Is discusses her memoir time is love morgenthaler and me. It tells the story of her life with former Manhattan District Attorney robert morgenthaler. The event is part of the reading festival at hyde park new york and ended his 40 minutes. Now it is my great pleasure to introduce our speaker he author of timeless love, loved morgenthaler and me a memoir of her unconventional marriage to the most colorful prosecutor Robert Morgenthau who we are honored to have us here today. [applause] her other books include waiting out a war the file, by old apple which was a novel and my fathers secret war which is another memoir. A staff writer for the New York Times shes also written for the new yorker, the New York Times magazine and the atlantic and why Pulitzer Prize for the reporting on the life and death remembered as the of a member of the weathermen. A graduate of our own college was in the friends lives in new york city with her husband the legendary District Attorney for new york and robert m. Morgenthau. [applause] thank you everyone for coming out on this rainy afternoon. It is such an honor to be here and talk in the footsteps of the greatest president the nation has ever known. I spent many wonderful hours with robert clark understand different letters between the roosevelt and morgenthalers and so there was a time when i felt this was my second home. I was brought up in a republican enclave called mostly massachusetts. There was not a democrat in sight. It is headquartered there and Eleanor Roosevelt was suspect to the population and considered secretly dangerous. I was a little bit of a renegade and roosevelt became my hero. By the time i was ten, i was reading every book i could find in the privacy of my closet. In the department of 1 department of 1 degree of separation i fell in love with the man at all of our roosevelt considered a curse on. While i was reading stories about eleanor, Robert Morgenthau was seen by Eleanor Roosevelt herself. Bob was eleanor or mrs. Roosevelt as he still calls her today. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met and she was to be his surrogate mother for the rest of her life. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the premise of my book its a love story that explores how and unlikely relationship like ours had and where it for more than three decades. When i met the new york District AttorneyRobert Morgenthau and the 1970s, he was an icon of the establishment dedicated to upholding the law and i was a radical hippie determined to destroy it. [laughter] moreover, he was almost 30 years older than me. We were totally different that we should come together was almost an oxymoron. But the buck is a story of how we realized that sometimes people behind their facade are hauntingly unlike. Timeless is reviewing our fable and emotions and our highs and lows, how we develop strategies for reinventing your marriage when it floundered. But one of my favorite parts of writing timeless was the revelations i found out about the close connection between the roosevelt and my husbands parents. They both lived in duchess county and eleanor lived here at springboards in hyde park and morgenthau lived not far down the highway. Franklin and eleanor spent their young adult years together becoming fast friends and political allies. When fdr first became governor of new york he appointed henry who funded 300 acres of apple orchards which are still today. He appointed him as the chief technical joe counselor and then the conservation commissioner of the state. After he became president , henry became his secretary of the treasury. Now this isnt widely known but henry junior was perhaps fdrs closest adviser. Really intimate adviser. He helped develop the new deal and helped rearm the country and ordered rearmament of the country in preparation for world war ii. They loved hatching ideas and when the war broke out in europe they wanted to help england but they wanted to do it behind the back of congress, which was dead set against the u. S. Involvement in world war ii. So they assembled many planes and tanks and brought them up to the Northern City and rolled them over onto canadian soil and then they flew them to england. They were technically obeying the atrocity act of congress but only technically. After america entered the war, at least one secret meeting was held between churchill and roosevelt. Of the two powerful men drank, laughed, talked bravely all of which was captured in a home movie taken by henry. One amusing scene in the movie depicts my husband as bright faced dressed in white making mint julep. He served in mint julep to churchill who with his protruding belly was sitting back like an oyster on the half shell. When he took on taste of the mint juleps he grimaced and went back to his class of whiskey. As i mentioned, Eleanor Roosevelt and my husband had a very close relationship. When he was a small boy he had a series of infections and back in those days there was no penicillin. There was no cure for these infections and many people died of them. During one terrible bout of infection from his parents were away on and around the world trip. Eleanor roosevelt took it upon herself to visit him every single day, soothed him, reassured him that he had a gas mask mask that gave him laughing gas over his face and which the plane he was screaming because they were draining his ear and trying to put him out. Eleanor held his hand and talked quietly to him. When she brought him a come on out if shed gotten from japan, he wore it constantly even when it was too small. Later of our roosevelt showed her amazing ability to bob. He was in amherst at that point. He formed something called the Political Union which was a Rebellious Group of people trying to oust the president. He asked his friend Eleanor Roosevelt to come and talk to the students who mostly in those days were american drifters and eleanor was going to make a speech that would change the college which she did. However when he picked her up in his car, she said i am so nervous, i am just so nervous about speaking and he thought if first lady the first lady of the United States is nervous about speaking then i can be nervous, too. The two families would attend each others pretty parties and fdr was in the habit of writing poems to Eleanor Morgan thought. He knew eleanor was a superior strategist in real politics and kept henry, the visionary on the straight and narrow. One of the problems read i want to know what takes henry argued. Doesnt he get the chance at home to make his opinions known . [laughter] what i found fascinating and a lot of people dont know was how intimate the relationship was between Eleanor Roosevelt and Eleanor Morgenthau. Eleanor was one of the bright lights and mrs. Roosevelts group of friends. They were quite similar in nature. Both were very independent but they functioned as cover behind their husbands. They were women of their time but counseled and physicians are men but did so within ie are not fixed in a velvet club. Although mrs. Roosevelt towered over mrs. Morgan thought, eleanor was 6 feet tall and of the more ardent foes fight for, they looked like twins. They wore similar addresses, matching hats and dave rode horseback to get her. Their connection was so deep that in pictures they wanted their horses to lookalike so the body of mrs. Roosevelts horse was transposed on the horse beneath Eleanor Morgenthau said when you see these pictures of them the horses have white streak down their noses and look exactly alike. When they all went off to washington after fdr took office as president in early 1933, Eleanor Morgan thought was the only friend that traveled with mrs. Roosevelt. They drove around the country visiting the disenfranchised and the poor to see exactly how they lived. They went to the Tennessee Valley to inspect the programs started by fdr and henry junior. They went down into the coal mine in West Virginia and came up with black dust chalked up to two double conditions that they worked under. You can be sure that mrs. Roosevelt march] to the white house and got franklin to do something about it. Once when the press was decrying the plight of the ill treated or in checkers who came up north to work on apple farms and fruit farms this is roosevelt proceeded to inspect the orchard. She pronounced them extremely well treated. Ever after, Henry Morgenthau junior was able to say this is roosevelt has given fishtail forms a clean bill of health. Eleanor had the ability to go to sleep as soon as she got into the front of her car. This preserved her formidable energy. Unfortunately Eleanor Morgenthau did not go to sleep. She was in a backup car. She couldnt sleep but kept up with her friend although after their ships she took to her bed for at least a day. The rarely quoted letters between the 200 Roosevelt Library show an unusual emotional bond between the two and they also give a glimpse of the character of eleanor. She was a mysterious woman. Her husband refused to talk about her as the biographer and she is rarely spoken of by her family today. Here in these letters, a head in the eleanor is discovered and there is a vulnerable woman who seems to be depressed about her Health Problems which led to her untimely death in 1949. She was envious of Eleanor Roosevelts other friends and felt beneath her confident facade sometimes unloved. The library had many letters from Eleanor Roosevelt to Eleanor Morgan thought but only one has been preserved from mrs. Morgenthau to her friend. Where are the rest of the correspondence, nobody knows. Robert clark speculates that mrs. Morgenthau was so smitten with the first lady she preferred to hear her voice over the telephone them to write. I have a few letters i left in the green room. Sorry about. I have letters written by l. Of our roosevelt to Eleanor Morgenthau which are kind of revealing. But thats timely. But its also the political history of an era in the journey for nearly four decades in the public eye as seen through the private lens. Robert morgenthau is in arguably one of the great men of his era. He is the only prominent statesmen left from the kennedy times and as the dea new york he accomplished changes such as almost handed almost hand to singlehandedly wiping out of new york area shes made a just made a new law and indeed changed the face of the wall in america with many of the criminal cases. And hes invented prosecution of whitecollar crime as we know it today. His long arm stretched into the waters and cultivated the network of the global partners. He is unraveled the International Money laundering and invited by the president funding terrorist organizations. At age 90, he caught the two banks for conspiring to help iran build a nuclear bomb. In spite of this, they longer a billion dollars for the iranians who ironically use the money to buy uranium and other material from america. There is much more theres much more to the investigation into International Terrorism which have remained unpublicized until now. Just to give you a little teaser from the book, 40 boxes of instructions and blueprint for 9 11 came into the possession sometime before the tragedy. He tried and he tried and he tried to warn the fbi and the cia and they didnt listen. The fbi said that they didnt have an arabic translator to translate all this inflammatory material. They put together various documents that pointed to the role of the Intelligence Agency in supporting al qaeda until they were ready to undertake the greatest attack on america. Since i have the letters i will just backtrack for a minute. These are letters that were written by Eleanor Roosevelt to Eleanor Morgenthau. Dearest darling eleanor i always felt you were hurt often by imaginary things and have wanted to protect you but if one is to have a healthy normal relationship, i realize it must be on something of equal basis. You said we cannot be so easily hurt. Much love always, eleanor. I didnt say half of what i wanted to the other day when we were talking. Ive grown to love you so much. Though i cant take away the feeling you have, it makes me unhappy to feel it is burying you and i want to put my arms around you and keep away all the disagreeable things that have made this way. I wish i could give you some of my toughness. Your children will all come out with many faces just as bob has done. They are grand people. But then you and henry have been wonderful parents. My love i must run to a project. I first read morgan thought on the day that day in 1972 with my hair in strings and my poncho dripping all over. Id been assigned by the United StatesPresident International to interview the mafia u. S. Attorney fired by mixing for investigating the president. I asked so many questions that morgenthau thought i was either the dumbest were the smartest reporter ever met. When it was published he decided i wasnt the dumbest and he couldnt get the wrong that id been wearing out of his mind. He wanted to ask me out. When i was antiwar revolutionary he pursued me anyway that there was a little problem. You see i was harboring a draft for the sister and he never wouldve tommy when they called. Finally he got me a job at the New York Times where i would have to answer my own for. But to me robert morganville never had a clue we would be anything else. After all i was in my 20s and he was an old man at 54. Besides, i was rising in my career doing stories if you remember that its permeated the food supply and i found two at the fbi who had printouts of how the experiment proved that they got cancer after ingesting just tiny amounts. There was a public outcry and they banned the die. They would usually call me with story tips. One day he got up the nerve and called me for a date. He said the come after i reluctantly accepted that we are going to arthur slusser jurors home for a party for jimmy carter. I dressed up in my blouse, my bellbottoms, my platform shoes and i thought i looked pretty spiffy. We walked into this lesson sure how and if there was a ghastly fairyland of filth and assassinated it was quite old quailed. I was going to walk out the door but instead i walked into a facet of. And the Society Leader they dropped their jaws and smiled at her and couldnt stop smiling. I looked up at bob and he was smiling, to back but not at Jackie Kennedy smiling at me. 18 months later we were engaged. Our friends and family went into shock. It was as though the pope had asked for the hand in marriage. Professional women and men from 30 years apart in the 1970s. His cousins urged him to see a psychiatrist. So, faced with all of this opposition, we of course got married. There is a question people dont ask me about timeless although i could see how much they would like to. There is a time i crave that discussion wouldnt be asked. But in the 38th anniversary and tomorrow is fathers day so that we answer this question before you cant ask it. Did i marry my father . [laughter] to be married people similar to our mothers and fathers . I would like to reply by reading a short passage. I belief that it is no accident from a random universe. It comes from deeper channels of longing and recognition. The collection gathered force long ago. And a teacher that always listens and the one that precedes them all, the father. The things about them you never forget. His hands circling the waste can fy15 carelessly in the air, sand rubbing against your cheek, your hand moving back to the soft bristles of his hair so they spring up. Then a flash as you stay ahead to head and facetoface and he walks away before you become too mature and two near a danger. And an affable longing takes over you and then the years go by and oneday you meet him again. The bright smile, and behind his glasses, the love that was always there. He is not your father that he is everything that you wanted him to be. He and my dad were sweet, are and were sweet, kind loving man. My eight father had been my first teacher. He laid the path that led me to the man i married. His moral values were dads moral values which were inevitably nine. This makes me unaccountably happy. There was a beauty in the fulfillment of what was once lost and help to circle the unconditional love that was broken long ago. Those men had experienced crippling trauma in the world which they wouldnt talk about. Both were emotionally closed hiding their feelings sometimes even from themselves. I would chisel away at my dad trying to learn his secret. When i fell in love with him i knew i had another chance. Those of us that mary and magnus wants to crack the puzzle. I spent 30 years trying to get inside his mind and once again i failed. What is it like to write about someone you love blacks a reporter doesnt usually live with her subject. I agonized how could i be honest and do him justice. How could they risked revealing his quarks and weaknesses and how far should i go . After a line marriage was more important than this book. On the other hand, i didnt want to write a love letter. But an authentic portrait of it. I didnt want him to go down in history as an enigma, a onedimensional man who in spite of his halfcentury of Public Service wasnt really known by his people until now he has refused to talk to reporters about his personal life. Most thought of him as an unapproachable man who issued indictments with a biblical theory. I wanted to show him an office complexities his kindness and generosity to the little people. His wicked sense of humor, how he came home at night as he walked in the door and began blooming out his regards to broadway. She had wanted me to be his memoirs that way. He didnt have to look back, which he hated to do. Nor did he have to do the work. I need most of the story. But i still felt uneasy about the responsibility. I knew his attitude. Write whatever you want, he said. But i wasnt going to let him off so easily. I insisted he read my journals chronicling the relationship and every draft of the manuscript. Even then, to find out what this very private man really thought was almost as hard as writing the book. Typically i had to look for clues. How do you like that passage i would ask. And as he said its your memory. I would know that he didnt like it. Then it was necessary to watch for the slightest twitch in his facial muscle or the double to discover exactly what he didnt like. I learned a lot from writing timeless but most important, i learned to relinquish the Unrealistic Expectations that he gave me what i thought i needed. It was on a mission that was just that. I needed to appreciate what he did give me a gift to him the Little Things he most desired. I loved that it looked different to each of us. For some it consisted of doing when he brings me blueberries in bed in the way he values wealth on both our parts. But he knows now that i precedes love in my own unique way. But its about showing. He has learned to show affection. But he left to do now is to shout and opened his arms until i come over. Thank you. [applause] we have time for a few questions before she goes up fast to front design books that i know you all want to buy so she will call on you to ask questions. There has to be a brave first person. I just wanted to tell you a story that you may not have heard about. As many of you are aware april 12, 1945 the last person from the cabinet for an opportunity to see him as Henry Morgenthau. He was on his way back from florida because eleanor just had a heart attack. The next day he died in eleanor was informed debate in the afternoon after speaking at the celebrated club at the death of her husband. They had to go back to the springs in order to provide the funeral of agents. Succumb in the time that it took after she was informed to get to the plan to get down to fort benning georgia, she took the time out of her schedule to call her nurse and inform her that the president had died and to turn off the radio so that eleanor may not have had a hearing about the death of the president. I would like to tell you about the story of friendship. [applause] thank you so much. I do not like to speak publicly that ive read your book and i loved it. Its one of the greatest love stories. And thank you for opening up the history. It is a truly great individual. I loved your book and recommended many times. Thank you very much. [applause] shes not my publicrelations person. [applause] it is a major resource to the community. What role did they play in the familys life . Both. Bob could answer this better than me but i will take a stab at an answer for me. Henry morgenthau who was ambassador to turkey under president wilson bought the farm and it was larger than it is today. From what im told he brought it for his son in order to keep henry junior near him. He was devoted to his son and to him and sometimes he was known to want to take a little break. But indeed he threw himself into farming. Of the the farm was sold off at some point and only the apple orchards were left