[AUDIENCE MEMBER] What so far,

and I realize it's rather short

into your interviews and tour,

so far has been the
most interesting

and unexpected
question you've had?

Either from an audience
or from an interviewer.

[SUSAN PAGE] So let me talk
about the most interesting thing

I've found on this
book tour, if I may,

and that is that everybody
has a Barbara Bush story.

And you know, maybe
it's because I've spent.

I was in Washington.

I did some events in Washington,

and now I've been
in Texas for a week.

But like anybody here ever
actually meet Barbara Bush?

So like a fair number of people.

And so all through Texas,
people would stand up

and tell me these amazing
stories about Barbara Bush.

And in Washington.

I did a book event in
Washington last week

and a man stood up
in the Q and A part

and said that he was
Barbara Bush's nephew

and that Barbara
Bush when she was,

like I think she must
have been like 90,

came to his grandmother's--

he's a grand nephew maybe.

I'm not sure, nephew
or grand nephew.

[EVAN SMITH] Kin.

[PAGE] related, okay?
[SMITH] Yeah, yeah.

[PAGE] That she came to
his grandmother's funeral

and this is when she is in
fact in failing health herself.

And she said to him,

"This is the most
joyous time of my life."

And he said, "Why?"

And she said, "Because
soon, I'll see Robin again."

[SMITH] Yeah.

[PAGE] Which is, I mean, whew.

[SMITH] But it goes
back to what she said

that really the
loss of her daughter

never really ceased to be a
factor in her life, right?

[PAGE] Yeah.
[SMITH] Yeah.

[PAGE] It was so.

I think it did two things.

I think it made her invulnerable
to criticism, in a way.

It made her more brusque.

Like she just wasn't gonna
put up with prattle anymore

because why?

You know, she had survived the
worst thing that could happen

and nothing could hurt her
as badly as that hurt her.

But it also made her
more empathetic inside.

It made her more, you know,

she'd had a privileged life
and so had George Bush.

And here was something, the
worst thing had happened

and nothing, not their money,
not their social position,

not their friends could
do anything about it.

And I think that was a
lesson she took to heart.

[SMITH] Amazing.

Sir?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] You talk
about how she and George met.

[PAGE] Yeah.

Yes.

You know, they met
at a Christmas dance.

They were both in prep school.

They came back to suburban
New York for the holidays.

This is in 1941.

And they both end up at
the Greenwich Country Club

for a high school dance.

And George Bush
says to a friend,

"Do you know that
girl across the room?"

And his friend did.

And he was going
to introduce her

or introduce them to each other.

And it was almost
love at first sight.

They were almost never
not together after that.

And when I interviewed
him in the final interview

he did during his life,

I said, "Do you remember
what caught your eye

"at the Christmas dance?"

And he said, "She
was so beautiful."

[SMITH] That's great.

Now, you make reference in here

to her having dropped
out of college

to marry the first
boy she ever kissed.

That is a true story.

[PAGE] So also, I wanted to see

her high school records, right?

When someone's alive,

you have to get their
permission to do that.

So I ask her to
give me permission.

She wrote a funny letter

to the place where they
were held in South Carolina.

She had gone to a finishing
school in South Carolina.

She said, "I'm afraid
she'll be disappointed,

"but please let Susan Page
see my high school records."

And they're hilarious
because for one thing,

it has her IQ on them.

Now, who puts--
[SMITH] Who does that?

[PAGE] Like I don't think we
do this anymore, let's hope,

but her IQ was 120 which
is like pretty high

and her grades were terrible.

She got in her whole
high school career,

she got exactly one A and it
was in physical education.

(audience laughing)

[SMITH] It's amazing.

Sir?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] Did she
enjoy being First Lady?

[PAGE] Yes, she did.

And you know, she enjoyed it.

She enjoyed, I think,
various aspects of it.

She liked helping her husband.

She was very engaged in
the events of the day

including the negotiations
during the Cold War

which, I think, that wasn't
recognized, her role in that.

She also enjoyed--

she saw it as a big
platform to help people

and she told her staff that
she wanted to do something

every day to help somebody else.

So she had, especially
on the issue of literacy,

she has just a killer schedule

of events like no First
Lady has ever had.

Many times in smaller places.

You know, she traveled a
lot to do literacy events.

One of the literacy activists
that she worked with a lot

told me that she did this
even when she was suffering

from the worst of
Graves' disease,

which really affected her eyes,

made her eyes very sensitive,
made her see double.

This is something she never
talked about publicly.

And that they would
go to these events

and there would just be

every single person would want
their picture taken with her.

It'd be flashbulb, after
flashbulb, after flashbulb.

This was before there
were cell phones.

And that by the time they
got back to the plane,

she would be in agony.

Her eyes would just be in
agony from all the flashbulbs

and she would put cold
compresses on her eyes

for the flight
back to Washington.

But that she never complained
and she never mentioned it.

She never said to somebody,
"Please don't take my picture.

"My eyes are killing me."

And I think that is
part of her effort

to like make a difference
in people's lives

which was definitely something
that meant something to her.

[SMITH] Critically
important to her, yeah.

[PAGE] Just one more thing.

Evan mentioned there was a time

when she was very
depressed in 1976.

Contemplated suicide.

And she said the
thing that helped her

come out of this dark period

was she went and
volunteered at a hospice.

And that I think the theory is

she didn't articulate
it this way to me,

but I think the theory is
if you enter a bad patch,

find somebody who has a
worse one and help them

and it'll help you too.

[SMITH] That's amazing.

Ma'am?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] I
think you might have

just gotten into it.

I was gonna ask how you
learned about her depression.

Was it through other interviews?

[SMITH] Did she talk
about it openly to you?

[PAGE] So yes.

In fact, she mentioned.

This is interesting.

She wrote this
best-selling memoir in 1994

and in it, she has
a very short passage

that said, "And I
was very depressed

"and contemplated suicide,

"blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Right? Like it's
just tucked in there.

[SMITH] Then move on, right.

[PAGE] It got
almost no attention.

I couldn't find anyone
who picked up on it.

So when she talked
to me about it,

it wasn't the first
time she disclosed it,

but I think it
was the first time

somebody paid a lot
of attention to it.

And they'd come back.

The Bushes had moved
back from China.

He had taken over the
job heading the CIA.

He could no longer
share his job with her,

something he had
done up to then.

She had an empty nest.

Doro had gone away
to boarding school

and the boys were a little older

and were either in college
or out in the world.

She was going through menopause.

That might have had some effect.

But she entered a really--

she was clearly very depressed

and she told me that
she would be driving

and feel this urge
to plow into a tree

or to steer the car into
the path of an oncoming car.

And that she would have to pull
off to the side of the road

and stop and wait for
the impulse to pass

before she could drive on.

So this is someone, I mean,

this really meets the diagnosis
of a clinical depression.

But her public image
was so stoic and strong

that even when I
went to interview

other people like her brother

with whom she's very
close about this period,

he said, "Well, it
wasn't that serious."

It couldn't have
been that serious

because of course,
it is so at odds

with the picture we
have of Barbara Bush.

[SMITH] Amazing.

Last one, sir?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] What were
her feelings about Ross Perot?

(laughing)

[PAGE] Well, you know
that little box that
had Nancy Reagan.

(audience laughing)

She would have been
Ross Perot in there too.

She was, she blamed--

She adored George Bush.

She never thought he
did anything wrong.

The two reasons she felt that
he lost his bid for reelection

was unfair news media
coverage and Ross Perot.

[SMITH] Well, the fact is
if you look at the math

on the Perot numbers
in that race,

hard not to believe

that he did cost
President Bush that race.

[PAGE] It was not
helpful, that Ross Perot.

Now, you can't rewind
history, you know?

If this one thing doesn't
happen, another thing does.

But he was definitely unhelpful.

And they had sort of an odd
history here in Texas too,

but that was the
culmination of the--

[SMITH] You know, there was
that moment in that debate

with Bill Clinton

where President Bush
looked at his watch

and everybody took
from that, you know,

he's basically
telegraphing to us

that he can't wait to leave.

You know, his time's up.

I mean, that we forget that
was an amazing campaign

in so many respects.

The challenge to President
Bush by Pat Buchanan,

Ross Perot's involvement
in that race.

[PAGE] You know,
and another thing

that I think didn't get--

wasn't understood
fully at the time

was Bush's campaign
chairman in 1992,

Fred Malek, who just
died last week--

[SMTIH] Just died
like two weeks ago

or a week ago, yeah.

[PAGE] --told me that Bush

had also been diagnosed
with Graves' disease,

and that they were
giving him medication

which they were trying
to carefully regulate.

And Malek and also
Marlin Fitzwater

who was perhaps
Bush's closest aide

on the White House staff,

his White House press secretary,

say that he just
wasn't the same,

that he didn't have energy,

that he wasn't bold the
way he had been before.

And they think the impact
of the Graves' disease

was as big a factor
as Ross Perot

in costing him that election.

[SMITH] See again, something
we don't actually know.

Susan, we're so
happy to see you.

Thank you for
making time for us.

[PAGE] Thank you.

[SMITH] Give Susan
Page a big hand.

(audience applauding)