>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC. >> Jonathan Yardley: Expect you've
heard them three times already, and in any case, I've
forgotten them all. My name is Jonathan
Yardley and I am here-- >> We can't hear. >> Jonathan Yardley: --
ostensibly from the Washington Post but I left in a long time ago. About 18 years ago, my wife and
I were living on Capitol Hill with my stepdaughter who
was working at the time at the National Geographic. And one day Laila said to us,
"Could I bring a friend home from the office for dinner?" And we said, "Sure." >> We can't hear you. >> We can't hear. >> Jonathan Yardley: I'm afraid
that that's a technical problem that someone else is going
to have to cope with. If I shout does that help? >> Yes. >> Jonathan Yardley: OK. Our-- My stepdaughter was
working at National Geographic and one day asked if she could
bring a friend home for dinner. And we said, "Sure." So the next day at dinnertime,
this lovely young woman shows up with our-- my stepdaughter
Laila, and my wife and I were immediately
enchanted with her. And she is still lovely
and young and enchanting. But now she is one of the most
respected, most accomplished and most successful writers of serious nonfiction
in the United States. Candice, it's very
good to see you again. >> Candice Millard: It's
very good to see you. Thank you. [ Applause ] And could I just say just very
briefly what an incredible honor it is to sit here with Jonathan
Yardley, who all of you know is such a huge figure in
the world of journalism and in the world of books. And if you-- If by some crazy
chance you don't know his work, I urge you to go out and find it,
he's really absolutely brilliant. So it's very humbling to me,
and I should be interviewing him because he's a much more
interesting figure than I am. So, anyway, I just wanted to--
and thank you [inaudible]. >> Jonathan Yardley: Flattery
will get you everywhere. Candice, so we will get over
to Winston Churchill and "Hero of the Empire" soon enough. We'll have a couple of
questions about how you got to this point in your life. You were at National Geo
for what, four, five years? >> Candice Millard: Six years. >> Jonathan Yardley: Six years. National Geo has a reputation
for being a very tightly, if not severely ended publication. You were an editor
and you were a writer, what influence did
your years there have on your own evolution as a writer? >> Candice Millard:
Well, I always say that my real education actually
happened at National Geographic. I learned so much about
storytelling, about the fact that the world is full
of fascinating people, fascinating events and stories. But most of all, I learned about
research and I learned that you need to dig deeply, you need to
take the time to understand it, and you need to find the people
who really know the subject that you are going to look into. You know, at National Geographic,
you could be working on something about meerkats one day and then
something about a river another day. So it really fluctuated. And so-- But the one
consistent thing throughout is that there's always somebody
who knows the subject and knows it really, really
well and have spent most of his or her life studying it and
you need to find that person and make him your friend. >> Jonathan Yardley: When
and how did it come to you that you should try to write
what became "The River of Doubt". You were young. You were not a trained historian. The subject involved
travel to a dangerous place, dealings with languages
other than your own. Tell us about the challenges
and apprehensions that confronted you
when you started out. >> Candice Millard: So I first
heard the story, I was having lunch with a friend of mine, James
Chase, who wrote the book "1912". Did you know? And a really-- an extraordinary man,
and this is the election, you know, the Bull Moose election
where Roosevelt tried to regain the presidency and lost. And he said, "Have you heard about
this trip that Roosevelt took in the Amazon after that election?" And I had read about Theodore
Roosevelt, I was interested in him. But because it's after his
active political career, it was sort of glossed over. And I started researching it, actually went back to
National Geographic. They have a great library there, and then went to the
Library of Congress. And I was stunned because, you
know, there is murder, drowning. You know, they left the
murder and the rainforest. Roosevelt nearly took his own life. It's set in the Amazon, the
richest ecosystem on earth, something I would love
to write about. And so, I was just
hooked right away. But it is daunting to take
on Theodore Roosevelt, to take on the Amazon, but-- >> Jonathan Yardley: Take on a book. >> Candice Millard: Right. To take on a book, exactly. But I was really excited about it
because I knew that to a writer, this is just a gift, it
had so much to work with. And I, thanks to my years
at National Geographic, I knew how to do research. That was the only thing
that I was confident about. >> Jonathan Yardley: But you,
you went to the Amazon, right? >> Candice Millard: I did. I did. I went to this river,
which is still incredibly remote. I did some research in Rio and
then I went to this little town in northwestern Brazil
called Porto Velho. I rented a plane, I hired a
pilot, and I flew for hours over unbroken rainforest,
horizon to horizon and I-- >> Jonathan Yardley: OK, now this
raises the question, how did you go to get the money to do that? >> Candice Millard:
Well, I had an advance. >> Jonathan Yardley: You did. >> Candice Millard: Yeah. So, I-- >> Jonathan Yardley: From Doubleday? >> Candice Millard:
Yeah, from Doubleday. So, I've gotten an agent. And in fact James Chase
sent my proposal to his agent, very generous man. Unfortunately, he passed away
right before the book came out which was really
difficult for me. But anyway, so Doubleday gave me
this great advance you get kind of in three parts. One part, you know, when you
sell it, one part when you turn in the manuscripts, and
one when it comes out. So, I had that money and
I-- that's how I used it. >> Jonathan Yardley: Well, I would have thought you would
have flown the plane yourself. >> Candice Millard: Nope,
that was not a possibility. >> Jonathan Yardley: Well, I say
that because in "River of Doubt" as in your other two books,
you're incredibly generous in your acknowledgements. You seem to deal with
a great many people and travel to a great many places. You seem to be endlessly curious,
unafraid-- afraid of nothing. >> Candice Millard:
Well, that's not true. I'm actually-- I have a lot of
fears but I think my fears are sort of shadowed by my interests and-- >> Jonathan Yardley:
Did you go down into a-- Did you go down a mine
in South Africa? >> Candice Millard: I went
to where the mine was. It's now-- The colliery
is closed now but there's the hole where it was. Absolutely, yeah. >> Jonathan Yardley: So far you've
written about Teddy Roosevelt, James A. Garfield and
Winston Churchill. What, if any, common elements
drew you to their stories? >> Candice Millard:
So, what interest me, and we were talking
about this earlier. I loved to read biographies,
but as a writer, I like to tell a tighter story,
a more sort of personal story where I can spend five years really
focusing and digging in deep. And I-- I'm looking for a story
that I hope is eliminating about the person and about
the time in which they live. And specifically what interest me,
I think that often when we look at history, we're kind of drawn to the big public moments
of triumph or of infamy. But what interest me are the
more private moments of struggle when someone is sick like
James Garfield or terrified like Theodore Roosevelt, or
desperate like Winston Churchill, and searching for a
foothold and uncertain. And I think it's in those moments,
and it's true for all of us. This is something that we all
share, that we share with these sort of great historical
figures is that that's when you're true nature is revealed. >> Jonathan Yardley:
And quite specifically, what drew you to Winston Churchill
and his role in the Boer War? >> Candice Millard: So I had
heard the story 25 years ago. My husband was a journalist for
the New York Times for years and he actually began his career
in South Africa, covering the ANC, the African National
Congress in the early '80s. And when I met him 25 years ago,
he mentioned to me, he said, "Did you know that Winston
Churchill was a prisoner of war in South Africa and
that he escaped?" And I thought, "You are kidding me. How do I not know this?" And so it just stayed with
me all of these years. And after I turned in the manuscript
for my second book, we went to lunch and he said, "Do you have any
ideas for your next book?" And I said, "You know,
I would love to write about Winston Churchill
and the Boer War." And he said, yes. And so, it just went from there. >> Jonathan Yardley: I wondered
reading your wonderful book, with its story of Britain's
nearly disastrous war in a place that's scarcely
understood at all. I wondered if Vietnam War was
somewhere in the back of your head when you were writing that. >> Candice Millard: To be honest,
nothing was really in the back of my head and I can
see the connection but-- >> Jonathan Yardley:
Well, it was in the back of mine when I was reading it. >> Candice Millard: Was it? I could absolutely
see that connection. >> Jonathan Yardley: But
I'm of that generation. >> Candice Millard: Yeah. I can see it. But to be honest-- So, you know,
I-- As you know, I have three kids, I live in Kansas City, I have
this very normal day to day life of laundry and dinner plans and
stuff, but I have an office outside of my home, and when I go into my
office and I close the door, I-- It's like a time machine. You know, I literally feel
like I'm going back in time and I just immerse myself in
the documents that I've gathered and the pictures and maps
and things like that. And I'm really only thinking
about this moment in history. >> Jonathan Yardley:
Speaking of time, you seem to be very strongly
drawn to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. >> Candice Millard: I do. I think that's fair. I didn't set out that way. I didn't think I-- this is what I
want to write about and I never do. But I do find it very evocative. You know, I do feel like I can
really, you know, that time period, you can see it, you can
smell it, you can taste it. I mean it's-- And-- But especially
what interests me in it is that there is so much
primary source material. You know, it's just this
enormous wealth of letters and diaries and newspaper articles. And especially for the
kind of writing that I do with narrative nonfiction,
you have to have that. And you have to have not like a
lot or not even a huge amount, but you have to be drowning in it. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. >> Candice Millard: And there are
certainly times when I'm working on a book and the research takes me
most of the time that I'm working on a book and I feel like
good God, I will never get through all of these, you know. >> Jonathan Yardley: Well, I have
done projects much less ambitious than yours, but they're-- have
that wealth research material. Of course there is the problem
of choosing what to use. >> Candice Millard:
That's right, that's right. But I would be interested
to see if you agree but I think that-- And
most of it I don't. Actually, you have
to whittle it down and you have to be tough about it. But I feel like all of that
kind of informs, you know, me and I hope the reader in
the book, and because you have to truly understand it before
you can begin writing about it. So, whether or not it actually makes
it into the book, it does in a sense that I understand this event
much better because of it. >> Jonathan Yardley: One
thing about the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
Churchill [inaudible] in his memoir "My Early Years" is that
it's really a lost world. It's the period when the
world began to change in incredibly dramatic ways,
even more than it's changing now because you literally went
from the horse and buggy to the car to the airplane-- >> Candice Millard: Right, right. >> Jonathan Yardley:
-- in that period. >> Candice Millard: Right, and
that's another thing actually that interest me about because
the world was changing so quickly in every conceivable way. But also our knowledge
of the world, you know, this is sort of the gilded age
of exploration, you know, and-- And so that too is
absolutely fascinating and Churchill was right
in the middle of that. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. >> Candice Millard: He's right on
the cusp of this incredible change, and it's fascinating to
see it through his eyes. >> Jonathan Yardley: A couple
of things that are connected, you write as Churchill escaped
the Boer prisoner of war camp and faced dangerous
challenges, quote here, would be a grand adventure, an
exploit of a most romantic kind. The notion of British
ideas of wars as-- war as romance is a strong
undercurrent in your book. And William Manchester in his
introduction to Churchill's memoir of "My Early Years" says that
his experiences in India and then in South Africa led him
to see "the glorification of war for the fraud it was". Do you agree with that judgment? >> Candice Millard: Yeah, I do. It's-- You know, at that time, the
British Empire was huge, you know, ruled 450 million people,
a quarter of the population and they were spread
all over the world. And so they were spread very thin. You know, they are constantly
putting down, putting down revolts. But to them, you know, these little
colonial wars that they would fight, it was all about gallantry,
you know, and being dashing and they hated losing
their red coats. You know, they thought the khakis
made them look like bus drivers and they were still even, you know,
for the Boer War, when it began, they were still fighting in
these perfect precise lines. >> Jonathan Yardley: So the Boer War
really was a prelude to World War I. >> Candice Millard:
It absolutely was. It was the beginning of modern
warfare and I think, you know, not that many Americans especially
know much about the Boer War but it was some of the
first guerilla fighting, it was the first concentration
camps, the modernization of weapons, and all of those things
that the British Army going in was completely different from
the British Army coming out. And it prepared them
for World War I. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. You're right really splendidly
about the Boers people whom most of us know are about
whom we know very little. Is the Boer presence in South
Africa still very strong? >> Candice Millard: Well, they-- obviously the prelude to the
Afrikaners and fortunately, things are changing a lot. You know, the Boers
were interesting people. They were very independent,
they're very religious, and they were unabashedly racist. And, you know, that's sort of what-- And you may have heard
of the great track or-- and the 1835 they moved from
the Cape hundreds of miles into the interior and that was
set up primarily by the fact that two years earlier the British
Empire had abolished slavery. And so even though the British
Empire promised people in Africa, native Africans and the Indian
population that was living there, that as soon as they won the war, things would change
and be better for them. As we all know, that took much
longer than anyone would have hoped. And so, of course, there is still
an Afrikaner presence but, you know, obviously Nelson Mandela was
a huge breaking point for that and things have changed quite a bit. >> Jonathan Yardley: Tell us
a little bit about Churchill. I-- he did change his-- The experience in South Africa did
change him, but I kept thinking as I was reading your book
that a perfectly apt title for it would have been
"Naked Ambition". >> Candice Millard: Yeah. Absolutely. He was just a bundle
of burning ambition. That was the one description of him that's absolutely
true throughout his life. >> Jonathan Yardley:
You think that that-- you think that that is traceable
to his feelings about his father? >> Candice Millard: Some
of it I think it was-- >> Jonathan Yardley: Because, you
know, naked ambition in well to do-- of course they weren't rich in
the British-- but prominent. Naked ambition is not that
really all that competent in that particular class. >> Candice Millard:
It's looked down upon. >> Jonathan Yardley: Yeah. >> Candice Millard:
It's looked down upon. And I've always felt that
that was the American in him. His mother, the beautiful socialite
Jennie Jerome was American. And he-- and in fact he told his
mother, this is a pushing age and we must push with the best. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right, right. >> Candice Millard: And so
he-- She was very connected. She had all these powerful
men who adored her. And so he was always having
her, you know, help me out here, have this person get
me an assignment. Because he was always
throwing himself into wars because he thought that's the
best way for me to win fame and propel myself to
political power. And he called it the glittering
gateway to distinction. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. You quoted the famous remark
by his first love, Pamela-- >> Candice Millard: Plowden. >> Jonathan Yardley: -- Plowden. Who said, when you first meet
Winston and you see all the things that are wrong with him, and
once you get to know him, you see all the things
that are right with him. >> Candice Millard:
Yeah, that's right. >> Jonathan Yardley: What
was wrong, what was right, and as you came to know him? >> Candice Millard:
Well, so what was wrong, he's obviously not only ambitious
but incredibly, incredibly arrogant. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. >> Candice Millard: And that
is probably to throughout-- >> Jonathan Yardley:
And self-indulgent. >> Candice Millard: Through--
And throughout his life. It was absolutely all
about, about him. In fact, I found it entertaining
because again and again and again in letters and journals and
different newspaper articles, people would say you know that Winston Churchill,
I cannot stand the kid. He's going to be prime minister
one day but he drives me crazy. And-- >> Jonathan Yardley: A very
amusing, a very amusing story that she tells us while
he was in prison in South Africa, he
ordered a tweed suit. >> Candice Millard: Yeah. Exactly, yeah. To look-- and look like-- >> Jonathan Yardley: And he
went to South Africa with what? Cases of champagne and whiskey and-- >> Candice Millard:
Yeah, and his valet and, you know, 10-year-old whiskey. Right. So, he-- You know,
he's willing to risk his life but he doesn't-- he doesn't want
to be uncivilized while he's at it. But what was interesting about him
to me at this point in his life is that if you look at pictures of
him, you almost don't recognize him. So obviously when we think
of Winston Churchill, we think of the older ones
and Churchill during war and he is overweight and he is older and he's got his cigar
and his whiskey. And this one, he is
young and he has red hair and he is sort of energetic. And he is the one throwing
himself into war. But inside, inside he was already
the Winston Churchill we know and it's fascinating to read the
letters that he wrote at that time. And there was one in particular
that he wrote to Pamela Plowden. So he ran for parliament before
the Boer War and he lost. But during the election, and he
is loving it, he's loving all of these opportunities
to be on a stage. And he writes to her, he says, "You
know, I don't know what's going to happen with the election. I don't know what the
outcome will be. But with every speech I give,
I feel my growing powers." >> Jonathan Yardley: Something
you don't go into in the book because it really occurs after
the period that you covered, what happened between
him and Pamela? >> Candice Millard: So, this
is a great story actually because he was in love with her. She was this beautiful young woman. He had met her actually in India when he was there fighting
and British India. And she was sort of the toast
of London when she went back. And so she had many admirers. But he was in love with her
and he wanted to marry her but her father wouldn't let her
marry him because he didn't think that Churchill would
amount to anything. [ Laughter ] >> Jonathan Yardley: Finally,
Candice, before we turn this over to questions from the floor, could you say a few words
about "popular history"? In his favorable notice of
your "Hero of the Empire", a reviewer for the Wall Street
Journal last week describes you as "a smooth riding
popular historian". I guess that was a compliment. But the phrase "popular
history" has always seemed to me to be slightly pejorative and
condescending, even though much of the best history now being
written these days is being done by non-academics, Max
Hastings, Antony Beevor, David McCullough and yourself. I'm sure you're pleased
to be put in such company, but do you ever feel defensive
about being "popular"? >> Candice Millard: I
don't-- You know, I-- To be honest, I feel
so incredibly fortunate to be able to do what I do. Every day I go to work, I think, I
can't believe that this is my job. You know, my job is to read
most of the time and to dig into these fascinating-- at
least to me fascinating stories. And, you know, I know
a lot of historians. I read a lot of academic
histories and I respect them. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. >> Candice Millard:
It's just not what I do. And I hope that it's actually
a collaborative thing. You know, I hope that
there are people who-- And a lot of people I've
met, you say, you know, I thought I hated history. I was never interested in history. And then I read something
by David McCullough or Antony Beevor and I was hooked. And a lot of times they say, and
it made me want to know more. And so then I started
to read more deeply. And I-- So I hope that in a way
there's a conduit for people who think that they don't
like history to realize-- Actually they do and there
are these fascinating stories that they will absolutely love. >> Jonathan Yardley: Well, the so called popular historians
have also stepped into a gap that has been left by the
decline of narrative history in the academic departments. And there are various theories
about the cause of that. But as the academic historians
dig more and more deeply in the very specialized
areas often with political or etiological patents to model,
a field is really left wide open for people who tell stories. Yeah. >> Candice Millard:
Tell stories, right. And that's what I love to do. Yeah. I agree. >> Jonathan Yardley: There
are microphones in the middle of each aisle, I believe. And you're welcome to come up and
ask Candice anything you'd like to. You were first, so you
get the first question. >> Candice Millard: Yeah. Hi. >> Well, being a-- part of the
time at least I teach history and other things in high school. I appreciate your books
because they are colorful. You know, history to
me is very exciting and when you take colorful figures
or compelling historic figures like you've written about that
you've had a lot-- quite a bit. Now when dealing with
Churchill and the Boer War, of course one of the
primary source is going to be a lot of what Churchill wrote. But I always find that he
exaggerates things and he likes to put himself in the best light. So, how did you deal with the
challenge of dealing with that? >> Candice Millard: Well, you know,
the nice thing is that for most of the part, the time,
he wasn't alone when he-- So, the way he is captured for those
of you who don't know, he was very-- So he went to the Boer War
to cover it as a journalist. He was on a-- very soon after he
arrived, he was on an armored train that was attacked by the Boers. And so his good friend, Aylmer
Haldane, had invited him along. He was actually in
command of the train. Invite him along and he was
there and many other men, including the Boers who
were attacking them. And so I have their
accounts of it as well. And the same thing when he was in
the POW account, the other men. So, there almost always-- and
even when he was on the run, he hid in this coal mine shaft
with his white rats for three days. The men who helped him also
wrote about it and so-- And they really did corroborate. The only thing that I
found that he got wrong and he was very insistent
about this. So he-- The man who
organized the attack on this train was a man named
Louis Botha, and you may know, he later became the first
prime minister of South Africa. And he was a very young,
charismatic, exciting general. And they became friends
later in life. And Churchill always insisted that it was Botha personally
who had captured him. And then later, Churchill's
son started researching. He was writing a biography of
his father and he said, you know, I've done the research and I don't
think it could have been Botha's. Just it's impossible that it was
Botha who personally captured you. And Churchill said it was, you know. End of discussion. And-- But it wasn't--
But Botha was there. Botha organized it, Botha saw
everything and talked about it, but that's the main that
I think is just not true. >> Thank you. >> Candice Millard: Thank you. >> Jonathan Yardley: Sir. >> This is a more of a general
historical question in terms of your writing and hearing about
how you decide what you're going to use in your research and what you
don't use when you do your research. How do-- How do historical
writers avoid revising history to their own liking? >> Candice Millard:
I'm sorry, they avoid-- >> How do you avoid revising history to your own personal
opinions about the things? >> Candice Millard: Well, I do
a lot of research, you know, and I don't come at it
sort of with an opinion. I really don't-- So,
for instance my-- I wrote a book about James Garfield and I honestly did
come to admire him. But I didn't even set out wanting
to write about James Garfield. I was wanting to write
about Alexander Graham Bell, and I found out that he invented
something called an induction balance to try to find
the bullet in Garfield. And I thought, huh, I wonder what
James Garfield was like, you know, he was killed so early
on to his first term and he's largely been forgotten. And so I start researching
him and he was extraordinary. He's absolutely brilliant, he
was kind, he was instrumental in bringing about black suffrage. He was just a decent, modest human
being and I was impressed with him. But I didn't start out thinking
I want to make people think that he is this extraordinary man. I took him as I found him and that's
what I try to do with all my books. >> Jonathan Yardley: I
should-- I might interject. I know that what he is
complaining about just to-- not to pick on one person but Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr. in his first-- first in his multivolume
incomplete history of the Roosevelt administration,
Franklin Roosevelt, and then in his various writings
on John Kennedy was writing from a very distinct ideological
point of view and was-- and may have been for-- may
have been bending history to suit his ideology. >> Candice Millard: Sure,
sure, which it does happen. >> Jonathan Yardley: And
so it does happen, yeah. >> Candice Millard:
Absolutely, of course, it does. Yeah. >> Jonathan Yardley: Yeah. >> Hi. So my question is actually
about "Destiny of the Republic". I loved it. And I came away after reading
it thinking that we missed out on a potentially
great president. So, I just wanted to
hear your thoughts on if Garfield had
not been assassinated, what type of president do
you think he would have been and would he have been
different than maybe some of those other string of
19th century presidents. I agree. I believe that he
would have been one of our-- one of our great presidents. And I think that he was an
inspiration really to the country because he had come from
such poverty and he seem to bring the country together in
a way that was a sharp contrast from what happened after
Lincoln's assassination, or really divided the
country even more. And it's because so
many people admired him and so many people have
put so much hope into him. And as I said, he was a very
progressive thinker for that time. He-- And if you can imagine it,
didn't even want to be president, was forced, shoved
into this situation. And so I think that because of
that, he was uniquely powerful because he wasn't beholden
to anyone. You know, he hadn't
made any promises, he hadn't made any sacrifices
because it's not something he, you know, he hungered for. And it's-- he used to call it the
presidential fever and he saw it all around him because he had been
in Congress for almost 18 years. So I do think that would have made
him a uniquely powerful president had he lived. And I do think it was quite
a loss to the country. >> Jonathan Yardley: I told Candice
when we talked before that I came at the end of "Destiny of the
Republic" with a tremendous sense of loss that this man
never had his opportunity to be the president
he could have been. Yeah. >> Candice Millard: Thank you. >> You made a brief reference
to the British policy of concentration camps in the
Boer War, which was really one of the most shameful episodes
in the British Empire's history, particularly its impact
on women and children and mother and noncombatants. Did Churchill ever acknowledge that
or did that affect him in any way? >> Candice Millard: Well,
it-- what affected him-- and I don't know this but--
was his own imprisonment. >> Jonathan Yardley: Right. >> Candice Millard: And
it affected him deeply. And he never forgot it. And even though it was completely
on the other end of the spectrum from the concentration camps
and just for those of you who don't know, so
the British had gotten into the war thinking it's going to
last a couple of months and, well, it started October, it
would be out by Christmas, and it ended up lasting
almost three years. And so by the end, they
were desperate to get out. And so they did some
pretty horrible things. They resorted to-- scorched
the earth policy and they set up these concentration camps for
as you say the women and children who were supporting
these men who were out fighting in the
field, the Boers. And so that they wouldn't
have any support. And it was disastrous. It was what-- And Native
Africans were also forced into concentration camps and even
more of them died in the Boers. Churchill on the other hand, his
imprisonment, the Boers were eager to show the British that
they were civilized too. The British had always sort
of dismissed them as sort of being backwards and rough. And so they allowed just
like incredible leniency. But Churchill couldn't stand
the idea of being captured. And in fact he said he hated
this period in his life more than he had ever hated any
other period in his whole life. And he was desperate to get out. And he remembered that. So, later on when he
gets into public life and he becomes home secretary,
it was one of his missions to show compassion to prisoners. And, you know, he made sure
that they had access to books, they had access to the outdoors,
that they could exercise. Because he said, you know,
whether or not they are guilty of some horrendous crime,
they are still human beings. >> First off, I'd like to say your
first two books were wonderful, some of the best I've ever read. >> Candice Millard:
Thank you very much. >> My question is that early
on in the book, there is a sort of a passing reference
to Teddy Roosevelt. I think the other journalist, Atkins
I believe, had met him in Cuba. >> Candice Millard: Right. >> And I just couldn't believe
how close those two seemed. So could you contrast Teddy
Roosevelt and Winston Churchill? >> Candice Millard: Yeah. I-- Throughout the process, I kept
thinking how much they reminded me of each other, how many
similarities they were, these young incredibly ambitious
men, very arrogant, drive everybody around them crazy, incredibly well
read, very, very talented writers. They had so much in common. And I think that's why they really
didn't like each other, too similar. And they did meet. And yeah, it definitely
wasn't a love affair. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Since Churchill went to
South Africa as a journalist, he had certain kind of preconceived
notions about the British Empire. And as he experienced the Boer
War, how did his view change about the British Empire? Did he really realize-- Did you
see evidence that he realized that the sun was actually setting
on the British Empire at this time. And my second question is if he
did, did that contribute to some of the most amazing things he did
in life like the battle of London when Hitler was trying to take over
England and he was so stalwart, that idea of I don't ever
want to be dominated again. Did you see evidences of him changing his thinking
towards what the British Empire was and how he wanted it
to fit into the world? >> Candice Millard:
Well, I think we all know that Winston Churchill was
far from a perfect man. And one of the things about him is that he was an unabashed
imperialist. He was very proud of the British
Empire and its standing in the world and felt that it was part of
his mission to keep it intact. And I don't think the Boer
War changed that at all. I mean I think that-- Another
thing and on the opposite side that I will say about Winston
Churchill and something that I admire is that
although no one fought harder than he did during war, no
one was quicker to reach out the hand of friendship
afterward. And he was incredibly magnanimous
in trying to help someone who had so lately been his enemy. And that was true absolutely
during the Boer War and it got him in trouble with his
countrymen and it was, you know, true later in his life
you can see that. And that was a-- sort of a
constant throughout his life. But he was at that
time and for many, many years absolutely
an imperialist. >> Hi. I just wanted to say
that I felt that "Destiny of the Republic" was
an extraordinary book and how much I enjoyed reading it. >> Candice Millard: Thank you. >> As I was reading it, I totally
marveled at the conversations that the characters had with
each other and, you know, as if you had a tape
recorder in the room. And I was wondering how you-- what you drew upon to get
such their similitude in terms of what these people were
actually saying to each other or how you did that so well. >> Candice Millard:
And that's interesting. My father said the same thing
after he read this book. He is like the dialogue
that you have is like, you know, a novel or something. And it's very, very important
to me that everybody knows that this is all absolutely factual
and I get that dialogue from letters or from the accounts that they
wrote themselves, you know. And so, I was talking to Churchill
and he said this and I said that and that's where all
of that comes from. And it's very important to me. I think that there is
sort of a trend sometimes in narrative nonfiction
that in the notes section, you just get a paragraph
about each chapter saying kind of in general this is--
these were my sources. But in my books, you can look it up. I put-- I use notes. And so you can say what-- How
does she know that he said that? Well, turn to the notes
and you can find out and you can look it up yourself. And so that's something that's
really, really important to me and just going back to
primary source material. I mean it takes me a long
time before I will commit to a subject even if I think
it's a fantastic story. And there have been stories that
broke my heart because I really, really wanted to tell them
but I finally had to give them up because I just didn't have enough
primary source material to work with to have that dialogue,
to have those details that you hope will
bring a story alive. And so unless I do, I just won't
commit to it and I had a wealth of information to work
with for this book. >> Jonathan Yardley: Sir? >> Candice Millard: Thank you. >> Hello. You may have
touched on this earlier, concerning "The River of Doubt". As I was reading it,
I was just amazed at why Theodore Roosevelt
was doing this. Aside, why do you believe-- what
was his motivation for doing it? I mean he's just-- I just-- I don't want to give
you my own opinion but-- >> Candice Millard:
Well, so for those of you who don't know the story,
so the-- Theodore Roosevelt, he lost the election of 1912 and
then he goes to South America and he goes down this incredibly, incredibly dangerous
rapids choked river that no one knows where it leads. That's why the man who found the
headwaters called it Rio da Duvida, the River of Doubt, and because
no one knew where it was going to take them and what
was around each bend. And the reason he did it was
because he was Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill
would have done it too. So he's a-- So, you know, he had won
and won and won throughout his life and then he loses, and he loses
this huge contest and he's a pariah for the first time in his life. He's put Woodrow Wilson, a
Democrat, in the White House because he split the
Republican vote. And he, you know, have this
depression that had sort of haunted him through his life. And he was devastated. And so he gets this invitation to go
in a speaking tour in South America. He is this incredible
naturalist, has written many books about especially birds
and so he's going to take another collecting trip. He gets there and nobody
has been prepared. He let this, this friend
of his who was a priest who hired an arctic explorer to
plan this trip in the Amazon. And so they're not even prepared
for this-- a collecting trip. And he gets there and the foreign
minister says, you could do that, or you could map an unmapped river and Theodore Roosevelt is
going to say no to that? No. And so he throws himself
and the people with him into this outrageously
dangerous trip. >> Jonathan Yardley:
Just time for one more. Thank you. You're the lucky first. >> Can you talk a little bit about
how you reconstructed the events after President Garfield was shot, particularly the medical
care he received? And I find it so remarkable that
if the doctors had left him alone, he might very well lived. >> Candice Millard: Right. Yeah. He would have. So, again for those of you
who don't know, so the-- So, Garfield was shot actually in a
train station that was on the mall. It's where the National
Gallery now sits. And to my outrage, there is
no plaque, no notice at all that an American president
was shot here. But the bullet that hit him, that
went in the right side of his back, it didn't hit any vital organs,
didn't hit his spinal cord. His injuries were far less severe
than Reagan's when Reagan was shot. And his-- But he had
twelve different doctors, especially this beautifully named
doctor, Doctor Willard Bliss, whose first name was Doctor, who repeatedly inserted
unsterilized fingers and instruments in his back probing for this
bullet, even though Joseph Lister of Listerine had discovered
antisepsis 16 years earlier and come here and spoke
to American doctors. And so it is sickening to watch
this, you know, through the lens of 135 years happening to
this extraordinary man. And so I went-- A lot of-- So I
did a ton of research obviously at the Library of Congress because
even though Garfield was president for a short time, he had been
in Congress for almost 18 years and his papers and a lot of the
people surrounding it were there. But also I went to the National
Museum of Health and Medicine and they actually have
the autopsy report there. But more than that, they have-- I held in my gloved hand a
section of Churchill's-- Sorry. Garfield's spine with
this red plastic pin going through where the bullet
had gone through. And it's stunning. And they also have strangely there, they have what I called
the assassin's drawer because they have these-- they
have the remains of Charles Guiteau who assassinated Garfield. And then they also have the remains of John Wilkes Booth kind
of in the same drawer. They have-- There is the femur, there is the ankle
bone, it's just bizarre. They also have a jar with
chunks of Guiteau's brain. And they-- He was insane
and he was mentally ill. And after he was executed, they
exhumed his body and they wanted to study it for science to
see, especially his brain, to see if you could see
physical signs of insanity. And so they cut up his brain
and they send it to experts around the country and they
send it back and said, well, he probably had syphilis
but that's all we can tell. And they put it in this
jar and they still have it. Thank you. >> Jonathan Yardley: Candice told
me before we started this program that she is still looking
around for her next subject. She also admitted that a book for
her is about a five-year project. Candice, I am almost
77 years old and I want to read your next book
so you better get going. [ Laughter ] Thank you very much. >> Candice Millard:
Thank you so much. Thank you, Jonathan. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.
