11, 1963, that defined jfks response to the Nuclear Arms Race and civil rights. Exploring the american story, watch American History tvs th o cspan 3. Did i feel prepared . Yes, i did really did. First of all i wasnt elected so it didnt make that much difference. I did notice, though, the difference between being the Vice President s wife and the president s wife is huge because the Vice President s wife can say anything, nobody cares. The minute you say one thing as president s wife youve made the news. So that was a lesson i had to learn. During george bushs presidency barbara bush used the office of first lady to promote literacy and raise awareness about aids and homelessness and earned his way into the history books, she and Abigail Adams the only women in our history to be the wife and mother of a president. Good evening and welcome to first ladies influence and image. Tonight is the story of barbara bush. The wife of Herbert Walker bush and here for the next 90 minutes to tell us more about her life and influence are two guests. Mira is the barbara bush biographer, a first lady scholar and teaches at Rider University in new jersey. Jeffrey engle is the founding director for president ial history at Southern Methodist university and the author of one book on george bushs Foreign Policy and at work on another one. Thank you for being here tonight. My pleasure. Her words were much more attention getting. Its been interesting that that trend continues. Throughout the time tonight well see clips that she gave us to us in october. One of them, which we released last week, has been bouncing around the News Networks for several days because she talked about president ial dynasties, mill dynasties in history and the potential for her son, governor jeb bushs aspirations. I want to start there, barbara bush as you describe her in the biography, was he used it was a carefully managed public presence but at the same time she had a reputation for good quote and candid comments. How did they mesh . She was always aware of her public persona and particularly in the white house was always concerned about whether some action might end up having political consequences for her husband. She also was very candid and sometimes a comment slipped out. She admonished herself for it from time to time. So the candid barbara bush had some pluses and minuses for the brgs over time. Will you talk a little bit about that. She was somebody who would really speak her mind and she was somebody who would speak her mind to the president but not a public way, behind the scenes, in their bedroom when no one was there, she would tell him what she thought. As were working our way through the biographies of these women, barbara bush is between two first ladies, nancy reagan, next week Hillary Clinton, barbara bush in this interview talks about her approach to the job and whether or not she takes an activist approach. Lets listen to that. If you ever wanted to give advice or talk about policy with your husband, how would you do that . How would you approach that . If i wanted to, i would just tell him. But the truth is, i really didnt want to. He had great advisers. I never ever called his office to say if i had something to say i said it to george bush but i didnt call jim baker or anyone in his office to say, george, this is what i think should be because i just dont do that. Ive never had an office except in the house. Here at the white house i had an office but i never went to it. My staff used it. But i worked in the white house and i worked in the Vice President s house at home. I did not get into his office affairs. So myra, describe her approach to the first ladys office. Well she said as she became first lady that she wanted to do something positive every day. And she really set out with her staff to try to do that. She looked at potential for her literacy project, some of the other things that he was interested in and then it was really full speed ahead to try to do that one good thing every day. But if you as you look through the documentary evidence of the bush administration, where can you see it through Historical Documents now at this point, evidence of Barbara Bushs influence on the white house . Theres very little evidence of her influencing policy. That was really not something she was interested in. Unlike other first ladies, she believed her role was to set a proper standard for the white house, set a proper standard for the administration. So her impact upon the administration was really in portraying them as forthright, honest and direct, and she was a direct person. We dont see any policies that come out offer influence, rather we see a general tone, one that the public really took to over the course of the years in the white house. How is that tone different from the reagan years . Mrs. Reagan liked to get her hands dirty in politics. Policy within the white house. Almost a Court Politics if you will. She would frequently call up advisers to the president and admonish them, really try to maneuver people through the administration. Mrs. Bush never is it that. She was a person that did not directly involve herself in policy. Theres an important distinction to be made there. She cared a lot about politics. She knew what was going on in washington, she knew all of the players and the actors. She made sure that she knew the s gossip, but she wasnt interested in changing the policy. That was the president s job. During the Campaign Times was she involved in Campaign Strategy that you know of . Less about Campaign Strategy than being out in front for the campaign. Especially as the president moved in to campaign for his second term in 1992, she was really much more popular than he was in terms of polls throughout the country. Theres many times that the president would send her out on the campaign trail but would begin to answer questions with, barbara and i think, and that was a way to say he was with her and she was the popular one. The subtitle of your biography is president ial matriarch. Thats the next clip we would like to show. Her talking about her relationship and her view as a steward of her family. Lets listen in. How do you develop that thick skin or dont you for politics for criticism . Im not good at it. Most people dont dare criticize my children in front of me. The press i dont pay any attention to. I dont like it but i dont pay any attention to it and dont dare criticize george h. W. Bush, ever. Dont dare criticize george h. W. Bush ever. When she came to the white house she told her press secretary ana perez that there were three areas where you better keep hands off, her fella, her family and her dogs. And that pretty much followed through. She was a very concerned and reacted sometimes very quickly. If there was criticism of george bush, who she always called george bush, and the children. We are going to invite you as we always do to participate in our discussion tonight. There are three ways you can do it. We have a conversation under way on cspans facebook pain and you can join that and well work the comments and discussions into our discussion tonight. And you can tweet us and call us. We have our lines provided geographically. If you live in the eastern or central time zones 2025653880. Mountain, pacific or farther west, 2025853881. Throughout the 90 minutes well get as many comments from as many different media as we can in our program tonight. Lets go back in time and understand where she came from. She was born in new york city in 1925. Tell me more about barbara pierces background. She was born in new york at the time of her birth, her father Marvin Pierce was on the staff of the president at the mccauls publishing company. Her mother was a descendant of an Ohio Supreme Court justice. And the pierce family was distantly related to frankly franklin pierce. The family moved to rye, new york, where barbara and her siblings, an older sister and two younger brothers grew up. It was a comfortable upbringing. They went to Public Private schools and then when barbara was old enough for high school she was sent away to boarding school in south carolina. Home for christmas break of her junior year, she went to a Country Club Dance and thats when she met george h. W. Bush. These were very young people and they got married very young. Can you talk about what you know about the attraction early courtship that led to this young marriage in. They by both accounts were attracted from the start. They developed a real because of the distance, a real intimate correspondence which was typical for the times, especially a correspondence that continues as george bush decides to join the navy and pushes forward and becomes the youngest aviator in the Pacific Theater for the United States navy. And their correspondence throughout that entire period is emotional, intimate. Its something that drew them both together when they couldnt be together in the same spot. And then when they were together were electric for them. They knew from the very start they were for each other. She began school at smith college. She did. She was there for a year. She admitted that she really wasnt the most dedicated of students. She was more interested in her boyfriend george bush. I believe she was rather active in athletics in her time at smith. And she went back for the first semester of her sophomore year and then left school to marry george bush. And as a young couple when george bush went off as an aviator to the pacific arena, weve all read in the history books that he had some very close encounters. Do you know the story of his being shot down in the pacific and what barbara bush knew about all that . Yes. Its a harrowing story. He was on a bombing run over an island and he went in on the run, started the dive down with his bomber and was immediately hit by enemy aircraft. And he continued on his Bombing Mission and called back to his two fellow crew mates and said were going to continue this mission, go out over the pacific, dump out and bail out. He thought they had already left the plane and turned over and flew out himself and discovered only later that there was no chance for them to have survived. There was no other parachute, he was alone in the pacific and spent four and a half hours bobbing up and down in the pacific before he was rescued by a submarine and spent another several weeks actually continuing with the submarine on their patrol mission. During that time it was unclear for the bushes, his parents, what happened to him. He was listed as missing in action. They made a conscious decision not to tell barbara until they knew for certain he would be fine. They missed their first wedding date because he wasnt back and then finally he was back and on january 6th, about two weeks after the original date, they were married. And he served in the military until when and then went to yale at what point . He served until 1945, until the peace treaties were signed. He had flown so many sorties during the war he had many points accumulated and he was able to take an early out and he and barbara left for new haven and yale and the beginning of his long delayed college career. During that time period first child was born . Thats right. George walker bush was born during that time. And it was also at that point that george h. W. Bush was playing varsity baseball at yale and barbara was the official scorer for the team. It was a happy time for them at yale. Ultimately the bushes had six children. Yes, thats right. And they were george, then paul lean robinson, known as robin, jeb john. John ellis bush. Thats now the nickname came along. Neil born in 1955 and then the final child dorothy known as dora born in 1959. I want you to tell the story about robins death because it clearly impacted both parents for all of their lifetime. Robin was a little over two years old and woke up one morning at this point the bushes were in texas. And she said to barbara i think today im just going to stay in bed, or maybe ill go out on the lawn and look at the clouds going by and that raised a red flag for barbara right away. Her daughter was very active. She took her daughter to the pediatrician and the pediatrician asked barbara and george to come back a little bi pediatrician asked barbara and george to come back a little bit later that day. And she said to them your daughter has leukemia. And george bush said, well, what does that mean . He said at that point in time who knew what it was, and the doctor says, well, it means shes not going to live very long. The doctors recommendation was that robin be allowed to go home and enjoy things, be around her family. But one of george bushs relatives was a doctor in new york, and robin was taken there to try some different treatment modalities to try to deal with leukemia. They prolonged her life a little bit and she even returned to texas once and she passed away. Still the emotion is very visible all these years. Its dramatic. I mean, president bush spent his entire life writing letters. Perhaps the most painful letters we have in the archive are about him writing about his daughter, writing to his mother in fact years later talking about the pain in his heart, the thing thats missing, the fact we really do need a little girl in our lives running around. Life was not the same since. But they did manage to recover to some degree, and they had a big and bustling family. And from this next clip from our interview in october barbara bush talks about her role as president versus the future president s role. Lets listen. Youve been referred to by some family members as the enforcer of the bush family. What do you think about that reputation . I deserve it because george is so you know, anything they do is all right, but someone has to be sure the standards are kept. And he leads by example. I lead by denying some things and i am the enforcer. Theres no question about it. Do i like that role, no. Do i rather he had done it, yes, but it doesnt work that way. Any comments about barbara bush as the enforcer . Well, her husband always called her miss frank and indeed she is. And she has had his back and the back of all of her family members all of these many years. If someone was critical of them she was going to respond. There was a story that a reporter once told me that if you wrote something negative about bill clinton during the Clinton Administration maybe the clintons would forgive you and let you write another story. If you said something negative about george h. W. Bush you were done until the next administration. We have two questions, one on facebook, one on twitter about this aspect of mrs. Bushs life. David welsh wants to know what aspects of mrs. Bushs personality might be seen in her son president george w. Bush . Well, i think both of them have long memories. Barbara bush i think does not let go of criticism very easily, and im not sure that George Walker bush does either. And a similar question and you can respond to both. On twitter, are there any passions that a Young Barbara passed onto her own children . I think to understand barbara bush you need to appreciate she was really a product of her times and the passion she passed onto her children was the fact she had devoted her entire life to them, to raising a family to being a good loyal wife to her husband over the course of his varied careers. He was for many times in many sense an absentee father for many years because he was on the road as a salesman, a politician, as a government official. She was the one there every night. And so for george w. Bush in particular i think that helped form a real bond between the two of them especially after robins unfortunate death. Just some statistics on that so people get a sense how mobile this family was by the time they made it to the white house theyd been married 43 years and at that point been in 29 different houses in 17 cities. It was a life on the move. Rumor has it barbaras hair turned white after robins death. Is that true . I believe it is true. Yeah, ive heard both sides. And not surprisingly given the devastating nature of losing a child she took the death very, very deeply. This is a period where in many ways we would say today she went through a period of depression. It was only after she was so sad for so many months she heard george outside saying to a young friend im sorry i cant come out and play today because i have to take care of my mother and she realized this is too much burden to put on a little boy, but it also demonstrates the pain she was having at the time as well. Hi, leroy, have a question . Caller yes, maam. Did they go by the scriptures, did they go to church . Thank you for your question. Later on if you watch we do have a clip where barbara bush talks about her faith, but were they Church People and how did it flooun influence them . They always had very strong faith. I cant really attest to how much Church Attendance was part of their lives, but i believe that it was considerable. They did go to church, but president bush during his time as president did give a remarkable speech about his spirituality where he said i am a person of faith but he said im an episcopalian, we dont talk about those things. Especially coming up from the Republican Party and the south where people are designed to speak about that type of faith. And thats just something president bush was not ever comfortable with. So they moved to texas and then to california for the oil business. How did the bush family make the transition to politics . Well, they came back to texas, and they came back to midland. And they had a great deal of success there. And after that they moved to houston. And it was then george bush was asked to consider running for Harrison County republican chairman. That was barbaras fist campaign. She really enjoyed it. She felt very competitive, and they won that race. I believe there were 189 precincts and they visited every one, and it was on from there. And we should also note about that same