Behind the Images: Photographers' Views of the First Ladies

well thank you it's a great honor to be here and the great Ansel Adams photographer once said a photograph is usually looked at but rarely looked into and today we have the opportunity to look into the photographs of three great photographers and what they say about three extraordinary first ladies two of whom are in the first row Betty Ford Barbara Bush and Laura Bush and I have the easiest job of anybody today because I get to run this panel like Tom Sawyer painted his fence I get my friends to do it and they're going to share some of their work with you and talk about the extraordinary images that they've taken and the first one up at this podium will be David Kennedy and I'll tell you a quick story about David Kennedy which happens to be true and it involves Henry Kissinger with whom David worked at the Ford White House and I was hosting a lunch for for a dr. Kissinger some time back and I mentioned David's name and dr. Kissinger said and in that sort of inimitable voice David Kennedy is the greatest phone photo journalist of the 20th century and I said wow that's high praise he says I know this because David Kennedy told me that so in the words of David Kennedy and Henry Kissinger let me welcome to the podium the greatest photojournalist of the 20th century named Kenneth it's good I don't know how to top that one cause I'm going to show some pictures I was president for cyber it's great to be here with the the Bush women Barbara and Laura my photographs many times I have I'm not taking away from my colleagues but I did include one each of you and this presentation excuse me I was I actually have a first lady picture I just took on Friday not in this country and she's not an American and if I press this is this going to start Wow magic this is Sophia bar Kelly the First Lady of Haiti I was just in Haiti all week I know President Bush has been down there and it's place it needs help certainly know in will for a while but I thought I would include her in I was down for a there's a group called vital voices that was started by Hillary Clinton women from America particularly at entrepreneurs teaching women and third world how to start businesses don't let that's what I was down for that skipping back in time Jacqueline Onassis Onassis Jackie Kennedy Onassis taken in New York in 1970 I was a young boy when when Kennedy was when President Kennedy was assassinated but I worked with her son on George magazine John Jr who became a good friend of mine and the first first lady I really photographed though was Pat Nixon this was in 1970 in Washington DC going to a it was a school in in Washington and I never really got to know her nor did I really get to know her husband that well but this is a picture of the two of them taken at some leaving some event and I liked the light but she was always very nice to the photographer's here the world is divided into two kinds of people for me the photographers and then those trying to keep them from taking pictures as I Pat Nixon was very good to the divers her husband not quite so much but my first first lady was a really a true friend was Betty Ford mrs. Ford and and I became really close friends I I was treated like one of the family there they had their during their White House and of course we're talking about how Lady Bird Johnson came to the White House so it's not quite as horrible situation but Betty Ford became first lady really overnight almost and they hired me as their White House photographer when I was 27 years old and I was a little bit older these are the kind of pictures that I'm sure the the the most first lady's don't want to be photographed like that nor does anybody and so but mrs. Ford in President Ford had such an incredible sense of humor and a lack of vanity about themselves this was by the way take it in the there the kitchen of their home in Alexandria Virginia which is very modest little to split-level place and they lived there for almost two weeks after they became after he became president and this is Lady Bird Johnson and mrs. Ford and the two Johnson girls and they're being shown the White House living bedroom and when I would did an edit for this book I did on the Ford presidency I looked back and I wonder I forgot that that suitcase was of the picture this is right before mrs. Ford went out to Bethesda Naval Hospital where she ultimately had a mastectomy and it she never told mrs. Johnson that she was going there that day and this is in the hospital with Bob Hope Bob Hope's name comes up quite a bit fact he was the one who said that president of President Ford made golf contact sport and but mrs. Ford recovered nicely from this operation probably I know she's best known for the Betty Ford Center people with alcohol and drug dependency but I can't imagine how many women's lives she saved happy Rockefeller was one of them who one got a test because of her or she brought that whole problem out of the open this is we had a very close relationship this is in the white house solarium mrs. Ford is trying to strangle me yet again for a she had to put up a lot from me and the Queen of England the queen is a recurring theme here among the first ladies in the social secretaries a very quick story this is on the second floor of the White House as the Queen Elizabeth and the prince were going up in the elevator with the Fords before the state dinner the elevator door opened on the family quarters and Jack Ford was standing there without a shirt on one of the one of the sons that he was looking for cufflinks of his dad's drawer and was very embarrassing and President Ford said to the Queen see I really apologize for that she says don't worry we have one at home just like him and mrs. Ford was really the cheerleader the family is all the first ladies are I mean the guys go out and create all this trouble and win and lose elections and the first ladies are are there to make the kids feel better certainly and but this is right after President Ford resigned or lost the election to Jimmy Carter's in the Oval Office they would go outside mrs. Ford would actually read the announcement conceding the election and mrs. Ford always felt like she liked this picture it was because she felt it showed her like I'm kind of a bird at a cage and on one hand kind of looking out at the world this case down toward the west wing both the Fords gave me total access to their life and so I really spent a lot of time upstairs and downstairs was able to get all that but my favorite picture of mrs. Ford and after she died it ran extensively was the day before they left the White House on January 20th 19 or January 19th 1977 walking around in the West Wing she was saying goodbye to people who walked by the Cabinet Room and there's this empty cabin room table and portraits of you know long gone presidents on the wall and a real male domain and she said you know I've always wanted to dance on the cabinet room table and somebody said did you ask her to do it I said it never crossed my mind okay what not only did I not ask her and so she took off her shoes and she I'm guessing that the two of you don't have anything like this right of it I last Eric Draper about it this could be one in a lifetime but she was a former Martha Graham dancer great sense of humor and all that and this was really my favorite moment and shows who she was you know I'll go through very quickly through some others uh this is mrs. Carter the next day mrs. Ford did not tell her that she danced on the cabin room table the Carter said 76 right during the election process and Ronald Reagan I covered with miss president and mrs. Reagan for Time magazine this is in the solarium the same room that mrs. Ford tried to kill me in if their relationship was very good this picture never was published because they had The Times thought it was too schmaltzy and I said you know they are schmaltzy people I mean you don't you have to understand that they they really do this kind of stuff you know this ha ha ha I was make enough ha ha and this is my favorite mrs. Bush photo yeah now to Barbara Bush's credit she has us hanging in their house at Kennebunkport I know that because I've seen it up there and but this was at the President Ford Library rededication and I don't even know if you remember what you said to your husband the colorfully attired one in the striped vest she said George won't you ever grow up thankfully he is not this is Hillary Rodham Clinton I'll do a little close-up hillary rodham in 1974 let's go forward and this is 20 years later as first lady the first picture was taken to the House Judiciary Committee room where she was a lawyer and this is the night before the inauguration in 1993 and a couple of 96 on the campaign of train and the the next photo any first lady is going to identify with it I've never shown it this is the first time and Secretary Clinton sees that she will summarily execute me but this is her listening to her husband laughs so let me guess you've heard this one before right but the Hillary Clinton is a great person and I I think she's terrific and has a fabulous sense of humor and this picture I took of her I asked her to sign if she was still talking to me after she saw it and she signed on it dear David I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and this was a really the most dramatic moment I certainly before the presidency in the bushes life this is a election night in the mansion and mrs. Bush and Governor Bush and Jeb whose life is passing before his eyes and the Florida vote count and President Bush on the phone in the background but this was about 10 minutes before Al Gore took back his concession which I just wish I would have heard that phone call but I didn't so we've read about it and the Obamas this is an auger alight I did the official produced the official Naugle book for the committee I also did the two bush books and two Clinton books with my team of photographers and some photos of Michelle Obama this is after eight presidential balls this is also the first lady's will appreciate this two more balls to go backstage and in the elevator this is a high school prom picture I think kind of a gallant moment this is the night of the inaugural and then six first ladies at the Reagan Library dedication with Pat Nick's that I think this was the last public appearance that mrs. Nixon made before she died and with Lady Bird and then at the George Bush library opening this is Hillary his first lady and they were all watching the the president's up talking and at the Ford funeral where President Bush and those three first ladies this was in Palm Desert them Thank You great job all right well this is unfair that I have to follow you David of idea clearly one of the most memorable events for mrs. Bush was her commencement address it Wellesley aside from all the brouhaha and the protests that were stirred up she was a great success I'm sure everybody remembers the quote that at the end of your life you'll never regret not having passed one more test not winning one more verdict closing one more deal but you will regret time not spent with a husband child or a parent and I think this is a code that she lived by here she is with mrs. Gorbachev who follow came with her to the event and gave her own remarks in the Kremlin with mrs. Yeltsin on the left mrs. Yeltsin took us through an impromptu tour of the Imperial apartments in the Kremlin which were absolutely incredible they were covered floor-to-ceiling with these beautiful religious icons and I don't think the apartments had ever been open to the public before so that was a real treat to see on our first foreign trip we were went to China here at Tiananmen Square I was still learning my way and I had a slight scuffle with Chinese security and I kept telling them that I was with her and it was ok because I was an official photographer and then figured out later that all photographers tried are probably official when it meant absolutely our first foreign trip and after that we went to Seoul Korea with mrs. notte whoo and I love the juxtaposition there of the east and west and holding hands and in Tokyo in the Imperial Gardens we took a stroll with Empress Michiko and I think mrs. Bush was told to wear some comfortable shoes as you'll note the u.s. kids did the same color this time president mrs. Bush also met with mr. and mrs. Lacroix letsa and here at Gdansk at their home they had lunch with them and it was a really exciting time because solidarity had just won a landslide election in Parliament and then we went to 10 Downing Street with mrs. Thatcher you'll notice mrs. Thatcher is pointing her finger and I think what she's saying is who is that woman with all the cameras around her neck and why is she in my living room I had barged my way through as I was learning to do thinking that I was going to end up in a holding room somewhere when I ended up in mrs. Thatcher's living room but then mrs. Thatcher came to our territory here at Camp David looking out through their cabin with Milly on the side they're joining in and the first day of Desert Storm was announced this is in the residence which you would call I guess the family room of the White House watching the president announce at the beginning of the operation with her daughter d'Oro and press secretary Anna Perez and the bushes had invited the Reverend Billy Graham to join them here in our Kami's this was in the Saudi desert on Thanksgiving Day before the start of Operation Desert Storm I think mrs. Bush was on her fifth Thanksgiving dinner at that time and then once the campaign started it was non-stop here we were at a beauty salon in New Hampshire that is that that is not Helen Thomas under I'm not that cool greeting well-wishers in Pennsylvania bowling for votes in Ohio and on the campaign plane with Marvin Bush I was always fun to have around must have been yeah here with Marvin also we were on a whistle-stop tour through Georgia this was several weeks before the election and after the third debate after the crowds all come around and everybody shakes hand and takes takes pictures mrs. Bush beeline for Ross Perot and he because he had made some accusations that the campaign had maligned his family and his daughters and mrs. Bush wanted to set the record straight that that just was not true here she is with her newly adopted son governor Clint soon to be adopted son still governor at the time it's customary after the election that the first lady gives a tour to the newly elected first lady in the White House and here she is with mrs. Clinton in the Queen's bedroom going over some notes before speech and in a hotel room somewhere in America somewhere we get one more hotel room sorting through children's books that word she was giving to her grandchildren that's at the staff hotel in Kennebunkport and on a bus tour through Illinois and Wisconsin obviously a late night trip home somewhere we had been given 3d glasses and just being silly on the plane I like the guy on the right would obviously missed his pair but it was willing to join in anyways now every Christmas time mrs. Bush visited Children's Hospital in Washington DC and here she is holding a young cancer patient and I love the look on her face as she must have gotten great comfort from that little girl who was probably about the same age as Robin now Millie and Kennebunkport relaxing come visit with mrs. Bush had already become a successful author us she had written her book that she had generously donated all the profits of her book to the Barbara Bush Foundation of Family Literacy and because she is a Thoroughly Modern Millie and wants it all she had these guys which brought great joy to the White House now some are braver than others and we traveled to almost every state in the United States to include Hawaii where we went for the day and back to promote Family Literacy mrs. Bush obviously as you know as tirelessly promoted reading I love the exuberance of the little girl on the right hand side there and mrs. Bush holding an AIDS baby now you have to remember at that time for a lot of people didn't understand that you could hold a baby hug a child with AIDS and that it wouldn't you wouldn't catch it but there was the stereotype so mrs. Bush and her role went out to Grandma's house in Washington DC and unfortunately that poor guy only lasted another couple of weeks chuckling yeah now someone we all know and love happened to mention that he didn't like broccoli so the mother of America had to go out there to reassure all the children that broccoli is good and good for you and you'll notice that she did that with the Oval Office right in the background which I thought was pretty cheeky after the election President Bush was honored at a armed service by the armed services at a salute at Fort Myers and it was an incredibly moving event there wasn't a dry eye anywhere to include miraculously the press that was had tears running down their eyes but then life takes funny turns and we have governor Bush and governor Bush and President Bush and who knows who the guy in the background what he's going to add to it and life goes on this is after the election at Kennebunkport president is going off to work and which brings me back to the Wellesley speech which I have read over and over again and I think one of the also one of the other things that mrs. Bush said in that speech which we don't want to forget paraphrasing Ferris Bueller that life is fast paced you have to stop and look around and or else you'll miss it all and then most of all to remember to find the joy in life thank you good afternoon I'm Susan stringer just thank you to everyone for being here it's a really hard I just really drew the short end to the straw but I thought I would start remember to click I thought I would start with my last day of work with mrs. Bush my last 48 hours of work with mrs. Bush was in the spring of 2005 when we went on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan and a little bit of background I started at the White House at right after a two-year fellowship in Brazil where what I was doing was living and working with families and looking into how government policies affected the lives and status of women and I thought that I had learned everything or I didn't think that I learned everything but what I learned I thought was that was the great lesson of my life and then I turned around and went into the White House and had fundamental things like the vocabulary that we use every day challenged words like White House East Wing West Wing state visit peace talks and most importantly the word government that it stopped to me in the course of my time at the White House is stop being this giant hovering blob of organizations and really became individuals and relationships and what stuck with me after the my time there was the power of gestures large and small and so here we are in Afghanistan walking with President Hamid Karzai right outside of the presidential palace and we were there for just a short time and over the course of our visit I was really struck and touched by how people responded to us in the street how informal meetings that were set up sort of the solemnity and the gravity of the moment for everyone but I was just absolutely blown away by a visit that we took to a dormitory a new dormitory for a university for young women and how they were awestruck by the mrs. Bush and they were mesmerized by her and I think I just kept trying to process what it meant to them to have her there listening to them talk about their dreams and their goals and that just circles back to what I was mentioning that it comes down to relationships right the relationships are what happens behind the photo ops here we're arriving in China I think everybody's been beaten up in China Carol um and AH just really learning from from mrs. Bush about what it means to listen and to engage and to do that with Grace in the private and the public sphere to acknowledge sort of the effort that goes into these meetings here we are there are in Normandy on the beaches which was such a beautiful moment and so powerful I think to everybody that was there that day to the mundane these are the sweet little cherry blossom princesses from around the nation all coming in their matching pink suits they were mortified with their ten seconds ten seconds with mrs. Bush you know they're all trying to prepare to say hello or the generosity of taking five minutes for a photo-op in the heat of the Sun at a big event in Texas but it was relationships that happened around moments like this this is in the spring of 2003 when the President of Uganda was visiting and he brought with him the Ugandan children's choir which is a choir of children who have been orphaned by AIDS and they set up chairs in the Rose Garden and I have this I call it a syndrome the syndrome or I can't not cry if kids are singing but they can be singing anything and I cry so I'm trying to photograph well while they're singing and then we do the official photo-op and the president's had to go back into the Oval Office but mrs. Bush stayed and the kids just swarmed her and she hooked every one of them and it was just really this moment of incredible love and joy and then she led them upstairs to the state floor where they had a little treat of juice and cookies and they brought out Barney to play with her to play with them and I just think I think back to these these kids too though to the women in Afghanistan and even to the cherry blossom princesses and think about the ripple effect at this moment this chance to have a relationship had on them and those were the moments that were powerful to me to be able and a real privilege to witness and this is one that just sort of blew my mind and when I think about it it's kind of RAD especially the day after elections now in Russia yesterday but this is during the National Book Festival and here's mrs. Bush gotten out of the living out of the limousine with mrs. Putin and holding hands walking across the National Mall at the National Book Festival an event that's dedicated to the idea of an open access to information and freedom of speech and not just being able to be there and witnessed that sort of moment was very humbling and I learned a lot about what it means to be respectful and present in the moment mrs. Bush could always had this great talent for creating a very special aura around the people that she was meeting with here she is with a Navajo elder in Arizona or this little boy Kent Morrison six years old from the make-a-wish Foundation whose wish was to meet with mrs. Bush and it was the sweetest little moment just playing with kaleidoscopes in the diplomatic reception room with his little sister Rachel or goofing around with troops in Tampa or visiting the wounded at Walter Reed as a White House photographer I was always aware of the fact that I was part of the gray area between pub in private and I was there as one of the witnesses and to honor but I was also sometimes an intruder and it I felt very responsible for how I went about trying to document and what I did with the privilege of being there in those private times and I tried really hard to get it right and to show a multi fast the multi-faceted people and to make that make the pictures about the individuals that were there here's the president blowing a kiss to mrs. Bush as we leave to go back to the United States and he stays with his delegation in Mexico just a quick moment after the State of the Union with family flying home for Christmas you know when the guards your guards down coming back from Europe with Jenna I would say that it's not always a seamless thing to be a White House photographer nobody tried to strangle me though it's not a seamless thing I don't believe that you're ever a fly on the wall as a photographer and you go in there to look and to shape an image and you have a camera and sometimes you're crawling around where you shouldn't be so you change the balance and and again that's all about those relationships and I think you really have to have a good sense of humor and a heavy dose of humility and in the in the photo office we had this sort of small running joke of pictures of who had been thrown out of which meeting which way or you know when you inadvertently become part of the event and you really shouldn't a sort of a photographer's nightmare so here we're about to go out on the east floor and the president just said no more pictures right or stepping out of the limos in front of Vaslav hovels house and having the dogs rush me I didn't know what else if my cameras to protect myself or an early talking the president and the first lady into a dawn photo-op and then having the dogs kind of go in an unmanaged way but it was fun it's also a lot of fun because you're around everybody for so much time that's a good shot up you're around everyone for so much time that it's just about their relationships and it was an amazing firsthand educate for me to witness and document the relationships that have become our collective memory and that our government that are the white house that are the west wing that are the east wing that our peace talks and it just shifted everything and how I think think about think about what I do and it's had a huge impact the ripple effect on me has affected the way I work the way I parent it was a great time I was a first-time mother when I was in the White House and it was amazing to have I just kind of do whatever mrs. Bush said to do and her policy speeches um and the way I participate in our democracy and the way that I really even think about the future thank you well thanks to all of you for sharing examples of your extraordinary body of work and Susan I want to pick up on what you just talked about the life-changing experience that is being White House photographer you were all old hands all pros at the art of photography but I wonder did you have to change the way that you approached your job being in the White House me you were after all you are recording history and it is for the public record so does that that change the way you approach the art eventually it does when when I first started I came in wanting to make the document of the century and then I realized that I need to take a deep breath and slow down and just watch and and be really attentive and do my homework and and I think it made me a better and more deliberate photographer yeah Carole um I think it took me also it took me a while it takes you a while to get up your nerve I my first my first assignment was to drive with mrs. Bush from the National Observatory where the Vice President lives to the White House and then to photograph them moving into Blair House not White House to Blair House and I think I took three photos I'm so nervous and it just you don't want to intrude on private on their private time but you do have to intrude their private time because it is for all of us eventually you have to think ten years twenty years down down the road and this is telling history so David you had won the Pulitzer Prize at age 25 and you were in the White House several years later so did you have to approach the job differently upon landing in the White House I had a I got to know the force before the day I photographed President Ford too soon to be President Ford the day that Spiro Agnew resigned exerci can say that in this room and most of you know who I'm talking about which is give a lot of lectures at schools little dicey you know but I have to explain to President Ford is sometimes but I had an ongoing relationship with him starting the first time cover ever had was of him when he was designated by Nixon to be the replacement for Agnew and then time had me covering them so I got to know the family really well I went skiing with him taking pictures and was back in the days when you know the magazine would pay for my skiing lessons and the good old days as we would call and but I got to know them really well by the time he became president I had really got along well with everybody including the kids and mrs. Ford was always you know a big proponent of having me work in the White House and the night that President Ford was sworn in he had been president for about eight hours and I'm my background I'm from a little town in Oregon I have no no background in journalism or anything else my dad was a traveling salesman and how I got to that night sitting in with President Ford the only person in the room and he wanted to talk to me about the job but he hadn't talked he hadn't offered it to me and so well how do you see the White House photographers job and I'm thinking shouldn't be talking to Kissinger some of these guys know ed uh and I did Yoshioka moto who was LBJ survivors absolute role model for me he had the total access to the president and all that and all he had consecutive iliyan White House driver really didn't have much access at all I mean it's not what Nixon wanted it's all about your relationship with the president so I was I thought about that I thought what am I going to say if he asked me and I said well the only two things I would like one is total access all meetings all the time and to work for you directly not for the White House chief of staff or the press secretary he was puffing on his pipe he looked at he said you don't want Air Force One on the weekend so much it started well you know it started well and it never let up and it was I was so respectful and loved those guys and they gave me a tremendous opportunity and I'm a pro you know I worked 16 hours a day and they let me into their life and I respected that and to this day and I really blessed to have been able to do that and Alita black was talking earlier about the fact that we just get lucky sometimes in American history and I think we were extraordinarily lucky to have the three first ladies that were in the White House wall while you all were in your jobs but like Lady Bird Johnson Betty Ford took the the role of first lady under extraordinary circumstances David but you talk a good title for a book actually oh wait it's the title of my book I'm good that's not too shameless yes well all benefits going to UT Austin by the way Center for American history Dolph Briscoe said it from history but you you were there at the Ford house in Alexandria Virginia the night that President Ford took office and really the first night that that that mrs. Ford became first lady that was an extremely unusual situation talk about being in their house that evening and what the America was feeling and what the Fords were feeling at that time well I think they were just one of the reasons I think I got along with them is that I've never met like more normal people they were I think President Ford respected I had been in Vietnam and I was in you know combat cyber for two and a half years and came back he was in the Pacific as a Navy officer and you know what I'm looking back on that I think he was only like 60 years old when he took that job but I thought he was like 93 you know I mean I look at the pictures because my dad was only like 21 years older than me and and so I just had I always refer to him as even a private conversation to this day either mr. Ford when he was in Congress or mr. vice president mr. president I've never he never said you can call me Jerry and I never would have dreamed of doing it and so it was formal to the degree that I have real respect for my elders I mean 60 years old is nothing now but I'm like say of it but I I think that was it they I just we hit it off it was a kind of relationship you can't explain you could not ever create that kind of relationship and and I and each White House photographer by the way those were terrific photos because you get a sense of who they are and and and that's why we're there I mean you're right it's a we're kind of the eyes in the situation where you can't go normally but hopefully we bring a true picture back and that didn't answer your question entirely but it needless to say I was in the loop the whole time and and it never was out and it was the same with the bushes that 441 I think he was very cognizant of the fact that he looked down the road and he saw that he knew that he would have a library he knew he would have an archive and so they were both incredibly open to us documenting their lives and never once never once said for me anyways you know stop that's enough get out why are you here it was always an open situation Carol you talked about the the Wellesley speech that mrs. Bush gave and and that really was a defining moment in a lot of ways for for mrs. Bush's tenure as firstly give a little context if you would to that speech and why it was so important well I think it's multi-layered every time I go back and I read it it's just so incredibly because of the time they what I called and I think what mrs. Bush also referred to it as the brouhaha for over her speaking and what the what the ladies there thought was a successful woman and I would love to go back 20 years later and talk to like a half a dozen of them and find out where they're at and what their ideas are now about what a woman's role is and what's more important and what for your family for your you know it starts with your family and I think mrs. Bush embodied that and I think that that's the message that she was trying to get across was yes we want diversity yes you want to go out and live your dreams according to who you are but unless you love yourself your family first you can't really do for anybody else right Susan certainly 9/11 was a defining moment in mrs. Bush's tenure in the in the White House talk about that she speaks writes very eloquently about how her role changed post 9/11 tell us about your experience on 9/11 and what you returned to when you came back to the White House when I started with the White House I was six months pregnant so my son was born in mid July when 9/11 happened I was at home with television on I had family in town and I watched everything live and I was and you know it's it's as stunned as could be and and paralyzed and I didn't know how to respond I just wanted to hold on to my baby I just wanted to you know making lots of phone calls making sure family members were safe that we're supposed to have traveled that day and that sort of thing and then that either the next day or the day after I called in to the photo office and I spoke with a woman named Merrill Lynch Cannon and I said Marilyn tell me what to do do I need cuz I wasn't scheduled to come in do I need to come in do you guys need help with the workload like I was just worried about everybody and she said no you need to be home with your baby and that's where and so I stayed home I stayed home and I was it was a really emotional time to both not be there and then to go back and one of the first things that I got to do and go going back was to travel to Crawford for and I photographed mrs. Bush as she was delivering the radio dress on Afghan women and I think everything had changed I mean how can everything not have changed after 9/11 and but what was so amazing and wonderful was sort of the power that came from that to recognize that women discussions about women's rights need to be part of democritus Cushing's about democracy and moving forward and and that had a big shape and it was all leading towards going to Afghanistan and making working with women's health and status one of my favorite quotes is from Groucho Marx which might make me a Marxist but it's uh the secret to life is sincerity once you can fake that you've got it made but it seems to me that that one of the most difficult parts of being a first lady is you have to always be on and in the moment and you've spoken about the Laura Bush bubble I'll talk about that a little bit Susan well I think um I mean for those of you that have had the chance to be with mrs. Bush it's a wonderful thing because when she's talking to you she's talking to you she's listening you know I mean everything from the the letter that she sent out the families and children which was so moming I mean I met so many people who really felt that that letter was written to them and then in the individual moment I just have to say the second time I was pregnant spent a lot of time pregnant in my job but the second time I had you know that was sort of a nightmare other than dogs rushing me from the limo or the Chinese security I was at home trying to get cufflinks into a maternity blouse when my cellphone and my pagers just started going off and going off and I picked it up and it was mrs. Bush's aide Lindsey line we were saying there's a where are you and I said well I'm at home getting dressed what's wrong she goes you have a photo op in three minutes in the diplomatic reception room and I just threw everything up and my husband had to drop me off and I ran through the lips and gotcha security grabbed my cameras went running in and tried to act like I meant to be there just like that but what was so sweet was a mrs. Bush could tell that I was flustered you know we got through the photo-op and everything was was fine and then that day she took me upstairs just to the kitchen and just looked at um this little catalog of new baby furniture that was out you know just just kind of it 45 seconds calmed me right down kind of like okay we could took care of the photo-op it's all done here's what the priority is how are you Susan check-in it's okay let's go forward it's great Carol what is the beef you've seen the first lady up close the role the first lady I lost what do most people not appreciate about the role of first lady oh gosh to help what might surprise us about the role those of us looking at a distance at the first lady in her role what would we most be surprised by well one thing is is the amount of work the amount of travel they have number of speeches the shaking hands the meeting with people the there's nothing first of all there's Ari I'm talking about my first lady there's nothing better than a hug from Barbara Bush I had to plug but it's it's so hard and I mean just being a photographer I was exhausted it took me a year to recover mrs. Bush never tired never actually 5:00 5:30 in the morning she'd be out swimming but I don't think people realize that it's and for a photographer people say oh were you were like hanging out in the residence with them and you know it's a it's a very structured job you know it's it's these are the events this is what you have to cover this is what you have to take care of so it's a balance between how incredibly intense it is and how hard you work and then the fun parts and mrs. Bush made it incredibly fun we have about three minutes left and I want to ask you all an impossible question but is if you had just one photograph that you could take from your days as White House photographers what would that photograph be and we don't have the photographs themselves but maybe you can give us that in a thousand words or less because we have limited time I'll start with you David huh you know there's a picture of mrs. Ford in my mind of it and there's so many and I actually I tried to find it to put in here but I couldn't and we were going to Indonesia or some place over the timeline and the she was given a King Neptune crown and and it's like it was so much her personality edge it was on Air Force One and she's kind of poking her head out and I just when I think of mrs. Florida I think if somebody who had a lot of difficulty in her life and and did so much for so many people we know her story but I I've always thought of her in the cabin room table pictures is a great example of that is this the fun-loving mischievous person that she was who did so much good for particularly women and equal rights across the board and having a loving husband who not just put up with her but was her partner and but when I see her face I see a smiling happy person Carol what would your image be I think the the final day was would be my picture for me saying goodbye that it was so hard on everybody and mrs. Bush just made sure everybody understood that life would go on you know that we had wonderful times that she did she did such a fantastic job but she unders she just kept us all moving forward it was such a graceful exit it was yeah yes Susan um I have a series of pictures that I'm thinking of where we we flew out to Arizona and we met with a family of the soldier Lori piestewa who was the first Navajo woman who was killed in the in the Iraq war and they it's actually a really joyful picture um every night and and it's a really joyful picture because it's it's just mrs. Bush being mrs. Bush with these with her family and with the kids and it's a sweet moment that was bittersweet yeah well I want to thank all of you for again for your recollections and your great work and and and I want to thank the the two first ladies for not only being here but their service to this nation thank you all very much

Channel: TheBushCenter

Views: 41,524

Rating: 4.6909871 out of 5

Keywords: First Ladies, Photographer, Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, Bush Center, Bush Library

Id: uYb2lz84AbY

Length: 51min 38sec (3098 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 07 2012