This program is about an hour and 20 minutes. It is such an honor, pleasure to be back in little rock, the rock. And here at president clintons president ial library. It is an honor for me to be on the stage with these extraordinary women. You are going to be fascinated with everything they have to say. I also want to thank bob beatty for the partnership and putting on all of this wonderful informational conference that you have been experiencing. I experience a bit of it last night, and it has been invaluable. I have had great opportunity, as many of my colleagues have, to visit your library and they all are extraordinary, offering such a special slice of American History. We have all served in a very similar capacity for our first ladies. Each of us have brought a very different but woven in the same cloth perspective on the first ladys role in history. And i hope that today you walk away with a new understanding of that role and how it played a very important part in our American History. I would go through and do the individual biographies of all of these wonderful women, but i think that you will learn more about them as we get right into the meat of the questions. But let me do say this, that it was better able beth able, the youngest serving social secretary. [applause] she beat me by two years. Just two years so that goes right off of the page of my biography. But it is an honor to be on the stage with these extraordinary women. Let me jump right into asking them questions, and then we are going to reach out to you. Please begin to think about fascinating, engaging questions that you would like to ask of our panelists. Let me begin with the woman who mentored me before i started in the privileged post as a social secretary and working for the fabulous Hillary Rodham clinton, a daughter also of arkansas. With anne stock. Anne, can you give us your, an impression of Hillary Clinton as first lady, something unique that may be many of our audience members may not be aware of . Well, she has the best belly laugh of anyone i know. I am not kidding. When she laughs, you can hear it reverberating off the wall. But seriously, she has a wonderful sense of humor. The other thing i didnt see when i was reading things about her during the campaign was how much she cares about her friends and is always trying to do special things for them. Have parties, invite them in for tea. Go see someone who is sick. One of her friends was sick for a year, she went every couple weeks to see her. I know those sounds like small things but it surprised me because there was a warmth and a humanness that i do not think you saw come through in pictures. This warm personality that took over the white house. I would say sense of humor, her determination and her caring for friends and for others, especially children. Beth, was there Something Special about mrs. Johnson you can share . She, uh. I have the set the stage. Mrs. Johnson moved into the white house at a difficult time. The clintons moved into the white house after a triumphant campaign and a huge inaugural and parades and so forth. The johnsons moved into the white house after tragedy in dallas that killed president kennedy. That was something that both the president and mrs. Johnson were very sensitive to. I remember mrs. Johnson saying if linden could pull down all the stars in the sky and make a necklace for jackie, he would make it happen. She was constantly asked, when would she be moving into the white house . And she said, there are not a lot of things i can do for mrs. Kennedy, but at least i can serve her convenience. They were a couple weeks before they moved into the white house. Mrs. Kennedy asked the johnsons if she could continue running the nursery school. Anyway, the kennedys were running a nursery school. For the little ones. And the johnsons said, lease continue that, as long as it is convenient for you. That was the so they moved into a house that was covered in black crepe. So it was not the way one would choose to move into that beautiful house. Maria, you have an interesting perspective on that as well, because the Ford Administration began under the resignation. So would you like to offer background on that . Well, mrs. Ford was not in any hurry to move into the white house. She did not relish it. She had been in washington for many years when jerry was a leader in congress. So she knew what she was getting into, but she also was concerned about the children and they were older but not that much older. And so she took her sweet time getting there, but once she got in and got her feet wet, by the end of his term, she just really would have been very happy to stay on. I think a lot of people felt that way. I think in the fall, i will digress a little bit. Shut me up when you want to. Go ahead. Im fascinated. In fall, 1976, the president ial campaign you saw all of these keep bettys husband in the white house. This pleased her. This was a woman who had been unknown three years before. And as i said, she did not relish the position that what she realized what she could do and speaking out on the issues that were of concern to her, she made some controversial moves, but she always had the president s support for that. A lot of those things moved on to become part of her legacy. The Betty Ford Center in particular. And the problem with breast cancer. I know im eternally grateful to her. I was a woman that took Early Detection and it saved my life. Its hard to say how many millions of people she saved. I think that is what she was the proudest of is her years at the white house. Didnt she also support the era early on . Oh definitely. It is the most interesting part. I will shut up. Was when morley safer did the 60 minutes interview with her and he led off with asking her what she would do if susan had an affair. Shes only 17. They did not ask questions like that. She was taken aback. Then she said, i would talk with her and counsel for and help her make her decision. And safer said, you would not cover out of the house . She said, of course not. He went on to ask some personal questions of her. And i wont bore you with them, but she held her ground and stood up to him, but the mail at the white house after that was justhorrendous. People had turned against here. This was 1976. 40 years ago when she was really up front on all these things. And somebody asked the president , what did you think of what you heard about your wifes comments . And he said, i figured we lost 10 million votes. After i read what she said, i knew we lost 20 million. Anyway, i wonder myself what some of the earlier first ladies would have thought if their privacy was completely blown away. There was no privacy. This had not been the case. Ok. That is an interesting question is first ladies are conveyed in a certain way through the media. Is there, do you think, an aspect of mrs. Bush that did not get conveyed through her official activities . Well, i think that the media is going to print. Mrs. Bush did something at the end of the administration in october, she invited 20 historians to the state floor where her chief of staff and the curator spoke about her call bushmans and she had a private lunch and for them in the private residence and toured the lincoln bedroom. Each of the historians that write about present at first ladies, shouldnt they hear from her what her competence had been over the last 8 years . That was a special event. I think to this day, i believe the people that are writing, reflect on that day she had them into the private residence. They are the ones that will be writing about her. I think mrs. Johnson had a big advantage as a first lady moving into the white house because he was a journalism major at the university of texas. In fact, when she wanted to it would be involved with her beautification project. He called her old journalism professor and said, do you have anybody that you might recommend to come out and work for me . And he had the perfect person, and she got on the train. As she was there through the johnsons time. And we still see here at lots of johnson events. She was an invaluable. That journalism degree. She was not, she considered the press, they were friends. They did lots of trips together. They followed her onto the space program. And just added so much to her life as she did to theirs. Technology, the new technology in the white house. We had a little snafu with iphones going into the first state dinner. So technology is interesting in how it is used with the first lady and with folks going into the white house. You can generally take pictures, but for some state dinners we have folks check their iphones. And we cannot get pictures out prior to what we want to release. Which i think is interesting and the press does not love that. Its been interesting the Way Technology has changed very fast. Is there an aspect of mrs. Obama that does not get conveyed to the media that is a boisterous laugh or i worked on the obama president ial campaign as the finance director. I worked more with the president. The first lady was wonderful in doing fundraising events, but after i became social secretary, i was not really working with her. Shes so warm. If any of you met her, she gave you a hug and warm smile. You are like mom. She is very conscientious with your time and her time as she is very direct in what she wants to do. Asks opinions, but she knows where she wants to go, whether it be doing events, doing policy initiatives, which is very refreshing and wonderful. Theres no wishywashy with her. That is something that may not be conveyed in the press. What is your role in the office of the first lady demand of you that you had no expectations that it would . We talked about this a little bit, but i think you know youre going to work 24 7, but you do not know what that means until you get there. And you are working 24 7. I tell the story that i think is indicative of how hard you work and how the you are there all the time. We are doing Christmas Parties and we are two weeks into it. And if you who read about the holidays halfway through i got sick on a saturday night and i started a big dinner and i went home. Knocked on the door. Steward answered the door. Go upstairs. Ill run you a bath. I hear this voice on the third floor. My son goes, mom, suck it up and quick whining. You chose to do this. I quit whining and i went back to 24 7. The one thing we would agree on is the social office is the center of putting all of the events together with the exception of private oval office appointments. You are literally doing, helping conceptualize events, mediating between disputing, warring factions who want one way or another, trying to have that would be stephanie who wanted it one way. But we learned to coexist. Until bruce would weigh in with something else. But i think you come to respect what everybody in the white house does. When you think about it, you literally are working with the Vice President s office, the National Security council, with the political office, with the press office, with every constituency in the white house and then the dnc and rnc and state department, all of the cabinet agencies, but you are trying to bring all that together. And the way things move now with events, you are may be lucky if you have 24 to 48, 72 hours to put something together. So i think, the 24 7, and im sure it is even worse, easier with technology but harder because you are never off. Menu also have the residence staff at some point saying, we cannot we do not have the manpower. Too much overtime in one night. You have to consider the people of the house itself. I was social secretary for just one year. What i learned is that killed christmas for that year for me. I think whether you are jewish. Because you start in july. This woman passed away. Shes a master calligrapher. She was, have you thought about the holidays . Oh, labor day . Sure. No, christmas. Have you thought about what the theme is going to be . Its july. She said, we are already a month behind. For that year, i thought, let christmas be over with. You guys felt that way, too. Yes, yes, yes. Maria, were there any demands of the office he did not expect it all . The office of first lady changed considerably from when mrs. Ford was there to now. One thing that was interesting when i was there, i had previously been in the west wing. I worked with and armstrong who was our ambassador to the court of st. James. Anne was a tremendous woman. We were the only two women in the west wing and that was a little rough. We had ehrlichman and alderman. Those are some names. I meant that nicely. They were good to me. I lost my train of thought now. Sorry. But anyway, when one of the things that mrs. Ford asked me when she interviewed me for the job, because i was closing up annes office after president nixon resigned and i got a telephone call from another colleague saying, maria, mrs. Ford is looking for social secretary. I said, give me a couple of days because i have some other things i have to take care of. Thinking because part of my job with anne was to recommend people for president ial appointments. So i thought, ok, ill Start Talking with people and come up with names. My friend said, no, i am talking about you. I said, lord, no. I do not know where to begin with that job. He said, it is too late. Your name is in the hopper. With that, a few days later i got a call from mrs. Ford asking me if i wanted to be considered. And i said yes. Then it was interesting because shed been in washington, she knew everything that went on. She said one of the questions that she interviewed me three separate times. Each time for three hours. She knew exactly what the position entailed, what she was looking for. In fact, much later on she said to me, if i ever come back to the white house as other than the first lady, i would like to be social secretary. She was very sincere. But one of the questions that she asked me in these interviews was, i know, maria, that you worked in the west wing and you know a lot of the president s staff. If they start pressuring you, what are you going to do . They can play rough sometimes. I said, i can play rough. [laughter] [applause] the little bit i nkow, i know, my first state dinner, i really got whammoed by some fo the boys. The first lady always has the last word. We made it through that. Sometimes i think when youre dealing with the west wing, they do that, do i have to call the president to get this person on the guest list . I say, yes. You do. Interesting because so many times the west wingers would ask me advice about certain things that i said, lets talk with mrs. Ford. To a man, they were petrified. They did not want to go near mrs. Ford. I mentioned it to her one day and she said, i did not want to say anything to you because i did not want to frighten you. But just before you came on board we had a major blow up. The west wing was going to take over the guest list. And so she said i had to call a few of the boys into the woodshed. So that is where i got my toughness. I love it. How did you become social secretary and how did the role of social secretary function within the office of the first lady and within the white house at that time . I came to the job from the johnsons house because i had worked with them since, actually, i started that job because my husband had lied to me. Because he told me that when we got married that he was going to build his life, not like my father had, not like his stepfather had. He was going to build his life around his hobbies and his familys. And suddenly i looked up after during the campaign in 1960 and where was he . He was nowhere. He was off traveling. Doing advance trips for senator Lyndon Johnson who was then on the ticket with senator kennedy. I could not talk to anybody for 18 months. So i thought, i will go to the Democratic National committee and see if they will take on a volunteer. The Lyndon Johnson speechwriter. So i showed up, and i was not a speechwriter. I was a typist. It was a useless office because johnson only gave one speech during the whole campaign. And he gave it over and over and over again. [laughter] but there was mail coming into the dnc. To senator johnson. Mrs. Kennedy. Mrs. Johnson. And sometimes the mail would come into the johnson girls. And people were handling mail for the kennedys. And handling the mail for senator johnson. But nobody was doing anything with mrs. Johnsons mail. I thought, i can do that. That is easy. I was used to working with the congressional office. When the mail comes in, you answer it. I went down and got some stationary from an artist with the address on it. I. Answered the letters signed Lady Bird Johnson. And put them in the mail. I mean, it was what i should be doing. So after the election, mrs johnson called me and said that she had a present for the baby. The baby is now 50. His name is lyndon. When his brother was born, senator johnson called me in the hospital and said, i hear you had a boy. What did you name him . I told him [indiscernible] he said, too bad. If you had named him lyndon, i would have given him a cat. So we started thinking about that. We thought, we are going to have 7 or 8 children, but that sounds like a good name. The next baby was lyndon. And then i did not have any more. After he was in the white house, i was there a lot. He was always coming around with a pad or a cocktail napkin and a pen. I think this would be a good name for lyndons cat. You know a lot more about brands than i do. I told him, i guess your cat died. Its hard to see if she had any more cats. But ii was for the johnsons. I loved them. I loved them. There were tough times, but there were wonderful times. I think most first ladies spend a lot of time. I know mrs. Reagan used to have henry, the chef she would taste the food that was going to be served ahead of time to make sure it was right. When mrs. Johnson was what were her goals . What was she concentrating on as are as food and decor . She said, i have had to worry about those things for 30 years. Now, i have all of these wonderful people in this house and they do that. I can concentrate on the guest list and doing things for people. That is what she said. As you can tell these ladies , are extraordinary and have the best stories. On that note of doing things for people, i would like to hear from all of you about what special projects your first lady worked on that have left a Lasting Imprint on the white house or for us in the country. I think lets move is one. You see a lot of that and the new mesh you see a lot of nonprofits supporting that in the Childhood Health initiative. They are around the grounds. Do not let the first ladies see you eating the ice cream