare for this kind of environment. this includes the organizations that you work with. >> i think they need to learn how to code. i am struck by determinist opportunities for students so we want to take this curiosity of a journalist on the web and mobile devices. >> pushing back on a little bit, i want to say that i don't care if they know how to code. i want to find students who are smart and curious. i was telling them this is the most important factor. i want to see the wheels turning at all times. silences awkward, into menopause, someone asks a question. this includes bag of tricks that we have hasn't changed. we saw to ask for smart questions. we have to be able to write a story that is interesting. one that is interesting and calls people in. i could send a direct message and say no, i'm ready to get out of here and leave the office and i don't want to keep going to have coffee and looking in their eyes. you know, there are so many great new tricks of the trade. >> i have given my spiel and i don't feel like it would include silence. so is it really worth it to try to get into journalism. and it's like, you know, there are a lot of hits that the industry has taken. some people think i'm terrible or tell you that they are terrible. but all in all it's a great job. >> are you interested or curious? bethink the this is fair? this is what needs to be told. because that's what works. and it is the only job in the world where did your job is to tell the truth. that resonates with me because that's a job at the end of the day. when it is a good story, it is the best feeling in the world. you know, there are jobs in the industry and whatnot. but it is that essential excitement of seeing things are wrong in telling people about it. i mean come about is their job. so you know, that is what i think we do is we look for people that are not necessarily ivy league grads who want to look at us. we look for people who are creative and who have different ideas about things that they are interested in because they are curious. >> i actually agree with all of you. you are learning how to do that. i think that it should still be able to, we should have those core set of values. as an editor, if you could teach them how to lead, that will be awesome. >> a neck rub would be awesome as well. >> you read this stuff and everyone talks about how you have these soft leaves and it's always effective. eno commits to something that i can't stand it coming from a traditional sort of hardened his background. and that is sort of a broad thing and that is going to be an awesome way to go about things. but that was also something that we sort advocated. we didn't really understand this boring stuff we sort of wanted to jump down to the very end. now it seems like this is everyone comes into that person makes billions of dollars. and it's a weird thing. maybe you're not explaining it to the world correctly. this includes notions about what was going to have and happen when you have to learn on the job. at the same time they have this energy that because of the 24 hour news cycle, because of twitter, because of facebook and the ability to push stuff out, they have an energy that i don't know that we had when i was 22 or 23 are sold and one at work all day long. i think that is a credit to them. >> i think that it is important for young journalists to always be looking for ways to evolve their storytelling. this includes people creating the stories. i don't think everyone needs to know how to code, but i think that maybe you should have an idea of what it is, what coding is, so that you can create a package that really shines in this could be the most important story. you know, right now it is important to look at ways to make your product unique. >> we are the editors i remember when pages were anything, you know, we have laptops with wifi, pretty much they don't know a world without e-mail or without all of these things. i am constantly amazed when they have these different ways of seeing the world. and that is a thing that is crazy. they do it, and it works. it has been an eye-opening thing over the last year to work with the folks. because i have sort of embraced twitter and i thought it was the sort of silly thing. there was this valuable way than 140 characters is sort of a great lead. it takes me forever to be able to figure out how to write a tweet. >> i know that they know how to tweet and so forth and all of that. but that there is a way that is so valuable. we have created this like we are covering with the president about this zoning meeting. you know, but i think that that is something that emphasizes this. a cover of the school board hearing and then they know that you are valuable and you learn how to deal with people and not be afraid of people when they are yelling at you, when sources are yelling and one a tough story is coming in. all of these things that make you a successful journalist here or anywhere else. >> i feel like we are in this phase of the panel and how we are able to move to a different phase. [laughter] >> i have a lot more questions. i think you guys have things you would like to add. is there anything else you guys would like to pick up on our follow-up on? >> when you are creating politifact, what was the conversation about coming up with a gradient system in dealing with the fear that maybe -- i don't want to say watering things down. >> yes, from the beginning it was a meter this was not going to be seeing it as this is arbitrary. we can knew that that would be a logical reaction for partisans. and so we have started off without a lot of principles. so you want to look at this and you ask, is that a half-truth. especially with british common law. as the caselaw of august, and so there was a willingness to invent overtime this includes the willingness of the "tampa bay times" you stick with it there could be mistakes along the way, i mean, it's a really cool story and a cool creation. it's a cool story of teamwork. but it was a political ax staff that filled in the blanks and made it work. >> has there been a definite change, i worked with journalism in 1973, but has there been a lot of change. he made a great conversation about encouragement and getting leads. >> well, i do think that the rise of caselaw in early 2000 caused this sort of softening for period. i don't really have to talk to a lot of people. and everyone sort of talked about that. but it's not really, you know, very supportive. he is very well versed in economics and things like that. a lot of people thought that that was a reporter. it is like i am a young reporter. i remember those times. i spent hours and hours being screened out by a lot of people about how much of an idiot i was. and this is right or wrong, you take them by the hand and do this, and everything has an effect. >> you know, i know what you are saying. you are not dealing with linked issues anymore. it is topic issues. you are dealing with people and you look at the things that you're talking about. people are talking about the first four or five individuals. where they are clicking on a different source. so you have attention span issues now and in then some of them are pretty good wiederwritd reporters programming coming up so i figured it out, you have to start somewhere. the interns are doing this, some of them are great writers, some are really good reporters. but it is the lead. they tend to bury the lead. they will have all of these clues trying to make this work. and then it's like, oh, senator mccain supports the defense of marriage act. sometimes there is a pressure to write this. her top it with something creative. you are actually missing the content. i would say that i spend a minute talking to the interns before you write this great stuff. you know, start with that and compare the other stuff. >> i absolutely agree with that. >> those are all great points. i call it the most important thing. we do this anecdotally it is also a lot easier to make a mistake because you don't have as many and then you come back and look at it. i think that this is also the same as politics and long-term journalism. .. and or do you put it all in one continuous screen and how do you promote your long firm journalism unto aaron facebook and all the other places you might do it but i think it features extremely bright because we we are all looking fr ways to set our journalism apart from others others and may get different and other stories and i think that's one of the best ways to do it. >> i agree. we have started a long vertical buzzfeed and it's done extremely well. my colleague steve, and eight or 9000 word story about david lee roth a couple of months ago and it was fantastic. a lot of people read it and it reminded you of the old days of sitting down with a magazine and sitting and reading something forever. it was great. he never felt like it was imparted that was there was this push on the internet frankly to make everything fast. get it out first and that necessitates things be very short and i think consumers of news are starting to shift back a little bit and say okay there are 5000 of you and all of you are tweeting or posting the same four sentences identically at the same time. as senators we are starting to say i want to see more of that and i think this push back towards content over speed being first among consumers is driving to a certain degree this resurgence resurgence of long read journalism so i think it's going to be good. >> i agree with that and the general longform initiative. we have an app that's for longform pieces. they also are specifically for people who want to read it on their kindle's or whatever. to me it's just about repackaging the way you present longform. it's not that longform is going away and i feel excited and hopeful for it. they are encouraging us in a place where there's so much stuff than we do of some of this fast all the time. it has encouraged us if we have long-term pieces to go for it. if we want to add certain pictures onto the piece or a video that goes with it not too distracting from it but in a way putting it altogether where it works for you are engaged with it and i feel there is a lot of potential there. >> before we go on let me ask alex because jen just mentioned a sign. does the plot -- design fit into long firm -- longform? >> incorporating video or audio sorted to accent the story itself whether it's you know you will leave that longform piece or whatever and you can click to listen to the actual interview of the reporter with the individual or they just set up a camera during interview and you can watch that as an addendum to the story you just read. that provides just a different aspect of what you are looking at. you can see that person and you can hear that persons emotion or see that person's reaction to the questions and get a real feel for what the actual conversation was light. and it's important to provide images and you know whether you you are reading a long "sports illustrated" and there are narratives throughout just to keep the reader there and provide new visual stimulation because whether you are a person reading newspapers or journalism or a person writing it a lot of gray can be very daunting and it's interesting to see that you guys are all watching long read products that are in a specialized location on your web site, right? is almost like you don't want to smack the reader of the bed with a long piece unwittingly but you want them to know that there is a place they can go where they can read a longer piece about something they might be interested in. they can sit down when they have some time whether it's on the train or am i can meet somewhere and they can read this and plan ahead because they see something interesting that they like instead of accidentally clicking on it and putting it away for later and then forgetting about it. it's interesting to see how that has evolved. >> thank you. oh gosh here and then behind you. this lady here next to sean. >> a little bit more about how marketplace pressures affect the work that your organization does? years ago there was the camel news hour. today there is more instances of advertising perhaps masquerading as journalism. >> are you trying to get us in trouble? [laughter] >> you asked about the sponsor content in that kind of thing? >> just perhaps what challenges your organization has faced in either keeping that it may or trying to do something with it? >> for us we are a little bit different than a lot of organizations because we don't have advertisement. we don't have down there at some we don't have pop-up ads and things like that. the advertising that is done on our site is responsive content and is labeled as such. it says this post is sponsored by or written by the acme widget corp. and it is very much in line with how we do things in terms of how the advertising is generally written in presented mostly because we do viral marketing. if the advertisements are done the same way the way we get our stories out is to write them in a way that people will quickly share them with each other and advertisement that is done on our site is similar i think. i don't know whole lot about it and i'm not sure even know anybody that actually does any advertising but it's the traditional bright line between the two. but i mean that that is sort of how it is. that is how we do it at least. >> i'm not sure how they do it either separate from those who make the decisions. our stories and pages are like and adhere and a video ad here or something but i don't even notice them honestly because i might looking for the content. i really don't know if it's challenging. i'm not really sure. >> i think there is still a strong desire in these rooms to keep advertising separate from the work we do and as we have all been saying to market specifically as advertising so there's no confusion. every newsroom i have been as focused on keeping that separation i think that remains absolutely critical to the success of our business. having said that i think there is a little bit less -- it used to be the business would be entirely separate and there would be this fear of i can't think about is this because i'm on the editorial side and i don't think that's the quite same as it used to be. i think there's a greater level of comfort that journalists might speak to business or events team. they wouldn't say anything they wouldn't say on "msnbc" or any other audience but i think editors in general across the business and editors of the paper paper and track for the business the business i've been amazed and i think as long as that doesn't come at the expense of journalism and the integrity of the journalism it's necessary to keep the business healthy. >> i agree. we would never let a roll call our business influence what we are reporting or anything like that or where we find stories in our paper but we have started a topic blog which is listed on our site and is run by boeing. they pay us to have this blog on our site and it set off to the side. it's very up front about not it it -- it not being -- roll call is not writing the stories for this blog. it's building material and they pay us for the senate is essentially an advertisement. it has been well received in the industry and it's a testament to our new editor. he saw this outlet, salt this opportunity and ran with it and i think we are probably going to start more blogs like that. i i am not is up on an information as he is obviously but it's a new way to build revenue for your products. the unfortunate reality is that you have to do it somehow. so it's bowling a defense contract. >> in our case, politicized is an interesting animal in that although it's a product of "the tampa bay times" it has 11 partner news organizations that also provide content as state political text sides of "the cleveland plain dealer" and the newark star-ledger. so i don't think any stand-alone sizes make enough revenue from ads to pay the bills for the reporters of the news organizations do it because it's great content and they want to have it not just on their poltifact sites but also in their other products and their mobile products. fortunately i think it's being viewed as a public service so so it doesn't have to make a profit because the newspapers believe that they should be doing it as a public service to readers. so the newspapers in effect subsidize it. we have also gotten some money over the years from foundations particularly from the knight foundation and i think that's another avenue with great promise for supporting the fact-checking and public service journalism to get additional revenue from foundations. >> thanks. a lot of people have questioned so i think i'm going to ask the panelists if one or two people could respond and if you have something you feel you must say we will go on with questions. >> hi. i have a question about legitimacy and this might go a bit more to "huffington post" and buzzfeed, not that i don't love the jokes about the top 10 cat videos. i am just wondering in light of michael hastings death which i think he was the most fantastic journalist and i was so sad about how the new york times obit was written about him in the journalism that he did kind of de-legitimized him and the journalism he did and what has been done in buzzfeed in my mind and then also this questioning of ben greenwald and his david gregory questioning whether he's a journalist or not and what is it to be a journalist? i feel feel like it's strange today we are still fighting those battles of who is a journalist and who is not a journalist and where questioning sites and people that are doing really good journalism so how do you come up against these you know impressions that buzzfeed is a list site fighter "huffington post" is ariana's pet project of whatever she wants to say that day and stuff like that? [laughter] >> on the topic of the times obit it's ironic because it frankly was a pretty good example of what is not in fact journalism in my opinion and was terrible. so there is that. on the broader question of saying buzzfeed has this fluffy content, i always point back to the 1930s and the trial of this silent movie star and was accused of a believe it was murdering and having sex with an underage girl. it was on the front page of every single newspaper in the united states for a year and a half. it was the biggest story during the depression. during the worst economic period in this country's history this was the top story. we have created this notion in my mind that for some reason that journalism, there were decades long period of serious news and doing serious and kim kardashian's was not a thing that anybody wrote about it and suddenly the destruction of journalism in the last decade this has become what we have written about and it's wrong. the history of this profession has been that oath of those things are talked about because frankly that is what people want to know. they want to know about what's going on with kim kardashian. they want to know what's going on with sports teams. they also want to know when a general is thing crazy and saying bad things about the commander-in-chief. they want that kind of journalism and i've never understood the notion that those things can coexist together perfectly well are frankly this idea that well there are serious journalist to write the stories about politics in these other idiots who do this stuff. trust me i have tried to write a story several times that it's very difficult to do. it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of skill and an eye for the people who want to read it and intend to read it. and it's just doing -- of cats is a serious business is writing a story. >> i read the top 20 things about growing up in the 80s that was awesome. >> requires you to have a depth of knowledge and an understanding to relate your information to the reader. those are exactly what made a good journalist in any part of this business whether a sportswriter at political writer so that is my take on it. >> to me, i've thought about this too and to me there's a difference between journalism and the things people want to talk about and to me they are both valid and huffington is a good example. we have q cats and we have what is miley cyrus doing her hair click she is almost bald now, my god. those things are there now. people do want to talk about that stuff even if for five minutes to laugh at their girlfriends. people want to talk about all kinds of stuff and to me it's there. that's the way it works but then there are stories that are next to those stories that are well reported pieces of journalism and that is the way it works at huffington. the miley cyrus stories and the cute cat pictures, those are like catnip to people. they come to the site and they are clicking on them and hopefully this is the model of huffington. while they are there clicking on the fun things in the wild airport at work at three times the 30th inaction and their order and don't want to work anymore they will notice the story next to that about the latest fight over closing abortion clinics in texas or something and a real substantive issue that has been reported on by someone who has talked to people, left her house and met with people in wrote a really good piece. that is next to the stories. that is journalism and to me it's, again it comes down to basic stuff. you have things that you want to talk about in there is journalism and does that mean they are not both worth reading about? i think they're both fine. i read heavy stories and then i want to click on the 20 cutest cats born in 2012 but i also want to know what's going on in texas. it's a well reported piece is journalism and if it a bunch of photographs with funny captions i love those. it's not like journalism as it is a fun read. it's not that hard to differentiate to mandate is great that they coexist together. together. in it together. and they and its like human interest, right? >> if you like those you must check out 20 reasons why john stanton should be -- [inaudible] [laughter] here in the gentleman next to him. >> i've a question about the archiving of their content. a lot of you are digital and only digital and as someone who thinks about capturing content for the future, what if anything of your content could you go back and get from years ago or let's say that you are continuing on in the next 10 years? is someone going to deal to come back and get content from today 10 years from now? >> i think that's a great and important question and if somebody now moving into academia and looking for links that i can give my students for readings every week i can't tell you how many broken links i found the last two or three weeks. it's so frustrating. when we created politifact we said that it was going to be as important for people to be able to look things up as it is for them to see the latest fact checks so there has been a commitment from the start to archiving and in addition the head of the newsletter of the tampa bay times was committed that we would also give all of our content to nexis so politifact's contents preserve both places but man, you just want to -- somebody to put some energy at every news organization and fixing all those broken links and you know that content has got to be around somewhere but the link just isn't taking you there. it's a huge loss because there are some good stories. sometimes the link will time out out and you'll have a a news organization that will say this link can only be used for two weeks because they want to be able to charge for access. but that's a real big issue. >> the news research centers or the news libraries so what used to be the place responsible for collecting and archiving is gone and those functions have not been absorbed by other people when the news organization and it's especially concerning for the digital publications. >> i'm with you. [laughter] >> that is a great question and theoretically although work should be findable on the internet and forever on the internet so there is that but in practice, sometimes at politico we update stories over and over and as they story updates we call it -- and switch into the analysis piece. i find myself more often telling editors let's just start a new link because i want to preserve the original story for people who are looking for it. so there is bad for us to be conscious of this well. >> there is protocol for that a news organization so you'll have like i'm putting together things on the new town shootings and trying to find their early error ridden stories. they have all been written through and it's like well u. now they blogpost are gone are the story has been gone through and there is no protocol in journalism four will, how do you do that and what stories get it and what story stone and how do you signal to her breeder this is an old story and if you want the correct stuff go to the story. we haven't sorted that out yet. >> you right, and we will often put on the top of the story is there something significant that is new we will stay updated at the top. we just updated and the original version wasn't there and it's been after all updated. it's something we are actively thinking through newsrooms right now. >> how much you discuss defining a role comb for defining the presidential field for 2016? we hear a lot about rand poll in marco rubio and hillary clinton and joe biden but no paul ryan or mario cuomo. >> i just read about mario cuomo, andrew cuomo i guess. we have a debate about it all the time. our reporters are very reluctant to become part of this, the cottage industry of the next presidential election the day after the last one. >> that is our cottage industry and we will stay with that. >> but the reality is we all do it. i think right now it least i've been impressed as an industry and not getting too far ahead of ourselves and allowing it to be the players. paul ryan is not doing anything to really make it look like he is running for president right now. i feel like it probably is but he is keeping a lower profile than rand paul is. and so i think right now certainly most of the reporting that i see frankly has been pretty good about keeping it limited to the people that are made the moves towards that. >> donald trump? [laughter] >> others? >> we started off earlier in this discussion talking about a bio with "the washington post" and with a heritage traditional media site like that one of the things they do we know it does berg and this whistleblowers but let's say snowden's best friend came forward that he needs to be the whistleblower on some sort of management. you're not "the washington post" i mean -- chris fee would handle it the same way. i think the guardian has done a very good job of being good stewards of information. there is tons and tons of information way more than anybody realizes that snowden gave, we are not going to use this for whatever reason it's going to put somebody in danger or whatever. and i think they did a much better job than some of the others. "new york times" has erred in my opinion too much on the side of caution in some cases and you know i think they are to a certain degree of model of how to handle that frankly. >> you know what's interesting in an era of citizen journalism snowden shows to go through traditional journalists and greenwald obviously being one with a strong viewpoint but still being a journalist he very easily could have just posted that stuff on the web somewhere. he did not need journalists but he did and it would be fascinating to talk to him about it because i presume he knew that if you just posted it on a web site somewhere it would be shut down whereas if he could enlist mark gilman and greenwald , that they would give credibility and protection to him. and so it's been a fascinating episode and yet he really didn't have to have them and probably had he put it up wikileaks would have taken a snapshot of it and there could've been a waste to keep it up. >> you hasn't organization that could go to bat for you. the guardian is an organization that can do that with leap and especially some of the smaller no longer small but started off smaller organizations with the upper management say yes, run that story. we think small citizen bloggers like you said would back away from that in a heartbeat. >> we just had a series on ecuador and on some of the domestic spying that the government is doing and snowden was looking to go there. and the government enlisted. >> to put the screws on us to get some of the documents we have gotten taken down from file-sharing sites and a few of them agreed and there was never a question. we had a legal team to talk to them and there was never a question that we would protect not only rosy but the story and make sure that the sites but the information back up and we back hard and they did. i think i have worked at roll call and here and both and i think all of us come from that same place. >> absolutely and i think we have all worked in organizations where the top leaders -- readers are respected journalist and obviously we would not back down from a fight if we felt that was the right fight to be having. >> in my sensor would be handled the same way and glenn greenwald's approach to doing this. >> you one more questions or two. anymore questions? final thoughts? tell us one thing that has been the most fun. just go down the list. for you in this new endeavor. in journalism. >> one one thing that's been the most fun in life? >> in life. in your role. [laughter] >> i think the new media world creates great opportunities for invention and did my previous job at politifact i loved working with people to invent and it was great fun and some of the most fun i had was sitting in meetings coming up with stuff and i think in my juke -- new job i'm looking forward to different kinds of things. i just think this is a time of invention and i think there is a great spirit in journalism to do that. >> i agree with that. i think the creativity and the adrenaline of the new media world are both incredibly exciting and as journalists here in washington where practically everything we are covering feels like a first whether that's the debt ceiling brinksmanship or anything else. i feel like we are living in historic times and we have a new way of covering those times to get the news out more quickly and are effectively than ever. so it's very exciting time to be a journalist in washington. >> yeah, i mean it's fun. it's fun to be a journalist in d.c. right now. it frees me up to take all kinds of different approaches to stories i previously would have been able to write. really quickly i'm thinking of one now. i had a twitter exchange within the republican congressman about marriage and we went back and forth and back and forth and no one was following us. he said he didn't think we should have the defense of marriage act and this was like a republican congressman and libertarian but that was a new story i wrote afterwards and i put that suites into the story and publish it on the site. it was a really fun exchange and random people on twitter were jumping into the conversation and stuff like that. even five years ago i couldn't have done that and it's really fun right now. >> i guess the marriage fight and the broader emphasis we have been putting on the lgbt community has been the most interesting and fun part for me at this job and it's been something that since i came on last year it's been a miniature focus of the site and we now are dealing with the olympics in that kind of stuff. i find it to be gratifying to be a site and a news organization that is focused on this very important civil rights issue right now. that moment when we get to say yes and 30 years we were working on this and paying attention to it and it was an important thing. so for me that has been the best thing. >> i agree with everybody. it's interesting to see the role social media is playing. it creates a story or you can mine social media for story ideas or sources. it's an exciting time to be a journalist especially in d.c. because we are seeing history being made right now and it's incredible. it's really an important time to be paying attention to politics and so it's exciting to try and get those stories out there to as many as possible. >> a perfect notes and done. thank you alex and thank you so much. [applause] >> i don't want to volunteer their time but -- [laughter] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> what you did your father by the book? the 1933. he had just gotten out of the government and had been out about three weeks. he had been governor of the federal reserve board and started the reconstruction finance under hoover and state as federal reserve chairman for a little while and to under roosevelt and then he resigned because he didn't like roosevelt's monetary policies and went to mt. kisco. the the post came out three weeks later for an auction on the steps of the building and he lauded anonymously. c-span: what did he pay for it? >> guest: $825,000. c-span: how many newspapers were in washington then? >> guest: there were five in the post was fifth in a field of five so it had about a circulation of 50,000 and a pretty broken down building. so he started in and he was a businessman and he thought he knew how to turn around businesses but he really had never had any newspaper experience and he and conquered the most horrendous difficulties in finding his way up. he really did a terrific job starting with nothing. in her book "capturing camelot" kitty kelly profiles photojournalist stanley tretick the coverage on that kennedy during his 1960 presidential campaign. the author talks about the book at the gaithersburg book festival. this is 45 minutes. >> we are gathered today to hear from one of the most controversial authors of the last few decades. list of literary subjects he has enlightened defended embarrassed and even endangered ranges quite far from presidents first ladies to connected -- and the great powerful opera praise be her name. personal effects including growing up in a beautiful northwest and somehow finding her way to new york city which i suppose she found too boring and simple. she made her way quickly to d.c. and worked in senator eugene mccarthy's office on the west side where, he'll end up must have been your catalysts for your love of investigative reporting. she was a researcher at "the washington post" and began a lifelong career of prolific freelance writing. his long career in news and commentary has been at senate with best-selling investigative looks and the upper that came with them such as jackie o elizabeth taylor the last start, nancy reagan unauthorized biography, the royals conquer the family the real story of the bush dynasty oprah biography and of course my favorite his way and unauthorized biography of frank sinatra. it's a really great book and an change in direction ms. 's recent book "capturing camelot" stanley tretick's -- stanley tretick's iconic images of the kennedys a great book and very well put together. personally these picture books mean more to me when the captions are well researched and thought out and a bit more pros than he would normally find which is what ms. kelley did with this book. never failing to raise a few eyebrows while uncovering stories about our shared history and doing a wonderfully painful chapter reminding us her heroes are very human please welcome to the festival kitty kelley. [applause] >> the only part of that introduction that isn't quite right is the prolific. it takes me four years usually. you have to be careful. prolific as a turtle. it takes me four years usually on each book. but this one, this book was a labor of love because stanley tretick was one of my very best friends and he was one of president kennedy's favorite photographers. i used to go visit stanley in washington. one time i asked him, to what do you have in the marine corps locker that he used his his coffee table? danley, what do you have been there? he looked at me and he said pictures. i dropped the subject. years later when stanley died, he left me his archive mandate delivered the marine corps locker to my house and my husband said what is in there? and i said, photos. he said come on, let's open it. i said i don't want to remember stanley that way. he said we have got to open this stanley was a great photographer. i've got to see those in my argued about it for a while and when he opened it, it was not photographs at all. it was the most sentimental store of kennedy photographs and artifacts and letters and handwritten notes from the president and the first lady. anyway, so i'm going to show you some of them and tell you about them. but because this was the 50th anniversary of the kennedy administration and because stanley had left me these photographs, i really wanted to share them. i didn't want to just donate them you know, to a library where they would sit in the dust in the people would never see them. so, this photograph which is on the cover of the book comp that came with an exclusive for days that stanley spent with president kennedy and his son and he did it to do a cover story for "look" magazine. visit stanley. not robert redford and not dustin hoffman but the guy in the middle with the camera. stanley's passion in life is covering politics and he was very close to the kennedys but he also did a lot of special stills from movies like all the presidents men and urban cowboy and a lot of robert redford movie is, a lot of warren beatty movies and dustin hoffman movies so i just wanted you to see what stanley looked like in his prime. stanley was a marine photographer in korea. he took this picture which military times says is one of the 100 best photographs showing military combat. i found it so moving that i included it in the look just to tell you a little bit about stanley. this on the face of it is one of those linen linen things your great aunt nellie might have had in her guest bathroom, iron and it's imported with jfk. when i went through the marine corps trunk, i found this. i thought i knew everything about stanley. we were friends for years and years and years, but he never mentioned anything about this towel. i could find no record of it in the trunk and i did wonder if maybe, maybe when he went to hyannis port one of those times he might give pinched it. i don't know, and it could be that mrs. kennedy gave it to him. i doubt it, but the reason i have included this picture of the towel is that to me, this became rosebud for stanley tretick. you remember citizen kane? when i knew stanley, it was years after he covered the kennedys and when i met him he was driving a silver bmw and wearing a cartier watch and cashmere sweaters and he was driving me in washington one time through a real bad area. he slowed down and i said why are you slowing down here? he said you see that window up there and he pointed to a rat invested building, the uninhabited and there was a towel and a broken 30 window. he said to me,, that towel says it all. he said that is where i came from. and i thought, when i was doing the research for that book he really did come from poverty but because of hard work and immense talent come to he did very very well. he was very very prosperous. so i put the towel in there because i do think it's the key to stanley. oh and then these in the trunk as well. the pt boat then that jfk gave. this plexiglas box that the president gave to all those people who traveled with him on the caroline which was the private plane that his father bought him for the presidential campaign. stanley capped off those things and they were wrapped up in the trunk. you will see pictures of them in the book. okay, this starts the photographs in the book. this picture was taken at valley forge when president kennedy was campaigning, excuse me senator kennedy is campaigning. he is right there. the thing that is so extraordinary for us to be looking at this in the year 2013 , and no security and the press is is up 2 feet from the candidate and these are the crowds that turned out. you can see, it just says something about a time and a place that we don't get anymore. there are no teleprompters either. this is what stanley called a hand shot. this was his favorite photograph of president kennedy. he is on top of a convertible and standing behind him as governor pat brown of california. it's during these fall election. i said to stanley, ways that particular photograph so important to you? he said, because i think it shows the charisma of a movie star and the appeal of the politician that has come together in a way that we haven't seen before. i said well, so what about eisenhower? he was a hero. he was a war hero. he said i covered ike but i never saw pictures like this when people are reaching out. stanley also said about president kennedy that he felt that kennedy didn't revel in the adulation. there was a certain remove. he would do anything to be elected to stanley said but he wasn't turned on by the grasping appeal of the crowds. this was taken at valley forge. can we go back one? i beg your pardon, this is in los angeles and he has to -- standing on top of a convertible. he is standing up and taking it down. he is not in the picture. this was president-elect kennedy's very first press conference in palm beach after the election. he had flung from his father's mansion in palm beach and caroline came out in her mother's high heels and her little bathroom. and interrupted the press conference. president kennedy had wanted to appoint j. william fulbright secretary of state but it does fulbright was a segregationist and kennedy had made a commitment to civil rights, fulbright is in the picture to the side. he could name him but as a courtesy he invited them down to palm beach to tell him why. this is a photograph of the christening of little john kennedy junior. stanley was the photographer that was designated to go in and get all the pictures for the rest of the photographers. stanley was born jewish. his grandfather was a rabbi. he told me that when he went in the pre-said you are pro-and i'm sure you know your way around here. stanley said father i have never made a bar mitzvah. so he has his cameras and lenses and president is wheeling mrs. kennedy and interestingly she was still in the hospital two weeks after the birth of her child. those of you who have had children you know you are in and out but it was two weeks and president kennedy brought her into the chapel. he saw stanley who was looking around for a place to plant and he saw him going over towards the statue of the less said. kennedy went -- [laughter] stanley looked at him and went went -- than, fbn stanley said mr. mr. president that does to get some pictures and he kept snapping and he took the whole ceremony of the priest and the baby and the whole ritual of putting the water in the oil blessing and so forth. then, stanley kept taking pictures and kennedy went no, because he didn't want this particular picture that was going to be flashed around the world showing any kind of church background. this is how sensitive the issue of kennedys being catholic at the time was. and even after the election he did not want pictures of statues or a crucifix or a church setting. he had made a very courageous speech in houston to the protestant ministers who were opposed to putting a catholic in the white house and he basically said mike church does not speak for me on public issues and i did not speak for my church on church issues. he seemed to put the issue to rest with you will remember that election he won by a whisker of 1%. there were no more than 118,000 votes in that election. on -- and the part that bothered kennedy the most, was the most was the floats coming back from hyannis port because up to that time the wasps had never accepted the lace curtain irish kennedys in hyannis port. kennedy knew to the last vote it was 4873 votes for nixon and 1230 floats for kennedy. that was the one that bothered him the most. this picture of president mrs. kennedy coming back from the blair house was jacqueline kennedy's favorite picture. she told stanley that they both realized that president kennedy was not any emotionally demonstrative man. and didn't like and a public show of affection. but coming back from blair house he reached over and he took a wisp of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. she is looking at him adoringly. it's a very intimate gesture and after the assassination jackie asked stanley for this picture because she said it was her very favorite. so of course i had to include it in the book. this is a picture of mrs. kennedy as first lady on the first state visit that the kennedys made to canada. when i was curating this book going through about 300 photographs many of them had never been published before. it was impossible to find one bad photograph of a family. they just cannot take a bad picture. they were beautiful people. they were young and even the candid shots when they were not looking, they are fabulous. president kennedy cared very very much about image and as some of you heard many old sensei time and life in "look" magazine were the driving image movers in the country at that time. even in 1960, 87% of people had television but most people got their news from the newspapers. so the pictures that went out on the wire services really introduced the country to the president. and stanley was working for upi at the time and the other wire service that course was associated press. the ap kept changing their photographer that upi kept stanley on the entire time. so no other photographer traveled with the president and at that time senator kennedy as much as stanley did. now, there is a scrum of photographers that travel with the candidate but at that time it was only the wire services and then when they hit a city like philadelphia or los angeles they would pick up local guys. but for the most part it was simply the wire services. stanley told me kennedy would not pose for a picture. he said if it happens he can take it. no posting. i don't want anything corny. the other thing he would never let stanley catch him coming his hair. he was very vain about his hair. he had great hair but he would not be photographed combing his hair. he would not be photographed eating and he wouldn't be photographed with any kind of a hat except for a hard hat. that when he bored with pride because he felt he was getting criticized as the son of a very rich man and at that time joe kennedy was worth $400 million which in 1960 made him one of the 10 richest americans. so kennedy was very very sensitive about that. in fact after the vote came and stanley said to him, 12 that was a squeaker. he said no reason for dad to buy a landslide. [laughter] anyway, you will see a couple of pictures i hope of the struggle with the indian headdress and other hats. this is mrs. kennedy, the first lady, at the state dinner for the shah of iran. she was so nervous about how the shop and they would come in. schaub and it did come with this great crown of emeralds and diamonds as big as hard-boiled eggs. mrs. kennedy went to harry winston and borrowed her jewels for the evening and she felt she had really done it. they came out on the president says oh she's really -- this time. she looks quite regal and beautiful so it's included in the book. this is president kennedy on his first date to visit with charles degaulle to check jackie was quite enamored with all things french. this was the trip to paris that made jacqueline kennedy an absolute star and president kennedy very famously remarked that would like to introduce myself. i am the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris and i have enjoyed it very much. this is caroline kennedy at hyannis port. jacqueline kennedy as first lady was ferocious about protecting her children. she did not want the children photographed at any time. and the word went out peter salinger the press secretary was absolutely terrified of jackie. the press on the other hand began to see the value of these children and how adorable they were. stanley went to hyannis port to photograph the shriver family for a cover story he was doing for "look" magazine and he was under orders not to photograph the president's children but he said he couldn't help himself. when maria shriver came over sheep gave caroline that postcard and she said that the president. caroline said it is not, it's my daddy. she said it's the president to matt. she said no it isn't an stanley said he just couldn't help himself. he found himself snapping picture after picture. this is caroline waiting on that dock for her father to come back at hyannis port during that trip and stanley was not supposed to take any pictures of them. this is a famous picture called a golf cart. stanley was at hyannis port and saw the president get into his golf cart and the president would drive a few feet and clapped his hands and all the little kennedys and shriver's and smith's and lawford's would come piling on and jump into the golf cart. they would go off to the candy store. stanley said mr. president that's a wonderful picture and i would really love to take it. it just shows such appeal and warmth and the president said i would check with jackie. he came back to stanley and he said you can take the photograph but it can't be with caroline and john in the golf cart. so that is the picture and this is the picture that is huge if any of you up into the kennedy library in boston. they have a huge marrow of this but you won't find caroline or john in the golf cart. august 131963. when i was going through stanley's archive to do this book, i found about 200 photographs from the march on washington that has never been published before. so, and trying to behave myself so that i can come back next year because i have another photo book coming out on the march on washington. it's called let freedom ring. this is one of the photographs. this is after the march. the kennedys were terrified of this march. the whole city of washington had been shut down. businesses closed in the government close. everybody thought there were going to be a riot and bloodshed in the streets and it turned out to be 250,000 people at a sunday picnic. it was a joyous wonderful occasion. the president had been terrified and after the march in fact he would not speak at the march. one reason he would not speak was because martin luther king was such a fabulous orator that john kennedy knew that he didn't want to follow him. and he also, if there was a riot didn't want to be in the midst of it so he invited what they called the big 10. those are the 10 speakers that spoke about march. at first there were just six speakers but showing the vision of martin luther king in planning this march he said we have got to reach out. it's got to be inclusive. you've got to have christians, you've got to have labor. so they expanded and secretary of labor works is fair, whitney yong, dr. king, a. philip randolph, president kennedy, vice president johnson, walter luther and i don't know who that is on the far right. this was the meeting that took place in the white house after the march. but to see all the pictures from the march the book will be out in august. by the way i do want to tell you that this book can't do it so easy for me to promote it and tell you about it because i am not profiting from this. all the royalties go to the d.c. public libraries. all of it. [applause] the book that will be coming out in august, all the proceeds from that book will go to the children's defense fund. [applause] this is part of this famous photo shoot. stanley had been after the president to do a cover story on the president and his son. it took him 18 months to get the story. the president said it's a great idea and i would like to do it but jackie i don't know. and then when the little kid turned to the president and said i have to be very honest with you. he's going to the stage right now where he doesn't like me. [laughter] stanley said the president was kind of embarrassed telling fest but stanley said we will keep at it. you keep working with their irving and for some reason stanley called john kennedy junior irving. everybody else called him john john. one reason for kennedy said we didn't really call him that but they did because the president didn't want him to be called jack select so they called him john john. stanley called in irving. anyway mrs. kennedy took a vacation and she went to greece after the death of their child in august of 63 little patrick bouvier kennedy. the day she left washington evelyn lincoln called stanley and said the president says the coast is clear and you had better get over here. stanley arrived at the white house and he waited and yes this is the probably the most iconic photograph taken of the president in the oval office. john john came over to say goodnight to his father and he ran to play in a secret place which was under the president's desk. he popped out, opened the door and stanley knew that he had a photograph. stanley said, he said i know when i shut off that's the only picture that anyone is going to remember and it is quite true. in olivas opitz they did run this picture. this is caroline coming down to see her father before she started school up in the white house solarium. mrs. kennedy didn't want the children going to school so she started a school for her kids and for the kids of cabinet officials. so caroline came to say hello to her father. it's so endearing that i had to put it in. this is a picture obviously of john junior at his father's desk and the president vetoed out of all the pictures stanley took and andy did show them for approval. this was the only one the president said no you cannot publish this because it looks like we looks like we are being too playful in the oval office. so it was never published until now. and this is president kennedy after he made that nanny get john to have a haircut so that they could pose for pictures together for father's day. it was a matter of discussion which photograpphotograp h would be used in the book and the editors agreed that this would be the one. this is an endearing picture when you realize that john f. kennedy could barely bend over. one thing that came through when i was doing the research for this book is the amount of pain, to stress, disease that really plagued the president. he had numerous back operations that never works. he had a steel plate inserted into his back that became infected and had to be operated on again. he got the last rites to times and it's interesting that this is the man who represented youth and vigor and a new frontier in the white house and he hid his disabilities quite well. i doubt that he would be able to do that now, that but he did at the time. this, for him to bend over he told told stanley it bothered him very much. he could rarely left his children up and he could not run with them too much, couldn't play touch football as much as he likes to but john is running to what he called his father's father's -- marine one the white house helicopter. as soon as he got off the president come to know if you can see in the picture, but knowing that the president could barely bend over it is a very sweet photograph. this is a picture of jacqueline kennedy less than a year after the assassination. stanley went to her and said that he wanted to do a story to show that she and the children were resilient and strong and they were able to cope. she didn't want to do it at first. stanley went to robert kennedy and jackie agreed. and so robert kennedy and ted sorensen jackie and the two kids and stanley went up to hyannis port. he took a series of photographs that are quite extraordinary and jackie signed this one. for stanley with a personal restriction which is in the book. this is from the same photo shoot. mrs. kennedy with the two children. this is a photograph taken of caroline and john and hide park in london after the assassination. the queen dedicated -- to president kennedy and stanley was a wonderful photographer but he was also a very good rider. he would make notes to his editor and he kept copies of all the letters he sent to his editor and the back-and-forth that went on. there is a wonderful 10 page memorandum called my agonizing 10 days in london with jackie. [laughter] and it goes into very funny detail about how he had to follow her around. she said you can come but pretend you are not there. i don't want anyone to think i have my own personal photographer. anyway, that this picture was taken in hide her and caroline is a real horsewoman. she loved it like her mother. john was allergic to horses and jackie did not want his picture taken because any time they got around forces his little eyes would feel like he would start crying and she never wanted a photograph of the president's son crying. stanley took it. after the assassination stanley was very very close to robert kennedy and stanley started knowing the kennedys back in the late 50's when he covered the committee and robert kennedy was counsel and senator kennedy was on the committee. this picture was taken in 1968. it was taken a few days before the assassination and it is the photographs that ethel kennedy decided should be on a postage stamp. so, this was the picture. stanley was so slammed by the assassination of robert kennedy that he took four months off his job and didn't work for a wild. and i think he kind of lost his heart for coverage. he kept on working all of his life up until that the time he had had a stroke and in fact he covered the carter campaign and president carter asked him to come to the white house and be the white house photographer. i remember asking stanley, why didn't you do that? he said i just didn't think that carter would give me the kind of access that the white house photographer really needs and that might have been true but i do think that stanley had lost a little bit of hearts. he was especially close to robert kennedy and traveled with him every single day and every single night of the campaign. he had gone to him before and he said you know years ago i had gone to president kennedy and told him for the second campaign for his re-election i would like to cover him in a way that no other photographer or journalist has ever done before and i would like complete access to all meetings to be able to photograph it anytime and take any kind of notes. robert kennedy said absolutely. so, it was during -- in other campaiasng. he made hian of 68 and he was assassinated in june of 68. stanley's archives contain thousands of pictures most of which again have never been published but this one has. is that it? we did it. [applause] we did it. [applause] i would be happy to answer any questions you might have about the book, about stanley. >> kitty, --. >> could you step up to the microphone there so everyone can hear you? >> sorry. >> that's okay, it's fine. >> kitty i have a two-part question. regarding jfk and his extramarital djibouti controversial as it was and so forth. did stanley ever have any -- you talk about access or was there any mention of this and what did he relate to you? .. about affairs with white house secretaries. he was a little stunned about the judith campbell exerner affr with the mafia mistress. stanley came from a different generation, and he was no stranger to affairs himself. thank you very much. which is why i believed him when he said he had a trunk full of nude photographs. so he was kind of like, well, yeah, you know, you know. but more than that we didn't really -- he told me about the secretaries. he told me about a couple of -- one very pretty journalist. but it was no big thing to stanley. and at that time the extent had not been published, the extent that we have now. >> and me second question is i just want to agree with the man that introduced you about his way. i just love that book about, you know, frank. it was such a great portrait, this kind of jekyll/hyde personality. and i remember it was very vivid how you would describe he would get back at people. i don't know if you remember there was some comic that had been ridiculing sinatra, and a few days later his face was smashed open. do you remember that? >> i do. i do remember that. [laughter] i have not forgotten that book because before i had written a word, frank sinatra sued me for $2 million to stop the book. and it was terrifying, and i remember i called the publisher, and i said i don't understand this. i've just read that i'm being sued by frank sinatra. and the publishing lawyer said, well, that's very interesting. and i said, um, well, i know, but, you know, when you're sued, you have to get a lawyer -- and she said, well, you might want to do that. [laughter] and i said, well, what are you? you're a lawyer. and she said, we don't have a manuscript. so i was on my own, and had it not been for a group of writers that stepped forward to defend the first amendment, i probably wouldn't be here. i would be in debtors' prison because frank sinatra kept this going until he finally dropped it a year later. .. how maybe my sources weren't so good. i have sources within the family, i had sources in the entourage, i have the mall over the place, interviewed hundreds of people flows this book and one of them said you don't have to worry about a thing. if anything happens to that, i would be the first one blamed. at the very false sense of security until about 3 weeks ago when paul's book came offense said there had been a hit put out. they probably didn't even know how to spell kitty kelley correctly. any other questions? >> if i may. >> it is kitty kelley. >> so much controversy in the books you have written one of the more controversial pieces for me is you break your journalistic code in the law of love characters you are writing about, all on the subject you are writing about comes through. certainly this book lays it bear, makes it easy. >> this does. it really was a labor of love. i am a firm believer in what they called the unauthorized biography. unauthorized does not mean and true, it means that you are doing it without the cooperation and blessing of your subject and i do believe this a legitimate, wonderful way to cover history, especially public figures that have spent many years and millions of dollars creating their own image, so i think it is viable sometimes to go behind that, so usually i am ville one 2 is trying to get behind that and tell you what is going on but in this book, because it was stanley, because he was my best friend and because he loved president kennedy, i felt i owed it to him to do the kind of book that he would have done and consequently you won't find anything too negative in this book. it shows my affection for stanley and his great affection for the kennedys but there are parts of it that makes you think. jacqueline kennedy lost many children, two or three miscarriages, she went into severe depression at one point and had electroshock therapy and you begin to understand why the kennedys threw themselves into mental health because rose marie kennedy, one of president kennedy's sisters also had electroshock therapy and it never worked and there's always the party for ambassador kennedy and his wife so there are poignant parts of this book but when the news broke that the description was the centerfold. it's a mean joke, but if you think about it you kind of wonder getting back to what bill was saying to lie if we expand our online presence how will that affect the local this coverage because the washington post as been incredible about covering the d.c. region in do have to wonder how it will evolve and the incoming years. that set of dismal first. >> as a local growing up while reading the post where among low approseht for very long time, especially local coverage, it seems their core audience was not the city but the upper economic group. recently they have started to change. a great columnist who is a fantastic record. in and concern for the that move toward sort of a more focus within the city on a year rig demographic. and also think that there is a utility 11 these papers are owned by families. having somebody who lives in california or religious and his mind is not about -- he is an international global thinking and a person, i do have some reservations with the will mean for coverage of crime and life in washington in general or even sports in washington. as they continue to be the go to place to redevelop the redskins are the nationals or does it become a bigger focus? these are all questions that will be answered to for months, if not years potentially as a result of the sale. on the same man backing up the post as been struggling. having somebody who has created online commerce could really help create an a new renaissance to the post and all of the old guard and his papers which is important. but don't think that they should die. but they did play a very important role and our society and are the institutions of hold the torch for journalism should be on all levels. if someone can come in and help find a way for them to continue forward and to finally find a place within that a dismal environment, i will be great. >> something had to change. i also gropper are here and have high hopes. friends their work there. my sense is that people largest kind of excited. something has to change. ivanov longer will take to show, but something had to give vent to will see what happens. >> hard to overstate how seismic this feels the nba industry and washington. the grim family has been a wonderful story of journalism and force so long in their names are synonymous with watergate and the pentagon papers of the kind of journalism that inspired generations to come. so it through the hills like a germanic turned that representative of the times we live in. builds of round lot of publications do differently than traditional journalism. used to talking about, but there is not read forces green in the war because we live in the digital age. understanding get excited about a. take metropolitan papers like the washington post and the boston globe and so many others that had been in the news lately facing circulation, to clients, offers, they have to find a way of drive and in this race if territory to remain viable. we'll want to see the post be producing the excellent journalists and that they have, but at the san tyler is a need to transform if we're to succeed in the new world. is a question that i will have, sometimes for indian evader it is easier to come into a new space and create something for us scratch then it is to take an existing institution with proud traditions. figure out how to make that move into a new space. hopefully very successful process. >> tomorrow a discussion about the health insurance exchanges. the affordable health care act. >> encore presentation of first ladies. in he -- his gallantry was involved to what he saw as abuse of this woman. when they fell in love they decided to elope. they stayed several months, close to your belief. and when they came back they simply said, no, we are married now and rural family, a mother said, yes, this is our son and law, andrew jackson. who is going to tell them no? oh, what about that either has been? people accepted it because everyone else did. >> continuing to arm night at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> the latest book of barbara perry. it recently interviewed by "washington post" news editor vincent bzdek. this is an hour. >> is great to be here with you talking about the kennedys. having grown up catholic i think the kennedys have a particular resonance for ross. i wanted to start right off and as you, you are a supreme court scholar. how did you get interested in rose? >> well, since i was four years of my mother took me and my brothers to downtown kentucky, living in the suburbs. she pile less in our chevrolet and drove west to the courthouse , complete drawn to this new candid it, senator john f. kennedy. >> because he was catholic? >> at have to think that was a major part of it. she was a new generation. that point up that was in love history and politics surely was not that active in grass-roots politics in did not like driving downtown. it does his charisma. >> a pretty good looking guy. >> she get their extra early with me as a four year-old and my two older brothers in tow and put us right in front of the podium. >> that's great. and then you get a lot of your research up at the jfk library after a.m. open that records. tell me about that, because that gives you new insight. >> this is the one that is fully based upon her papers that opened up in the fall of 2006. accuse story of the way that happened. i had been teaching for many years and had published a book on jacqueline kennedy. my students was interested in all things kennedy. and happens to be on leave and get this e-mail from a former student. she says, it is easy that rose kennedy's papers have just been opened to? i went to answer to devour you and decided that this has to be my next project. >> in those boxes there were letters. some of them were quite -- are read in your book, quite a scolding. i even enjoyed the fact that after john kennedy was in office , shape up a little bit nl he presented himself and his manners. tell me about those. >> 250 archival boxes, and another 50 family photographs. the book contains a number never seen of four photographs. i was just amazed at the letter writing. from the time she was in addition to the boxes of her official papers i came across an internet private letters that were held in private collections . but when will the edge of those together. >> nolan and the mix of the families of the recipe will touche sent the letters. at least a half-dozen she wrote her this time she was teenager including an issue on the other the college which was a plan thwarted by her father, but all the way up until middle-aged she talks about her husband's some in hollywood. several letters in addition to the wants of i found that are officially open, yes, she was the typical victorian mother, always interested in how children looked and behavior and manners and never give up. shoers cows away after the children to be better. in the victorian kind of way, as perfect as they could be. >> that word victorian, she very much tried to fit herself and said mold even though all renter things are changing. born in 1890. the suffragette movement was going strong in her 20's and your late teens, was it did not step into those roles. she kept her role. >> she was raised in a conservative household and conservative catholicism at that time, conservative society. she was a woman, so there's no way she would be trained to be the kind of public office a letter father was an sons were become. having said that, her life is filled with paradox. that is more of them. law officers of the feminist and begin as a suffragettes, she pushed the brand areas for she could to become the focal spokesperson for the kennedy family whenever possible and was trained to do that to. chicano the campaign trail wednesday was a teenager. she was certainly not a him menaced by any stretch of the imagination. >> before we talk about the ross sea plate, that's back. what do you think was important about her father not letting her go there. >> the stories she had her heart set. she was in a student. she went to dorchester. she was a very brave woman and she herself strove for perfection. she thought she was ready to go to wellesley,. this story as to what the encountered a father and said this would not make an idea for you to send your daughter to a non catholic institution. so that forces your plan and she expressed that that was one of the saddest moments of her life and regretted it. >> a woman he did not express much regret. >> she did not. i often point up the picture on the front of the book. first there was distracted by the goblet of water. at decided this is the perfect metaphor because it is exactly half full, and that is how she usually viewed life. she was the eternal optimist. it did not imply that she has had moments does is try to keep this optimistic upbeat approach to life. in addition, not being able, sent away, convents, not the issue of his card to come undone but had fallen in love with her future husband as a teenager. we think that was part of the reason. to get her away from joe kennedy the kennedy fitzgerald's, not complete approving. indeed. and he also picked out a suitor for her she was doing well in the business world. the perfect match. was started to be two years. >> so there is an infinite spirit expressing already. >> which i find. noblemen. the effervescent child of rose. in many ways. >> i think it was ironic that she did not seem to remember. marriage only lasted for months that he was killed. >> the sock blood show. he gets a lot of credit from this family. a patriarchal figure. even some of the sons give him credit spurring his family on to greatness. how did that marriage work? here but makes the point. you see a lot of it. in their research, a partner in the significant, especially in the absences. there's no doubt about that. by looking yellow roses letters as well, nine children, it definitely. and the leather, very wore red ties and loving. >> hurt teenage romance. the concept, the puppy love that it mature, cap them with her always. her husband was unfaithful turner. >> we think that in 1920 after rosetta fourth child, she left and went back to her home, her father's home and said i cannot do this anymore. we don't know the details coming and she was overruled by having four children in five years. having some post pardon the expression, or region. she was just frustrated and supposedly her father said to her you're a catholic home in in a catholic marriage and was go home. to make this work and she did for over 40 years. >> just not enough. >> even today they said to me, we would say probably what a priest would have said to her in the night -- 1920's. the eve of made this choice. now you must go home and make this marriage work. she did that with the caveat. she absented herself a lot of times from a household stunned some to try sometimes staying within the same balance. she had a little caller its. >> server cards it was her own space so that she could get away from what she described as the bourse sources of for our children. the football games. i understood. i don't know what they're playing. the house and noisy. this little college and the fee. it put another one out there. i decided that this was not meant to be. could no way every year to get to paris -- paris. three or four times a year before the war to give fashions, political trips of them in the united states and said south and latin america which was very unusual for a. so she had the wanderlust from the time she was a year and grow , very proud -- war of the fact. making the best of the best situation. then once she married is was a way to escape both the bush justice of the children, or have some of the onset of the weaknesses and in some way perhaps also a form of birth control pill is a catholic church would not have allowed any. >> she even maintained her schumer. the early 1970's. if i had known it was a competition and might have had more than nine permit. >> happy to surpass. >> one trip when they went to russia and then it was unusual for women. >> 1937, as of this would have been prior. >> her son in the apple of her eye had guns hang fund. -- the epitome of a capitalist and he said, you need to know the ways of future. socialism may be one of them. absolutely for the year between reps cool and when he went to harvard he went to london to study and then spent some time in the soviet this well fact-finding and would report back. so taken with his report that she decided that she would go. her daughter said kamal why can't we go to italy the only the other. kokomo we have been there. let's go to the soviets. off they went to. the height of the era. >> that's great. >> a very adventuresome mormon. >> you mentioned select paris. she was. >> the image maker in stage nestor of the family. i love how honest your bark about that. can you talk about that. >> i don't mean to indicate that road has a more significant role that she did. you mentioned it was a patriarchal family. to be sure her husband ruled the roost. they had two sons. when they came of age in a sense they did as well. they went into it their careers, first the military, joe jr. killed on the war. jack and then bobby in intensity . the men were running the show. so i would say if you rent credits for the camera to have kennedy family it will be joke quite appropriately left a career in hollywood as a producer. rose had all the other duties. and the dialogue and certainly the war or district. she would have had all of the other bowls. the argument is as them and began to disappear, what she had done but the point is taken of the typically female roles. the a executive producer. >> but that sense of creating an image came from the life magazine cover stories. cleaning in image of the legend of the family. >> as joe's senior comes into the new deal, they're billed as a new deal family and this bears began to show show and it rose, wind up against their staff. in that city above be as if you had jonathan cape plus a. the kennedys were the first reality show. he had this hollywood career and wanted the family to have this public image. this is where they are on the same page. attempting to make the family like perfect take advantage in follow the lead. in stairstep fashion peoples and to line up. one of the major photographers on broadway, he writes and mrs. kennedy and is noted for taking beautiful portraits of stars. a beautiful family, rather not think this is the best way. into my studio. i will put them in no way that is much more becoming. rose was on that immediately. taken. jack thin but in his room. >> even then. and so it is as if they move out over to london and just because the u.s. ambassador. >> then there were celebrities. >> the analyst on the american stage but the world stage. that made them stand out. a. >> and grows herself, they believed when they first met her. teach and work hard. and i even say in the buck some may have had somebody of its issues because she was very careful about what she ate. it was very important to her. she likes nothing better and she got all this to be confused of her daughter's. >> the index card when she captured a record of their weight and then adjust to whatever fed according to data and how much it looked like she had gained crack. >> the great potato famine. and then born in the tenements of the north and. obviously it to move out of their taking them know whether. as stationery store, buys an index card and begins to keep my hand. every weekend she will play each child. she would also record their religious while some. the confirmation or read some much then she would not just keep a record of it. she was cuts in which trying to gauge their way. kent tennant calories. someone was always there. worried her. she would say, i give him cream instead of something less than the in terms of milk. give him that use of the roast beef because she thought that would build up his body. but he was chronically late for dinner, the victoria greuel, the male star without the late child, and the child's would have to start them whenever course was being served. then he was sneak back into bed kitchen. >> that is where is started from. >> absolutely. >> i remember reading stories that they used to have a map they pulled them. was rosa part of that? did she try and stimulate them to take an interest in politics and world affairs? >> in was just as if he was home from business then he ran the dinner discussion, but if rose was there then she would run the show and he would run that dinner conversation. she tended not to focus as much on geopolitical issues are theories of international relations but ask the kids of church issues and if they had gone to mess that sunday, the celebration, the sermon. she would test their theology and to bring more alaskans and arithmetic lessons, but was also noted for cutting out current event pieces from the paper in passing those around to the kids or putting them on a bulletin board. >> at dinner. >> you mentioned the theology. faith is a big part of your book . this is tuberose is. first and foremost, raised in that tradition. this celebration and commemoration. this year-old would have heard nail on the hardwood floor and said the rosary. rose said that that -- while it was somewhat painful. every night that was appropriate in later life and she would tell my children, if you're funny, if you're nervous, i was a rather that they pray the rosary then turning to a cigarette or a drink. i know that they claim that helped keep weight in check, which she had also taught them to do, but she also said to my if only they would pray the rosary. their stories when her daughter had an emergency appendectomy and was brought home. before their roster back for another surgery rose was praying the rosary over pat. in no way it sounds a bit of sophisticated tests a day, but i can on my own mother when i was six, i had a fever, and among other into religious medals to my pajamas as a means of helping to get it beyond this illness. so this was something that clearly was indoctrinated in my own mother. i know that my grandmother would have been -- my grandmother would visit us on weekends and remove herself from the family disappeared and i would wonder where rare among his. we would find you're praying their rosary every afternoon. this was a great source of comfort. the textile field off the rose and me being here and give her comfort. >> you think that catholicism because john kennedy was up for it -- first catholic president's steve think that helped create the kennedy those of taking care of others in contributory life intel that might have expressed itself in their politics? ..this talk from the philadelpha field library is in our. [applause] >> thank you all. delighted to see. as i tell my history students, i teach at the city university of new york. [applause] thank you. as i tell my history students until they want to choke me, the past is a foreign country. we can visit, when the customs, recoil at the foul odor, but we are foreigners in a strange land this is true as much as the recent past as a this of colonial america or 12 century venice. writing about the recent past is not easy, as i learned this time around. there are people you have to talk to. [laughter] and while i was blessed from beginning to end by having fascinating people to talk to eric tweeting the large numbers of kennedys, i must prefer working from written documents to listening to people talk and trying to figure out what is real, imagined, what they know, what they think they know because someone told them. what they think they know but they don't know what all. the other is writing about our recent past is is that always easy to establish distance from it. to construct the pastness of the past that is so close to us and yet this is what historians have to do. our job is to complicate, take apart our common sense here of the recent past, interrogate what we think we know, demystified, demythologize, move beyond the cliche is about when airs at losers, saint seine centers, the wisdom and courage of our forefathers to my especially those of the greatest generation our job is the story -- to tell a different story, one grounded in evidence. the life of joseph p. kennedy was, for me, a sort of antique fun house mirror which, if i looked at it long enough, would reflect back to me, often in hazy, and distinct, distorted form, images of events, people, places, which organize and erased told the story of 20th-century america. so as a historian i am interested in origins. i will tell you about the origins in this book. i was a colleague of arthur schlesinger at the city up -- university of new york. he introduced me to the kennedy family at a -- some event. i don't know what it was, a reception, dinner. i met with jean kennedy smith, in actual smith for the first time. and i have recently -- i was finishing up my first book, and my first biography i had used a treasure trove of materials that jean kennedy smith's daughter who was riding a collection, compiling letters from her father to her aunts and uncles had put me on , and in that treasure trove of material, letters from william randolph hearst to joseph kennedy back-and-forth items to man who was different from everything i had heard about him. so i told jean kennedy smith at some point that her daughter should write a biography of his -- of her grandfather. and that the man was absolute seat -- absolutely fascinating. is a good word to use if you don't know if you're going to be ready about of villain or hero. it was fascinating, i said. somebody should do a biography. about a year later i saw jean kennedy smith again. she approached me and said that the family wanted me to do it, to write that biography. that they recognize that there was need for such a biography. and i said, well, i am in the midst of writing another book. i'm writing about andrew carnegie. and she said, when i you going to be finished? if you cannot say no to a kennedy. i said, i don't know. six months maybe. six months to the day we got that call at home from someone i was convinced was at ted kennedy trust a man. i don't know if any of you grew up in new york or listened to don imus, imus in the morning, he had a ted kennedy impersonator and it sounded just like this. i listen to the message. after listening to it the second and third time, i realized it was not an impersonator but the senator asked me to come to washington to talk to him about doing a biography of his father. i went to washington, and the senator and i and his two dogs had lunch together on mondays his dogs came to the senate with him because the senate was in session, and they could roam, play in the senate. it was a weird sight, believe me. we were brought into like tiny little -- tiny village conference room, two dogs, the senator, and me. a card table in the middle. and this senator who was always on a diet. they believe that his back -- he would appeal -- feel better that than ever that he was, the most bitter razzle sandra to have ever seen, like as sliver of tuna fish that looked as old as he was on a piece of bread. i had two pieces of bread and potato chips. and we talked for three, four hours. what i remember saying over and over and over it did his, you don't want me to write this book because i am nestorian. i'm going to find stuff. whenever i find, i'm going to put in the book. and who knows, by that time this book comes out there might be akin to the running for office. little that know that that kennedy's name would be joseph p. kennedy the third who ran for and was elected to congress. the election came before my book came out. but i was worried. and that thought it was a legitimate concern and the senator should know about that. he said, don't worry. he said, you know, everybody knows that my father had an affair with gloria swanson and he said, and i know my father was not an anti-semite. whenever you find that whenever you right is going to be truer to the man i knew and loved and without that. so i said, okay. i want full access to everything . i want full access to the family, the documents come everything that is stored at the kennedy library in boston that has been closed to researchers. you will see the book, you in the family and your lawyers and representatives will see the book when it is between hard covers, not before. i will be coming back to you for permission to cite anything. whenever i find i'm going to use in the book. he said, okay. then it took 18 months to get this all in writing. and i was off. i was often running. and i found some more remarkable stories that i had ever imagined i found the story of a man who spent his life moving back and forth from being an outsider to in insider to an outsider to an insider. i found the story of an irish catholic who was not ashamed of his carriage -- heritage, but did not want to be defined by it a third-generation immigrants who cared little about the country, had no desire to visit ireland or to read about it, who considered himself 100 percent american and could not understand why anyone would think of him as less than that. a catholic ," went to mass every sunday and went to confession. anti-catholic church in boston was the anchor of his existence. and everywhere he went he would find out where the church was. when he went on vacation in new hampshire, he sent the note to the innkeeper who was a friend of his and said, find out when they do confession on friday and also, find out if tools and lily -- he was married at the time, tools and lilly will be around. i mean, this in one sentence, he grew up the son of a very respected businessman and board leader in east boston. the ultimate insider. and even when he went there were about 10 percent of the suits were catholic. a much larger percentage from public schools. he is still considered himself an insider. there were -- they did not let him into some of the clubs, but that did not bother him nearly as much as the fact that he was too slow to make the varsity baseball team. he graduated from harvard. he wanted to go into banking and finance, and he discovered that every door was closed to him because he was an irish catholic from east boston his father had been aboard be here. his friends to my classmates who were not irish catholic cat interviews, jobs at major banks, fans constitution's, he got nothing, nothing, not an answer, interview, not at -- nothing. he was still going to go into banking. he take a civil service exam and became an assistant banking examiner and traveled around the state examining the books of banks and learned more about banks and the ever would have had begun directly into a management position. he wanted to get rich, and he wanted, as he said over and over again, to make enough money so that he could leave every one of his nine children a million dollar trust fund in $1,920. and in order to do that, he realized that he had to do more than be a banker. he had to make deals. he had to flow stock options for companies. he had to raise money for the larger industries in and around boston. again he realized as an irish catholic fermi's boston he did not have the connections and would never have the connections in any of the major american industries. what did he do? he looked ahead and realized. the boston financial institution would pay attention to an industry that was about to take off, moving pictures. they paid no attention. so he moved again. he began making his own deals and his own contacts. he tried tent, when babe ruth was still in boston, to put him in a moving picture. that did not work. but most of his -- because baby ruth demanded to be paid in france, and kennedy never pay anybody up front. every other deal went through. eventually he ended up in hollywood as the owner, the studio head of what was a minor studio, but that was not going to stop them. he realized and recognized how he could converge his outsider status, how he could make it an advantage, benefit, rather than a liability. so what did he do when he arrived in hollywood? he positioned himself as the non shoe, as the boston banker, as the third generation american, at a time when small towns and cities all over the country aided and abetted by a lot of rabble-rousers' were beginning to say that movies are dangerous to our children. they are dangerous because there are -- they are controlled by these aliens, by these use the don't understand christian morality. and towns all across the country in states all across the country were beginning to institute laws . and hollywood had brought in will rogers who had been in the harding cabinet and was mr. protestant and kennedy now positioned himself as the not too and made himself indispensable to the industry as such. and studio after studio hired them. at one point he ran for major studios. and at each of those he demanded to be paid in stock options. by the time he left hollywood after only a couple of years he was a multimillionaire because he knew how tough use those stock options, turn those pieces of paper into dollars, millions of dollars, and he did. at age 50 he learned how to make an advantage of a disadvantage. at age 50 he had millions and millions and millions of dollars. at age 50 knew the way the stock market worked, the way stocks and bonds retreated, and he knew that a crash is coming and pulled out all is money so that when the crash did come he was left with his millions in an extraordinary position. and yet with that crash, we are suffering from a recession now. a lot of people suffering. we all know people aware suffering, but it does not compare to the depression of the 30's. kennedy was scared to death that everything that the country he loved, because it had given him lots of opportunities that he converted into dollars, he was convinced that unless something was done to right the economy capitalism was going to go down. with capitalism democracy and with democracy everything that made this country great. he was convinced the only managed to right the ship, save capitalism and democracy in the nation was franklin roosevelt. so in 1932 he signed on to the franklin roosevelt team and was one of the only bankers to do so and was one of the only irish catholics to take a prominent position and was only -- one of the only hollywood men and women , hollywood connections to back roosevelt. hollywood then was solidly, some of you, saw the republican. the outsider was on his way to becoming an insider. and yet he refused to play by the rules. he refused to become part of the rooseveltian. he refused to unabashedly say, whenever you and your brain just want to do, i'll pack it. i am with the. yet he was so important as a banker that roosevelt appointed him the first chairman of the securities and exchange in commission. at the time roosevelts colleagues in new dealers were horrified. you know, why are you putting a fox in control of the chicken? and joseph kennedy was there greatest chairman of the sec we have never seen. he knew every trick of the trade , and he passed so many regulations and soft -- said tough regulations that when he was finished he had to get of the market. every device he used to make his million see a lot. from the moment he left the sec began investing in real estate. that merchandise mart in chicago, the largest building and said the pentagon in the country. he bought, you know, block after block in new york. i don't think in philadelphia. he was concentrated in new york and chicago and westchester and albany. he was not yet where he wanted to be. he demanded much from roosevelt. roosevelt named him the first ambassador and first irish catholic ambassador to the court of st. james. he became the ambassador to great britain, and it was one of the worst decisions roosevelt ever made. he knew but somehow believed he could keep kennedy in check, but he could not. kennedy was to maine. when he talked to his children he was a cheerleader, an optimist, but in his relationship to the world around him and to the 20th-century he was having made his pile of money convinced that it was going to be taken from him. convinced that democracy and capitalism would be taken from the united states. the united states entered the war, entered the world war ii on behalf of the british nothing was more important to have been making sure that there was no war coming keeping britain out of the war first, and then keeping the united states of the war, and he did everything he possibly could. he violated protocol, did not follow orders, met secretly with german diplomats. he was convinced that as a businessman he knew how to negotiate and deal and that if he were put in a room with hitler that two of them would negotiated deal. he refused to see that hitler was a madman, that hitler did not care about, you know, the german people. heather had other fiers that drove him. he believed him there would be a rational and a -- actor. he told the leader of the zionist committee, and going to go meet with him. bear working now. he became so anti churchill, anti british, anti-war effort that the british open -- open the file on immense pile by them, which i found in the national archives in britain called the kennedy. and that german archives there are records of his conversations with the german diplomats, wanted to get to berlin to negotiate an end to the war. and to negotiate a settlement that would prevent war and that would rescue the jewish refugees again, not for the first time, he had gone from being an insider to being an outsider because he did not know not to be a team player. he returned to this country in disgrace. he supported roosevelt for reelection in 1940 which is all roosevelt wanted for him and why roosevelt did not fire him as he should have. he retired and kept plugging away. he gave an interview in boston in which he said that the british are finished. this is during the battle of britain. a britisher finished. any money we give the british, you know, is wasted, thrown away and then he went to hollywood. he was invited to speak at the studio about the future of films , what the film companies would do if they could not export to your. instead of talking about that he lashed out at an audience that was almost all tuition. the last out at him and said, you guys, unless you stop making anti yet live films, the great dictator, unless you stop making anti chairman, and tied him there, anti not see films, you are going to cause the next war. believes american boys will be spilled. the worst outbreak this world has ever seen because everyone will blame everyone in this country will blame the jews. by 1940 he was the total absolute pariah. nobody wanted to touch him. if he wanted to get have joined the american first community and signed upland bird, but he did not want to do that. he stayed quiet. number i just part of the story as a part that i'm not going to be will tell you. you will have to read. in 1940 the kennedy name was dirt. among the isolationists who want to protect his children so they could be insiders. it third among the rows of the people, the jews, everyone who wants it or believed that american said to support the british. twenty years later his sun was elected president to the united states. once again the outsider had performed magic and become the ultimate insider, the fall of the president of the estate's. i'm delighted to take questions. thank you. [applause] [applause] thank you. they're is a microphone. to not speak and tell you get the microphone. i have been warned. >> wonderful speech. isn't it true that roosevelt center into england almost to get rid of him because he considered in such a pain in the neck? >> in part. that is a great quest -- great question. but he also -- roosevelt did not trust anybody, and he was a brilliant charmer and can never, the greatest president we ever had, but he always said to three people to do one's job, play them against one another, and he believed that he needed kennedy because kennedy would immediately break and report to him correctly rather than to a state department and the kennedy was smart enough to be his eyes and his years. what he did not know was that kennedy would quickly develop this obsession that made him useless as a reporter on conditions in europe. and roosevelt, for the next two years, would send over a variety of personal representatives to do the job that kennedy should have been doing and report on british prepared this, whether mussolini was going to enter the war on the side of the germans, the stuff that he had hoped kennedy would do. he was worried that he would come home and support a republican for a run for president himself. okay. they're is a question here and then over here. >> like the dog that did not bark, we have not heard anything. [laughter] >> you know, one of the things i hope the was going to write about in this book was bootlegging. what could be more fun then to write about booze and bootleggers and out capone and meyer lansky and all the rest. regrettably, it ain't true. none of it is true. kennedy gave -- another sorry to mike kennedy supplied his harvard reunion class with liquor that may and may not have been illegal. he got it because his father was an importer. when prohibition came then you're allowed to take all your liquor and put it in your basement. aside from that, no, no bleeding whatsoever. the only -- the stories tell began its of the 1970's when nixon runs against jfk in 1960, nixon brings out researchers, hires researchers all of the country to find every bit of dirt that they can about the kennedy family. and they find plenty about joe kennedy, but no one accuses him of being a bootlegger. it's only the 1970's when writers higher try to figure out the assassination. it can't be on assault. it has to be the mafia, what would they go after jfk? end these explanations are put together. and all sorts of retired mafia -- can you retire as a mafia person? you know, miami, is thorough, europe, the bombers that it all, of, oh, yeah, here's a good friend of mine. we did a lot of work. then the writers to leave no, seeing his story, would not let it go. everything is tough trying to track down every rumor, every story. and to you know, the credible witnesses include help capone's piano tuner and who gives an interview in which he says he was turning the piano when el at kennedy met together. they include the ex-wife of the chicago mobster who says, yeah, yeah, has been to was a good friend of joe kennedy. they quoted the people who came out of the woodwork to talk to me, including someone in a penitentiary in canada who insisted that his grand uncle had been killed by kennedy who was in partnership with germany as a bootlegger. where did they get the booze into kansas? none of it made any sense. there was one credible piece of data, one terry that was that the canadian government was great. they did not give a damn. they supported as much booze as possible coming across the border as long as the ship was paid an excise tax. joseph kennedy limited in vancouver refused to pay the excise tax. and you know, people said, oh, there's the proof, there's a smoking gun. i found this kennedy, elected to business records and tax records in business directories in vancouver and discovered that it is david joseph kennedy who lives in vancouver, born and died in vancouver, not our joe kennedy. so the of bootlegging of any sort. >> year in the will go across. >> could you talk a bit about the relationship between joe kennedy and his son john and to what extent john kennedy knew of his father's relationships with multiple women and whether that influenced him to follow that same path? >> yes. [laughter] yes. i think there are no kennedys in the audience here, either? check was much more predatory, even then his father was. joe kennedy and rose at an arrangement, slight rose's father had an arrangement with rose's mother. i don't embarrass you and to what arenella want, and she tried not to embarrass her. i don't think jack had that same total. at think he embarrassed jackie in no way that is inexcusable. gloria swanson, one of the things i found is i went to austin, texas to see the glorious once in papers. i teach ph.d. students. appro with the only historian has made the trip to austin texas, which says these great archives, including the lbj library, to let the glorious slauson papers, and then then i found her handwritten notes that she gave whoever wrote her autobiography -- the autobiography had none of this. red without much participation from her. remember when will the chamberlain or charles barkley or someone was asked -- was a barkley? what is this doing? he said to i don't know. i haven't ready yet. gloria swanson in these handwritten notes said the she tried during and after her affair with joe to figure out how this devout catholic who went to confession in mass kitschy of his life. she said -- and loyal as communal, had her own prejudices she didn't like she's very much. she said it was because confession was like washing his sense. he would go to confession, washes hands : all over again the next day. this is part of the story after tell. yes, sir. over here. >> would you elaborate a little more of what you -- i think you said they you did not think that there was evidence that he was an anti-semite. how hard did you look? >> i didn't say that. what i said was his son said that he was not an anti-semite. now, this was not easy to figure this out. it was not easy in large part because when you look at washington in the 1930's, and especially the state department, everyone is an anti-semite. i mean, the state department is frightening. washington outside the state department is only a little bit better. when you start talking about who is an entirely semite, the better question is what kind of anti-semite. i happened to find for myself. i define it as someone the feeling about the genetic makeup in the blood of jews that makes them sinister, corrupt, and unable or committed to destroying christian morality. limburg was an anti-semite. henry ford was an anti-semite. the astor, kennedy's different ball was anti-semite, according to the seven mission which has become my definition. breckinridge law who was in the state department and ran the refugee program and kept out hundreds of thousands, as much blood on his hands as most germans, was an anti-semite. kennedy was not in that sense, but what kennedy was was kennedy, as taiwan, of sort every anti-semitic mythology. he used league which, made speeches that were in virulently and frighteningly anti-semitic. he believe that the organized jewish community to one not of use, but the most powerful ones, including those in the white house, frankfurter, brandeis to benjamin cole, sam rosen mend, there were all doing everything they possibly could to push the united states into war against germany to somehow get revenge against ciller. he believed that the jews were warmongers, looking after only their own tribal address. there were up patriotic. the funny lady accused the jews and everything that billy graham's and protestants accuse his son of when he ran for the presidency in 1960. it is now believed was possible to be a jew in to be a true patriot at the same sense. those who oppose his sons election because he was a roman catholic said that polygram among them, once this appeal right up there in front, you could not be a catholic and a true blue american at the same time because the vatican was going to give you wars they couldn't turn down. a question over here. >> is it true that kennedy's views about the future of the stock market was influenced by this? one day giving him advice. supposedly kennedy has said of his way to his office he does something was wrong when a boost later can give me advice. >> a great story. i've found no evidence for it. it may be true. i did not included in my book because i could not verify it. but kennedy did not need his but black to tell him that. he was really smart. when you look back at the crash of 1929, as when you look back at the crash of 2008, you find that there are a lot of people and those coming and that nobody was listening to. bernard barack knew it was coming at the get his money out of the market. kennedy knew it was coming, and he took his money out of every kind of speculative stock because it is the insiders who had to have known that the market was oversold. i mean, you know, mark doubt. he can be absolves of being stupid, but the people who were his brokers had to have known it was coming. kennedy certainly knew. >> was there a calculation involves? his ameristar rose kennedy, burying them to political royalty? the catholic irish power influences. and i have a little story which you may or may not know. throughout partially in palm beach. she would be about 95 years you were still alive now. there came a time when she stayed home. everyone in palm beach shunned her. bobby kennedy came and said, our fathers said that we are allowed to play with you. >> i wish you had told me that before. yeah, it rings true. it makes sense. it makes perfect sense because nobody likes the kennedys in palm beach and kennedy at that time said the hell with you call we will make our own way, and he did. he did his entertaining. his own house what he wanted to and went to the bradley's which was the casino that he claimed had the best food in palm beach. the question is, did kennedy married louis fitzgerald because she was the daughter? did he quarter? did he make her his girlfriend and go aisle with her and then marry her? her father was the mayor. the s&l. he was the most -- you know, she was the most eligible girl. she was smart, pretty, vivacious , had this care-free attitude, she was an extra variable bid. and i think kennedy was john turner and kennedy knew -- i don't know what came first. kennedy said new that his store friend was the mayor's daughter and that by marion rose he was going to climb a step. one of the difficulties was that kennedy's father who was also very important in irish politics had been an opponent. so for a long time they were not wanted to be married, not because of the prospects, but because his father had been anti after it -- in the election after election after election. kennedy's father believe that catholic paula 65 irish catholic politicians did not have to appeal as clowns. he was it plan. rabble-rousers', the worst kind. judge kennedy's was not. one of the reasons why joe himself did not enter politics was that he was totally fed up with this irish catholic, what he had seen as the dominant irish catholic posturing. only an irish catholic can look after you. >> any comments on the lobotomies story being done said she would not embarrass the kennedys and keep the boys from becoming president? >> yeah, i spent a lot of time and an awful lot of research and found all sorts of stuff. we can blame kennedy for lots and lots and lots of stuff, but not for this. he love that child. when he moved all the other children back to the united states, but when germany, when world war two began his captors marry within in england because she was doing really well in the school. he looked after her. when you see the pictures, read the letters, he left this terms. everybody knew. but that was okay. she didn't -- it was okay. but she was slow this month not to understand that her brother's decisions, going out in the world and the dancing, sailing, playing golf, her brothers and sisters ten years gender could live by themselves on the front lawn. she could not. she was the love to hear. she became increasingly angry, violent, had a temper, no longer this with that girl. and a great, big woman of 1920 got 21. at kennedy, as he did with all his children cut charge. he would and sought the best medical advice and that was to get her a lobotomy. in this time the lobotomy was the preferred intervention. there were critics, of course, but the menu did the lobotomy was the inventor of the lobotomy and won a nobel prize for the invention. the team that performed the lobotomy was a neurosurgeon from yale. you know, they had it done at johns hopkins. they said to kennedy, she will still be slow, but we are going to do this operation and she will be angry, and happy, discontent. she will be a happy child the. and the lobotomy went tragically wrong, and she came out of it a vegetable. she eventually learned to walk, but never spoke again to my did not communicate, did not write. her intelligence was -- had been that of joseph p. kennedy, seven, eight year-old and now was that of the seven month year-old. and kennedy was the only one that kept in touch with there. riding of family and say x is doing this, why is doing this, rose mary disappeared from the family correspondence. kennedy continued to visit her and finally found a place for her, wanted to put her in boston . a home for retarded children. the cardinal said, don't do it because you cannot protect the family's private -- privacy worry around. you can't protect your privacy, was a ball. so they moved here to a convent home in wisconsin. all of that, i understand. what i don't understand is that once he put her in this home and she was well cared for, he never sorry get. and the family only began to visit raspberries again after kennedy had his debilitating stroke -- stroke and they never told her. the only way to make sense of this was kim shriver. began their work for the mentally disabled because of what the family went through. and in a strawberry and lenny who runs the special olympics now. you know, you have to understand the shame. they could not do enough for their sister. and kennedy convinced himself against the rest of the family that she was better off by herself with the nuns making her own community for herself in jefferson, wisconsin. i don't -- i still don't understand it as much as i want to. one last question. >> what was his relationship with his sons? what did they think of them? >> is kids absolutely love him. they adored him. i thought it was an authentic and the beginning. i could not believe. i hope my boys speak of me half as well as his boys. and his daughter sue had more of our reason to dislike him. they loved the guy, and it was only after i did my research that discovered why. he was an extraordinary father. what could be -- a thousand ways and be an extraordinary father. and he was. he supported the boys. i will tell one story, the bay of pigs. we now know that jfk was absolutely distraught. jackie in her interviews that were recently published talks about seeing her husband, you know, just cried, a grown man to sob because of the loss of lives he had sensed these men over to die on the beach or be captured. it was a major, major, major crisis. ed kennedy, the president to commend kennedy attorney general and bob were trying to make sense of this bobby said, let's call that and make us feel better. he always makes us feel better. somebody picked up the phone to call that in palm beach. that gown on the phone. he said, look, this is a fiasco. a debacle. it was the beginning of your 4-year term. by the time you get to the end everyone will ever get bit. the fact the you apologize, the american people love that. you watch, your polls will go up in two weeks. kennedy was right, kennedy the father, and bobby was right. they felt better. in the polls to go up in two weeks. that was the kind of father he was. one of the reasons i enjoyed writing this book, a lot that distressed me from beginning to end. anti-semitism, the appeasement, the ruthless stock market racketeering, the lobotomy that i never understood with catching rose mary off, but his relationship with all the children was truly remarkable. so of that up note i think you all for your attention. [applause] immediately after the presentation. not just the book we're talking about today, but several of the other books as well. we're all gathered today in this tent to hear from one of the most controversial authors of the last few decades. the list of literary subjects she has enlightened, offended, embarrassed and can even endangered ranges quite far from presidents and first ladies to connected crooners and even the great and powerful oprah, praise be her name. kitty kelley personal facts include growing up in the beautiful northwest, somehow finding a way to new york city which i suppose she found too boring and simple. she made her way quickly to d.c. after that and worked in senator mccarthy's office, and it must have been your catalyst for your love of investigative reporting. she was a researcher at "the washington post" and began her lifelong prolific career in freelance writing. this long career has been accented with best-selling investigative books and the uproar that came with them such as jackie o., elizabeth taylor, nancy reagan: unauthorized biography, the royals, the bush dynasty, o paragraph's biography and -- oprah's biography, and my favorite, the unauthorized biography of frank sinatra. ms. cel-- mississippi kelley's most recent book, "capturing camelot." very well photographed, obviously, and very well put together. personally, these picture books mean a lot more to me when the captions are well researched and thought out and a bit more prose than you would normally find which is what ms. kelley did with this book. never failing to raise a few eyebrows while uncovering stories and doing such a wonderfully painful job of reminding us our heroes are very, very human, please welcome to the festival kitty kelley. [applause] >> the only part of that introduction that isn't quite right is the prolific. it takes me four years -- >> i heard it from someone. >> no, you've got to be careful. [laughter] prolific as a turtle. it takes me four years usually on each book. but this one, this book was a labor of love because stanley tretick was one of my very best friends, and he was one of president kennedy's favorite photographers. and i used to go visit stanley in washington. and one time i asked him what he had in the marine corps locker that he used as his coffee table. and i said, stanley, what do you have in there? and he looked at me, and he said nude pictures. i dropped the subject. years later when stanley died, he left me his archives, and they delivered the marine corps locker to my house. and my husband said what's in there? and i said, um, nude photos. he said, well, come on, let's open it. and i said, no, i really -- i don't want to remember stanley that way. he said we gotta open this. he said stanley was a great photographer, i've got to see those. and we argued about it for a while. and when we opened it, it wasn't nude photographs at all. it was the most sentimental store of kennedy photographs and artifacts and letters and handwritten notes from the president and the first lady. anyway, i'm going to show you some of them and tell you about them. but because this was the 50th anniversary of the ken key administration -- kennedy administration and because stanley had left me these photographs, i really wanted to share them. i didn't want to just donate them, you know, to a library with they'd sit in and people would never see them. so this photograph which is on the cover of the book came with an exclusive four days that stanley spent with president kennedy and his son. and he did it to do a cover story for "look" magazine. this is stanley. i want you to -- not robert redford, not dustin hoffman, but the guy in the middle with the camera. stanley, stanley's passion in life was covering politics, and he was very, very close to the kennedys. but he also did a lot of special stills for movies like "all the president's men" and, um, "urban cowboy" and a lot of robert redford be movies, a lot of warren beatty movies and dustin hoffman movies. so i just wanted you to see what stanley looked like in his prime. stanley was a marine photographer in korea, and he took this picture which military times says is one of the ten -- one of the hundred best photographs showing military combat. i found it so moving that i included it in the book just to tell you a little bit about stanley. this, this on the face of it is a guest towel, one of those linen things your great aunt nelly might have had in her guest bathroom ironed, and it's embroidered with jfk. when i went through the marine corps trunk, i found this. now, i thought i knew everything about stanley. we were friends for years and years and years. but he never mentioned anything about this towel, and i could find no record of it in the trunk. i did wonder if maybe, maybe when he went to hyannis port one of those times he might have pin be. ed it. [laughter] -- pinched it. i don't know. and it could be that mrs. kennedy gave it to him. i doubt it, but the reason i've included this picture of the towel is that, to me, this became rosebud for stanley tretick. you remember "citizen kane"? well, when i knew stanley was years after he covered the kennedys. and when i met him, oh, he was driving a silver bmw and wearing a cartier watch and cashmere sweaters, and he was driving me in washington one time through a real bad area. and he slowed down, and i said why are you slowing down here? he said, well, you see that window up there? and he pointed to a rat-infested building uninhabited, and there was a towel in a broken, dirty window. and be he said to me -- and he said to me, that towel says it all. he said that's where i came from. and i thought when i was doing the research for that book, he really did come from grinding poverty. but because of hard work and immense talent, he did very, very well, was very, very prosperous. so i put the towel in there because i do think that's a key to stanley. oh, and then these were in the trunk as well. the pt boat pin that jfk gave to people. and this plex i glass box that the president gave to all those people who traveled with him on the caroline which was the private plane that his father bought him for the presidential campaign, stanley kept all those things, and they were wrapped up in the trunk. and you'll see pictures of them in the book. okay, this picture was taken at valley forge when president kennedy is campaigning. excuse me, senator kennedy is campaigning. and you can barely -- he's right there. the thing that is so extraordinary for us to be looking at in the year 2013 -- at this in the year 2013, no security, people are -- the press is up two feet from the candidate, and these are the crowds that turned out. you can see it just says something about a time and a place that we don't get anymore. and no teleprompters either. this is what stanley called the hand shot. this was his favorite photograph of president kennedy. he's on top of a convertible and standing behind him is governor pat brown of california. and it's during the fall election. and i said to stanley, why is that particular photograph so important to you? and he said because i think it shows the charisma of a movie star and the appeal of a politician that has come together in a way that we hadn't seen it before. and i said, well, what about eisenhower? he was a hero. he was a war hero. and he said i never -- he said i covered ike, but i never saw pictures like this when people are reaching up. and stanley also said about president kennedy that he felt that kennedy didn't revel in the adulation. there's a certain remove. he would do anything to be elected, taanly said -- stanley said, but he wasn't turned on by the grasping appeal of crowds. this is taken in valley forge. he spent -- oh. >> sorry. >> oh, no, i beg your pardon. this is in los angeles, and he's standing on top of a convertible. oh, he's standing up, and and he's taking it down. he's not in the picture. [laughter] this was president-elect kennedy's very first press conference in palm beach after the election. he'd flown to his father's mansion in palm beach, and caroline came out in her mother's high heels and her little bathrobe and interrupted the press conference. president kennedy had wanted to appoint j. william full bright as secretary of state, but because fulbright was a segregationist and kennedy had made a commitment to civil rights, he -- fulbright is in the picture to the side -- he couldn't name him. but as a courtesy, he invited him down to palm beach to tell him why. this is a photograph of the christening of little john kennedy jr. and stanley was the pool photographer. and so he was the photographer that was designated to go in and get all the pictures for the rest of the photographers. stanley was born jewish. his grandfather was a rabbi and read him the torah. and he told me that when he went in, the priest said, well, i'm sure you know, you're a pro, i'm sure you know your way around here. and stanley said, father, i've never made it past bar mitzvah. [laughter] so he has his cameras and lenses and clamps, and president kennedy is wheeling mrs. kennedy in. interestingly, she was still in the hospital two weeks after the birth of her child. now women, those of you who have had children, you know you're in and out. but it was two weeks. and president kennedy brought her into the chapel, and he saw stanley who was looking around for a place to clamp. and he is saw him going over towards the statue of the blessed virgin -- [laughter] and kennedy went -- [laughter] and stanley looked at him and went -- then at the end stanley said, mr. president, i've got to get some pictures. and he kept snapping s. and he took the whole ceremony of the priest breathing into the baby, the whole ritual of putting the water and putting the oil, blessing him and so forth. and then stanley kept taking the pictures, and kennedy went, no. because he didn't want this particular picture that was going to be flashed around the world showing any kind of church background. this is how sensitive the issue of kennedy's being catholic at the time was. and even after the election he did not want pictures of statues or crucifix or a church setting. he had made a very courageous speech in houston to the protestant ministers whomp opposed to put -- who were opposed to putting a catholic in the white house. and he basically said my church does not speak more me on public issues, and i do not speak more my church on church issues. and he seemed to put the issue to rest. but you will remember that election he won by a whisker of 1%. there were no more than 118,000 votes separating john f. kennedy from richard nixon in that election. and the part that bothered kennedy the most, the most was the votes coming pack from hyannis port. because up to that time the was with pes had never -- the wasps had never accepted the lace curtain irish kennedys in hyannis port. and kennedy knew to the last vote it was, like, 4,873 votes for nixon and 1,2be 30 be votes -- 1,230 votes for kennedy. that was the one that bothered him most. this picture of president and mrs. weaponty coming back -- kennedy coming back from the blair house was jacqueline kennedy's favorite picture. she told stanley that they both realized that president kennedy was not an emotionally demonstrative man and didn't like any public show of affection. but coming back from blair house he reached over, and he took a wisp of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. and she is looking at him adore ingly, and it's a very intimate gesture. and after the assassination, jackie asked stanley for this picture because she said it was her very favorite. so, of course, i had to include it in the book. this is a picture of mrs. kennedy as first lady on the first be state visit -- first state visit that the kennedys made to canada. when i was cure rating this book -- cure raitting this book going through, there are about 300 photographs. many of them had never been published before. it was impossible to find one bad photograph of the family. they just cannot take a bad picture. they were beautiful people, they were young, and can even the candid shots when they're not looking, they're fabulous. now, president kennedy cared very, very much about image. and as some of you heard lynne olson say, time and life and look magazine were the driving image makers in the country at that time. even in 1960 87% of the country had television, but most people got their news from the newspapers. and so the pictures that went out on the wire services really introduced the country to the president. and stanley was working for upi at the time. and the other wire service, of course, was associated press. the ap kept changing their photographer, but upi kept stanley on the entire time. so no other photographer traveled with the president, and at that time senator kennedy, as much as stanley did. now there's a scrum of photographers that travel with the candidate. but at that time it was only the wire services, and then when they'd hit a city like philadelphia or los angeles, they'd pick up local guys. but for the most part, it was simply the wire services. stanley told me kennedy would not pose for a picture. he said if it happens, you can take it. no posing. i don't want anything corny. be and the other thing he would never let stanley catch him combing his hair. he was very vain about his hair. he had great hair. but he would not be photographed combing his hair. he would not be photographed eating. and he wouldn't be photographed with any kind of a hat except for a hard hat. that one he wore with pride because he felt he was getting criticized as the son of a very rich man, and at that time joe kennedy was worth $400 million which in 1960 made him one of the ten richest americans. so kennedy was very, very sensitive about that. in fact, after the vote came in stanley said to him, well, that was a squeaker. be. [laughter] the president said no reason for dad to buy a landslide. [laughter] anyway, you will see a couple of pictures, i hope, of the struggle with the indian head dress and other hats. and this is mrs. kennedy, first lady, at the state dinner for the shah of iran. and she was so nervous about how the shah would come in. and she did come with this great crown of emeralds and diamonds as big as hard-boiled eggs. and mrs. kennedy went to harry winston and borrowed her jewels for the evening. and she felt that she add really done it. and she walked down, and the shah's wife came out, and the president said, oh, god, she's really beat you this time. [laughter] but she looks quite regal and beautiful, so it's included in the book. this is president kennedy on his first state visit, and it's with charles de gaulle who jackie was quite enamored with, all things french. and this was the trip to paris that made jacqueline kennedy an absolute star. and president kennedy very famously remarked, i'd like to introduce myself, i'm the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris, and i've enjoyed it very much. this is caroline kennedy at hyannis port. jacqueline kennedy as first lady was ferocious about protecting her children. she did not want the children photographed at any time. and the word went out, and pierre salinger, the press secretary, was absolutely terrified of jackie. the president, on the other hand, began to see the value of these children and how adorable they were. stanley went to hyannis port to photograph the shriver family for a cover story he was doing for "look" magazine. and he was under orders not to photograph the president's children. but he said he couldn't help himself. and when maria shriver came over, she gave caroline that postcard. and she said that's the president. caroline said, it is not, it's my daddy. and she said it's the president too. she said, no, it isn't. and stanley said he just couldn't help himself. he just found himself snapping picture after picture. this is caroline waiting on the dock for her father to come back at hyannis port during that trip which stanley was not supposed to take any pictures of her. and this is a famous picture called the golf cars. stanley was at hyannis port and saw the president get into his golf cart, and the president would drive a few feet, and he'd clap his hands, and all the little kennedys and shrivers and smiths and lawfords would compiling out and jump into the golf cart. and they'd go off to the candy store. well, stanley went to him, and he said, mr. president, that's a wonderful picture. i would really love to take it. it just shows such appeal and warmth. and the president said, i'll check with jackie. he came back to stanley, and he said you can take the photograph, but it can't be with caroline and john in the golf cart. so that's the picture, and this is the picture that is huge. any of you who have been to the kennedy library in boston, they have a huge mural of this. but you won't find caroline or john in the golf cart. this is an important picture. this is president kennedy on the day of the march on washington for jobs and freedom. august 13, 1963. when i was going through stanley's archive to do this book, i found about 200 photographs from the march on washington that have never been published before. so i'm trying to behave myself so that i can come back next year, because i have another photo book coming out on the march on washington. it's coming out this august. and it's called "let freedom ring." this is one of the photographs. this is after the march. the kennedys were terrified of this march. the whole city of washington had been shut down. businesses closed, the government closed. everybody thought there were going to be riots and bloodshed in the streets. and it turned out to be 250,000 people at a sunday picnic. it was a joyous, wonderful occasion. the president had been terrified. and after the march, in fact, he wouldn't speak at the march. and one reason he wouldn't speak was because martin luther king was is such a fabulous orator that john kennedy knew that he didn't want to follow him. and he also, if there was a riot, didn't want to be in the midst of it. so he invite what they call -- invited what they called the big ten, and those are the ten speakers that spoke at that march. at first there were just six speakers. but showing the vision of martin luther king in planning this march, he said we've got to reach out. it's got to be inclusive. you've got to have jews, you've got to have christians, you've got to have labor. so they expanded, and secretary of labor roy worths is there, whitney young, dr. king, a. phillip randolph, president kennedy, vice president johnson, walter luther and i forget who that is on the far, on the far right. this was the meeting that took place in the white house after the march. but to see all the pictures from the march, the book will be out in august. by the way, i do want to tell you that this book, um, is so easy for me to promote it and tell you about it because i'm not profiting from this. all the royalties go to the d.c. public libraries. [applause] all of them. [applause] um, and the book that'll be coming out in august, all proceeds from that book will go to the children's defense fund. so -- [applause] this is part of this famous photo shoot that stanley had. stanley had been aft president to do -- after the president to do a cover story on the president and his son. it took him 18 months to get the story. the president said it's a great idea, i'd like to do it, but jackie, i don't know. and then when the little, the little kid turned 2, the president said i have to be very honest with you, he's going through this stage right now where he doesn't like me. [laughter] stanley said the president was kind of embarrassed to tell him this, but stanley said, well, we'll keep at it. you keep working with irving. and for some reason stanley called little john kennedy jr. irving. everybody else called him.john john. the president didn't want him to be called jack. so they called him john john, stanley called him irving. anyway, mrs. kennedy took a vacation, and she went to greece after the death of their child in august of 1963, little patrick kennedy. and the day she left washington, ellen lincoln called stanley and said the president says the coast is clear, and you better get over here. [laughter] so stanley arrived at the white house, and he waited. and i guess -- yes. this is probably the most iconic photograph taken of the president in the oval office. john john came over to say good night to his father, and he ran to play in his secret place which was under the president's desk. and he popped out, opened the door, and stanley knew that he had a photograph. and stanley said to me, he said i know when i shove off, that's the only picture anybody's or going to remember. -- anybody's ever going to remember. and it is quite true. in all of his obits, they did run this picture. this is caroline coming down to see her father before she started school up in the white house solarium. mrs. kennedy didn't want the children to be going out to school, so she started a school for her kids and for the kids of cabinet officials. so caroline just came to say hello to her father. and it's so endearing that i had to put it in. this is a picture, obviously, of john jr. at his father's desk. and the president vetoed out of all the pictures saably took -- stanley took, and he did show them for approval. this was the only one the president said, no, you cannot publish this because it looks like we're being too playful in the oval office. so it was never published until now. and this is president kennedy after he made the nanny get john to have a haircut so that they could pose for pictures together for father's day. and it was, it was a heart of discussion, you know, which photograph would be used on the book. and the editors, the editors agreed that this would be the one. this is an endearing picture when you realize that john f. kennedy could barely bend be over. one thing that came through when i was doing the research for this book is the amount of pain, distress, disease that really plagued the president. he had numerous back operations that never worked. he had a steel plate inserted into his back that became infected and had to be operated on again. he got the last rites two times. and it's interesting that this is the man who represented youth and vigor and a new frontier in the white house. and he hid his disabilities quite well. i doubt that he'd be able to do that now, but he did at the time. this, for him to bend over, he told stanley it bothered him very much. he could rarely lift his children up, and he congress run with them too much -- he couldn't run with them too much, couldn't play touch football as much as he'd like to. but john is running to what he called his father's hebricop, marine one, the white house helicopter. and as soon as he got off, the president gave him, i don't know if you can see it in the picture, a parrot. but knowing that the president could barely bend over, it is a very sweet photograph. this is a picture of jacqueline kennedy less than a year after the assassination. stanley went to her and said that he wanted to do a story to show that she and the children were resilient and strong, and they were able to cope. she didn't want to do it at first. stanley went to robert kennedy, and jackie agreed. and so robert kennedy and ted sorenson, jackie and the two kids and stanley went up to high hyannis port. and he took a series of photographs that are quite extraordinary. and jackie signed this one: for stanley, with a very personal inscription which is in the book. this is from that same photo shoot. mrs. kennedy with the two children. this is a photograph taken of caroline and john in hyde park in london after the assassination. the queen dedicated running mead to president kennedy. and stanley, he was a wonderful photographer, but he was also a very, very good rider. and be he would -- and he would make notes to his editor, and he kept copies of all the letters that he sent to his editor and the back and forth that went on. and there's a wonderful ten-page memorandum called "my agonizing ten days in london with jackie." [laughter] and it goes into very funny detail about how he had to follow her around. she said you can come, but pretend you're not there. i don't want anyone to think that i have my own personal photograph -- photographer. anyway, this picture was taken in hyde park, and caroline is a real horse woman. she loved it, like her mother. john was allergic to horses, and jackie did not want his picture taken because anytime he got around horses, his little eyes would fill, and he'd start crying. and she never wanted a photograph of the president's son crying. well, stanley took it. after the assassination stanley was very, very close to robert kennedy, and stanley started knowing the kennedys back in the late '50s when he covered the racquets committee. and robert kennedy was counsel, and senator kennedy was on the committee. in this picture was taken -- this picture was taken in 1968. and it was taken a few days before the assassination. and it is the photograph that earth them kennedy -- ethel kennedy decided should be on a postage stamp. so this was the picture. stanley was so slammed by the assassination of robert kennedy that he took four months off his job and didn't work for a while. and i think he kind of lost his heart for coverage. i mean, he kept on working all of his life up until the time he'd had a stroke. and, in fact, he covered the carter campaign, and president carter asked him to come to the white house and be the white house photographer. i remember asking stanley why didn't you do that? and he said, oh, i just didn't think that carter would give me the kind of access that a white house photographer really needs. and that might have been true, but i do think that stanley had lost a little bit of heart. he was especially close to robert kennedy and traveled with him every single day and every single night of the campaign. he had gone to him before, and he said, you know, years ago i had gone to president kennedy and told him for the second campaign for his re-election i'd like to cover him in a way that no other photographer and journalist has ever done before, and i'd like complete access to all meetings to be able to photograph at any time, take any kind of notes. and robert kennedy said, absolutely. so it was stirring. and as you know, the campaign was not very long. he came -- he made his announcement in march of '68, and-assassinated in june -- and he was assassinated in june of '68. and stanley's archives contain thousands of pictures, most of which, again, have never been published. but this one has. is that it? we did it. [laughter] we did it. [applause] i'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about the book, about stanley. yes. >> hi, kitty. excuse me, could you, please -- [inaudible] sorry. step to the microphone there so everyone can hear you? i'm sorry. >> that's okay. that's fine. >> anyone else, get in line there too. thank you. >> yeah, kitty, i just have maybe it's a two-part question regarding jfk and his extramarital activity, controversial as it was and so forth. did stanley ever have any, talk about access, or was there any mention of this? what did he relate to you? >> well, now, remember, i didn't meet stanley until, i guess, 1981. but he was anker replaceable part of my life. and this subject did come up. and stanley knew about affairs with white house secretaries. he was a little stunned about the judith campbell exerner affr with the mafia mistress. stanley came from a different generation, and he was no stranger to affairs himself. thank you very much. which is why i believed him when he said he had a trunk full of nude photographs. so he was kind of like, well, yeah, you know, you know. but more than that we didn't really -- he told me about the secretaries. he told me about a couple of -- one very pretty journalist. but it was no big thing to stanley. and at that time the extent had not been published, the extent that we have now. >> and me second question is i just want to agree with the man that introduced you about his way. i just love that book about, you know, frank. it was such a great portrait, this kind of jekyll/hyde personality. and i remember it was very vivid how you would describe he would get back at people. i don't know if you remember there was some comic that had been ridiculing sinatra, and a few days later his face was smashed open. do you remember that? >> i do. i do remember that. [laughter] i have not forgotten that book because before i had written a word, frank sinatra sued me for $2 million to stop the book. and it was terrifying, and i remember i called the publisher, and i said i don't understand this. i've just read that i'm being sued by frank sinatra. and the publishing lawyer said, well, that's very interesting. and i said, um, well, i know, but, you know, when you're sued, you have to get a lawyer -- and she said, well, you might want to do that. [laughter] and i said, well, what are you? you're a lawyer. and she said, we don't have a manuscript. so i was on my own, and had it not been for a group of writers that stepped forward to defend the first amendment, i probably wouldn't be here. i would be in debtors' prison because frank sinatra kept this going until he finally dropped it a year later. .. how maybe my sources weren't so good. i have sources within the family, i had sources in the entourage, i have the mall over the place, interviewed hundreds of people flows this book and one of them said you don't have to worry about a thing. if anything happens to that, i would be the first one blamed. at the very false sense of security until about 3 weeks ago when paul's book came offense said there had been a hit put out. they probably didn't even know how to spell kitty kelley correctly. any other questions? >> if i may. >> it is kitty kelley. >> so much controversy in the books you have written one of the more controversial pieces for me is you break your journalistic code in the law of love characters you are writing about, all on the subject you are writing about comes through. certainly this book lays it bear, makes it easy. >> this does. it really was a labor of love. i am a firm believer in what they called the unauthorized biography. unauthorized does not mean and true, it means that you are doing it without the cooperation and blessing of your subject and i do believe this a legitimate, wonderful way to cover history, especially public figures that have spent many years and millions of dollars creating their own image, so i think it is viable sometimes to go behind that, so usually i am ville one 2 is trying to get behind that and tell you what is going on but in this book, because it was stanley, because he was my best friend and because he loved president kennedy, i felt i owed it to him to do the kind of book that he would have done and consequently you won't find anything too negative in this book. it shows my affection for stanley and his great affection for the kennedys but there are parts of it that makes you think. jacqueline kennedy lost many children, two or three miscarriages, she went into severe depression at one point and had electroshock therapy and you begin to understand why the kennedys threw themselves into mental health because rose marie kennedy, one of president kennedy's sisters also had electroshock therapy and it never worked and there's always the party for ambassador kennedy and his wife so there are poignant parts of this book but

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