CSPAN/FIRST LADIES BARBARA BUSH
APRIL 2, 2014
8:00 a.m. ET
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY: The answer is, did I feel prepared? Yes, I really did.
First of all, I wasn't elected, so it didn't 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, you've made
the news. So that was a lesson I had to learn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN SWAIN, HOST: During George Bush's presidency, Barbara Bush used the office of first
lady to promote literacy and to raise awareness about AIDS and homelessness. She also earned her
way into the history books. She and Abigail Adams are the only women in our history to be both the
wife and mother of a president.
Good evening, and welcome to C-SPAN series "First Ladies: Influence and Image." Tonight is the
story of Barbara Pierce Bush, the wife of our 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush. And here
for the next 90 minutes to tell us more about her life and her influence are two guests. Myra Gutin is
the Barbara Bush biographer, part of that first lady series we've turned to so often during this series
this year. She's a first ladies scholar, and she teaches at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New
Jersey.
Thanks very much for being here with us.
MYRA GUTIN, AUTHOR: My pleasure.
SWAIN: Jeffrey Engel is the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern
Methodist University. He's the author of one book on George Bush's foreign policy and at work on
another one. Thank you for being here tonight.
JEFFREY ENGEL, AUTHOR: Good to be here.
SWAIN: Now, we heard Barbara Bush at the outset talk about the fact that, when she became first
lady, her words had much more -- were much more attention-getting. It's really been interesting that
that trend continues.
Throughout our program tonight, we will see clips of an interview that she gave to us in October. And
one of them, which we released last week, has been bouncing all around the news network for several
days because she talked about presidential dynasties, political dynasties in history, and also about the
potential for her own son, Governor Jeb Bush's, presidential aspirations.
I wanted to start there, because Barbara Bush, as you describe her in the biography, was -- in fact, you
used that it was a carefully managed public presence. But at the same time, she had a reputation for a
good quote and candid comments. How do those two things mesh?
GUTIN: I think she was always very aware of her public persona. And I think that she, particularly in
the White House, was always concerned about whether some action might end up having political
consequences for her husband, but she also was very candid, and sometimes a comment slipped out,
and she admonished herself for it from time to time.
SWAIN: So the candid Barbara Bush had some pluses and minuses for the Bush administration over
time. Will you talk a little bit about that?
ENGEL: Yes, most definitely. She was somebody who would really speak her mind, and she was
also somebody who would speak her mind to the president, but not in a public way. Behind the
scenes, in their bedroom, when nobody else was there, she would tell him what she really thought.
SWAIN: Well, let's stay with that note, because as we're working our way through the biographies of
these women, Barbara Bush is between two much more publicly activist first ladies, Nancy Reagan
we learned about last week, 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. Let's listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER SLEN, C-SPAN HOST: If you ever wanted to give advice or talk about policy with your
husband, how would you do that? How would you approach that?
BARBARA BUSH: Well, if I wanted to, I'd just tell him. But the truth is, I really didn't want to. He
had great advisers. I've never ever called his office to say -- if I had something to say, I said it to
George Bush, but I didn't call Jim Baker or anyone in his office to say, "George, this is what I think
should be," because I just don't do that.
I 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've worked in the White House, and I worked in the Vice President's
house, at home. I just did not get into his office affairs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: So, Myra, describe her approach to the first lady's office.
GUTIN: 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 she was interested in, and then it was really full speed ahead to try to do
that one good thing every day.
SWAIN: 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 Bush's
influence on the White House?
ENGEL: There's 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, as honest, as direct,
and she was a very direct person. We don't see any particular policies that come out of her influence.
Rather we see a general tone, a general accepting tone, one that the public really took to over the
course of her years in the White House.
SWAIN: How was that tone different from the Reagan years?
ENGEL: Well, Mrs. Reagan liked to get her hands dirty in politics and in policy within the White
House, almost court politics, if you will. She would frequently call up advisers to the president and
admonish them for one thing or another and really tried to maneuver people throughout the
administration, putting people that she liked in different places.
Mrs. Bush never did that. She is a person who did not directly involve herself in policy. But there's an
important distinction to be made there. She cared a lot about politics. She knew what was going on in
Washington. She knew all the players. She knew all the actors. She made sure that she knew the
gossip. But she wasn't interested in changing the policy. That was the president's job.
SWAIN: And during the campaign times, was she involved in campaign strategy that you know of?
ENGEL: Less about campaign strategy than being out in front for the campaign, because especially
as the president moved into campaigning for his second term in 1992, she was really much more
popular then he was, in terms of polls throughout the country.
So there was many times when the president not only would send her out on the campaign trail, but
really would begin to answer questions with, "Well, you know, Barbara and I think" -- and that was a
way of really saying that he was with her, she was the popular one.
SWAIN: The subtitle of your biography of Barbara Bush is "Presidential Matriarch," and that's the
next clip we'd like to show you of her talking about her relationship and her view as a steward of her
family. Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER SLEN: How do you develop that thick skin -- or don't you -- for politics, for criticism?
BARBARA BUSH: I'm not good at it. Most people don't dare criticize my children in front of me.
But the press, I don't pay any attention to. I just don't like it, but I don't pay any attention to it. Don't
dare criticize George H.W. Bush, ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: "Don't dare criticize George Bush ever."
GUTIN: When she came to the White House, she told her press secretary, Anna 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 very concerned and reacted sometimes very quickly if there was
criticism of George Bush, who she always called George Bush, and the children.
SWAIN: We are going to invite you, as we always do, to participate in our discussion tonight, and
there are three ways you can do it. We have a conversation already underway on C-SPAN'S Facebook
page, and you can join that and we'll work some of the questions and comments into our discussion
tonight. You can also tweet us using the handle @firstladies.
And finally, you can call us. We have our lines divided geographically. If you live in the Eastern of
Central time zones, 202-585-3880. If you live in the Mountain, Pacific or even farther west, 202-5853881. And throughout the 90 minutes, we'll try to get as many comments from as many different
media as we can in our program tonight.
Well, let's go back in time and understand where she came from. She was born in New York City in
1925. Tell me more about Barbara Pierce's background.
GUTIN: Well, as you said, 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 McCall's publishing company. Her mother, Pauline,
was a descendant of an Ohio Supreme Court justice. And the Pierce family was distantly related to
President Franklin Pierce.
The family moved to Rye, New York, where Barbara and her siblings -- an older sister and two
younger brothers -- grew up. And 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 Ashley Hall, a
boarding school in South Carolina. And home for Christmas break of her junior year, she went to a
country club dance, and that's when she met George H.W. Bush.
SWAIN: 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?
ENGEL: They, by both accounts, according to both of them, 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 actually becomes the youngest aviator in the Pacific theater for the United States
Navy.
And their correspondence throughout that entire period is emotional, it's intimate, it's something that
drew them both together when they couldn't be together in the same spot. And then the times when
they were together were electric for them. They really knew from the very start that they were for
each other.
SWAIN: She began school at Smith College.
GUTIN: Yes, she did. And she was there for a year, and she admitted that she really wasn't the most
dedicated of students. She was more interested in her boyfriend, George Bush. I believe she was
rather active in athletics at her time at Smith, and she went back for the first semester of her
sophomore year and then left school to marry George Bush.
SWAIN: And as a young couple, when George Bush went off as an aviator to the Pacific arena,
we've 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 and how that played out
for her?
ENGEL: Yes, it's a truly harrowing story. He was on a bombing run over an island called Chichijima, and he went in on the run, started the dive down with his bomber, and was immediately hit by
enemy aircraft, enemy flak. And he continued on his bombing mission and called back to his two
fellow crewmates and said, "We're going to continue this mission. We're going to go out over the
Pacific. We're going to, you know, dump out and bail out."
And he thought that 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, that he was alone in the Pacific, and actually spent about four-and-a-half bobbing up and
down in the Pacific before he was rescued by the USS Finback, a submarine, and spent another
several weeks actually continuing with the submarine on their patrol mission.
And during that time, it was very unclear for the Bushes, his parents, what had happened to him. He
was officially listed as missing in action. And they made a conscious decision not to tell Barbara at
that time of what was going on until they knew for certain that he was going to be fine.
GUTIN: They missed their first wedding date because he still wasn't back. And then finally, he was
back, and on January 6th, about two weeks after the original date, they were married.
SWAIN: And he served in the military until when and then went to Yale at what point?
GUTIN: He served until 1945, until the peace treaties were signed. He had flown so many sorties
during the war that he had many points accumulated, so he was able to take an early out. And then he
and Barbara left for New Haven and Yale and the beginning of his long-delayed college career.
SWAIN: And during that time period, the first child was born?
GUTIN: That's 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.
SWAIN: Ultimately, the Bushes had six children.
GUTIN: Yes, that's right.
SWAIN: And they were George, then Pauline Robinson, who was known as Robin, Jeb, who's...
GUTIN: John.
SWAIN: John Ellis Bush.
GUTIN: That's right.
SWAIN: That's how the nickname "Jeb" came along.
GUTIN: That's right.
SWAIN: Neil, born in 1955, and the final child, Dorothy, known as Doro, born in 1959. I want you
to tell the story, if you would, about Robin's death, because it clearly impacted both parents for all of
their lifetime.
GUTIN: Robin was a little over 2 years old and woke up one morning -- and at this point, the Bushes
were in Texas. And she said to Barbara, "I think today I'm just going to stay in bed or maybe I'll go
out on the lawn and look at the clouds going by." And that raised a red flag for Barbara right away,
because her daughter was very active.
She took her daughter to the pediatrician, and the 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 said, "Well, it means that she's not going to live very long."
The doctor's recommendation was that Robin be allowed to go home and enjoy things, be around her
family. But one of George Bush's relatives was a doctor at Sloan Kettering in New York, the hospital,
and Robin was taken there to try some different treatment modalities to try to deal with the leukemia.
They prolonged her life a little bit. She even returned to Texas once, but she passed away.
SWAIN: And the Bushes still talk about her today, and still the emotion is very visible all these
years...
GUTIN: Absolutely.
ENGEL: It's dramatic. I mean, President Bush spent his entire life writing letters. That's one of the
things he's known for and famous for. And perhaps the most painful letters that 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 that's missing, the fact that we really do need a little girl in our
lives running around, that life was not the same since.
SWAIN: But they did manage to recover to some degree, and they had a big and bustling family.
And this next clip, from our interview in October, Barbara Bush talks about her role as a parent
versus the future president's role. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER SLEN: You've been referred to by some family members as the enforcer...
BARBARA BUSH: Right.
PETER SLEN: ... of the Bush family. What do you think about that reputation?
BARBARA BUSH: Well, I'm not sure I'm thrilled with Laura saying that. I deserve it, because
George is so -- you know, anything they do is all right. But someone has to be sure that the standards
are kept. And he leads by example. I lead by denying some things. And I am the enforcer; there's no
question about it. Do I like that role? No. Would I rather he had done it? Yes. But it didn't work that
way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Have any comments about Barbara Bush as the "enforcer"?
GUTIN: 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.
SWAIN: We have two questions, one on Facebook, one on Twitter, about this aspect of Mrs. Bush's
life. David Welsh wants to know, what aspects of Mrs. Bush's personality might be seen in her son,
President George W. Bush? Have any thoughts about that?
GUTIN: Well, I think that both of them have long memories. Barbara Bush, I think, does not let go
of criticism very easily, and I'm not sure that George Walker Bush does, either.
SWAIN: And a similar question, and you can respond to both. Regina Crumkey on Twitter, are there
any passions that a young Barbara passed on to her own children?
ENGEL: Well, you know, we have to appreciate -- I think to understand Barbara Bush, you need to
appreciate that she was really a product of her times. And the passion that she passed on to her
children was the fact that she had devoted her entire life to them, to raising a family and to being a
good and loyal wife to her husband over the course of his varied careers. I mean, he was a really -- for
many times -- it was -- at many sense, an active and absentee father for many years, because he was
on the road as a salesman, then he was on the road as a politician, then he was on the road as a
government official.
She was the one who was 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 Robin's unfortunate death.
SWAIN: Just to pass some statistics on that, so people get a sense of how mobile this family was, by
the time they made it to the White House, they had at that point been married for 43 years and at that
point they even lived in 29 different houses in 17 cities. So it was quite a life on the move.
GUTIN: Right.
SWAIN: Dave Murdock wants to know is, rumor has it that Barbara's hair turned white after Robin's
death. Is that true?
ENGEL: I believe it's true.
GUTIN: I believe it is true.
ENGEL: I believe that's true.
GUTIN: Yeah. I've heard...
ENGEL: And she...
GUTIN: ... both sides.
ENGEL: 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 that she went through a period
of depression, and it was only -- she tells the story -- it was only after she was so sad for so many
months that she heard George outside saying to a young friend, "I'm sorry, I can't come out and play
today because I have to take care of my mother," that she realized this is too much burden to put on a
little boy, but it also demonstrates the pain that she was having at the time, as well.
SWAIN: Leroy is watching us in Monticello, Kentucky. Hi, Leroy. You have a question?
LEROY (ph): Yes, ma'am. Were the Bush family -- were they a Bible-reading people? Did they go
by their scriptures? Did they go to church and...
SWAIN: Right, thank you for your question. Later on, if you watch until the end, we do have a clip
where Barbara Bush talks about her faith. But were they church people? And how did it influence
them?
GUTIN: They always had very strong faith. I can't really attest to how much church attendance was
part of their lives, but I believe that it was considerable.
ENGEL: They did go to church. But President Bush during his time as president did give one
remarkably revealing speech about his own spirituality, where he said, I am a person of faith, but, you
know, I'm an Episcopalian and we don't talk about those things. And this is during a time when there's
tremendous religious fervor, especially coming throughout the Republican Party, coming up from the
South, of new evangelicalism, where people are designed to speak about that type of faith, and that's
just something that President Bush was not ever comfortable with.
SWAIN: So they moved to Texas and then to California for the oil business. How did the Bush
family make the transition into politics?
GUTIN: 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 that George Bush was asked to
consider running for Harris County Republican chairman.
So that was his first campaign. It was Barbara's first 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.
SWAIN: And we should also note that, at about that same time, George Herbert Walker Bush's father
was involved in politics. What happened to him politically?
ENGEL: During the 1950s, he was a senator from the state of Connecticut, in fact, was one of
Dwight Eisenhower's favorite golfing buddies. And one of the reasons that he was one of
Eisenhower's golfing buddies is really instructive for understanding the personality of President Bush,
in that the senior Bush, Prescott Bush, was very competitive. Eisenhower said, "I like playing with
him, because he's one of the only people that wouldn't let me win."
And that really is an idea that was instilled into the entire family, that when you're on the athletic
field, when you're in the arena, in any arena, when you're in business, when you're in politics, you're
there to win, respectfully, but you're there to win.
SWAIN: So from the Harris County Republican head to the national stage, how did that happen?
GUTIN: Well, there were two terms in Congress, so the family...
SWAIN: Before that, there was a Senate try that didn't work?
GUTIN: There was a Senate try that didn't work. There were two terms in Congress. There was
another try for the Senate that, unfortunately, didn't work. And then there was -- Mr. Bush was asked
to be Republican National Committee chairman during Watergate.
SWAIN: Before that time...
ENGEL: Well, and between that -- well, actually between that time, he was United Nations
ambassador. And I think the broader political context is really important here, in that he's coming
from Texas, a Texas that is transforming itself, that is changing from a Democratic bastion to a more
conservative Republican state. And so when he runs in 1964, he's hopeful of winning, but frankly, no
Republican was going to win in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson had the longest coattails in American
history, biggest landslide for any president in American history.
And so, consequently, he goes, becomes a congressman. And then Richard Nixon, one of his mentors,
encourages him in 1970 to run again. And actually, he thinks he's going to run the exact same
campaign that he ran in '64, portraying his now-incumbent adversary as really a liberal. I'm the
conservative, Bush would say, he's a liberal, and then a terrible thing happened for George Bush. A
more conservative man than him got the Democratic nomination, Lloyd Bentsen, so his entire
campaign strategy went out in the wash.
And there's a wonderful line from a Texas magazine at the time essentially reminding people that this
is still a Democratic state, saying, you know, given the choice between Wee Dilly and Pee Willy,
Texas will always take the Democrat. That's just what happens in 1970.
That's changed, of course. And so, consequently, Richard Nixon, having encouraged him to run for
the Senate, tells him, "I'll take care of you, and you can go and become United Nations ambassador
up in Washington."
SWAIN: And where would his foreign policy at that point bona fides come from that he would be
thought of as U.N. ambassador?
ENGEL: He didn't have any. And he'd be the first one to admit it. And he says, "I know nothing
about foreign policy, but I'm going to learn."
And this is actually one of the reasons that Nixon chose him, because ultimately what Nixon and his
secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, wanted was somebody who was
going to be loyal, not somebody who was going to pursue their own mind. In fact, the less a person
knew, the better, because all they want him to do was to follow what they said from Washington.
And he was very good at that. He was very loyal. He liked the social activity of being at the United
Nations. He liked meeting with other diplomats. And he did something very unusual for a United
Nations ambassador. His predecessors gave him advice before he showed up, and they said, "You
know, you're the ambassador from the most powerful country in the world. Let them come to you. Let
them visit your office." And George Bush simply said, "That never worked for me in life in business
before. I'm going to go visit other people."
And he went -- and as an ambassador, went to all the different nations in their offices around the
U.N., something an American ambassador had never done before, and he really relished in the
personal sense of learning about diplomacy on the ground level.
SWAIN: You write about how Barbara Bush really enjoyed those U.N. years, because the world
really came to their doorstep.
GUTIN: Hard for us to believe now, but when they became -- when they went to the U.N., she had
not yet gone outside the country. Her first time leaving the country was when they were in China. But
she loved the time in New York. They had a suite in the Waldorf Towers, where they entertained, and
they entertained constantly.
I think something that Jeffery's hit on is important here, too. For both Bushes, there was an
understanding, a comprehension of the importance of personal diplomacy, and it worked very well for
both of them.
SWAIN: So let's get the sequencing right. First, there was the U.N. position. Next for the Bushes
was...
ENGEL: Head of the Republican National Committee.
SWAIN: And during what time period, with Watergate?
ENGEL: Well, unfortunately for the president, this was during Watergate. Of course, Watergate
doesn't show up until after he's already in the position, and he has the unenviable job of going out
every day and defending the president. And he feels it's his duty as Republican chair to defend the
president no matter what, not matter what his own sinking suspicions are about the president's own
guilt. He refers to this period as being in the eye of the storm, that this is the worst part of his life.
SWAIN: And this for Mrs. Bush, in this town, with the RNC position being a very social one, this
town was so full of tensions at that time. What was life like for her and her family?
GUTIN: It was difficult. And she really wondered how he was soldiering on. And there comes a
point where Mr. Bush has to go to President Nixon and say to him, "It looks like most hope is lost,
and we hadn't hoped that things were going to come to this, but it looks like they will."
SWAIN: Kumu is in Quincy, Massachusetts, and our next questioner. You're on the air. Hi. Are you
there?
KUMU (ph): Hello?
SWAIN: Yes, you have question?
KUMU (ph): Oh, yes. Hi. Sorry. This is Kumu Gupta, and I'm in Quincy, Massachusetts, which is
the birthplace of John Adams. And I had called in, you know, when you had the show on Abigail
Adams. And I have a question and a comment.
And my question is that you mentioned earlier that Mrs. Bush is the first lady after -- or the only first
lady after Abigail Adams who was the mother of a president and a vice president. And my question
is, is that also true that she's the only first lady after Abigail Adams who was the wife of a president
and a vice president?
SWAIN: President and vice president, as well as...
ENGEL: Who was the one...
GUTIN: Pat Nixon.
SWAIN: Wife of a president and vice president...
GUTIN: And vice president.
ENGEL: Yes.
SWAIN: But not the mother of a president.
GUTIN: Yeah, no, that's...
ENGEL: No, she...
GUTIN: ... Barbara Bush and Abigail Adams.
SWAIN: Yes, uh-huh. Thank you for your call, and thanks for following the first lady's history along
with us. So from Watergate, chief of the Republican Party, to China, how did that position come
across?
ENGEL: This is a great story, because it tells a lot about President Bush on many levels. Watergate
occurs, President Nixon resigns, Gerald Ford comes in. George Bush is considered very strongly to be
one of the potential vice presidential picks for Gerald Ford.
He eventually goes with Nelson Rockefeller, and turns to Bush, and essentially he says, "You've been
a loyal soldier for the Republican Party for all these years, and, quietly, I'd like to get all of the people
who were involved in Watergate, even publicly, out of the city, out of limelight. What would you like
to do? I know you like diplomacy after having being in the U.N. Where would you like to go? I can
offer you Paris; I can offer you London," really, the prime jobs he has to offer.
And George Bush looks at him and says, "I'd like to go to China." And Gerald Ford says, "Would
you like to go to London or Paris? Because those are the better places to go." And Bush says, "No,
China is going to be a future. China is growing. China is an exciting place." And also -- and this is
really key, and this comes up in his personal correspondence at the time -- China is a lot cheaper than
London or Paris.
The ambassador to London and Paris and other fine capitals of Europe is expected to supplement the
embassy's social budget. And after all these years in public service, George Bush felt like he -- and
five kids he put through college -- he felt like he wanted to go some place that was a little bit more
affordable. And his diary throughout his time in China is filled with references to how not only
exciting it was, how vibrant it was, but how wonderful it was to live in a place that was so
inexpensive.
SWAIN: Barbara Bush loved China, it seemed.
GUTIN: She said it was probably her favorite place to be. The kids were not there. They were all
back in the U.S. She...
SWAIN: But the dog went with them, correct?
GUTIN: The dog went with them, absolutely. But she had George Bush to herself. And she really
took -- the two of them took advantage of the many possibilities that China offered. They learned to
speak some Chinese. They were able to enjoy going out into the countryside. We didn't have a full
consulate there. We had -- it was a liaison.
ENGEL: It's the U.S. Liaison Office.
GUTIN: Liaison Office.
ENGEL: Yes. We didn't establish relations until '79.
GUTIN: Right.
ENGEL: So it's an unofficial official post.
GUTIN: So there was also a little more freedom that came with that, that might not have been there
otherwise, but it was -- she was very unhappy when they had to leave after a year.
GUTIN: And what, very briefly, would China have been like during that time period? It seems like it
was just on the cusp of change.
ENGEL: It was a world apart. It was a world away. There was no telephone connection that was
reliable. There was -- mail service was spotty. You could really feel like you were getting away from
it all.
And then-Ambassador Bush felt after Watergate that he was exhausted, that he needed a sabbatical,
that he needed time away, and China was a wonderful place where he would say, "The phone doesn't
ring on my desk. I can get away and rejuvenate." And it was a place that was actually dark at night.
This is at the end of the Cultural Revolution, and it really is not the vibrant, exciting, smog-filled
Beijing that we know today. It was a really quiet place to be.
SWAIN: And Barbara Bush must have been quite of interest to the Chinese, a woman with white hair
they weren't used to seeing and also not really very many Westerners at the time.
GUTIN: Right, right.
SWAIN: Did she write about that experience at all?
GUTIN: She did. She wrote some columns for newspapers which were then sent home. And she just
found so many things to be unique about the experience. So...
SWAIN: Barbara Bush was -- and perhaps still is -- an inveterate scrap-booker, and the collections at
the Bush Presidential Library have cataloged all of these. We're going to visit the Bush Library next
and learn more about scrapbooks that she kept during her China years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN FINCH, George Bush Presidential Library & Museum Director: Mrs. Bush began scrapbooking shortly after she and George Bush became engaged, and really began scrap-booking after
they were married. And it's a hobby that she continued throughout George Bush's entire political
career and family career. There's over a hundred in the collection, and they're the older, large-format
scrapbooks. They go throughout his time in Congress, his time at the U.N., the RNC, and China.
President Bush was head of the RNC. And when Ford became president, he asked him where he
would like to go, and so he had just reopened our relationship with China. And President Bush told
President Ford that he'd like to go to China.
And there was no U.S. ambassador to China. There was only a U.S. liaison. So they weren't all the
trappings of an ambassador's residence. There was no huge staff, or no staff like is typical at a U.S.
embassy, because this was just a U.S. Liaison Office.
They were there for about a year. They got out among the public. One of the things President Bush
said he wasn't going to do, he wasn't going to sit in the U.S. consulate, he was going to get out. And
they did get out. And President and Mrs. Bush got out on their bicycles and bicycled around Beijing
and very much enamored themselves with the Chinese people and the public.
President Bush took Chinese lessons and was able to learn enough Chinese to carry on a conversation
with his barber and also invite people over to play tennis. Mrs. Bush has hundreds of photos, some of
what you see in these scrapbooks, that she took of her travels around China.
Mrs. Bush has often said that of all the jobs President Bush had during his career, this is one of her
most favorite, because they did get to spend so much time together, because of the fact that there was
no huge -- there was no staff to speak of and it was just kind of the two of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: So from all of the intrigue and interest in China, the next stop for the Bush family was back
in Washington at the CIA. These were more challenging years for Barbara Bush.
GUTIN: They certainly were. She was not happy to return to Washington, particularly not for her
husband to become the director of the CIA. It meant among other things that he could not tell her
anything that was going on in his workplace. And this has been a relationship where the two of them
had really discussed everything. And the kids were gone, and the beginning of the Women's liberation
movement was starting, and Barbara Bush plunged into depression. And those were some difficult
times for her.
Her husband suggested that she get professional help, but perhaps with a Yankee self-reliance, she
felt that she could handle it. And I've heard her say in the years past that today, if someone says to
her, "I'm depressed," she says, "I'm sorry to hear that. Get help." So she's come full circle on that, but
those were tough years.
SWAIN: Peter is in Southington, Connecticut. Hi, Peter. You're on.
PETER (ph): Hello?
SWAIN: Yes, sir.
PETER (ph): I'd like to share a story. Barbara Bush gave -- I worked at a banquet facility in
Connecticut. And Barbara Bush came to Connecticut for a fundraiser for Governor John Rowland.
The owners of the banquet facility invited the school down the street to have all their students come,
and the parents felt it was too political, so they allowed two children to come from each class.
She arrives in the back of our building, got out of the SUV herself, saw the children, immediately
went over to them, who were so, so excited to be in the presence of her.
After she had passed by, one little girl, the little girl got sick and threw up. Barbara Bush turned
around, picked that child up, positioned her so that her two-piece red suit and her white pearls,
nothing got on her. She comforted the girl, she kissed the girl, she told her it was all right, put the
child down, and continued on her day. She was extremely gracious and humane.
SWAIN: Peter, thank you very much for sharing that story.
Does that ring truth to both of you, that her comfort with campaigning, her comfort with interacting
with...
GUTIN: Absolutely. She became a very good campaigner. She worked a crowd very well. That
action with that young girl wouldn't have surprised me at all.
SWAIN: Mack is in Hammond, Indiana. Hi, Mack, you're on as we talk about Barbara Bush.
MACK (ph): Yes. I had two statements to make, then a question, very quickly. She's -- three
statements. One, I'm a Democrat. And out of all of the presidents' wives, I think Barbara Bush is one
that I respected greatly for her frankness and just a beautiful person.
The other statement was this. Two more statements, real quickly, and then the question. I had a great
respect for her husband, although I didn't vote for him. And -- but what he did in the Gulf War by
going in, organizing and going in and getting out. Whether he took care of Saddam Hussein, that's
another thing, but he got out.
The other thing was when he was confronted, when Clinton -- and I don't agree with what Clinton did
with the young lady in the White House -- but he was confronted with it. And what I understand, he
says, listen, "I'm not getting into that."
I was wondering what was Barbara's position in reference to the Clinton affair? Was she ever
confronted with it and how she handled it? And I'll be quiet.
SWAIN: Thank you very much. Do we know?
GUTIN: Well, it occurred during the 1992 presidential campaign. And she really was -- she tried not
to talk about it. She would say to the press, "Aren't there other things that you can talk about? You
know, this is speculation." So she really tried to stay above it as much as possible.
SWAIN: So we've fast-forwarded to the 1992 campaign, but we've really got to get back their foray,
first foray into presidential politics. The Bushes wanted to be a candidate in 1980, a highly
competitive year. So would you quickly kind of tell us about their decision to run for the White House
and what Barbara's role was in that campaign -- because this is really her story -- and then ultimately
how they joined the ticket with the Reagans?
ENGEL: Yeah, actually, I don't think it was much of a decision at all. I think it was a fait accompli
that he was going to run for the White House. As early as the time that he's in China, he's actually
telling visitors that he intends to run for the White House.
And so he goes back after leaving the CIA, after -- he actually wanted to stay on at the CIA, after
President Carter took over, but Carter put his own man in. George Bush goes back, does a few years
of business, but really is laying the groundwork for his ultimate campaign, and actually does
surprisingly well against Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, of course, had nearly won the Republican
nomination in '76 and was expected to win the nomination in '80. But George Bush hits the ground
running and takes Iowa and really surprised a lot of people and make it seem as though this is going
to be a competitive race.
Unfortunately for him, at that point, the Reagan steamroll begins and he winds up winning the
nomination handily. And George Bush goes to the Republican convention really thinking that was it.
He had -- he was going to release his delegates. He had played his part.
And Reagan actually comes up with a very unusual plan that perhaps he's going to bring back Gerald
Ford and they would be co-presidents, Gerald Ford take the nomination and essentially handle foreign
affairs while Reagan handled domestic affairs. And very quickly, it became apparent that was never
going to work. So Reagan then turned to George Bush, the man who had finished second, and offered
him the ticket, and George Bush took it in a heartbeat.
SWAIN: And what was her role during the 1980 campaign?
GUTIN: She was certainly someone who listened to her husband's speeches and reacted and...
SWAIN: Did she campaign herself?
GUTIN: Absolutely. She was out there on the hustings. And this is the first time also that we hear
about her literacy interest and project, because she says, "If we go to the White House, my focus is
going to be on people learning how to read."
SWAIN: And where did that come from?
GUTIN: Two schools of thought on that. One of the Bush's sons, Neil Bush, was dyslexic and was
diagnosed at a time when it really wasn't -- there wasn't a lot known about it. And Barbara worked
with him, hired tutors, and helped him to learn to read. So there are many people who believe that it
was a personal interest that sparked her activity in literacy.
She's said in some statements that that wasn't true, that instead it came from her own love of reading
and the fact that she has these wonderful memories of childhood of her family all reading together.
And she believed that parents were the first teachers that children had. My feeling has always been
maybe it falls somewhere right in the center.
SWAIN: Next up is Michael watching us in Washington, D.C. Hi, Michael.
MICHAEL (ph): Hi, I have two questions. Did Barbara Bush stay friends with former First Lady
Nancy Reagan? And did she have any of the living first ladies back to the White House while she was
in the White House?
SWAIN: OK, thanks very much. Well, they were on the ticket together, but most of your reading of
history suggests that it was not the warmest of relations, but...
ENGEL: No. In fact, your caller asked if they stayed friends after the White House. That suggested
they ever were friends. I think the Bushes were very adamant that they wanted to be friends with the
Reagans. That was how they lived their entire lives, was making friends and social connections and
moving up through political circles by melding politics and friendship.
The Reagans were a very isolated couple, self-isolated. They liked each others' company and, frankly,
not a lot of other people. And so consequently, they really never reciprocated the overtures and the
friendship and the warmth that the Bushes put towards them, especially Nancy and Mrs. Reagan -and Mrs. Bush.
SWAIN: In fact, they were only invited to the White House a few times during the -- is that right?
GUTIN: Well, they were only invited to the family quarters a few times. They were certainly at the
White House many times for ceremonial occasions. But there was a level of tension between the two
of them. And...
SWAIN: And what about between the two -- the first and second ladies. How did they get along?
GUTIN: I think they worked pretty well together. They had the sense that they were working towards
the same goal. Of course, they also had very divergent interests. Nancy Reagan was talking about
anti-drug measures, and Barbara Bush was focusing on literacy. So their paths diverged.
SWAIN: Gary Robinson wants to know, besides family, what confidants did Barbara have? And did
she rely on anyone special to help guide her through political life?
GUTIN: She did count on Lee Atwater, who had been the head of the Republican National
Committee for a while and was the chairman of the Republican National Committee when George
Bush ran for president in 1980. He was a confidant. I'm trying to think if she had others outside the
family. She certainly has a network of good friends and certainly relied on those people, as well.
SWAIN: John Henry, as we're -- been looking at the vice presidential years, has this question about,
can you talk about the whereabouts of both the vice president and Mrs. Bush on the day he almost
assumed the presidency?
ENGEL: Yes.
SWAIN: That's March 30, 1981, the day that there was the attempt -- the attempted assassination on
President Reagan.
ENGEL: This is actually something that was not only an illustrative story about President Bush, it
also helped solidify his relationship ultimately with President Reagan, because then-Vice President
Bush was back in Texas when Reagan was shot and immediately, of course, got on a plane and flew
back.
And we have to remember that the communication technology was not as good as it was then. Air
Force Two, for example, had no way to directly communicate with the ground except through radio
through the pilots, through their cockpit.
And so consequently, President Bush -- then-Vice President Bush didn't know entirely what had
happened to President Reagan, didn't know exactly what was going on. By the time he landed at
Andrews Air Force Base, it was very clear that the president had survived the shooting and was in
surgery.
And he immediately went to the White House, but made an extraordinarily important subtle
distinction and subtle decision. He said, "I'm not going to take a helicopter to the White House,
because only the president lands on the South Lawn. I'm instead going to take more time, and I'm
going to take my limo and drive up that way, as the vice president would."
And so at that very moment that Alexander Haig, then-secretary of state, is running around the White
House saying, "I'm in charge," and thereby offending Nancy Reagan and usurping of presidential
authority -- because he wasn't in charge -- Vice President Bush was essentially being the calmer man
and the more respectful man of then still the President Reagan, who of course was still alive. And this
left a lasting impression on Reagan. He really solidified his own relationship with Reagan as a
consequence.
SWAIN: Brian Watkins on Twitter wants to know specifically, what was Mrs. Bush's experience like
during the aftermath of the assassination attempt? Do we know?
GUTIN: There's not much written about it that I'm aware of.
SWAIN: OK. Then we will move onto another question. This is from Mark, who is watching us in
Detroit. Hi, Mark.
MARK (ph): Hi, good evening. How are you?
SWAIN: Good, thank you. What's your question for us?
MARK (ph): My question is, what was First Lady Barbara Bush's opinion of the Clintons during the
'92 campaign? Because I was in high school back then, and it seems like it was such a dramatic shift
in first ladies between her and Hillary Clinton. It sort of reminded me of Mamie Eisenhower and
Jacqueline Kennedy, in terms of polar opposites.
SWAIN: OK, thank you.
GUTIN: Well, Barbara Bush had trouble understanding how anyone could elect Bill Clinton. She felt
that her husband had done a superb job as president and deserved re-election. And along came the
governor of Arkansas, and there were disclosures about his having had an affair. She just could not
understand how people would go ahead and elect him.
As far as Hillary Clinton went, she thought she was bright, she thought she was sharp, but she -Barbara Bush did not entirely know how to deal with her, because she really was someone different.
So there was a certain level of discomfort with both of them. So...
ENGEL: This difference is really quite crucial, because there is a real cultural shift, even a
generational shift going on in America at this time, that Barbara Bush was from a generation where a
traditional woman's role was to stay home and raise the kids and support her husband's career. Hillary
Clinton did not come from that model.
And consequently, Barbara Bush had really sort of inadvertently waded into this transformation in
American society through the time that she was first lady when it became essentially a politicized
issue, whether or not a woman had chosen to stay home, whether she had that choice, whether she
chose to go out into the workplace, and then being confronted with a woman who clearly had taken
other choices really left the two of them, Hillary and Barbara, at odds, not so much with each other
personally, but ideologically. They were from two different worlds.
SWAIN: Was the 1988 campaign, again, a highly competitive open seat that brought the Bushes into
the White House -- and I'm wondering it was a very difficult campaign. The Willie Horton ads, for
example, that the Bush campaign employed. Dukakis and Senator Bentsen, who had an earlier role in
the story, were the challengers.
I'm wondering -- some history books suggest that Barbara Bush was very much involved and
supportive, as was son George W. Bush in its strategy to employ the Willie Horton campaign...
GUTIN: Right.
SWAIN: ... to be tough. Do you know that empirically?
GUTIN: I've heard it perhaps apocryphally. There are certainly sources that say that both she and
George W. Bush had gone to George H.W. Bush and said, if you don't toughen up, you're not going
to win this race, so go ahead with the Willie Horton ad.
SWAIN: And ultimately, successful. They reached the White House. And it's interesting to note -we were talking about this before we started -- we're doing this program live on the 20th of January,
2014, and it is today exactly the 25th anniversary of the Bushes coming into the White House.
The Bush years -- and we have, as we do in each of these programs, a still of the important things that
happened during those four years in the White House just to put it on the record books. And they
include his "No New Taxes" pledge. The savings-and-loan crisis also happened during that time
period. Of course, the first Iraq war, which was known as Desert Storm. Tiananmen Square also
happened during that time. And for many of your interests, the end of the Cold War happened during
the Bush years. So on the national stage, so much going on. What was happening domestically during
that time period?
GUTIN: A lot of social upheaval. Jeffrey alluded to it with the changes in society and the role of
women. Hillary Clinton becomes the first lady later, but first lady aspirant who had gone to graduate
school, having graduated from Yale University. Just a very different time.
SWAIN: And did Barbara Bush get involved in any of the debates over changing society, such as
abortion, rights for women, gays, and gender equality, that sort of thing?
GUTIN: Well, she stayed away from the abortion issue. Many years later, in a televised interview,
she came forth and pretty much came out and said that she'd been pro-choice all along, but certainly
she stayed away from it. When George Bush had become Ronald Reagan's vice presidential
candidate, both Barbara and George had had to take a few steps back from their positions with regard
to family planning. And she didn't speak about it.
She felt that, certainly, gays should have rights. She was sympathetic. She was sympathetic to what
was happening with the AIDS holocaust, but she wasn't particularly verbal about it. You know, she
was there, she was talking about it, but her participation was somewhat muted.
ENGEL: Well, and I don't think that we should let her role in the AIDS crisis go unmentioned,
because she did a dramatic thing when she was only in her first weeks of being first lady. And she
went to an AIDS orphanage and held up an AIDS baby, who subsequently died several weeks later.
And the picture of a first lady holding an infant with AIDS was really quite shocking to people at the
time, back at the time when people thought that people with AIDS should be shunned or should be
put away.
And consequently, this human-loving moment for her, of holding a baby, of holding somebody who
needed help really helped people understand better that AIDS was not only not just a death warrant,
but also not something that people needed to be shunned for. It was really a remarkably important
cultural moment.
SWAIN: Next up is William in Hallandale. What state are you in, William?
WILLIAM (ph): I'm in Florida.
SWAIN: Welcome to the program. What's your question?
WILLIAM (ph): Thank you so much. And I've been enjoying your series so much, too.
It was actually about what you were just talking about. I had recalled when Barbara Bush had
attended Ryan White's funeral. I also recall when the AIDS quilt was in the mall near the White
House, when neither she or the president visited it or acknowledged it. But I do recall that she put
candles in the window of the White House. And I was wondering if you could explain to me why they
didn't visit, and if you want to elaborate further about what she did with people with AIDS, I would
appreciate that, too. Thank you.
SWAIN: Thank you for your call.
GUTIN: I think it was a political decision, because it was the first few weeks of the administration.
I'm not sure that they even knew entirely what their position was yet. But she felt strongly about
showing some support. And that led to her action of putting the candle into the windows and then, of
course, the very symbolic act of going to -- I think it was Mother's Place...
ENGEL: I think so.
GUTIN: ... and holding the AIDS baby at time when people weren't sure about the transmission of
the disease.
ENGEL: And she was always very, very good at making solid political statements quietly, holding a
baby, putting a candle in a window, and her rationale, for example, of ultimately explaining that she
was pro-choice was that she was not in favor of abortions, but she thought this is something that
should be between a mother and a father and a doctor and the government didn't have a role in this.
And so she was very, very keen to sort of set boundaries for where the government should intervene.
And she wanted to take moral stands, but without interfering with her husband's political career, so
she would them through very subtle, but strong statements.
SWAIN: While we're talking about domestic issues, Len Brown in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, sent an email saying, "Since today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States, can you ask if Barbara
dealt with any race issues in segregated Texas? And what did she do as first lady about race issues?"
Was it an issue she got publicly involved in?
GUTIN: Not to my...
ENGEL: I don't believe that she...
GUTIN: Not to my knowledge, no.
SWAIN: OK. Next is Dennis in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Go ahead, please.
DENNIS (ph): Hi, how are you?
SWAIN: Good evening, welcome.
DENNIS (ph): Thank you so much for having this series. This is wonderful. During the 1980
campaign, I had a political radio show in California, and I got to interview both George and Barbara
Bush. And I asked her what her relationship was with the Reagans. And she said they were friends,
good friends.
My question is, what was their relationship once they got into the vice presidency? And then, second,
did she encourage her kids to go into politics? Thanks again.
GUTIN: Well, we covered this a little bit earlier. They had a cordial relationship, but not a warm
relationship. And it was a working relationship. I think that George Bush and Ronald Reagan were
certainly closer than Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.
Barbara Bush definitely did not recommend that her children go into politics. When George W. Bush
came to his parents and told them that he was going to run for the governorship of Texas, I think
Barbara tried to talk him out of it. The same thing happened when he decided to make a run for the
presidency. And as I think we're going to discuss towards the end of the program, Barbara has been
not a particular fan of the idea of Jeb running in the upcoming presidential election in 2016.
SWAIN: So Barbara Bush became something of the public face of the Bush administration. She
spent a lot of time on the road. Was that time mostly spent talking about literacy? Or was she
involved in political aspects of the presidency? I mean, how did she use her time on the road?
GUTIN: She was -- well, she -- I think in my...
SWAIN: Of course, everything becomes political, doesn't it?
ENGEL: I was going to say...
GUTIN: Yeah.
ENGEL: Over time, she becomes more popular in terms of public perception than the president, so
her political role increases as her popularity does, as well.
SWAIN: Uh-huh. And what was the source of her popularity? What did the public respond to?
ENGEL: I think people could relate to her. I think people looked at her and said, "Boy, that looks
like somebody who I know." And, you know, there's a wonderful advertisement, actually, that comes
out for a furniture sale, I think at this time, where someone says essentially on the side of a bus, the
advertisement says, "Get Nancy Reagan furniture at Barbara Bush prices."
Now, Barbara Bush was a rich woman. She could afford a lot. But she had this image of being
somebody who would just live down the street from you.
SWAIN: The every woman, yeah, the every woman.
ENGEL: Exactly.
GUTIN: People said they felt like they could sit down and have a cup of coffee with her. And this
was either an innate political sense or an innate sense of self. But in the leading into the campaign,
advisers were saying you need to lose weight, you need to dye your hair, and she said we can do
anything but you can't -- you can't make me lose weight, you can't make me dye my hair.
SWAIN: But ultimately, the public responded to that. What was the dynamic there?
GUTIN: I think it was very much an every-woman kind of persona. People really could relate to her,
you know, because she wasn't a size two as Nancy Reagan, because she dressed nicely, but maybe not
in the same high style. She just seemed like someone you could talk to. And I think, too, it was...
SWAIN: And it worked politically.
GUTIN: It did. You know, and she also had the kind of demeanor where she seemed to be someone
who would listen. And I think that all worked well.
ENGEL: And speak frankly at the same time. You know, there's a wonderful incident, for example,
where, of course, her husband famously doesn't like broccoli. And this becomes an issue during -when the president says, "I'm not going to eat an entire foodstuff," this becomes an issue.
And so consequently, the broccoli growers of America send, you know, several hundred pounds of
the stuff to food banks around Washington, but also several cases to the White House, say, here, here
you are, Mrs. First Lady, and she looks on them and says, "That's a wonderful gift. That's very nice.
He's not going to eat it."
GUTIN: He's not going to it.
SWAIN: Not without controversy. You spend several pages in your biography talking about her
invitation to speak at Wellesley College.
GUTIN: That's right.
SWAIN: What was the source of the controversy there?
GUTIN: Well, she had been invited to be the commencement speaker in June of 1990. And a few
weeks after she accepted, 150 of the 600 Wellesley seniors who were graduating sent a petition
saying they felt that she was an inappropriate speaker because anything that she had achieved in life
was because of who she was married to.
So there was a short period where perhaps maybe Mrs. Bush thought this is isn't a great idea. But
instead, she sort of finessed it, and she said, you know what? I was 21 once myself, and I questioned
things, and I think that I have things to tell them.
So she let them know that she was going to give the speech. She invited Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of
Premier Gorbachev, who would be visiting at the same time, and the two of them went up to
Wellesley.
SWAIN: We have a little clip from her address to the graduating class at Wellesley that year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA BUSH: Now, I know your first choice today was Alice Walker.
(LAUGHTER)
Guess how I know? Known for "The Color Purple." Instead you got me, known for the color of my
hair.
(LAUGHTER)
For over 50 years, it was said that the winner of Wellesley's annual hoop race would be the first to get
married. Now they say the winner will be the first to become a CEO. Both of those stereotypes show
too little tolerance for those who want to know where the mermaids stand.
(APPLAUSE)
So I want to offer a new legend. The winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream -not society's dream, her own personal dream. And who...
(APPLAUSE)
And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in
my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. And I wish him well.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: I don't want to spend too much time on this, but in your book, you wrote about the fact that
this was classic Barbara Bush -- she won over the crowd -- but ultimately something of a missed
opportunity.
GUTIN: Well, I think that she had the chance to possibly raise some other issues in that speech, and
certainly not that the things that she covered weren't important -- reading to your children,
establishing personal relationships -- but possibly she could have gone a little further. She certainly
had the audience for it and the interest -- the speech and her comment were on page one of every
newspaper in this country the next morning.
SWAIN: Maria is in Miami and on the air. Hi, Maria. How are you?
MARIA (ph): Hi, how are you? I have, first, a comment that I currently, like, work with, like, the
Barbara Bush Foundation, like, my school works with them to tutor children. So aside from, like,
literacy, what would you say Barbara Bush's biggest legacy was?
SWAIN: Thanks very much. What does the Barbara Bush Foundation do? Is it all to promote
literacy?
GUTIN: It funds literacy programs all over the country.
SWAIN: And does it do -- is there something to her legacy, the caller asked, in addition to literacy,
Barbara Bush?
ENGEL: I think she would say her family. I think she would say the fact that not only does she have
two sons, of course, who went into politics, but she, you know, talks about all of her children. And
George Bush famously said that, you know, we know we're doing something right because the kids
keep coming home. And she looks at them as her life's work and, really, as their accomplishments as
her accomplishments.
SWAIN: Well, the caller asked about literacy. Let's listen to Barbara Bush in the interview she gave
to us, to C-SPAN, in October of this year talking about her interest in literacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA BUSH: Well, because I know truthfully that every single problem in America would be
better if more people could read, write and comprehend. I just know that. We'd be able to compete
with the rest of the world. We wouldn't have these children who are committing crimes because their
families don't have jobs. They don't have jobs because they can't read. They can't write. They don't
understand.
So that was such an easy project to pick. I admit it took me about a half-a-year to pick it, because I'd
always worked and volunteered in hospitals, but there's no question in my mind. And I think every
thinking American is coming to that conclusion. We have got to educate our children, and we've got
to educate their parents. It's not just a whim. It's a necessity if we're going to compete in this world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: One of the avenues during the White House years, Mrs. Bush wrote a book about her
beloved dog, Millie. You might remember that if you were around at the time. And that book
generated over $1 million in proceeds that were given to charity. Also, legislatively, it resulted in the
National Literacy Act of 1991, which did what? How important was that?
ENGEL: Oh, it was tremendously important. It really helped funded literacy programs, which for the
Barbara Bush Foundation were really quite crucial, not only for helping people within school, but also
helping people beyond school, helping adult literacy programs, and helping people who would
otherwise go through their entire lives without this crucial skill.
SWAIN: You had a point you wanted to make about literacy?
GUTIN: Well, actually, about her legacy, because I think something that went hand-in-hand with
literacy was the fact that Mrs. Bush encouraged volunteerism. And she was such an advocate for it,
and I think that she would say, if she encouraged a generation of people to go into public service, then
she really would have been successful.
SWAIN: You mentioned earlier the broccoli episode. We all think about George Bush and his
aversion to broccoli. We have a clip to play and to show about how sometimes this relationship with
the press becomes focused on things that don't seem very important. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOURNALIST: It marks the start of an ongoing program by the Postal Service to help focus attention
on the need of every American to be literate. Don't you think, though, he's setting a bad example for
the children out there who...
BARBARA BUSH: He ate broccoli until he was 60. Tell them to eat broccoli until they're 60. Now,
we should be talking about literacy. Come on.
SPOKESMAN: But in addition to the 10,000 pounds that's going to be donated to people of need in
the Washington area, we're also leaving these several boxes of the product here for use at the White
House.
BARBARA BUSH: Thanks.
SPOKESMAN: Along with some very good new recipes, which you might use that you just might
intrigue the president to take the plunge into the wonderful world of fresh broccoli.
BARBARA BUSH: I'm going to tell you the honest truth. The president is never going to eat
broccoli.
JOURNALIST: Did you ever think this would become this big of a deal?
BARBARA BUSH: No. If I'd known that when he said it the other day, I might have spoken to him
first.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: As a student of the White House, what is your reaction when the press corps sometimes get
caught up in these non-story stories?
ENGEL: Well, the problem is that this was what people want to know about, that they're not only
non-stories because the press is looking for something to write about, but also because people want to
know what's going on behind the scenes, behind the fences, behind the doors, and it really gives an
insight into the human beings that are living there.
These people actually do have ups and downs over the course of their alive. They have deaths in their
family. They have marriages. They have births in their family. And people want to understand that, as
well.
Unfortunately, sometimes the human interest can trump what the policymaker or, in this case, the first
lady is really trying to say, which is, "Let's focus on something that we can change, not what's just
interesting."
SWAIN: From a family dynamic, the Bush White House was always filled with children and
grandchildren, and ultimately great-grandchildren. There were lots of toys around the White House. It
was really a family-oriented place.
Occasionally, there were some stories that were not so pleasant for their families. And some of our
viewers remember rumors of the president having an affair with someone by the name of Jennifer
Fitzgerald. We've gotten several tweets about it. And I'm wondering about how that played out with
the first couple, particularly the first lady.
GUTIN: Well, Jennifer Fitzgerald had been an assistant to George Bush when he was in China. And
then she was also an executive assistant I think to him when he was vice president. And rumors did
circulate that possibly there was an affair going on between the two of them.
In my own research, I found two possibilities, and I think I'm going to come down on one a little
more strongly than the other, and that is Jennifer Fitzgerald played the role of office wife. She was
that kind of woman who was found in the upper echelons of corporate America, maybe corporations
around the world, who did some of the dirty work for the boss and made some maybe personnel
decisions that he didn't want to try to have to step into. And then there's the possibility that maybe
there was an affair.
The historians that I've spoken to feel that, after these many years, there's no absolute proof of it and,
therefore, I would say -- I and many others -- would probably concur with the image of Jennifer as
office wife more than anything else.
SWAIN: And also, on the family front, during the White House years, Mrs. Bush was diagnosed
with Graves' disease, which is a thyroid-related problem, and then the president himself was
diagnosed with a similar affliction, and the first dog...
GUTIN: And Millie.
ENGEL: And the dog, as well.
SWAIN: ... Millie, the dog, so much so that the government actually did testing of the water inside
the White House and at Camp David. What do you about that whole period?
ENGEL: It's very unusual for three people to develop this type of autoimmune disease, basically at
the same time, two people and a dog, to get it. In fact, President Bush joked that we wouldn't have
this problem if we would just stop drinking out of the dog's bowl.
They went back and tested everything. They tried to figure out why this could possibly be, and no one
has ever been able to determine any particular environmental link for why this happened. But this did
significantly affect the president in his last year in office, because he had lost weight, he had lost a lot
of energy, had a lot of trouble, you know, with his handwriting during this period.
And really, some of his aides at this time have commented that, you know, as he went forward into
the second bid for the White House in '92, he just didn't seem to have the energy that he used to have.
And in large part, I think that's because of the medication he was taking to deal with this affliction.
SWAIN: We've talked about the Clinton-Bush dynamic during the 1992 campaign. There was also
another factor, and that is Ross Perot getting into the race and ultimately having a double-digit
showing. How did that dynamic change the race? What was Mrs. Bush's reaction to having a fellow
Texan get into the race? What can you tell us about that period?
GUTIN: She was annoyed. She felt that -- again, that her husband had been a superb president, and
she had already started to focus on Bill Clinton, and then Perot said he was going to enter the race
because he didn't think that either candidate was particularly good. So she was annoyed by it. And
then, with his success, that annoyance I think really moved to concern.
SWAIN: Her personal popularity at that point didn't translate into enough votes for George Bush.
Why not?
ENGEL: It didn't, and largely because both Perot and Clinton had a singular line of attack against
President Bush, and that was that he was more concerned with foreign affairs than domestic. And I've
got to tell you, I think for the most part, by the end of his administration, the president was primarily
concerned with foreign affairs.
And with good reason. There's a lot going on at this time. There's the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall
of the Soviet Union, Tiananmen Square, the Gulf War, all kinds of things that would attract a
president's attention. And President Bush even writes in his diary at this time, you know, I really do
like foreign affairs more than domestic.
And with the economy beginning to slip a little bit, the public perceived this. Bill Clinton said we're
going to focus on the economy, "It's the economy, stupid." And Ross Perot said we're going to focus
on the budget. Both of these essentially opened up a vulnerable flank for the president's re-election
bid, and ultimately I think it did him in.
SWAIN: We've talked about this in every program, so before we leave the Bush White House years,
how did they use the White House as an -- to entertain to achieve their goals?
GUTIN: Well, I think they used it very effectively. They were really considered to be a tremendous
host and hostess, very friendly. The White House was very accessible during their time there. They
were already into a period where decisions had to be made about which state dinners to hold, but
apparently whatever they chose, they chose wisely, as well.
SWAIN: So, in our 15 minutes left, we have to move on to a very long post-White House
years. The question from one of our viewers really sets the stage for this. Denied a second term in the
presidency, how did Mrs. Bush switch gears into post-White House life? This is from Brian Watkins.
GUTIN: Well, part of her was really relieved. She wouldn't have been unhappy if they had left
politics in 1980 when he lost the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan.
But I think she slipped into it very gracefully. She wrote to her autobiography, her first. She was
enjoying seeing her family and the children. They were back in Texas. She was back with friends and
on more familiar ground. And then George W. Bush decided he was going to run for governor, so
they were back into it again.
SWAIN: And she also stayed on the lecture circuit and was quite popular and made some money,
correct?
GUTIN: Yes, she did. She did. She was...
SWAIN: And as an author, her book sold, so she was bringing in some income during that period.
And when did they begin work on the library?
ENGEL: Oh, immediately. Most presidential administrations essentially like to work on them during
the second term. This one, of course, being not a second term. They began working on the Bush
Presidential Library almost immediately after losing their re-election bid. And this really became one
of the focal points for the post-presidency, working down at Texas A&M as a place that the Bushes
really feel comfortable.
President Bush was once asked why he chose there instead of back at his alma matter at Yale, and he
said, essentially, well, wouldn't you -- would you put a library in a place where they hung you in
effigy? Well, this didn't happen at Texas A&M. He was very popular.
And the Bushes actually throughout their years there would essentially be fixtures on campus. You
would see them at basketball games. You would see them walking around the lake that's behind the
Bush school there. It's really a place that they came to frequently.
SWAIN: Lynn is in Fayetteville, Tennessee. Hi, Lynn.
LYNN (ph): Hello. How are y'all?
SWAIN: Great, thank you. What's your question for us?
LYNN (ph): The question is, you know, we're on the eve of Dr. King -- or, actually, Dr. King's
anniversary of his birth. And, you know, the Bushes were big proponents of Dr. King's birthday
celebration. And I'm wondering why y'all haven't talked about the fact that even Reagan didn't want
to sign the legislation, but the Bushes were very much in favor of it and were there, throughout the
presidency, even his vice presidency, showing up at the King Center. So I wanted to talk about the
fact that they were involved in commemorating Dr. King.
SWAIN: OK, thanks very much.
ENGEL: They were. And President Bush -- we have to remember -- came up in Texas politics at the
time when segregation was really quite a crucial issue, but he was not from Texas, and this was
something that he is critics would never let him forget. He was from Connecticut and really had a
different sense of racial politics and of racial morality than many of his fellow Southern Republicans
at the time.
And in fact, he very famously as a congressman went off to Vietnam and came back and began
working for equal housing legislation, which was really an anathema, a third-rail for Texas politics at
the time. But he simply said, "I saw black men and white men and brown men fighting in the rice
paddies. How could I possibly deny them equal treatment when they came back home?" And this
was something that he -- clearly, life changed for him and he felt very personally.
SWAIN: And in the post-presidential years, as you mentioned, their eldest son became involved in
politics, first running successfully for governor of Texas and his bid for the White House. He made it
to the White House in the year 2000. And we have a clip of George W. Bush talking about this
historic role that Barbara then assumed of being both the wife of a president and the mother of a
president. Let's listen. This is from 2001.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH: As you can already tell, lately my dad has been calling me "43." I call him
"41." It's kind of shorthand we have in our family. And we have a nickname for mother, as well.
(LAUGHTER)
To show you where she stands in the power structure of this family, we call her "Number One."
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
And so I'm going to turn the stage back to Number One and then close the program with some
remarks of my own. It's really great to be back in Houston and to return bearing the proudest title ever
been given to me, son of Barbara and George Bush.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Will you comment about her relationship with the younger Bushes when they were in the
White House, how they approached that period of time, those eight years?
GUTIN: Well, she tried to keep them close. She tried to maintain lines of communication. As was
said earlier, she always thought that one of the great achievements was that the children all came
home. I think that she really worked to try to make sure that the children -- I mean, they were older,
of course, but still, that things were as normal for them as they could be.
SWAIN: And did she occasionally get involved in politics herself? For example, Sarah Palin, she
would comment about Sarah Palin's candidacy. How's her approach been to the Republican Party and
what's been happening politically for the party?
ENGEL: You know, I think that she's more than willing than ever to speak her mind. She was always
interested in speaking her mind, and now as one reaches a certain age, there's very little filter I think
that she feels that she needs to put on herself.
And I think, like many people within the party, she is, I suspect -- I actually don't know. She is -- I
just suspect that she is uncomfortable. And I think one of the reasons is that it's very hard to imagine
George Bush, Sr., 41, it's very hard to imagine him getting elected by today's Republican Party. It's
very hard to imagine in many ways even thinking of himself as a Republican for most of the stances
he took throughout his career. And that's something which I think has caused a lot of discomfort
within moderate Republican circles.
SWAIN: Donald Blais wants to know, "I'd like to ask about Mrs. Bush's relationship with the
Clintons in the post-presidency years." After that tough campaign that denied them the White House,
are they friendly today?
GUTIN: They are friendly, particularly Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. They're good buddies.
They've partnered on a number of important projects, but certainly the relationship between Barbara
Bush and Hillary Clinton has seemed to be cordial. They've shown up at some of the same meetings
together. It's a polar opposite of 1992.
SWAIN: For that caller who asked earlier about Mrs. Bush's faith, we promised you that we would
have a clip of her talking about that. And as we get close to the end here, here is Barbara Bush again
from a recent interview talking about the role of faith in her life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER SLEN: Barbara Bush, in your memoir, you talk about faith, family and friends. We've talked
about friends; we've talked about family. What about your faith?
BARBARA BUSH: It's very private. And I'm a huge believer in a loving God. I pray. George and I
pray every night out loud. And sometimes we fight over whose turn it is, but we do.
And I have no fear of death, which is a huge comfort, because we're getting darn close. And I don't
have a fear of death for my precious George or for myself, because I know that there is a great God,
and I'm not worried about that.
I don't like it for young people, but I know we'll see Robin again, one way or another, and our
families. So I have no fear of death. I have a great faith. That sounds so arrogant.
PETER SLEN: Why?
BARBARA BUSH: Well, I'm a big shot, I have a faith in God. I do have a faith in God, and I don't -I don't question it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Mrs. Bush, 88 years old now, and just before around the holidays, we saw that she was
hospitalized briefly, but generally in good health. And how does she and the president spend their
time?
ENGEL: I think they really -- they spend half the year in Houston and half the year in
Kennebunkport, in their home up in Maine, and attending, as near as I can tell, every social and
athletic function that they possibly can. President Bush was just at a Duke basketball game over the
weekend. And it's really -- to look -- to see them is to see people who really not really enjoy their life,
but I think it's a good job to be an ex-president. And I think that they know it.
SWAIN: Harry is watching is in Troy, New York. Hi, Harry. You're on the air.
TROY (ph): Hi, Susan. Enjoy the show immensely. Susan, I haven't heard any mention yet of Vice
President Dan Quayle. I was wondering, what contribution, if any, if any comments the first lady or
the president had regarding his contribution in the election, the '92 election? Thank you, Susan. Keep
up the good work.
SWAIN: Thanks so much. Dan Quayle and Second Lady Marilyn Quayle?
ENGEL: That was, I think, a place where we see a real tension for President Bush and looking back
over his presidency, because that he is, above all things, a gentleman and would not want to say ill
things of people who worked with him and, more specifically, for him.
But ultimately, I think most historians -- and I think the president has alluded to this from time to time
-- would agree that that was a very strained and perhaps not helpful choice. There was a lot of
discussion, of course, of whether Quayle should be dumped from the campaign in '92. He wasn't
bringing anything to the ticket, they argued. That was a place where President Bush said, "No, that
would be the wrong thing to do," especially as a former vice president.
This is simply an area that he did not want to revisit while in the presidency, but it definitely is one
that historians look back on and have to shake their heads a little bit over that decision.
SWAIN: Paul, Boston, you're on. Hi, Paul.
PAUL (ph): Hey, it's Paul from Boston. And I'd like to know, was there a public school named after
Barbara Bush in Kennebunkport?
SWAIN: Thanks so much. There are a few schools that have been named after her. Is there one in
Kennebunkport?
GUTIN: Yes, I think so. If not, there are a number of schools.
SWAIN: And what does Kennebunkport mean to the Bush family?
GUTIN: Oh, I think it means everything to them. It's solace. It's quiet. It's family. And it's got a long
history at this point, going back to George Bush's grandparents. So they've watched their children
grow up there and their grandchildren. And now there are three great-grandchildren and another on
the way. So it's really the center of perhaps the Bush universe.
SWAIN: And what has been the continuing legacy for the family in terms of politics? We've got Jeb,
who is still uncertain of his own political future. But how about the next generation, the
grandchildren's generation?
GUTIN: I think George P. Bush, Jeb's son...
ENGEL: He's running for statewide office in Texas.
GUTIN: ... yeah, is running for office. I don't know that I've heard too much about the other Bush
grandchildren, but stay tuned.
SWAIN: Next is Tom, who is in Philadelphia. Hi, Tom. You are on. Welcome to our discussion
about Barbara Bush.
TOM (ph): Good evening to everyone. I'd like to say the Clintons and the Bushes, I find them to be a
-- first, I'm a very bipartisan person. The Clintons and the Bushes, I believe that they are very close
friends. From the last 14, 15 years, I watched behind the scenes, and I find them to be very close
friends, from what I see and hear.
I mean, at George W. Bush's library when he opened it, his wife actually said that my husband,
George, and Bill had more conversations on the telephone in his second part of his election. And that
turned out to be very true. And it's a shame that more reporters don't really say the truth today, which
it is.
SWAIN: Thank you very much. Jeffrey?
TOM (ph): Thank you.
ENGEL: You know, that actually -- that reveals a really crucial thing about understanding the
presidency more broadly, in that this is a job unlike any other. The pressures of this job are multiplied
beyond what anyone else could possibly fathom. And consequently, the people who have experienced
that pressure know what it's like to be in the room. There's only a very small handful of men alive
today who know what it's like to live in the White House and send U.S. troops into combat and deal
with Congress and deal with the entire panoply of the nation.
And consequently they consult with each other, they talk to each other. They know what it's like, and
they can confide in each other and receive advice from each other, and know how to keep that advice
quiet, as well.
SWAIN: We have just a little bit of time left, but I wanted to put your book here, both of your books
onscreen and talk a little bit about what we would learn from Barbara Bush that we haven't tonight
that's inside your book.
GUTIN: I think she's an American classic. She's someone who is still tremendously popular, and
she's wise, and she's smart, and she brought that commonsense approach to the White House. I think
that she's also, as many of us, has been through a great deal, the death of a child and the races for the
many offices and living all over the country. I think what we would learn from her is the importance
of flexibility. And she is someone to be admired.
SWAIN: This is Jeffrey Engel's Book, "China Diary of George H.W. Bush," and you're working on
another right now. What's that?
ENGEL: Yes, working on a full study of George Bush in the end of the Cold War. And I would
argue that, in fact, more happens during Bush's four years in office on the international scene and he
was confronted with more difficult decisions than any other president during four years, with the
possible exception of Franklin Roosevelt during the height of World War II.
And these are issues that today look a little bit simpler in retrospect. The end of the Cold War seems
somewhat obvious and almost determined. And the Gulf War seems obvious. Of course we were
going to win a massive victory in that conflict.
At the time, nobody knew how these were going to turn out. And President Bush, I think, really
adopted a strategy of prudent skepticalism, of Hippocratic diplomacy, "First, do no harm." And
behind the scenes the entire time was Barbara Bush, who in a period of great tumult and a period of
great turmoil, and President Bush out front every day trying to calm international tensions, she
essentially was behind the scenes helping him keep calm. And I think that's an important legacy.
SWAIN: And as we've worked our way through these series, some first ladies have changed or
expanded the role of first lady. Would you say that she did in any way? More traditional perhaps in
her approach to first ladyship?
ENGEL: You know, I think she solidified it. I think that she did a marvelous job of establishing that
the presidency was about more than just the man, it was about the family, and that she really allowed
the American people to see her family without simultaneously appearing too much behind the curtain,
having a respectful distance, if you will.
SWAIN: Well, I want to say thanks to both of you for being here tonight. We're going to close with
Barbara Bush herself and when we asked her the question of what she would like her legacy to be.
And you'll hear those family themes come in very strongly.
Thanks for being here tonight. And to our viewers, as always, thanks for your interesting questions
and comments. And here's Barbara Bush on her legacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA BUSH: I hope it will be that her children are her legacy, and her grandchildren, and now
three great-grandchildren and a fourth coming. I hope family -- certainly, family is crucial. And I'd
like to see the American family come back strong.
We had a great family. My dad said to me once, there are only three things you can give your
children. You can give them the best education. That doesn't mean Stanford or Yale or Princeton. It
means just the best education that you can find. And you can help. You're their first teacher. The best
education you can find. And to set a good example, that's very important. And all the love in the
world, and I hope we've given that to our children.
I know George W. -- I've hear him say several times that his dad has given him unconditional love.
That's true. And all this baloney about George competing with his father is just ridiculous. I mean,
they're devoted to each other, and there was never any competition. And my George is putty in their
hands, I must confess.
But I think they feel loved. And I hope, if I have a legacy other than being the enforcer, that it will be
that I raised, along with George, a great family, I hope.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SWAIN: Next Monday, we'll look at the life of First Lady Hillary Clinton. As a teenager, she
campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and met her husband, Bill
Clinton, while at Yale Law School.
As first lady, she headed up a health care task force, advocated for the rights of women and children,
and campaigned to save American historic sites. During the Clinton administration, her husband
would eventually be impeached for his affair with a White House intern.
Hillary Clinton went on to become the first first lady to run for and win public office, becoming a
U.S. senator, before serving as U.S. secretary of state. Join us for "First Ladies" Monday live at 9
p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN 3, and C-SPAN Radio.
Our website has more about the first ladies, including a special section "Welcome to the White
House," produced by our partner, the White House Historical Association, chronicling life in the
Executive Mansion during the tenure of each of the first ladies. Find out more at cspan.org/firstladies.
We're also offering a special edition of the book "First Ladies of United States of America,"
presenting a biography and portrait of each first lady for the discounted price of $12.95, plus
shipping, at cspan.org/products.
END