>> good evening, everyone. before we get started, e wanted to go over a couple of very quick housekeeping details. please silence your cell phones. and if you have -- or just to let you know, there's no recording, no photos allowed during our programs. and thanks. however, you will get a chance to see all of this, because c-span is here tonight taping. so brush your hair, straighten your collars -- [laughter] you may be on tv very soon. sally quinn is a longtime washington post journalist, columnist, television commentator and one of the capitol's renowned social hostesses, also the founder of the religious web site on faith for "the washington post". she writes for various publications and has in order several books including the party, happy endings, and we're going to make you a star about her experience as the first female network anchor in the u.s. sally is in conversation tonight with two good friends who are also authors. elsa walsh is the author of divided lives: the public and private struggles of three women. she's been a staff writer at the new yorker and a reporter for "the washington post" where she was a finalist for the pulitzer prize in the investigative journalism category. bob woodward is an associate editor of "the washington post" where he's worked since 1971. he shared in two pulitzer prizes; paris, in 1973 for the coverage of the watergate scandal with carl bernstein and in 2002 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. he's authored or -- excuse me. he has authored or co-author 18 books over the year with his most recent one being the last of the president's men. so please join me in welcoming sally, elsa and bob, and enjoy the program. [applause] >> well, i get to start. i think in the spirit of full disclosure, we should announce that you and i are married -- >> right. [laughter] >> and have been married a long time. in fact, sally introduced us. [laughter] it was right before the civil war. [laughter] >> speak for yourself. >> yeah, speak for myself. [laughter] it was 1981. >> and it was love at first sight. literally love at first sight. >> yeah. you witnessed that. >> i saw it. i saw bob go, ah! [laughter] that was a long time ago. >> you used to describe it as lust at first sight. [laughter] and we're going to talk to sally about her book, "finding magic," which i must confess, a book i love because it's honest, it's about the things in life that matter; your career, your spouse, your child in your case or your children and your friends. and so elsa's going to lead the questioning, and i'll interrupt. [laughter] >> we were debating -- >> is that the way it usually goes? >> yes, exactly. [laughter] >> so if he interrupts too many times, i'm going to tap him over here on the arm. so it's an honor to be here to talk to you about this book. i love it too. >> thank you. >> very fast read for those of you who haven't read it. and it looks kind of at your whole life. and i wanted to start with something you wrote in the book that struck me. and and you write, "my childhood experience with magic planted the seed that grew into the faith i have today." do you want to talk about that? >> well, i am from the deep south, and i was born in savannah, georgia, and spent all of to my summers in statesboro which is about 60 miles outside of savannah. and as you know, savannah is "midnight in the garden of good and evil," and my parents, my family were scottish presbyterians. and my aunt ruth played the organ in the presbyterian church on sundays. but everyone in the family -- there were eight or nine kids in the family -- there was also another religion or faith or set of beliefs, whatever you want to call them, which were the occult. and so my aunt and all of the family believed in the scottish stones and time travel and psychic phenomenon and ghosts and astrology and tear row cards and -- tarot cards and voodoo. so i had these two separate religions. i had my christian religion, and i believed in god and jesus and i prayed every night, but i also had other set of beliefs which i later came to learn even when i was finally finishing the book that were just as legitimate as any other religion, because i think all religion is magic in the end. and so i watched them, i watched all of this happening in a house where there were ghosts. when somebody in the family died, the ghost would rattle chains up and down -- this was a great, big, huge southern mansion with a plantation host, and the ghost would drag chains up and down the second floor hallway, and even was cower. and you'd go upstairs the next morning, and there'd be scratches on the floor. and my aunt ruth had a heart condition. she had a dream one might about her mother, and her mother said to her, don't worry, you're going to be fine. and she said to her mother, how will i know that you're telling me the truth, and her mother said, well, i'll leave something as evidence more you. and she got up the next morning and and went into the parlor, and there on the divan was her mother's shawl that she had been buried in. if now, this is all family lore. but, i mean -- >> you believed it. >> of course. >> yes, okay. [laughter] >> i mean, this is, you know, my aunt maggie -- and they were all psychic. my grandmother, my aunt ruth, my mother, my -- her sister, my sister, we've all had some psychic ability all of our lives. and my aunt, i mean, they tell the story of my aunt maggie who loved in florida, and she woke up one night to screaming, and she said to her husband, there's been a terrible plane crash in the swamp. and they called the authorities. they were live anything fort lauderdale. they called the authorities, and they said there's a plane that's gone down, and we don't know where it is. my aunt tell them where it was, and they went and found them, and they were able to rescue some of the people. so this is -- these are stories i've grown up with. and then id had my own experience. i've had a number of experiences, but once, i went to smith college, and i was in my dormitory one afternoon when i had this horrible feeling about my mother. i just knew something terrible was happening. i rap down the -- i ran down the hall, and i went to the phone and started calling. my father was a general in the army, and we lived at fort myer, virginia. and so we had orderlies who were always at the house constantly. and i called, and there was no answer. and i called and i called and i called, and no one answered, no one answered, and i just wouldn't let the phone go. finally, somebody answered, and it was one of the orderlies, and i said -- i was frantic. i said, what's happened? is my mother all right? and he said, well, no, she's not, actually. i said, well, what's happened? he said, well, there's been an incident. and he -- then i could hear some other person come in the room, and they said, oh, jesus, you know? he said, i'll put your mother on. my mother got on, and she was e croixing so she couldn't even speak -- she was crying so she couldn't can even speak. she had been in the bathtub, and the tub was running, and a g.i. who had been living in the barracks had come to over and entered the house. and i don't know how he got past the orderlies. they might have, must have stepped out. gone into the bathroom, he went in to steal some things which he had done several times before from my father's dresser, saw my mother in the tub, got scared, took his jacket and put it over her head and pushed her under the water and was drowning her. and she was literally about to drown, but the phone started ringing. and it rang and rang and rang and rang and rang and rang, and it kept ringing and ringing, and finally he got panicked because he thought somebody would hear it and get my mother. so he let her go and ran out of the house. and she was able to come up finish. >> so you were always a believer -- >> yeah. >> -- of magic or the mystical -- >> right, exactly. i mean, so this happened. it was, they found the guy. he was sentenced to seven years, etc. so, i mean, this has always been part of my life, this magic. and, i mean, the book has gotten some attention because i talked about voodoo because i learned how to do voodoo in statesboro, georgia, too. i don't know whether i believe in it or not, but somewhere along the line when i was in my 20s, i decided to put hexes on people, and i did it three times. [laughter] i didn't know what i was doing, and i didn't know how to do it, and i just wanted them -- because they had hurt me or somebody i cared about, and i just wanted them to feel the pain i felt. unfortunately, they all died. [laughter] i know, everybody always laughs. [laughter] >> but just to be clear, they didn't -- i mean, they didn't die right away. >> well, some of them did. [laughter] >> everyone eventually dies. >> well, no, i mean, one of them died a week later, one of them died -- one of them got fired right away and lost his job and then died. and then the other one died shortly after. but i didn't believe that i was responsible for this k and ben was very funny about it because he kept saying -- he thought the whole thing was nonsense and it was completely a joke. but there was this little thing in me that said, god, you know? did i really do this? and my brother, who was, who got his ph.d. in religion at the university of chicago, he was one of the great religion scholars in the country, and he studied mysticism and became a lawyer, and he said you don't want to do this anymore, believe me. you've got to cut this out. because there's this law of threefold which is whatever bad energy you put out, you get it back threefold. and after the third time, i got so freaked out by it that i just stopped doing it. that was 35 years ago. and i have never done it again, ever. >> i've always been really nice to you. [laughter] >> but i just want to say ben thought it was ridiculous, but whenever he got pissed off at somebody, he'd say, go get 'em, sal. [laughter] all of my friends are skeptical about this. in fact, nobody believes in this. and i don't east really. -- either really. i can't tell you how many skeptical friends i've had in the past year who have begged me to put a hex on donald trump. [laughter] i'm not doing it. [applause] swore it off 35 years ago, ain't gone that happen. [laughter] you asked me about magic, that was a long answer. >> so one of the themes in your book is there is a lot of anger at god. and that anger begins at an unusually young age, at the age of 4. and maybe it's because your father was in the military, world war ii, south korean war. you saw and had an interaction with a lot of death. and and i wondered if you could describe why this anger at such a young age and why it made you turn from believing in a god. >> well, as i said, my father was in the military. he was in germany during world war ii, and he liberated dachau, and he had his staff photographer take photographs of all these piles of dead bodies and emaciated people. he made a scrapbook which is now at the holocaust museum. and hid it. and i found it when i was 4 after he'd just come back. and i went to him and i said, daddy, what's this? we didn't have television in those days, and he explained about the nazis and what they'd done. and i said, daddy, did god know about this? and he said, yes, he did. i said, well, how could he have let this happen? and he said, god works mys tier yous ways -- mysterious ways. i was devastated, i cried all night long because all i could think about were these young, these little jewish children in the camps praying for their safety and protection and their parents praying, and i was praying to the same god, and look what happened to them. and it became clear to me that there was no such thing as god. so i became an atheist at the age of 4, although i didn't know what that meant. and i certainly never told anybody that i didn't believe in god, but i stopped saying my prayers. i learned what the word atheist meant when i was 13. but then my father -- and i was an atheist when i started the web site 11 years ago at the washington post. and i was very angry at god. and then my father was stationed in korea, and i got very sick when he left. they never found out what was wrong with me, and they think it was probably psychosomatic, but i was so terrified my father was going to get killed. i was 10, and he was on the front lines, and he was always on the front page of the stars and stripes every day. >> the buffalo. >> buffalo bill. i was in tokyo general hospital, and they were bringing in all the wounded soldiers, these kids, 17, 18, 19 years old. and they also would not allow me to see -- they wouldn't allow us to see our parents because they thought it was disruptive because they didn't have enough staff to take care of the kids and deal with the wounded soldiers. so i saw these wounded soldiers, and i didn't get better. so they transferred me back to brook general hospital in san antonio, and we didn't know this, but they put me and my mother and my sister and my little brother on a hospital plane full of wound soldiers. there were no seats. there were three rows of litters five high, and all of these -- severely, the most severely wounded soldiers. so a lot of them had lost limb, a lot of them were badly burned. and they were all, they were dying. and they were bleeding, and my mother would go up and down the aisles, and they were calling for their mothers and crying and begging to die or not to die, and the blood was everywhere, and it was -- and i kept thinking how could there be a god? how could any god allow to happen? and, you know, these guys would die, and they'd come and zip them up in a bag and take them, i don't know, somewhere in the back of the plane. it was probably one of the most traumatic experiences i've ever been through. and so it wasn't until i -- john meacham, who was editor of "newsweek" and who's a very well known pulitzer prize-winning writer, and he's also a religion scholar and a deeply, profoundly christian person, we had this lunch. this was before i started the web site. and he said, you're not an atheist. and i said, yes, i am. he said, no, you're not, because an atheist is too negative of a word, and you're not a negative person. it means that you deny the existence of god, and you can't deny the existence of god because you don't know. and the word with agnostic has never meant anything to me because i think it means we don't know, and i think we're all agnostics. i think the pope is an agnostic because he doesn't know any more than i do. my favorite bumper sticker is i don't know and you don't either. [laughter] and i think that's true. but john did say to me, look, if you're going to be an atheist, then you need the go out and learn something about religion because you know nothing about religion. he gave me a list of books to read, which i did. i reed them, and something was -- i read them, and something was percolating. he did say how can you be angry at god if you don't believe in god? and i thought, oh, that's an interesting question. [laughter] i did. and then i had this idea to start the web site -- >> well, let's stop here -- >> yeah, okay. >> -- for to a moment. you started the web site at around the same time that your husband, ben bradley -- the great editor of "the washington post," someone we all love -- began to fail. and you did what many journalists often do, you began sort of a journalistic exploration of something that was maybe more personal than you ever really were willing to admit. >> right. >> let's talk about that, but let's talk a little bit more about ben first. >> okay. >> okay, well finish. >> no, you -- >> i'll just say that ben developed dementia. ben died it'll be three years week after next, but he had been diagnosed eight years before that. well, i had never actually put that together, elsa, but it was the year that he was diagnosed that i started the religion web site. and i had all of this reading that i'd been doing. i thought that we weren't covering religion because i thought it was such an important story from not only a political point of view, but also a foreign policy and that the post just wasn't covering it. and i went to don graham and suggested this, i do a religion web site. i suggestedded that we, the paper, should cover religion. he said, well, why don't you start a religion web site. this was in the dark ages when you could do anything on the web. the web site was in arlington, it wasn't anywhere near the post. i said i don't know anything about internet, i don't know anything about religion, and he said, well, nobody's perfect. [laughter] and so i got john meacham to be my co-moderator. and i then, shortly after that, started a trip around world. and one of the things that john and i, i wanted to do a panel. and so i knew four religious people, one of them was martin marty who also was a teacher of my brothers, a dean of religion at university of chicago. and i knew karen armstrong who is a religion scholar and e -- [inaudible] and archbishop desmond tu tu, so i called them up and said would you be on the panel, and after that i was golden because nobody would turn it down. >> but your friends didn't really understand -- your friends, nor ben really understood what your interest -- >> ben was absolutely appalled. he could not believe, in fact, nobody could. in fact, they still can't. [laughter] i mean, still nobody can understand how it was that i could start a religion web site. and shortly after that i took a trip around the world to study the great faiths, and it was a three week trip, and we went to about 13 countries. and i saw, i mean, it was really important for me to do that because i saw firsthand all of these different religions and all these different faiths. and what was obviously, as you point out, percolating in me was this, my sort of beginning spirituality that was coming. i was looking for meaning in my life, and i didn't, i hadn't articulated it. i had read victor frankel's book, a man's search for meaning, which is one of your favorite books. >> right. >> and that had had a powerful impact on me particularly because of my history with the nazis and the holocaust with my father. but it just seemed to me that i was turning my wheels, you know? i was writing a little bit for the post and doing a little bit of that and everything, but i got so involved in religion. and then became more involve in spirituality. and i began to feel more that i was looking for something more than -- and i stopped calling myself an atheist at some point. but i still didn't know what to call -- >> but there was some yearning -- >> yes, i was yearning for -- >> and what, i mean, there's the old cliche man, woman comes to god in weariness. was there some of that in the sense -- because -- >> no, it was -- >> i mean, it's known, but -- and you lay it out in the book, the relationship you had with ben. i mean, that was the love of both of your lives. >> right. >> and went on and on and on for decades. and as he drifted away, is there some kind of, okay, i'm going to fill that? >> well, you know, that's a great question, bob. i mean, i didn't -- >> we would like you to lie down -- [laughter] on the couch. >> well, i didn't, you know, i didn't think of to it that way, and the odd thing was that once ben was diagnosed, we never discussed it again. and i kept looking at all these tv ads where the older couple goes in to the doctor, and one of them gets diagnosed, and they hold hands, and then they start making plans for the future and all that. it didn't happen with us. ben was the master of denial. he was the king of denial. and so we just didn't talk about it. and we just went on as though nothing had happened. but i could see that i was losing him. and i needed something to fill that void. and so i began to sort of -- i wouldn't call myself a seeker, but i did have these moments of transcendence. ask one of -- i started a video interview thing on faith called divine impulse, and i interviewed people. and i always asked them at the end what gives your life meaning. what, to you, is a sense of the divine? now, i don't know where i came up with that because it's not anything i ever asked mideast. and, in fact -- asked myself. and, in fact, one night i was sitting next to barry diller, and he turned to me and said do you have faith? now, my web site was called on faith, and i didn't know how to answer him because i hadn't thought about it myself. so i really did have to start thinking about it. and there were moments in my life when i just knew that something -- there was something bigger than i was. i didn't believe in god, but i did believe in a creator because i couldn't get my mind around the idea that first there was nothing and then there was something. and so i began to accept that, that there was something bigger than i was. and as ben began failing, i began to spend more time with him, and the last two years of his life i literally became his caretaker. i never hired a caretaker. we had a housekeeper who helped me out. and, you know, he was sun downing which is you get up in the middle of the night, you don't know where you are, and, you know, he couldn't -- finally, he couldn't take a shower or change. i had to change his clothes and get him dressed and undressed, i had to teach him how to brush his teeth every night and every morning. and i slept in the bed with him every night until he died. and, you know, he would get up and wander around. he had blackouts, psychotic episodes where he would destroy furniture in the house. it was quite scary. butted toly, i know this sounds -- but oddly, i know this owndz strange, but this was probably the most spiritual time in my entire life. i don't think i've ever had a feeling like i did because i felt truly needed and wanted and fulfilled. and, you know, ben was this really macho guy, and he didn't like being pushed around, he didn't like me telling him what to do, and it was sort of a joke among our friends, i used to say you're the most henpecked man in washington. he would go crazy. [laughter] but he kind of, he let go and allowed me to take care of him and allowed me to love him in the way that i wanted to love him. and he kept saying to me thank you so much for taking such good care of me. and i felt that last two years of our life was probably the happiest two years i've ever had with ben in my life even though as horrible as it was. it gave me a sense of fulfillment, and it really did put me in touch with the divine in a way that i neverred had before. >> i remember -- i neverred had before. >> i remember you telling me during that period that you felt it was sort of inexplicable, this feeling you were having. you said it was like crack cocaine, you couldn't get enough of it because ben needed and wanted you so much. >> yeah. yeah. and, you know, i mean, he loved me always, and he always needed me and wanted me but not in that, in that way that i just felt like this is, this is what the meaning of life is. this is what has given my life meaning. and my son quinn, our son quinn, my only child, was born with a heart defect and had heart surgery when he was three months old and was severely learning disabled at a young age. and so i really had to take a leave of absence for the post for almost 16 years taking care of quinn because we were living at children's hospital for most of that time. and again, you know, i didn't resent -- somebody once said to me, well, were you resentful? and i said, in, i wasn't. i was wistful. i kept thinking the career that i could have had. but to me, taking care of quinn was the most important thing i could do. and that's what finish so -- so i, in the end, it became clear the me when i was writing book and i was asked to write the book about how an atheist started a religion web site. but it was two years before ben died, and i just didn't have time to write, and i didn't have anything in me to write. all of my energy was going toward taking care of ben. but it was about two or three weeks after he died, i thought, i've got to write this. i've just got to sit down and write this. so i did start writing, and i started writing about his decline and his death because i had -- and that was just the most traumatic but also cathartic thing i've ever done. i cried the whole time i was writing it. .. well, i met him because i was hired by the editor of the editorial page to be his secretary. for which i was totally not qualified. i was 27. i couldn't type or file so phil took me under -- i was completely dazzled, i was blown away by it. joked to something like that, the most incredibly sexy, romantic, exciting person i ever met and the next day phil called me and that you are fired, he said because you are overqualified for this job. if you took this job we would hate each other in a month. i didn't see been again until a year and a half or two years later when he called me and asked me if i would come in foreign interview, i had been a social secretary, and ambassador, he wanted me to be a party reporter. >> you couldn't hold a job. >> i had sex ten jobs before. >> late bloomer, failure to launch. you worked as a pr girl for the pet festival, animal husbandry and exhibition, you were a go-go dancer. >> how was the video of? >> you addition to be the girlfriend of the father in a flipper movie. >> speaking of harvey weinstein. and the director -- that would have to sleep with him. and the rehearsal. i have to ask my father. and in fact, the day that ben called me i decided to go back to my first love, the theater and failed at everything else i had done and tried out for a part for joseph heller's we bomb -- tried out for the lead in washington, and got a phone call from a director who said congratulations, you got the part. and start rehearsals and all that and got the call from them saying this is ben bradley who had a deep sexy voice and wants to talk about being a party reporter. i went down to interview ben, did not hire me and this is true. we had a fantastic interview. >> how did you prepare for this interview? >> i looked up his astrological sign because i was very big on astrology and still am. elsa -- bob is a tourist. my two favorite signs. >> don't like artifice of any kind. and don't try to show off and so i went in and gave an interview in the washingtonian magazine, can't believe i said that. anyway, we had a wonderful connection, started sparring with each other. was very sassy, very cheeky, 20 years older. can you show me something you have written? and never written anything, nobody is perfect. so i started working. >> really successful party reporter in the sense, established something serious to read about in the washington post, how did you do that? what was the key to being a great party reporter? get stuck in the quarter and you weren't. >> i think most people don't realize being a party reporter is the hardest job at the newspaper. elizabeth miller who i hired at the washington post to replace me when i went to cbs news to be the first network anchorwoman in america which is a disaster, at columbia journalism school, all of her friends made fun of her and said how can you be a party reporter? she is bureau chief of the new york times. >> that is a party. >> the best training i ever had because in washington, all the things you cover are official, you are out here with senators and congressmen and white house administration people and diplomats and military, journalists, lawyers and lobbyists, before i go out to cover a party, i got together and go to the farm reporters and say henry kissinger what is going to be there and strom thurmond and whoever else it might be, senator or white house person, what do you need to know? we are working on a story about such and such. i would go and get a drink in my hand and had my little notebook and standing there with three or four people and all drinking and joking and laughing and talking, asking some questions, are we going to bomb vietnam? i don't know. but just the kind of thing you could never get people to talk the way they did if you made an appointment and go to the office and sat down and interviewed so i broke a lot of stories and ultimately ended up being a political reporter and profiles of powerful people. >> and develop that, an art form that was never in the post until you came along. why did that work? i remember reading profiles of people in the nixon administration going sally now understands who these people are. it was lively but there was a lot of political and emotional insight in those profiles. >> find out what their astrological sign was. but the first today i went to work at the washington post, ben had just started the style section and it was revolutionary, it was foreign about women and flour arrangements and suddenly he mixed it up and hired a lot of hippies, people were smoking pot and he brought in half men to the section, writers, a lot of good writers and when he brought in was phil stacey who had been a police reporter for 30 years on the metro desk, phil was a gnarly old guy who smoked 12 packs a day and his desk was a mess with sleeves rolled up and grumpy so he looks at me, let me give you one bit of advice. when you go out and cover parties cover parties the way you cover crime. there is always a victim and there is always a perp. that was really good advice. when you cover parties or interviewing people, you probably know that. >> did you realize you got to decide who the victim was? >> yes. >> why was been a great editor? >> you know, my father is a great leader and ben was a great leader. you knew my parents, you know my father, they had the same quality, incredible confidence and assurance in themselves and what they did, they were very courageous, they were really strong. they cared about the people who were working for them. they wanted to get the best out of the people and encouraged people who worked for them to do their best work and they complimented them on their best work but they were really tough, very demanding and there was -- my father was called buffalo bill. also they both had great senses of humor. my father was an irishman and told great jokes all the time and been had a quality that was very charming, i never saw been or my father afraid of anything ever accept been was afraid clinton was going to die. that was the only time i saw him afraid, we thought he was going to die when he was having heart surgery. my father was afraid, i held him in my harms on his deathbed and he was afraid and those are the only times i thought either of them afraid or depressed. there was this quality of optimism, we can do this, we will get the story, we will get it first and we will get it right. a lot of it had to do with ethics, morals and values. both of them in their own way had really strong moral guide, moral compass and people sensed that about both of them but they both made people want to follow them. daddy once said your husband is a 5-star general in his profession. the highest he could ever give anybody. we are in washington. in your book you say washington is a spiritual post, all about power and seeking power often makes people good people do bad things, the power center cannot be a spiritual place. that doesn't mean people who live here aren't moral, don't have values or ethics, in many cases trumps those. >> i have seen it all the time. we have been disappointed over and over. martha's vineyard, there was a young man who was a navy seal running for congress and he came to speak at a friend's house and sat around and so idealistic, i want to do good things, i want to come to washington. just overflowing with enthusiasm and optimism and idealism, and after he left, i turned to this friend of mine and wondered how long he would remain at idealistic. the first thing you learn when you come here is to do the things you need to do you have to make compromises. i find so often people will make compromises and compromises and that line you cross starts to blur and people will go over the line and make compromises they never should have made and do things they never should have done. one of the most insidious part of this for politicians are people who have to raise money. i had a number of friends quit politics because they said the money raising was so horrific they couldn't stand it. >> let's talk about john power and your experience with him. john tower was a senator from texas, the harvey weinstein moment, my father -- barry goldwater -- the goldwaters were close to my parents which i worked for barry goldwater on capitol hill when i first came to washington as a senior in high school. i loved barry goldwater and i loved him all the way through his life. i thought he was one of the most wonderful people i ever met and a totally decent man. been came to love him too because he loved my parents when his mother got sick and moved to arizona so we would have dinner with them a lot. i met john power through my father and barry and so we struck up a conversation. he was this tiny little guy, not at all attractive but it turns out i majored in theater and minored in politics, turns out he had taught theater at a college in texas. we had a conversation, why don't you come to the hill and go to the senate dining room for lunch. how nice. i worked on the hill for barry. made the date for lunch and that day the secretary called and said the senator is really tied up so can't do lunch so have dinner. i didn't know how to say no, come up to the hill so i went up there, let's go, went to france in georgetown which was a very posh restaurant, started trying to hold my hand at dinner, he was married and i was frantic because he was really repulsive. and and i have got to get home because i have to go to work tomorrow. i started to hail a cab. and it is called the espionage, they were blacked out on the front door, this man with the cape over his eyes. that is where the congressman and senators went to take their girlfriends and with this little parlor with loveseats, so dark you could hardly feel, and he started grabbing me and holding my hand and i grabbed his hand and said let me read your palm. i am a really good palm reader. i'm desperately reading his palm, he finishes, wants to know the drink and i leap up and say i have to go to work, race downstairs, flagler, the cab pulls over and he says i'm going to go with you in virginia, we got in a cab and he started to try to rape me and pulling my clothes off, pulled my underwear down. i was screaming at the top, and my old guy knew what was going on, he was going about 100 miles an hour to get me home. we got to fort meyer and he was strong. clearly done this before. we pulled up in front, opened the door to pool against the senate. and got strong, the general and mps with come on this. and i went upstairs and cried all night long am so ashamed. >> who did you tell about it? >> didn't tell anyone for a couple years, told nobody because i thought i brought this on myself, i had given him some idea he could do this which is a constant story, the harvey weinstein story, you feel ashamed because it is your fault. a couple years later i told them they were both come if they were upset but not as upset as they should have been. >> being secretary of defense, i can't use this because it is you but in my hand, somebody who will do this, we did lots of work in other episodes. >> what happened was i told a few friends after that and it sort of got around. george bush was nominated, tower, secretary of defense which he really wanted, so one day the doorbell rang and two fbi guys showed up at my door and said let's talk about senator tower, you had an incident with senator tower and they want you to tell us about it, there's no way i'm going to tell you about this. it is all right, totally confidential. i said right. where do you think washington post get solid stories? and so i didn't tell them and anita hill didn't know any better and she told the fbi and it wasn't confidential. she was up there and her whole life was ruined. i could have been anita hill if i had not known better. as it turned out the one republican who voted against tower and destroyed his possibilities was nancy captain bomb. teddy kennedy's office, i heard sally up story and i'm not going to vote for that guy. that is in the book. >> i know we were supposed to open up to questions. we are about that time. >> before that, one question. when you write a book like this which you traveled hard and long the road of introspection, what did you learn about your self? >> writing the book, it is like i started out by writing these little episodes in my life starting with my childhood like breadcrumbs. each one had a little he picked any or incident or something that eliminated me spiritually although i didn't know what i was doing and they were leading up to where i ended up being spiritually. i had to go back after i finished writing the book and write what i have learned from those experiences but didn't know, when i was experiencing them didn't know when i was writing it until i got to the end of the book and i began to realize i would not say religious but i was a very spiritual person, had very strong beliefs. as i said, i believe in a creator but i believe in transcendence, i believe we can all be in touch with the divine. i believe love is the most important thing in our lives, trumps everything. my husband was in the study, the grant study. in the grand study, it is through their lives, jack kennedy in the study, and would write their marriages, relationship, children, jobs, all of that and most of them are dead now. george valiant who did the study wrote a book about the grant study and came to the conclusion, 80 or 90 years, wasn't that old, there was only one thing led to happiness for all of them and that was love, fool stopped. that is something i learned about myself, love is the most important thing in my life, far more than my career and that gives my life meaning and that also, i call myself a transcendentalist because i believe in transcendence and i also believe so many people are looking for happiness and are going about it -- all these books about how to be happy, but i think they are going about it the wrong way, people look for happiness in order to find meaning when we should look for meaning in our lives which will lead to our being happy and that is ultimately why i am a really happy person. even though i lost ben who was the love of my life. the hardest thing i have ever gone through his losing been. i feel like i am a happy person because i had him in my life and had that love, would love to have it again but for me, that is something that was such a gift i can't believe i was so lucky to have and to have quinn and his love. when i talk about magic, all of those little incidents were moments of finding magic in my life which led to ultimately finding meaning by taking care of ben and ultimately what i call finding magic. >> before we go to the questions i wanted to ask you to talk about the night before ben died. the first time you talk about feeling the presence of god as a god. >> been, so weird because ben was in perfect health, he was 93, he was in great shape, came back from long island and we went to the doctor, michael newman, he asked ben to leave the room with the nurse to be checked in, putting him in hospice care. i said why? he said he is in perfect health, there's nothing wrong with them. he is dying. i said but how do you know? i have been doing this a long time. we didn't tell ben he was in hospice care. we said the nurse was coming to check on him from time to time. that was two months, it was only two months and he just kind of drifted away. during that time, the last few days during his life, i could feel him going and wanting to be with him, i could feel something supporting me. i stayed at the bed with him for three days and i held his hand the whole time. i never got out of bed except to go to the bathroom. i would say to ben don't die now. i'm going to the bathroom, wait until i come back. there was a moment, bob and elsa were the last to see ben before he drifted into unconsciousness. they came to the bedside and ben was there and they walked up and i said ben, bob and elsa, ben said bob woodward, yea! i don't know where that came from. they stayed for a few minutes and ben left and i could see his eyes droop and i said i love you, ben and he said me too, babe and he closed his eyes and never gained consciousness again but when i got up for the next two days to go to the bathroom, he would go like this because i had his hand in my head at all time and he would keep his hands going like that until i came back. our anniversary was october 20th and i said to him, he had lost consciousness, i said you can't die on our anniversary, you just can't. he waited until the 21st until he died. during that time, i felt so embraced and so full of love and -- i felt like i was levitating. of course i felt terribly sad, full of grief in some way, but i also felt truly loved. i said in the book there was god in the room that night, when he died, i don't know what i mean by god when i interview people over the years. i said what is god to you? everyone has a different idea and i for me it was "finding magic: a spiritual memoir"'s love but i did feel there was something bigger and i was then the 2 of us that helped me get through that. >> questions? two moments. >> i had a chance working as the architect for the washington post newsroom in 1990 and he always seemed he had a joke on his lips. .. so i could have told him that. i have to give it would fall and slip. i got him out of the shower and i was driving him off and hit his private parts accidentally be sent out. he said listen if you hit my balls one more time this party is over. he never forgot who i was. that was a blessing. i can tell you how lucky i was. ben was always there. until the very end. >> on the trip around the world i saw a lot of religions. and what i did really was cherry pick. there was something about each religion that i liked and something i couldn't stand. there is particular rituals that i really love. i do find that the chanting and the prayers and all that that gives people as sense of being transcendent. there were 3,000 people there. it was one of the more transcendent moments i've ever had. it was all of the beautiful hymns in the music. with the beautiful sunlight streaming in through the windows i go to young pour at the synagogue every year and i occasionally will go to a mosque i really like certain things about that. i don't like the rigidity of them. i don't believe that jesus is the son of god. i think jesus is a great profit. i think it is an incredible story. if you believe that all religion is magic the way i do then you look at the stories that are part of organized religion and going up to the sky on a silver horse and you look at all of those things. it is just what gets you through the night. those are the things that get people comfort and solace. and if that works for them than that's great. i'm no problem with any religion as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. i told o'quinn when he quinn when he was old enough he would go to my parents. they gave him his religious education. and they used to read little bible stories to them all the time which i thought was fine. i want to him to be exposed as much as i can. i found it hard to believe in god but i feel like people are lucky if they can't because they get a great deal of comfort of their faith. and if you can that's great. i interviewed him for my website about ten years ago and i asked him what he believed and he said he believed in god. he thought it was really important. there was someone up there who loved him and who cared about him. i said do you think that i did the wrong thing by telling you that i was an atheist. you told me what you believe in you also told me that you want wanted me to find my own faith and i do. it was the greatest gift you could've given me. sally, when you are interviewed not too long ago you are asked what would you want on your epitaph. i know right now. i said on my gravestone. i would like it to read good mother, good wife good daughter good friend. the guy said well that's the fastest anybody's ever come up with anything. most people talk about their careers or something like that. i decided i would change my mind. i decided i wanted to read she was never boring. that is true. think you very much. thank you. [applause]. [indiscernible] c-span where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's table -- cable television companies. now joining us on book tv is author, professor and longtime journalist marvin cal. i was with the u.s. embassy in moscow. send me all over russia. russia at that time was an interesting point. from the very top of the government down to students. and because i was very young unattached the ambassador sent me to talk to the russians. i found out what it is that is in the art what drove them what excited them a little bit of freedom that they have was intoxicating. they really felt for the first time in their lives that they would not be awakened at 3:00 in the morning and be hauled off to siberia they really felt like the country was changing but at the end of the year unfortunately the hungarian people they took him at his word and the upshot was that they wanted their freedom total they wanted to be independent of russia and they have a choice let him do it and all of these would have fallen apart. or crushed them. that was a terrible moment for the russians but you know, the idea of russia and freedom is still a possibility. i think the fact that russia has lived with a dictatorship for most of its life doesn't mean it always has to live with and autocracy. it's possible that people can learn about freedom and appreciate it could you see the fear in their lives literally. when they deliver that speech at the 2040 congress what we learned later there was no coroners allowed at the time was that many russians several of them committed suicide on the spot. because they were all stalinist people. they felt like they would be attacked also and you can see it literally. in their eyes but you can also see in the eyes of young people that i talk to hope and excitement and i think that we in the u.s. tend to quite often forget the magic of liberty of freedom and we should not take it for granted it's a very precious thing. if you've got it treasure it because if you don't have it your to be in serious trouble. when did you transition out of the diplomatic world into the journalistic world. i thought at that point i have the opportunity to do that. that terrified me. i was working on my phd when i did an article in the times and the great edward r merle. they invited me to talk to him. that happened very quickly. when the interview was over one of the things they said was so great. he put his arm around me and he said you are now one of us. and i have never forgotten that. and ants among elephants they describe the family history and upbringing in india. peter manso curator of religion with the national museum of american history a photographer and post- civil war american known for his spirit photography in the apparition us. the city university of new york professor explores how cities can be affected by climate change in extreme cities. new york university's recalls the fiscal collapse of new york city in 1975. today those homes suffer 300 or $400,000. the african-american families who are prohibited from moving into those homes and rented apartments in the city did not gain 200 or 300 dollars in equity over the next generations. they are unaffordable. they can afford to buy homes. they can't even afford to move to the suburbs. african-american wealth is five to 7% of white wealth. between 60% income ratio and 5% while ratio is almost entirely habitable to unconstitutional federal housing policy that was practiced in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. i think it was a charitable to the segregation. some of the authors have or will be appearing on book tv. you can watch them on a website. 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